By Karen Rubin, News-Photos-Features.com, editor@news-photos-features.com
It apparently was a coincidence that on the day Republicans were using crime as the theme of their convention, Governor Kathy Hochul came to Nassau County to tout dramatic reductions in violent crime rates in the county, Long Island, the state, indeed, nationally.
Shooting incidents with injury decreased 44 percent as reported by the Nassau, Suffolk and Hempstead Police Departments, which participate in the State's Gun Involved Violence Elimination program. Across Long Island, crime is down 15 percent (16 percent reduction in property crimes), during the first quarter of 2024.
Nationally, the murder rate fell by 26.4% (largest single year decline, to a 50-year low), reported rapes decreased by 25.7%, robberies fell by 17.8%, aggravated assault went down 12.5%, reported property crimes decreased by 15.1%, and the overall violent crime rate dropped by 15.2% in the first quarter of 2024 according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report.
Republicans declined to mention that crime rates soared during the Trump administration (the largest single-year spike in the murder rate in more than a century) – a reaction to literal invitations to political violence, loosening gun laws, and the toll of the coronavirus epidemic. The dramatic drop in crime is directly related to the policies and record investments by the state and the Biden Administration in law enforcement and public safety.
“Violent crime is dropping at record levels in America,” President Biden stated. “This progress we’re seeing is no accident. My Administration is putting more cops on the beat, holding violent criminals accountable, and getting illegal guns off the street – and we are doing it in partnership with communities. As a result, Americans are safer today than when I took office.”
After the largest increase in murders ever recorded happened during the Trump Administration. “my Administration got to work protecting the American people,” Biden stated. “My America Rescue Plan – which every Republican voted against – delivered $15 billion to cities to hire and retain more cops and keep communities safe. I took on the gun lobby and signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act into law, the most significant gun violence legislation in nearly 30 years.
“But there is more to do,” Biden stated. “I will continue fighting for funding for 100,000 additional police officers, and crime prevention and community violence intervention programs. Every American deserves to feel safe in their community – which is why I will continue to invest in public safety.”
Governor Hochul announced the state is investing a record $51 million for public safety in Nassau and Suffolk Counties (in comparison, the state spent $7 million in 2021 and $47 million last year).
But Republicans need crime and the border crisis to beat Democrats (they have nothing else – their abortion bans and democracy-killing Project 2025 are hugely unpopular, while the economy is soaring and inflation is deflating). So, presented with the statistics showing a drop in crime, Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the findings, stating, “Joe Biden is trying to convince Americans not to believe their own eyes. Democrats have turned great American cities into cesspools of bloodshed and crime.”
Indeed, the Republicans concoct the image of a migrant “invasion” of “rapists, murderers, the worst of the worst” while actually blocking the very Border Security legislation that would have enabled the federal government to better address the influx of migrants.
But after the Republicans – at Trump’s behest – killed the bill, Biden issued a Presidential Proclamation on June 4 which reduced the number of encounters at the southwest border by 50% - to Trump’s 2020 level. At the same time, Homeland Security decreased the number of people released by 70 percent so significantly fewer people are arriving in cities across the country – providing relief to local jurisdictions and shelter systems Also, DHS has removed and returned more than 50,000 individuals to more than 100 countries, including by operating more than 175 international repatriation flights; and DHS has doubled the percentage of noncitizens removed or returned directly from CBP custody.
Governor Hochul said the impact is being felt in New York: instead of the more than 4000 migrants trafficked to New York State each week as a political stunt by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, the number has come down to 900 a week with virtually none coming to Long Island.
“Long Island has never been a destination,” Hochul stated in response to a question. “They are not telling the truth when portraying immigrants as running rampant in the streets.” Biden’s bipartisan plan would have worked, she said, but Trump shut it down, and the 10 Republicans who represent New York in Congress kowtowed to Trump.
The facts are that more migrants were released after a border arrest under President Trump than under the Biden-Harris administration; as president, Donald Trump oversaw the largest single-year spike in the murder rate in more than a century. And as for the Republicans’ charge that Democrats want to de-fund police (as opposed to seek criminal justice and police reform), as president, Trump proposed a $400 million cut to local law enforcement funding, has demanded the FBI and prosecutors be defunded while proposing he use the FBI and Justice Department to prosecute his political enemies (and has already used the IRS, a la Nixon, to go after his enemies).
To lie with such brazenness, Republicans at the RNC had to go back to Trump’s 2016 playbook of attacking “fake news” – so you don’t believe the FBI statistics that show “historic declines” in violent crime or reductions in migrants crossing the border.
But the biggest Republican lie of all - the Stolen Election and voter fraud – is being been used to justify voter suppression, purging voter rolls, and election subversion, and now, an incentive for Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman to stand up his private militia.
“For the life of me, I can't understand why someone would think there's a need to build a separate militia,” Governor Hochul said during her visit to Glen Cove. “I find it offensive to law enforcement that the leader doesn’t trust them to do their job.”
There are those who are suspicious that Blakeman will manufacture a reason to summon his vigilantes to suppress protest or even have the militia stand outside polling places to intimidate voters in targeted districts.
“The idea of any County Executive having a private, armed group of people to deploy at their sole discretion is risky, unnecessary, and has created tremendous anxiety in people across Nassau County,” stated Nassau County Legislature Minority Leader Delia DeRiggi-Whitton (D – Glen Cove) who also questioned Blakeman’s authority to appropriate funds for a militia.
Blakeman did not attend the Governor’s visit to a synagogue adjacent to the Holocaust Center, where she also spoke of the need to prosecute hate crimes and domestic violence. He was at the RNC to pay homage to their leader, a convicted felon, and listen to how tough on crime they are and how lax Democrats are.
“On crime and the border, Donald Trump’s lies are not facts and Donald Trump’s angry rants are not results,” the Harris campaign stated. “Under Trump, America saw unprecedented violence, ineptitude, and division. Right now, America is stronger and safer because of the work of the Biden-Harris administration: Violent crime is at record lows, the border is more secure, and unlike Donald Trump, the vice president is committed to enforcing the law, not breaking it.”
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