#Hey Albany don’t be ‘block’heads and help Eric Adams fight NYC crime surge

In his ambitious plan for combating crime in New York, Mayor Adams calls for help from numerous power centers beyond his control. He is asking the courts, district attorneys, federal government and Albany to join the NYPD in saving New York from the plague of violence. 

One immediate reaction was heartening, with Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg apparently changing his tune on gun prosecutions. Mr. Softie had promised to go easy if the gun wasn’t used, but now tells The New York Times anyone caught with an illegal gun in Manhattan would be prosecuted in “the traditional sense,” which presumably means being hit with a felony charge. 

Unfortunately, Albany is another story, and the reaction there proves the state capital deserves its reputation as the place where good ideas go to die. Legislative leaders responded to the mayor’s plea by saying no, no and hell no. 

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie brushed off the call to change the Raise the Age law that requires defendants to be at least 18 before they can be prosecuted criminally, saying Adams should first fix the probation department “which he oversees.”

In the Senate, Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins also rejected changes to the Raise the Age law, and said changing the bail law in the way Adams wants would disproportionately affect “black and brown and poor defendants.” 

To underscore the intransigence, deputy majority leader Michael Gianaris told reporters that Adams, in trying to move 16- and 17-year-old suspects to Criminal Court from Family Court in some cases, was siding with those who “demagogue this issue.”

“We’ll hear him out, give him the opportunity to convince us otherwise,” said Gianaris. “But it’s a lot of what we’ve already heard.”

The rejections were predictable in that Albany Democrats are in the forefront of turning the Empire State into a free-fire zone, one where compassion for law-breakers outranks compassion for their victims. There is often no daylight between legislators and far-left activists and they make a fetish of gun control, but used the so-called bail reform and Raise the Age law to prohibit detention and prosecution of the people carrying and using illegal guns.

Test for Hochul

There is, of course, another player in Albany, and so it falls to Gov. Hochul to deliver for the city. She and the mayor previously pledged to work together to make the subways safe and move the homeless out, and Adams said Monday that “I think she understands that we’re at a real crossroads on safety in the city.” 

If he’s right, Hochul will do all she can to get the Legislature to make the changes he’s asking for. But it’s a measure of how far Albany has gone off the rails that even with her help, what he wants could prove to be out of reach. 

For one thing, it’s been just five months since Hochul succeeded the disgraced Andrew Cuomo and it’s not clear how much political capital she has and how much she’s willing to spend pushing Adams’ initiatives. She recently released her budget wish list and didn’t challenge the Legislature to remake the state’s out-of-control habit of taxing and spending. 

For another, Hochul is in the midst of her first campaign for the office she holds and while early polls have her as a strong front-runner in the June Dem primary, she will need to do exceptionally well in the city and surrounding suburbs to win a general election. 

Republicans generally win the bulk of the state’s 62 counties, but Dems run up big margins in the five boroughs, often winning nearly 80 percent of the vote to gain statewide victory. To help boost her city appeal, Hochul, a Buffalo native, tabbed Harlem State Sen. Brian Benjamin to replace her as lieutenant governor.

Her alliance with Adams should also be a political plus, and is a welcome antidote to the schoolyard squabbles between Cuomo and former mayor Bill de Blasio. But now comes the test of whether that bonhomie translates into her helping Adams stem the slaughter and save New York.

That’s not to suggest the complete success of his plan rests on her getting Albany to cooperate. The most important part of the mayor’s program is his promise to more aggressively use the NYPD to get illegal handguns off the street, along with pushing the courts and DAs to make gun cases priorities.

But there’s no doubt that Albany’s change in the bail law, for example, has turned courthouses into revolving doors. Among his requests, Adams calls for judges to be able to use the “dangerousness standard” before releasing suspects. 

“Forty-nine other states, as well as the federal government, allow judges to consider a defendant’s dangerousness. New York must catch up,” Adams said on Monday. “Judges must be able to evaluate the defendant’s criminal history and . . . detain those individuals who pose an immediate threat to the safety of the community.”

That sounds like a no-brainer because it is, but Adams will not get his way on that one — unless Hochul makes it an absolute priority in upcoming negotiations over the budget.

City’s last hope

Recall that Albany puts nearly everything in the budget and then horse-trades the pet initiatives of the governor and leaders of each legislative chamber. There’s no longer three men in a room, but the process of divvying up the spoils and making important policy decisions hasn’t changed much despite the change in leaders.

Republicans are barely an afterthought, so all the decisions will be made by Dems. And with the legislative leaders so far to the left, Hochul is the city’s last and only hope. 

To get the attention of her party, which has grown fat and radical with little opposition, she might remind the members that if they let New York City sink further into the abyss, voters will have good reason to give the GOP a chance. 

Since keeping their jobs is all most of them care about, if that doesn’t get their attention, nothing will.

Yikes! g-man is ‘kink’ in feds’ armor 

The Times ran a curious article on the alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. The twist involves defense charges that FBI agents and informants were driving the plot, and the paper conceded “the prosecution will have to build its case without some of the F.B.I. agents who were central to the investigation.”

It cites this example: “After the suspects were arrested, Agent Robert J. Trask II was the main government witness, taking the stand during the first court hearings to describe the entire scenario.

“The F.B.I. fired him in July after he was arrested and charged with beating his wife during an argument over an orgy that the two had attended at a hotel in Kalamazoo, Mich. In pleading no contest last December, Mr. Trask said he could not remember that night.”

Your government at work.

HEADLINE:

D.C. requires strippers to be masked.

Which body parts?