Claims from the NYPD's top cops that an uptick in gun violence has been caused by bail reform efforts and emergency releases from Rikers Island due to COVID-19 continue to prove baseless, without any data surfacing to back them up.
Shootings have increased 130 percent in June compared to last year. Over Fourth of July weekend alone, police said there were 46 shootings involving 64 victims. Eleven people were murdered—ten of which were shooting victims.
Shea claimed the rise in shootings was "predictable" in a NY1 interview this week. "You heard me say a storm was coming. We're in the middle of it right now. We're in a perfect storm of sorts, with COVID, with the Rikers population."
At a press briefing with Mayor Bill de Blasio shortly after, Chief of Department Terence Monahan echoed his boss: "It's a combination of things. Bail reform. Covid releases from prison. Court shutdown." Plus, "animosity towards police," he said.
But data from the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice as well as the NYPD contradict those claims.
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, 1,477 people were released from Rikers Island due to the public health emergency.
Among those, one person was re-arrested for alleged murder—someone released after defense lawyers filed for their release, according to the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice. Seven people were re-arrested for gun-related charges, including one released early on a city sentence, four whose warrants were lifted, and two who had district attorney consent.
The total number of re-arrests was 193 out of 1,477, or 13 percent, for detainees released related to COVID-19. Most re-arrests were on charges for theft or burglary.
But among all 4,500 people let out of jail between March 16th and July 5th—including those who paid bail, finished their sentences, or for health reason due to coronavirus—the re-arrest rate was 12.8 percent, or about 576 individuals.
Six people out of that 4,500 have subsequently been arrested on murder charges. Another 35 were arrested for weapons charges, or 6 percent.
According to NYPD data obtained by the Post, just one person released under bail reform laws implemented January 1st was re-arrested for a shooting, out of 528 incidents this year. About 91 out of 11,000 people released from Rikers under bail reform—.8 percent—were in the vicinity of a shooting after they were released.
But of those 91, the NYPD described 25 as "victims," 24 as "witnesses," 31 as "suspects," and 10 as "perps," the tabloid reported.
Earlier this week, the NYPD said 136 people released due to bail reform were "involved in a shooting or murder," but didn't provide a breakdown.
The NYPD counts nine people out of 2,500 Rikers inmates released due to coronavirus as being linked to shootings; one person arrested, two are people of interest, three are victims, and three are witnesses, the Post reported. (The NYPD's count includes a broader scope of COVID-related releases, counting people discharged for any reason, not just coronavirus.)
The NYPD did not comment on why the department's claims contradict the department's data, as well as the data from the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, which based their analysis in part on NYPD information.
The mayor said he disagreed with his police officials during a virtual news conference Thursday, where he was asked about the NYPD's messaging on the uptick in violence.
"I do not believe that the folks who were released from Rikers for health reasons are the central reality here," de Blasio said, adding there were "differences in interpretation" between him and his police department. "I don't believe that at all, and I'm the person who authorized that release."
De Blasio blamed the shooting spike on the "absence of a functioning criminal justice system" and inadequate numbers of gun prosecutions, as well as the pandemic. (The Office of Court Administration called that claim "absurd" and "patently false," and Tuesday, it announced grand juries and in-person criminal proceedings would begin in NYC August 10th.)
"I think the data confirms what we've known all along, which is that the NYPD is very resistant to change, any change," Marie Ndiaye, supervising attorney at the Decarceration Project at the Legal Aid Society, told Gothamist.
"The reality is people get re-arrested, and that's whether they pay bail or not," she said. "Somebody can be in for their entire length of their case, they plea to get out, and they can still be re-arrested."
The uptick in shootings comes after months of mass unemployment in the middle of the COVID-19 health crisis.
"We are quite literally in the most unprecedented time that people have ever faced," Ndiaye added. "The effect of the coronavirus pandemic, the lockdown, the fact that millions of people are unemployed, thousands of people haven’t even received whether it’s the stimulus check from the federal government or money, help from our state government, and the fact that it’s summertime, a time when shootings rise in the first place."
With Beth Fertig.
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Data Contradicts NYPD's Claim That Bail Reform And COVID-Releases Drove Shooting Spike - Gothamist
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