It’s Not Just Shootings

It’s not just shootings and homicides surging thanks to soft-on-crime laws and policies: So are lesser offenses like shoplifting and road violations. Post reporters found shelves left bare at city drug stores by serial shoplifters. Nicole Gelinas notes street chaos made this summer the deadliest for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists since Mayor de Blasio took office.

Just through September, the city’s seen 200 traffic deaths, a jump over last year, itself 10 percent higher than 2019. “When you can carry an illegal gun with impunity,” Gelinas writes, “you can also speed with impunity.” Notably, police stops of drivers for moving violations have fallen by half since 2019.

Meanwhile, shoplifting has made everyday items at drug stores — diapers, tampons, hand sanitizer — hard to find. “They’ve all been stolen,” a CVS worker says. Knowing they’ll likely be freed after any arrest and not prosecuted, shoplifters walk in, fill up bags with merchandise and walk right out.

Nearly 80 serial perps, with rap sheets of 20 or more theft charges, roam freely. Isaac Rodriguez, 22, was nabbed for shoplifting 46 times this year alone. Through Sept. 12, retailers have logged 26,385 theft complaints, the most ever recorded (since 1995).

NYPD boss Dermot Shea fingers the 2019 no-bail laws: “Insanity,” he tweeted last week. “No other way to describe the resulting crime that has flowed from disastrous bail reform law.”

The idiocy keeps coming: De Blasio and Gov. Hochul recently gave get-out-of-jail-free cards to Rikers inmates who, Hochul says, “do not need to be incarcerated.” At least nine of those she sprang last month have already been rearrested on gun-possession, reckless-endangerment and other charges.

The spike in shootings, especially involving kids, is the worst, prompting dozens of parents to gather Sunday by City Hall to demand more cops: “We are living a nightmare because we do not know if our kids will return home,” pleaded Eve Hendricks, whose 17year-old was shot to death at a 2020 cookout.

But the impact of progressive criminal-justice reforms is everywhere. Likely next mayor Eric Adams has his work cut out for him in turning law enforcement around on all fronts.