“This is exactly what happens when the justice system cares more about coddling criminals than backing up cops on the street,” says Police Benevolent Association chief Patrick Hendry of the disgusting caught-on-video beating of a female NYPD officer while breaking up a fight Thursday in The Bronx, and he’s dead right.
After all, the thug in question, career criminal Ernst Delma, was only on the streets thanks to New York’s “reformed” parole rules.
Those got changed under then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, along with a host of other misbegotten progressive experiments from no-bail to Raise the Age.
Time and again, Cuomo bent to the lefties’ whose only concern is for gangbangers and other lawbreakers, not crime victims — and certainly, not law enforcement.
Heck, progs in Albany and on the City Council are still at it, adding new burdens on cops (like the How Many Stops law that adds hours of paperwork to NYPD shifts) to fresh rationales for early parole.
All of which also has police morale in the tank, prompting early retirements and a rush to find jobs outside the city — shrinking the force and losing vital experience.
As bad, cops who stay inevitably grow more cautious: Why take a risk nabbing a perp who’ll all too likely walk, especially when most politicians are still gunning for the good guys?
Delma’s rap sheet shows numerous arrest for assault and burglary, including a July 2022 case where he viciously slugged a female civilian near Broadway’s Minskoff Theatre; a functional parole system wouldn’t have left him on the streets.
Under a rational bail system, suspected arsonist in a Brooklyn fire that this week left nine people injured, including a child, wouldn’t have been cut lose to set that blaze despite prosecutors’ request that the judge hold him on $20,000 bail.
Bronx DA Darcel Clark needs to throw the book at Delma and convince the judge to keep the creep behind bars at Rikers until his trial date.
If not, Gov. Hochul should order the state parole agency to revoke his parole.
How many more violent caught-on-camera attacks will it take to convince lawmakers to fix their disastrous reforms — or the voters to elect better lawmakers?
One way or another, New York needs to repair this revolving-door injustice system, or the criminals will own the whole town.
