Maricopa County, Ariz., Attorney Rachel Mitchell is refusing to cooperate with New York County officials on extraditing a man wanted for murder in New York City, citing the probability that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office would release him.
Raad Almansoori, 26, hit his girlfriend over the head with an iron in a Manhattan hotel room earlier this month. He fled to Arizona, where he was accused of stabbing a McDonald's employee. Almansoori has remained in the custody of Maricopa County since then. He's also accused of a carjacking where he stabbed another woman.
Mitchell doesn't trust Bragg to keep Almansoori, a man who murdered one woman and stabbed another in the space of a week, to protect the citizens of New York, Arizona, or anywhere else.
“Having observed the treatment of violent criminals in the New York area by the Manhattan D.A. there, Alvin Bragg,” Mitchell told reporters on Wednesday, “I think it’s safer to keep him here and keep him in custody so that he cannot be out doing this to individuals either in our state, county, or anywhere in the United States.”
That one landed.
“It is deeply disturbing that D.A. Mitchell is playing political games in a murder investigation,” Bragg spokeswoman Emily Tuttle said. “New York’s murder rate is less than half that of Phoenix, Ariz., because of the hard work of the N.Y.P.D. and all of our law enforcement partners."
“It is a slap in the face to them and to the victim in our case to refuse to allow us to seek justice and full accountability for a New Yorker’s death,” Tuttle added.
Yes, but are you going to keep the violent criminal locked up? No one cares what the murder rate is in Phoenix or New York City. What people care about is whether a clearly violent man is going to be locked up so he can't hurt anyone else. And judging by Bragg's insistence on releasing people with little or no bail, Mitchell has every reason to be concerned.
Since the beginning of his term in 2022, Mr. Bragg has drawn criticism for his handling of crime in the nation’s most populous city. Police unions and Republican officials have complained that too many dangerous people are being released on bail before trial, and that Mr. Bragg has failed to prosecute them as aggressively as he might. But there was no indication that Mr. Bragg’s office would not seek to keep the hotel-killing suspect behind bars.
Neither was there any indication that Bragg would keep Almansoori in jail. And given Bragg's track record, Mitchell is absolutely right to be cautious.
In an email after the Wednesday news conference, a spokeswoman for Ms. Mitchell said Mr. Almansoori was not being extradited because the charges there were grave and state law required them to be adjudicated before extradition
Another spokeswoman, Jeanine L’Ecuyer, said Mr. Bragg had not formally requested an extradition, and that Maricopa County prosecutors had not met with any of their Manhattan counterparts.
With no extradition request from Bragg, Mitchell's threat not to extradite rings a little hollow. It might be seen as a warning shot across the bow. Given that New York never enforces the death penalty, Almansoori may as well be tried and sentenced in Arizona where he's likely to spend considerably more time in prison than in New York.
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