NYC Robberies Up 39%, Burglaries Up 32%
AOC's 'defund the police' report card flunks statistics test as NYC crime spike rattles communities
Even with Big Apple murder rates similar this year compared to last, other major crimes have surged, police statistics show — and polls find New Yorkers are fed up.

Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been one of the most vocal and high-profile lawmakers to demand the defunding and dismantling of American police departments, including in her own district, where major crime has climbed steadily over the past two years.

New York City's homicide rate has remained relatively flat over the past two years. But after the slaying of George Floyd in Minneapolis fueled a national "defund the police" campaign, which Ocasio-Cortez endorsed, NYPD statistics show dramatic increases in other major crimes.

According to Paul Mauro, an attorney and former NYPD inspector, key major crimes to watch are robberies and burglaries — highly invasive profit-motivated crimes that often involve repeat offenders.

"Particularly robberies, as a robbery is essentially larceny plus violence," he told Fox News Digital. "Rising robbery numbers are very detrimental to a sense of street safety. Someone is taking your stuff, and they're willing to hurt you to do it — and they're doing it right on the street in your neighborhood."

Citywide crime statistics show that major crimes have increased by more than 36.64% so far this year over 2021 and increased another 37.35% since 2020. Robberies and burglaries, Mauro’s bellwethers, climbed by 39% and 32%, respectively.

Well before the "defund" movement took off in 2020, experts said well-funded police departments performed better on tackling crime, maintaining community relations and reducing use of force compared to their cash-starved counterparts.

"While there are always better ways to allocate police resources, cutting budgets means fewer cops and detectives, less money for equipment and computer applications, less money for civilian crime analysts, less ability to promote deserving officers, more reliance on overtime, etc.," Mauro said. "It is downward pressure on the efficacy of any department. How anyone could believe massively defunding police departments would somehow lower crime beggars belief."  foxnews.com

NYC's Theft & Robbery Epicenter
West Village is epicenter of rising NYC crime: NYPD data
The West Village is New York’s most fashionable neighborhood this year — for crooks. The celebrity-packed enclave has been hit by a plague of theft and robbery — as it has suffered the biggest crime increase of any section of the Big Apple thus far in 2022, new NYPD data shows.

Through the middle of August, the NYPD’s 6th Precinct, which covers both the West Village and Greenwich Village, has seen crime spike 80% — fueled by a 103% increase in grand larceny and shoplifting, the data shows.

The data shows that the 6th Precinct — which is home to high profile residents such as Sarah Jessica Parker and Jennifer Lawrence — has seen 1,380 major crimes in 2022, compared to 766 in the same period in 2021.

The bulk of that crime wave is attributable to a huge number of grand larcenies, which include shoplifting. So far there have been 802 this year, compared to the 394 recorded over the same period last year — a 103% rise, according to the figures.

Some blamed this disturbing rise in thefts and general crime on bail reform — as under the new rules, virtually all larceny suspects get released without having to post bail or bond.

“This whole bail reform has to go,” Kevin Jackson, the general manager of John’s of Bleecker Street pizzeria, insisted.

In Chelsea, which is overseen by the NYPD’s 10th Precinct, major crimes are up nearly 39% — a few percentage points higher than the current citywide rate. Grand larceny in that neighborhood is up 48% to 418 reported incidents so far this year from 282 last year, the data shows. nypost.com

'Around the Clock' Robberies in CA
Op-Ed: How to Lower Crime Rates in California

Crime in California is spiraling out of control, diminishing the quality of life for its residents and erasing the character and promise of what was once a coveted place to live.

Testimony from California residents sounds a lot like life in a third-world country. Many say they can’t wear jewelry in public because of blatant robberies that are taking place around the clock.

Former Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley explains that there will always be the “criminal element” in society, but the “only way to fight it is through policies and the people who fight the criminal element—police and prosecutors.” He says that weak prosecutors give the criminal element an advantage, which in turn leads to a crime-ridden society.

In San Francisco, more than 40 percent of people surveyed say they’d like to move out of the city. Many already have. Thieves are targeting small businesses more frequently, with robberies up 100 percent. Three of the top 10 cities for organized retail theft in the country are in California.

