Gov. Hochul got a frosty reception Friday at the Long Island wake for murdered NYPD Det. Jonathan Diller. It was more than deserved — but she refuses to learn a thing from the Dillers’ righteous anger.
Hochul stayed just 10 minutes at the funeral home — President Donald Trump spent 40 minutes there the day before and was pictured hugging what looked to be the fallen officer’s wife before making a get-tough-on-crime statement outside — and was confronted by an uncle of Diller as she walked back to her car.
She shrugged it off the next day: “I would do it again, and that’s my job. My job is to be there when people need me. If they need to talk to me, and they all needed to talk to me, my job is to listen.”
No, governor. Your job, first and foremost, is to keep New Yorkers safe — and it’s a job you’re failing at miserably.
Diller’s uncle let Hochul have it in their encounter, which was caught on video but without audio.
“We don’t want you here. You’re not wanted here. You have blood on your hands. If you want to do something, change the bail laws,” he reportedly said.
The governor defended herself to reporters Saturday.
“I think everyone knows my positions on the bail laws,” she said. “I’m the one who’s been trying to make the changes to go back to where it was.”
Hochul’s chutzpah is stunning even in a state known for it.
She got a tiny adjustment made to the pro-criminal laws — and refuses to lift a finger to get any real changes.
I asked her point blank in a late January Post editorial-board meeting, “On crime then, do you consider bail reform, discovery reform, Raise the Age, all those things fixed?”
“No, no, what I would say is we have made great progress,” she responded, saying she’s given “discretion back to judges” in setting bail. “It’s maddening that judges and district attorneys” won’t use it.
She gave “more money to district attorneys to be able to implement” the discovery law — “I’m their hero,” she declared.
And, she added, since the State Police saw a drop in applications, she raised the maximum-eligibility age from 29 to 34.
But when the editorial board pushed her repeatedly on what fixes she planned to make, she finally admitted the truth: none.
Not even on the bail “reform” that’s kept dangerous criminals on our streets.
“I’m seeing the results. The law is where it needs to be,” she insisted.
So no, governor: You’re most certainly not “the one who’s been trying to make the changes to go back to where it was.”
Is the law where it needs to be when 80% of people arrested for carrying a gun in Gotham are out on bail, per NYPD figures?
The suspected killer of Diller, 31, has 21 previous arrests and had stored a shiv in his rectum that night, likely thinking there’d be a good chance his activities would get him arrested.
The last 14 months have seen a 20% rise in assaults on cops, with a 72% rise in cop stabbings.
The minor change Hochul got through the Legislature simply removed “least restrictive means” from the standard judges must use to decide bail — and they’re only allowed to consider the risk the defendant won’t return to court in making that decision.
New York is the only state in the nation where judges cannot consider a defendant’s “dangerousness” when setting bail.
And Hochul has flatly said she has no intention of trying to change that.
“Someone walks into [a room with] a judge and sometimes dangerousness is determined by the color of their skin and a perception of dangerousness,” Hochul told WNYC.
That’s right: The governor won’t make the state safer because she seemingly thinks New York’s mostly Democratic judges are racist.
She signed off on a $32,000 pay hike for state lawmakers a couple years ago — and didn’t insist on a single thing in return.
Even the Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College, which has championed New York’s bail reform, recognizes the reality.
René Ropac, a senior research associate there, told CBS News last month, “For quote-unquote high-risk individuals, we found recidivism increases because of bail reform.”
Former Queens executive district attorney Jim Quinn regularly examines DCJ’s reports and finds they prove repeat crime increased in New York thanks to bail reform.
He noted New York City re-arrest rates are “close to 70% for people with prior records charged with larceny, burglary, robbery, and criminal contempt while their case was pending.”
He tells me that “the discovery reforms have caused a huge increase in dismissals, resulting in felonies and very often domestic violence cases being dismissed.”
Money isn’t enough to solve a problem bad law has created.
Hochul defended herself to reporters Saturday instead of attending Det. Diller’s funeral — perhaps because the family turned down her request to speak at the event.
(The Dillers also rejected the request of Attorney General Tish James, who’s said crime spikes don’t merit changing the “reforms” that led to them.)
There, 29-year-old widow Stephanie Diller proved herself far braver, fighting back a flood of tears to call for change.
“It’s been two years and two months since Detective Rivera and Detective Mora made the ultimate sacrifice — just like my husband Jonathan Diller. Dominque Rivera stood before all the elected officials present today pleading for change,” she said, referring to Jason Rivera, 22, and Wilbert Mora, 27, NYPD officers murdered responding to an East Harlem domestic call involving a career criminal.
“That change never came. And now my son will grow up without his father, and I will grow old without my husband. And his parents have to say goodbye to their child,” she continued, her 1-year-old son, Ryan, beside her. “How many more police officers and how many families need to make the ultimate sacrifice before we start protecting them?”
Stop bragging about doing nothing, governor, and answer Stephanie Diller’s question.
Kelly Jane Torrance is The Post’s op-ed editor.
