Blame New York’s progressive leaders for the horrific filmed murder of a 14-year-old boy on a Bronx playground this week.
Late Tuesday, a mob of teens jumped ninth-grader Angel Mendoza at the Williamsbridge Oval Playground — pistol-whipping, beating and stabbing him to death while they recorded the stomach-churning ordeal on a cellphone camera.
Angel was hanging out with a boy who’d been involved in a earlier fight with the group, and the sadistic teens killed him just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
His stomach-churning death is an especially brutal one, but far from unique.
These tales of teen-on-teen violence have grown all too common, spurred on by a slew of braindead lefty policies that encourage youngsters to break the law.
The Raise the Age law, which moved the age of criminal responsibility up to 18, has sent the rate of teen crime skyrocketing: The number of minors busted with a firearm jumped 136% between 2018, when the law kicked in, and 2024.
The number of juvenile gun victims has also ballooned — up 81%.
When you remove the consequences for committing a crime, crime goes up.
Imagine that!
Instead of learning from this mistake, Gov. Kathy Hochul doubled-down, signing “Raise the Lower Age” in 2022, which made it impossible to charge offenders between ages 7 and 11 as “juvenile delinquents.”
All this has encouraged gangs to recruit younger and younger kids to do their dirty work, knowing that even if the youth gets caught, he (or she) will get away with less than a slap on the wrist.
Chronic absenteeism, which spiked after COVID lockdowns kept kids out of schools, has added to this nightmare: More kids skipping class means more kids on the streets, looking for something to do — which far too often means getting into trouble.
Angel had no prior criminal record, but (per his grieving father) had started cutting class and hanging with the wrong crowd — which tend to go hand in hand — in May.
Instead of getting serious about getting kids back into classrooms, the State Education Department has decided to simply stop reporting chronic absenteeism.
Angel’s under-18 killers won’t be shielded by Raise the Age; their charges are serious enough that they’ll be tried in adult court as “juvenile offenders.”
But the law has enabled a culture of consequence-free crime for minors.
Gotham’s streets are now filled with directionless, bored teens who have realized that they’re basically above the law — right up until they kill someone.
Progressives who pretend this protects kids have instead upped the odds that young people become criminals, victims — or both.
Until New York restores real consequence for kids’ bad behavior, teens like Angel Mendoza will keep paying the price.
