#De Blasio has some nerve bragging of ‘progress’ in cutting down on shootings

It’s hard sometimes to imagine how some politicians look themselves in the mirror: Last week Mayor Bill de Blasio touted his administration’s “progress” in reducing shootings. Never mind the continual horror stories, like the gunfire that left two 16-year-olds, Jaden Turnage and Cahlil Pennington, dead in separate incidents this week. Or the fatal stabbing this month of a 17-year-old, allegedly by a 15-year-old who’d been freed despite a gun charge.

De Blasio deceptively cherry-picked numbers to show that five of the city’s eight patrol boroughs saw fewer shootings in 2021 compared with 2020. The five — Brooklyn North, Brooklyn South, Manhattan South, Queens North and Staten Island — had a combined 474 shootings so far in 2021, vs. 584 for the same period in 2020. Trouble is, they had only 284 shootings in 2019, so they’re still almost 200 shootings above 2019.

Meanwhile, the other patrol boroughs — Queens South, Manhattan North and The Bronx — saw 674 shootings this year, 140 more than in 2020 and almost 400 more than in 2019.

Citywide numbers tell the true story: By this time two years ago, there were 680 shooting victims in Gotham, but that number more than doubled, to 1,376, over the same period last year. In 2021, it’s even higher: 1,381.

Murders soared from 235 deaths, year to date, in 2019, to 340 in 2020 and 336 this year, a 43 percent jump. The mayor seems happy that the crime rate is leveling off at those hideous 2020 rates. A normal person would be alarmed.

De Blasio brags that gun arrests are up 23 percent over last year, marking the most such collars since 1996. We’re supposed to take comfort in this? Total arrests are down almost 60 percent since then, so why more gun arrests? It’s because more people are carrying guns on the street; they no longer fear the police or courts.

When gangbangers and criminals carry, the risk of random shootings rises. Street fights, bar fights, territorial disputes, grudges all get settled with shootings, not fists. And because a shooter’s aim is not always accurate, passersby and neighbors get shot.

And what happens to these gun arrests? NYPD statistics show only 18.5 percent (not even one in five) of those nabbed for possession this year are in custody. The county with the lowest incarceration rate for gun possession: Brooklyn, with 13.1 percent, which “coincidentally” is the county with the largest number of gun arrests and shooting victims.

The county with the second-lowest rate: The Bronx, at 18.9 percent, which also “coincidentally” has the second-highest number of both gun arrests and shooting victims in the city. When the likelihood of going to jail for gun possession is low, bad people will carry guns.

Yet in the face of this carnage on the streets, our politicians insist on more inmate releases. De Blasio wants more people let loose to solve problems he created at Rikers. Last week, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill to immediately release almost 200 parole violators. The new bail laws and city release policies have already set 2,000 people free since January 2020.

Crime started to rise dramatically as these inmates were freed, even before COVID. Now the Rikers population hovers around 6,000, but the city plans to reduce it to just 3,300 so it can close Rikers and build “community jails.” That means another 2,700 career criminal inmates will need to be released.

These are not turnstile jumpers and marijuana smokers — there are no such offenders at Rikers. Rather, they are seasoned criminals: repeat offenders with lengthy records.

Our legislators have spent the past 10 years claiming New York’s criminal-justice system was broken, even as it reduced both crime and incarceration to historically low levels. Now their “reforms” have truly destroyed the system. It is their work, insidiously labeled “criminal-justice reform,” that has ruined the system and is ravaging neighborhoods across this still-great city.

Maybe our legislators should spend more time visiting the almost 1,400 people shot this year in this city or the graves of the 336 people murdered. They won’t, but you’d think the mayor would at least have the decency to be honest on his way out the door.

Jim Quinn was executive district attorney in the Queens DA’s office, where he served for 42 years.