New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg was recently forced to change some of his policies after his office refused to prosecute several armed robberies because the defendant did not create a “genuine risk of physical harm” in brandishing a weapon at a victim.
Bragg believes his job is to reduce the population in New York’s overcrowded jails. This has led to dozens of defendants being released from custody on reduced or no bail even if they’re a genuine risk to the community.
One such lucky violent criminal is Assamad Nash. He was out and about in New York on Sunday night, free as a bird, despite assaulting a subway strap-hanger in September and being arrested for intentional damage to property, harassment, resisting arrest, both attempted and successful escape from police officers, and selling a fare card — all in the last year.
Mr. Nash ended up loitering outside an apartment building in Chinatown. And when one of the residents, pretty 35-year-old Christina Yuna Lee, opened the door and began walking up the steps to her sixth-floor apartment, Nash slipped into the open door and followed her up.
Her body was found in her bathtub. Nash was discovered under a bed, covered in blood.
“This is about the community and our elected officials need to do something much different because this was all avoidable,” Brian Chin, Lee’s landlord, told reporters outside the building, according to Fox 5 N.Y.
Chin specifically criticized Bragg’s policies, arguing Lee’s murder could have been prevented.
“From a landlord’s perspective, from storeowner’s perspective, we’re terrified of this, his policies and what not. Armed robbery of a store is now a petty larceny? What insanity is this?” he said. “This guy, his rap sheet is a mile long, he should have been behind bars. Assault? Menacing? How is he out? This is outrageous.”
Christina Yuna Lee was a digital producer @splice. She was 35 y.o. Korean-American and a graduate of @RutgersU. She lived in a 6 story walk-up in Chinatown. On Sunday morning, a stranger followed her home and murdered her. May she find rest. May her family & friends find comfort. pic.twitter.com/DIPQiFB1nL
— Min Jin Lee (@minjinlee11) February 14, 2022
It’s important that people in New York understand the choices being made by DA Bragg. These are deliberate policies formulated with the full knowledge that they will result in the terrorizing, injury, and death of innocent people.
Fanatics like Bragg believe that the death of innocents is a small price to pay in order to right the historic wrongs of racism and oppression. They will shake their heads and bemoan the loss of Ms. Lee’s life but will chalk her bloody death up to the necessity of the times.
The reason that people like Bragg are getting elected across the country is that they have figured out to hide their insanely radical ideas behind soft and appealing rhetoric. “Reform,” not “revolution.” “Justice,” not “payback.” They make the police the “enemy” and gin up outrage against the few cops who either make a mistake or who shouldn’t be on the job in the first place. They condemn an entire department for the actions of a handful.
But the police are just props in their little dramas. The stars are the criminals — “victims” of racism and oppression. If they’re antisocial or violent, it’s because they were made that way by racism and white privilege.
The ideas embedded in Bragg’s policies have been around a long time. Radicals like him just needed to be able to fool enough people to get elected in order to carry them out.
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