Video footage shows shoplifters stealing and looting right in front of shoppers and security guards, walking out with armloads of clothes in broad daylight. They even lie in wait for people exiting stores to steal items they just purchased. One small business owner said he believes California’s system is sending the message that it’s OK to steal because they continue to let people get away with it.

Michael Shellenberger, an independent journalist and author, says there has been an effort to hide the rise in crime, and that many people don’t even report crimes anymore because the police won’t do anything about it anyway.

According to Shellenberger, the District Attorney no longer prosecutes many crimes. Overall, far fewer arrests are being made, fewer reports being taken, and fewer crimes being prosecuted. Official data from the San Francisco Police Department shows 3,000 reports of shoplifting in 2021, which seems like a small number, being used by many state officials and the media. However, small businesses say they hardly ever report shoplifting anymore. theepochtimes.com

Minneapolis to Increase Police Budget - Progressive Groups are Watching
Minneapolis mayor outlines spending plan focused on safety, other services
Minneapolis officials on Monday kicked off another series of budget negotiations that are likely to focus on efforts to transform public safety in response to George Floyd's murder and set up a new system of government that voters approved last year.

In a speech Monday morning, Mayor Jacob Frey outlined a plan to spend $3.3 billion over the next two years amid efforts to boost staffing for police, mental health teams and civilian traffic control agents.

Frey and the City Council will also be working to set up a new Office of Community Safety with a commissioner, an assistant and three communications people.

Frey has proposed giving the Minneapolis Police Department nearly $400 million over two years amid a push to increase staffing to an average of 835 officers in 2025.

Beyond policing, Frey's proposal calls for increasing funding for Behavioral Crisis Response Teams so the civilian workers can eventually answer mental health calls 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And it calls for adding employees to a traffic control unit that dispatches civilians to handle some complaints. startribune.com

Editor's Note: No de-funding police in Minneapolis. The Office of Community Safety will be interesting to watch long term and see what impact it has on safety in the city and how they measure it. While the Crisis Response Teams will certainly face challenges and hopefully have a positive impact without anyone getting seriously injured.

UK Retail Exec Sounds the Alarm Over Shoplifting Trend
Iceland boss describes worrying shoplifting trend amid cost-of-living crisis

The boss of Iceland has said his stores are reporting more instances of shoplifting as the cost of living crisis bites.

In an interview, he said that the UK Government had to use all the levers it had “because ultimately, it’s the consumer that will pay for it and it’ll be jobs that will pay for it as well”.

Iceland boss Richard Walker, whose company is based in Deeside, told Tom Newton Dunn on Talk TV’s The News Desk he also admitted he had seen a rise in the number of shoplifters, as people struggle to afford their weekly shop.

“The rise of shoplifting because people are really struggling out there… I get a serious incidence report every week and it is starting to tick up we are seeing that and that’s obviously because people are really struggling.”

He said the UK Government had to do more. “That’s why we urgently need the government and whoever the next Prime Minister is to start looking at more aggressive support for business. So that could come in the form of backing CBILS loans for energy costs, for example, for businesses, or a super deduction in terms of your tax bill in terms of the cost that you have to pay for energy and there’s a whole host of other things like business rates. So I think there’s many levers still that the government can pull, and they really must do so because ultimately, it’s the consumer that will pay for it. And it’ll be jobs that will pay for it as well.”  theretailbulletin.com

Buffalo Supermarket Shooting Drives Gun Sales in NYC
On the heels of Buffalo mass shooting, more gun sales across New York State
he number of people trying to buy guns in New York State spiked in the weeks after a white supremacist’s mass shooting killed 10 Black people at a Tops supermarket in Buffalo on May 14, data on related FBI background checks show.

