Hartford must act quickly to reverse uptick in crime
Young people inspired by the dedicated front-line medical professionals in the news, fighting the pandemic’s scourge, want careers in medicine, with applications to medical programs up approximately 18 percent. What an example of how public perception and political messaging can drive people to embrace professions and attract the best and the brightest.
In Connecticut and across the nation, we have been faced with a deadly virus that has decimated families, businesses, and communities, while altering how we think about keeping our families and communities safe.
Critical businesses across our region remain under intense economic pressures. Countless entrepreneurs who invested their life savings and years to create and nurture local businesses, which are the fabric of our downtown landscapes, are suffering mightily, with some unable to survive.
Millions of Americans are unemployed, as the jobs they could once count upon were upended.
The year 2020 will leave deep scars that will be analyzed for decades. Few may recognize it has also taken a toll on local law enforcement’s ability to serve the public.
Senseless murders, shootings, muggings, home intrusions, auto thefts, illegal drug dealing, gun running, gang activity, and crime in general are on the rise, elevating risks to our communities. More and more, hardened criminals are emboldened by well-intentioned but often harmful sentencing laws and crime policy mandates meant to lower society’s incarceration and recidivism rates.
While such changes across many states were made to give a second chance to individuals that have truly paid their debt to society, early implementation of reforms has gotten off to a rocky start in some jurisdictions, resulting in a form of turnstile justice. Whether these new policies are the sole cause or not, it was undoubtedly more dangerous in 2020.
In New York City shootings have nearly doubled, from 748 in 2019 to nearly 1,500 in 2020, and murders are up 40 percent, according to the NYPD. Closer to home, a Dec. 27 shooting in Bridgeport was the 24th homicide in that city in 2020, the highest number since 2006, when there were 30 homicides. Shootings were also up some 30 percent, with 159 recorded for 2020.
As criminals across the region recognize the increase in catch-and-release practices, victims and witnesses to significant acts of violence and criminality often choose not to come forward with testimony, fearing their families might face retribution.
In Stamford, we are witnessing a dramatic rise in illegal gunplay that is unnerving, even to our police. When criminality spikes, members of the community are held hostage and left fearful. The Stamford Advocate has reported on this spike, more than 15 shootings from September to December.
It’s now up to our state elected leaders to act and return peace to our city streets.
With 2020’s national political divide, there was a disturbing drum beat of antipolice rhetoric. Good, honest hard-working officers across the nation were being targeted by physical assaults and demonized, due to isolated incidents and horrific police interactions occurring thousands of miles from here.
That anti-police sentiment was supercharged by well-funded professional political activists traveling the nation and even to our city, casting blame and shame on all officers for the actions of a few elsewhere.
The byproduct of this overheated rhetoric in Connecticut is a new law, the antipolice, Connecticut Police Reform Act (H.B. 6004), which was rushed through the state Legislature in advance of the national elections. That action may already be having a chilling impact on officers’ ability to keep Connecticut communities safe.
When our state empowers frivolous lawsuits and personal liability against officers, including loss of job, pension, and perhaps your family home and life savings, it absolutely harms our ability to attract and retain the best talent for this difficult and dangerous job. When defundthe-police is the mantra, why would someone choose this as a career option, if the job risks and stability is uncertain?
On the opposite end of the spectrum in 2020, medical and nursing schools have witnessed something of a renaissance, referred to as “The Fauci Effect.”
Young people inspired by the dedicated front-line medical professionals in the news, fighting the pandemic’s scourge, want careers in medicine, with applications to medical programs up approximately 18 percent. What an example of how public perception and political messaging can drive people to embrace professions and attract the best and the brightest.
We need to end the gunplay in 2021. We need to get the recent flood of illegal and unregistered guns off our streets. We need to reverse 2020’s crime spike and reassure officers across the state that we entrust them to protect the public, without fear of frivolous litigation or loss of their livelihood.
I encourage our lawmakers to take swift actions in January to amend this harmful law.
That legislation was, in effect, to capture the momentum of a political moment, which likely helped win the White House. Unfortunately, another byproduct is an apparent increase of gunplay and the intimidation of citizens on our local streets.
Now as some in Hartford pledged would be done in the new year, let’s fix it and do what’s right for the citizens of Stamford and all of Connecticut. Law enforcement officers all over the state are looking to Hartford in 2021 for strategic partners to help us keep Connecticut communities the safest they can be.