Thanks to New York’s bail law, even the most cartoonishly villainous crimes don’t get you thrown behind bars.
The latest: Monday’s arrest of Isaiah Gurley, 29, on a laundry list of charges after he was allegedly caught on video dragging a dog into the street in Queens and setting it afire.
Gurley confessed to cops that he had kicked the poor pooch, which he was watching for a friend, to death before burning its body.
To add insult to injury, he allegedly shoplifted the oil he used to torch the hound.
Brutalizing any living creature so cruelly should guarantee reasonably high bail — an amount that recognizes that a perp willing to torture an animal in such a heinous and sadistic fashion is a threat to the general public.
Instead, Gurley got to walk free without putting up a dime, since none of his charges are bail-eligible under the 2019 “reforms.”
That’s right: New York’s legislators, in all their wisdom, have decided that aggravated animal cruelty, fifth-degree arson and reckless endangerment are not offenses worthy of bail.
How … progressive?
Of course, New Yorkers have seen all too many cases of brutes going right back onto the street after arrest for attacking humans, thanks to the combo of pro-crime lawmakers, progressive prosecutors and too-lenient judges; even the most obviously dangerous career criminals get turned loose.
Judge Kacie Lally, for example, let repeat offender Edwin Wright out on supervised release after his arrest for sucker-punching a 15-year-old girl in the back of the neck in November — months before he allegedly bludgeoned a 94-year-old retired teacher over the head with metal objects in a random attack in June.
Of course a justice system that lets a man like that walk the streets will also spring an accused dog-killer.
That doesn’t make Gurley’s alleged crime any less skin-crawling.
It’s insulting that the left-wing lawmakers who run the state expect New Yorkers to be A-OK with violent suspects walking among them while awaiting trial.
Research proves that it all but ensures more crime: A recent study by John Jay College of Criminal Justice’s Data Collaborative for Justice, covering areas of New York outside the city, found that under bail reform, recidivism “tended to increase for people charged with violent felonies and for people with
a recent arrest.”
The insanity needs to end pronto, for the sake of two- and four-legged New York residents alike.
Until then, don’t let any politician who supports no-bail call themselves an “animal lover.”