Background checks were done on 48,349 prospective gun purchasers in New York in June, the largest number in a single month since March of 2021 and a 54% increase over the number of checks done in May, according to data compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The spike happened as New York legislators, in the wake of the Tops shooting and another on May 24 at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, considered a new package of bills aimed at making it harder to buy assault weapons, including mandating licenses for semi-automatic rifles and raising the age requirement to 21. buffalonews.com

Op-Ed: George Soros’ Claim About Leftist Prosecutors Is Big Lie

US: 95.1M Cases - 1M Dead - 90.4M Recovered
Worldwide: 599.2M Cases - 6.4M Dead - 573.2M Recovered

Private Industry Security Guard Deaths: 362  
Law Enforcement Officer Deaths: 793
*Red indicates change in total deaths

U.S. COVID Cases, Hospitalizations & Deaths

Good News for Retail?
Why Downtown Won’t Die Just Because Remote Work is Here to Stay

As the office recedes in importance, central business districts are transforming into spaces to live and socialize, not just work. It’s a process that began before Covid-19.

America’s downtowns are in big trouble, or so the pundits tell us, thanks to the enduring effects of Covid-19 and the rise of remote and hybrid work. In 10 of the largest US cities, office occupancy averages are less than half, roughly 44% as of mid-August, of what they were back in 2020 before the pandemic hit.

That’s better than they looked in May 2021, when the average stood at just 27%. But several big cities, including New York, Chicago and San Francisco, have been stalled at 40% or under for several months — a sign that the workplace disruptions of the Covid era are with us for the long haul.

Can America’s iconic downtowns survive this shift? Yes, and for a basic reason. Great downtowns are not reducible to offices. Even if the office were to go the way of the horse-drawn carriage, the neighborhoods we refer to today as downtowns would endure. Downtowns and the cities they anchor are the most adaptive and resilient of human creations; they have survived far worse.

The rise of remote work today won’t kill off our downtowns, but they will be forced to change once again. And with smart strategies and perseverance on the part of city leaders, real estate developers and the civic community, they can become even better than they were. bloomberg.com

Relaxed CDC Guidance Still Won't Bring Workers Back to the Office
New COVID guidelines ease in-person work but won't spur return to office
Apple on Monday made headlines as the latest major company to call its workers back to the office, setting a deadline for early next month that will require workers to do their jobs in person three days each week, Bloomberg reported.

The move came days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new guidelines that softened the recommended precautions for preventing the spread of COVID.

The change in CDC policy will make it easier for employers to bring workers back to the office, shifting the public health responsibility to individual workers and away from businesses, while allowing all workers to stay on the job after a COVID exposure, public health experts told ABC News. The move reflects an approach that aims to mitigate spread but not prevent infection entirely, as widespread immunity and treatments reduce the risk of severe illness, they added.

However, the CDC guidelines will not spur a rapid shift back to in-person work, or even any shift at all, since public health concerns no longer make up the primary reason behind remote work, economists told ABC News. Rather, the widely held preference among employees for some degree of remote work -- combined with the leverage afforded to workers as employers struggle to fill openings -- should preserve the current level of remote work, the economists added. abcnews.go.com

Ending COVID Sick Pay in California Will Impact Front-Line Workers
Op-Ed: Stopping pay for workers sick with COVID is misguided
Incredibly, California’s workplace safety officials are considering keeping in place the requirement to keep positive COVID cases out of the workplace, but throwing out the requirement to pay workers excluded from the workplace when sick (“exclusion pay”). Protecting public health — and maintaining California’s national leadership — depend on the state making permanent these rules to protect workers.

The economic analysis the state has relied upon to support this dangerous path fails to account for the costs borne by families, businesses and the public when this critical safety measure disappears. Reporting of symptoms and of close contacts will be severely reduced when workers understand that they or their coworkers will be put out of work.

If exclusion pay is allowed to expire, workplaces such as kitchens, warehouses and meatpacking plants will be the most affected. Low-wage and marginalized workers in particular again will be forced into Sophie’s choice: Miss a paycheck your family is counting on for rent and food, or go to work knowing you could spread the virus to more families. hanfordsentinel.com

The U.S. Has Regained All of Its Lost COVID-Era Jobs — But Not NYC

Risk of ‘brain fog’ and other conditions persists up to 2 years after Covid infection