A fifth migrant teen was busted in the mob attack on two cops in Times Square, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Tuesday — while slamming local pols from trying to scrap the department’s gang database.
Tisch said the database — which the City Council is trying to abolish — helped police identify and round up several of the pint-sized perps so quickly after the Friday evening melee, including the 16-year-old recidivist nabbed Tuesday.
The council’s bid “absolutely defies common sense,” she told reporters.
She also revealed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents showed up to a police precinct Sunday where one of the suspects was being held, but were turned away.
Investigators are looking into how the feds were called as local sanctuary city policies bar the NYPD from cooperating with ICE on civil immigration enforcement.
“We are also aware that ICE was at one of our precincts Sunday morning and while we are looking into how they got there, I want to stress that our officers followed procedure outlined in our January directive,” Tisch said during a press briefing with other NYPD officials and Mayor Eric Adams.
“I was surprised that ICE was at the precinct because ICE shows up to do civil immigration enforcement,” she said. “[Police] did not turn the person over to agents at that time.”
The Big Apple’s sanctuary city status has been a sticking point between police and ICE, with the NYPD under orders not to cooperate with federal immigration authorities in turning over migrants for deportation once they are in custody.
Adams, who has recently waffled on his support of the policy, said the tip to ICE could have come from a bystander or witness.
Tisch told reporters that the two officers who were attacked tried to stop “what appeared to be a wolf-pack-style” mugging in the Crossroads of the World.
She said the NYPD gang database allowed for the quick arrest of the suspects, including a 12-year-old linked to the Diablos de la 42, or Devils of 42nd Street, an offshoot of the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, according to sources.
