Times’-splaining City Crime

Anyone naïve enough to read The New York Times for its local crime coverage probably nodded along to Thursday’s story supposedly debunking a part of President Trump’s State of the Union speech.

“Trump’s MS-13 Speech Left Out a Key Point: The Gang Is Not New,” ran the headline. Except that Trump’s argument doesn’t remotely depend on the gang being “new.” Indeed, his main point is that America needs to get serious about illegal immigration after falling short for far too long.

Times reporters Ali Winston and Ali Watkins admit Trump “could not have choreographed a better talking point” than Sunday’s alleged murder by reputed MS13er Ramiro Gutierrez, an undocumented immigrant with a long arrest record, on a No. 7 subway platform in Queens.

But then they warn that Trump left out “an important nuance,” namely that “despite repeated prosecutions,” MS-13 and the 18th Street gang (the rival outfit the murder victim belonged to) have been active in the city “for two decades.”

Well, thanks, Sherlock. Guess that makes it OK that thugs who routinely hack both innocents and rivals to death with machetes are able to regularly enter this country illegally.

Try to imagine the Times greeting a highprofile case of police brutality with an indepth look at how such abuse, while awful, is “not new.”

This wasn’t a fact-check or even an analysis. It was an editorial telling readers to ignore an obvious outrage.