#Cuomo blames Rikers Island releases, anti-NYPD sentiment for NYC crime spike

The release of inmates from Rikers Island jails during the coronavirus crisis, failure of district attorneys to enforce the law and steady flow of anti-police brutality protests have all fed into a spike in violent crimes in New York City, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday.

The governor also emphasized the poisoned relations between the NYPD and New Yorkers as triggering to the uptick in crime.

“May it have contributed? Yeah,” Cuomo said when asked about the city’s release of 2,500 inmates from Rikers to help curb the spread of COVID-19.

Of those inmates released, 13 percent were re-arrested.

“You’re saying 13 percent were rearrested. Well, then those 13 percent contributed, right?” the governor said.

“I think the point is right that these are contributing circumstances that frankly are conspiring as a negative synergy that is going on.”

The Post reported last month that 10 percent of those released from Rikers since March, when the coronavirus walloped the city, had since been rearrested. Far fewer, however, were involved in violent crimes.

He continued, “You have the ongoing relationship between the community and the police. How is that affecting the NYPD? Some of the arrest numbers appear to be down. What does that mean? You have the protests going on.”

Cuomo also rapped the district attorneys.

“You have the district attorneys who sometimes appear not to be charging on the facts of the crime. There’s a difference between a protester and looting. There’s a difference between a protester and a gun charge,” he said,

“And prosecutors have to enforce the law,” Cuomo said, “not political opinions.”

Manhattan DA Cy Vance announced last month that he wouldn’t prosecute low-level offenses such as unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct committed by anti-police protesters.

Cuomo also called the relationship between police and residents “dysfunctional,” adding, “The trust and respect and mutuality doesn’t work.”

“That can only be restored by putting people at a table and reimagining, redesigning, restructuring the police force that New York City wants. And that’s the conversation that has to happen, and everything else is just on the edges as far as I’m concerned.”