Shea rips shelter system

NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea on Wednesday blamed the city’s homeless-shelter system for playing a part in the brutal beatdown of an Asian woman — saying parolees don’t get the help they need to not reoffend.

Shea (inset) said has a “different perspective” as police commissioner as he blasted the lack of resources at the city’s homeless shelters, one of which was housing Brandon Elliot before he was busted for the attack.

“When you’re releasing people from prison and you’re putting them in homeless shelters, you’re asking for trouble,”

Shea told PIX11 . “There’s got to be a safety net, and there’s got to be resources for them.”

He added, “Releasing people and putting them in homeless shelters — I’ve been harping on this for years now — and I think you just shake your head and say, ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ And this is what goes wrong. It just never should happen.”

Shea would not say, though, whether Elliot should have been out on parole in the first place. Elliot was released in 2019 after serving about 17 years for murdering his mother in 2002.

“That’s a question more for the parole board,” Shea said. “But what I would say is people pay their debt to society. They’ve got to be given second chances.”

Elliot was staying at the Four Points by Sheraton, a converted city-run homeless shelter on West 40th Street, when he allegedly attacked Vilma Kari unprovoked. Shea decried the hate crime, saying: “My heart just goes out to the Asian community and this victim in particular. It’s a horrific, horrific attack by a parolee.”

Some 300 homeless men were recently moved to the Sheraton shelter from one at a former DoubleTree hotel on West 36th Street following complaints from Hell’s Kitchen residents of drug use and fighting, Patch reported in January.