New York City Republican mayoral candidate, and founder of the Guardian Angels, Curtis Sliwa told Newsmax Monday that current Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio is responsible for the surge of violent crime there because he “is a cop hater.”
“We have Mayor de Blasio in New York City, who said no to President Joe Biden, who just last week said cities that are suffering from violent crime can use additional COVID-19 stimulus money to go out and hire more police,” Sliwa said during “The Chris Salcedo Show” Monday. “Hire more police than Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, (or) New York City. Our mayor said, ‘Thank you, but no, thank you’ as our crime wave continues. I believe that Bill de Blasio, this mayor, is a cop hater.”
Sliwa, 67, founded the Guardian Angels in 1979 while the city was gripped by a massive crime wave that made riding the subway extremely dangerous, according to the organization.
The group rode along on the trains to protect law abiding citizens and rose to national, and international prominence, where it now has chapters in 13 countries and more than 100 cities worldwide.
Crime has significantly increased in the city this year with a double digit increase in violent crimes compared to last year.
According to the New York City Police Department, shootings are up 75%, robberies are up 47%, and felony assaults are up by 20.5%.
Despite the increases, de Blasio only raised the NYPD budget by $200 million after cutting $1 billion last year in the wake of riots following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at the hands of former police officer Derek Chauvin.
On July 1, Sliwa held a press conference blasting de Blasio for last year’s cut amid calls to “defund the police” during the rioting.
“You now have almost $1 billion budget — more than most countries — and you still won’t re-fund the police,” Sliwa said at the press conference. “Which means you’re a police hater! There is no doubt about it. The reality is we need more police, we need to hire more police. We need to take the handcuffs off the police and put it on the criminals.”
Sliwa said Monday that there were 24 shootings in just the last 24 hours, with many of them in the Bronx, which he called “the belly of the beast.”
“I anticipate where I am tonight there will be a series of retaliatory shootings in response to what happened yesterday because they have been no arrests,” he said. “The cops are reactive, and no longer proactive.”
He also said New York City’s decision to end “qualified immunity” for officers, so that they could not be sued for certain actions while on the job, has rendered the world’s largest law enforcement agency “impotent.”
“That's just smack in the face to all law-abiding citizens, and to the police themselves,” he said. “That’s why I need to become the next mayor of the City of New York,” he said. “To restore the glory and the grandeur that the greatest NYPD police department always represented.”
Sliwa will face off in the November general election against one of three Democrats that are currently awaiting to see who won that party’s ranked choice voting primary in June.
Currently, former NYPD police captain Eric Adams is leading in that race by around 14,000 votes.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.