The man who stabbed two teenage girls on Christmas day in New York City’s Grand Central Terminal restaurant has a long arrest record, including his latest arrest from less than two months ago.
But despite the arrests, Steven Hutcherson keeps getting put back on the streets and now these two teenage girls paid the price for the lawlessness in New York City.
Here’s more via a Nicole Gelinas op-ed:
The suspect in the stabbing, Steven Hutcherson, is yet another troubled vagrant.
Before stabbing the two young tourists Christmas morning, allegedly screaming that he would kill white people, he had plagued his fellow New Yorkers for months with threats — threats the city didn’t treat seriously.
He has a long arrest record — at least 17 — and a recent history of mental-health issues.
Police arrested him barely seven weeks ago — for threatening to shoot someone while armed with a knife.
He got off with a discharge, provided he behaved well.
All this year — from a July arrest in which Hutcherson was caught with two blades, to other incidents of “disturbed” behavior — police did their job.
They tried to get Hutcherson off the streets.
All year, New York put him right back on the street.
Gelinas goes on to talk about what Mayor Adams should be saying and doing after this, but instead he’s acting as though his current policies in the Big Apple are making crime better.
“Crime was moving in the wrong direction,” he said of the two years before he took office. “No one wanted to be on the subway system. . . . But look at us two years later. I say it over and over again, crime is down.”
You can say it as much as you want, Mr. Mayor, but the facts get in the way.
Yes, we’ll likely end 2023 with fewer than 400 murders for the first time in four years.
But the fact we’re remotely pleased with this outcome shows how we’ve lowered our standards.
We had fewer than 400 murders every year between 2013 and 2019.
We’ll likely end 2023, by contrast, with murders still 22% higher than 2019 levels.
Better than where they were in 2021 — 53% above 2019 — but not good enough.
And Adams has made no progress with overall felonies.
With 124,192 felonies as of Christmas Eve, we’ll likely end the year flat, compared with last year — but 21% above 2021, the year before Adams took office, and up 30% since 2019.
Violent assaults, like the Christmas Grand Central Terminal attack?
Through Christmas Eve, at 27,299, felony assaults are up 6% from last year — and we’ll end 2023 a third higher than 2019.
We’ve all seen the lawlessness run rampant in cities who continue to let criminals off the streets because or race and incarceration rates. And it’s just going to continue until someone stands up to defend safety of the community and gets criminals off the street.