New York’s Republican candidates for governor came out swinging against soaring crime rates brought about by progressive Democratic lawmakers.
All four contenders: Lee Zeldin, a four-term congressman from Long Island; Harry Wilson, a wealthy corporate turnaround specialist from Westchester; Rob Astorino, a former county executive in suburban Westchester and Andrew Giuliani, mentioned directly or indirectly how they would fire Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg over his soft on crime prosecution of felons.
“It’s chaos in New York City,” said Astorino. “You try to go into the city to have a good time with your family and everyone’s looking over your shoulder.”
“And you hear the family members speaking out, calling out elected officials and asking for action,” Zeldin said.
“Calling out Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, personally, by name,” he said, referring to the powerful eulogy delivered by the widow of slain cop Jason Rivera earlier this year.
Giuliani said we need to bring back the programs his father implemented to cut down the soaring crime problem.
“We need to utilize programs” including “broken windows” and “stop, question and frisk” that he said drove down “2,000 murders a year in the early ‘90s to less than 600 murders a year just five short years later,” Giuliani said.
Wilson cited the recent murder of a family member as a way of citing bail reform as a major problem.
Wilson revealed that a 77-year-old relative was fatally stabbed last week. “My cousin’s father was murdered in his backyard,” he said.
“It was by a monster who’s out on cashless bail upstate, who had committed two assaults in recent weeks and set a fire in his backyard to draw him out, and then stabbed him to death on Thursday night.”
The latest poll, released Monday by Emerson College, put Zeldin in first place with 34%, compared to 16% for Astorino, 15% for Wilson and 13% for Giuliani with 22% undecided.
The state’s gubernatorial primary elections are scheduled for June 28, with early voting set to start on Saturday in New York City.