Sunday School 4/17/22: Extra Credit

In your Sunday School, we learned about Senate struggles to agree on COVID aid, tales from the House Minority Leader, and we listened to two dads talking about kids and legacies.

For your Extra Credit, we're talking crime - something Democrats are running from, and Republicans are running on in this year's elections.

George Stephanopoulos hosted This Week; he spoke with New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell. 

George asked if we need better tracking of folks like Frank James, the suspect in the recent gas-and-shooting attack in the subway, who had hated-filled videos and "suggestions of violence" posted online. Adams believes we do, and that social media companies have a role to play.

There's a corporate responsibility when we are watching hate brew online. We can identify using artificial intelligence and other methods to identify those who are talking about violence. And you know my concerns around even what's called drill music. Not all drill music, but those that talks about inflicting violence on rival gangs. That is driving some of the shootings we're seeing in the parts of the Bronx.

Sewell said they've been working to "convince people that subways are safe," saying that patrols have been enhanced since January when she and Adams took the reins.

We've done over 280,000 additional inspections by uniform personnel in the subway system. Couple that with our subway safety task force. As it stands now, crime in the subway is actually below pre-Covid numbers.

She said more officers are being surged into the subway, recognizing that "people need to see a visible presence of police..." There's stuff we don't see, too, she said. 

Speaking to the continued increase in major crime since his election, Adams noted that it's a national problem, not just a problem in NYC. 

It's not a red state, blue state. In fact, red states are experiencing a higher murder rate than blue states. Tulsa is three times the murder rate of Los Angeles. Mississippi, Kentucky, Louisiana, those are the highest murder rates in our entire country.

He mentioned the 'defund the police' narrative that was heard before President Biden got elected, but turned that into a message for Republicans.

Let me tell you what the de-funders of police are... those who did not vote on the Build Back Better bill. Money was in that bill for police officers. We have 2,400 ATF agents in our country. Only 80 are in New York. We need to double that amount. We need to go after the ghost guns. We need to put a head to ATF in place. Put in place a real gun-tracing program. 

Sewell said police need to rebuild trust and work with the public to do that. It's something she and her officers do, every day, she said,

because we need them. And I think we keep saying that public safety is a shared responsibility. This recent case illustrates just that. And everyone came together. So, we need to build strength in our communities with the police.

George played a clip of former NYPD Commish William Bratton talking about reforms, and asked Adams if Bratton was right.

The scales right now are tipped very heavily in favor of the reforms of the progressive left. Well intended, some needed, but a bit too far. And what we have as a result is this growing fear of crime, this growing actual amount of crime, as evidenced in almost every major American city.

The mayor - a former NYPD captain - said yes. He admitted "major mistakes" had been made in the past, and he agreed with Sewell that they need to rebuild trust with the community. They can't do that 

by allowing those who are dangerous and that have... a repeated history of violence to continue to be on our streets. We have to un-bottleneck the courts. Too many people during Covid, when courts closed down, have not served their time or have not been in the courtroom. And then we have to be honest about some of the things we're doing generationally that has created the crime problem that we are facing right now. And that is why we believe in intervention and prevention to solve this issue that we're facing.

Sewell added that they can't "lose sight" of crime victims, either.

We believe the system has to be fair and balanced, but when we lose sight of the victims of crime, we are not doing what public safety is intended to do.

In the panel discussion, Democratic strategist Donna Brazile admitted the Rs will run on crime. It's a problem across the country, she said, because "we have a problem with gun violence... people are just shooting, shooting, shooting... It's not a Democratic problem. It's an American problem."

And, she said, it's going to take a "...'whole of government' approach" and private sector involvement,

because we’ve got to deal with the fact we have a lot of teenagers, a lot of folks who are just disconnected from society and we have to bring them back in. And if we don't bring them back in, crime is only going to increase.

Speaking of NYC specifically, where she had relatives in uniform, she said the crime budget is $11B, higher than the Ukrainian budget.

So, let's be clear that we can increase the number of policemen. We can increase the budget for police. But you’ve got to bring in Social Service workers, you’ve got to bring in the Youth and Child Department. This is a huge issue...

Former Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) appreciated Adams agreeing with Bratton that it was "progressive policies that have caused this wave in crime" (an over-simplification of what Bratton said and what Adams agreed with), but he thinks Adams, who ran on fighting crime, is "sticking to his word" and he thinks New Yorkers will "give him the benefit of the doubt" for that. 

Biden, on the other hand, doesn't get a pass. He was against 'defunding the police,' but

he was also standing with a lot of these reforms that have made - that have turned out to be a mistake. And it's not only reforms, it's the attitude of local prosecutors that have been elected, in places like Manhattan, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago who are refusing to prosecute some of these crimes.

The result of all of this is that "crime is going up. And Democrats are going to pay the price for it because it's their policies that changed us from a low crime country to a higher crime country."

George gave the last word to Maria Salinas, an ABC News contributor.

All right. But is it really -- does it have to do with policy or does it have to do -- especially the increase in the last couple of years, increase in crime, does it have to do more in the fact that people -- were in pandemic, people were locked up?

Doesn't mean that people locked up commit crimes once they come out, but all that frustration, losing your job, having the prices of everything being higher, doesn't that affect people? And you combine that with the access to weapons does not -- doesn't that increase a crime?

I've got thoughts on what Salinas said, but that'll have to wait for another day.

See you around campus.