Guns at J’Ouvert, little punishment

Iserved as an FBI agent for 25 years, and the majority of my career was spent posted to the New York City office in lower Manhattan, and parts of Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. Throughout that quartercentury of service, I was privileged to work alongside task force officers from the NYPD — by far the most professional police organization in the world.

My career neatly bookended the single greatest big-city crime turnaround in history. The year I was sworn in, 1991, New York City had just compiled some fairly staggering murder statistics, ending 1990 with 2,245 homicides. Thanks to innovative policing methodologies and communities committed to working with police to reduce crime, 2016 saw an 85% reduction in murder statistics from the ignominious days of the early 1990s.

While one murder is one too many, 335 in a city of some 8.4 million inhabitants makes New York City undeniably safer than almost all its big-city colleagues. Just look to Chicago, where law enforcement is futilely grappling with a suffocating crime wave.

But for the Big Apple, 2017 appears to be shaping up to be the safest on record, which baffles criminologists and the naysayers who claim you can only drive crime down so far.

Though the tactics have been hotly debated for some time, there is almost universal consensus in law enforcement circles that the root of much of these senseless murders ultimately lies with the accessibility of illegal handguns.

Which brings us to the violence that broke out the last two years at J’Ouvert in Brooklyn — which threatens to mar the Caribbean celebrations again this year.

While it’s fair to concede that this celebration has been marred by notable violence in the recent past, no single ethnic community has avoided the violent outliers in their midst. Even New York City’s iconic St. Patrick’s Day parade has seen its share of violence.

National news reports took notice of the death of an aide to Gov. Cuomo in 2015, when he was caught between the exchanged gunfire of warring rival gangs. Last year, a 22-year-old graduate student at St. John’s — where I teach criminal justice and homeland security courses — was murdered.

There seems to be a firm commitment from Mayor de Blasio to directly confront the issue and head off the violence. But what appears most troubling is the current dispositions of the actual gun arrests that were made during last year's J’Ouvert celebration.

NYPD Police Commissioner James O’Neill has made no secret of his firm commitment to have illegal guns, and the criminals who possess them, removed from New York City streets.

But what good are apprehensions by law enforcement, and politicians’ self-congratulatory photo-ops in the wake of large trafficking busts, if the only result of interdiction is an illegal handgun removed from the street? What of the bad actor who elected to carry those weapons, and in some instances, murder innocent civilians?

A review of recent NYPD gun arrest cases, with specific focus on those apprehensions made during the 2016 J’Ouvert festivities, provided the following headscratching dispositions of the seven cases brought during the celebration last September in Brooklyn.

Only one of the seven cases has seen a defendant sentenced and incarcerated during the past year. Another one pled guilty and is still free on bond, roaming the streets and awaiting sentencing. Another is actually in custody and awaiting trial.

And then here’s where it gets even more difficult to comprehend.

Two of the cases resulted in prosecutorial declinations from the District Attorney’s office, which means that the subjects were released from custody to enjoy their freedom on the very streets the NYPD works so diligently to keep safe.

One case was completely closed. This one can also be added to the growing “illegal gun carrying individual inexplicably released” file.

A final suspect is awaiting trial, but free on bond, yes, back on the streets.

In a city where political leaders swear to remain tough on crime, and instruct cops to target those prone to violence and in possession of dangerous implements like illegal handguns, what does this say about the actual processes necessary to make that stratagem work?