[Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”]
Last week rapes were up nearly 50% in New York City and up 26% over a 28 day period. While this was part of a pattern of violent crime with murders up 400% over the week and up 10% over a 28 day period, sexual assaults have been rising much more consistently in New York.
The number of sexual assaults this year in what some are calling New Rape City is rapidly approaching 1,400, well ahead of last year’s 1,100 at this time and is likely to surpass last year’s horrifying total of over 1,700 sexual assaults. Last year, rapes increased 13%, rising as much as 300% in some parts of New York City, and this year is about to be worse.
This would continue the increase from 1,455 in 2023. And a nearly 20% increase from 2020.
Pro-crime politicians like Gov. Hochul and state Democrats have claimed that they are fighting the epidemic of sexual assault in New York with measures like the ‘Rape is Rape Act’, but their efforts to redefine rape won’t fix the real problem which is the series of pro-crime measures, like eliminating bail, promoting ‘diversion’ for criminals and making low prison populations the priority, that have filled the state and especially the city with hordes of violent criminals.
One serial sex offender had been arrested 29 times, including 13 times for sex-related offenses, but was still on the loose after he was finally arrested for punching several women and groping several underage girls. A mugger who not only robbed, but also assaulted and engaged in sexual contact with his victim was out after his arrest. Another career criminal with 8 prior arrests assaulted a sunbather in broad daylight in Central Park. And a monster released from prison for raping a 13-year-old girl was arrested once again for five acts of sexual misconduct including groping a 10-year-old girl and threatening to kill her.
And it’s not only women who are the victims of the city’s sex predator assault spree.
Mohammed Azeem, who had previously been arrested for sexual misbehavior on public transportation, was arrested after allegedly sexually assaulting a man on the subway.
Sanctuary city policies that protect illegal alien criminals have also made the streets of the city into a hunting ground for migrants including one who sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl.
But as bad as ‘New Rape City’ has become, it may be about to get even worse.
Zohran Mamdani, the pro-crime mayoral candidate currently favored to win, complained that the population of criminals in Rikers Island had increased by over a thousand and vowed, “we know we can reduce that jail population to less than four thousand” or specifically 3,700. Rikers currently has around 7,000 criminals. Mamdani’s proposal would set loose around 3,300 or 47% of the population of Rikers Island. As bad as the city’s rape epidemic is now, it may be about to get 47% worse.
With most criminals being released almost as soon as they are arrested, the population of the remanded on Rikers that Mamdani is proposing to set loose on New Yorkers represent the worst of the worst. Mamdani quoted a proposal for releasing half the criminals on Rikers Island that entails setting loose first time offenders charged with violent felonies including rape.
Additional proposals included freeing everyone charged with a list of sentences that covers sexual misconduct, forcible touching, as well as sexual abuse in the second and third degrees.
Freeing thousands of criminals, including sex offenders, will take New York City’s already high levels of sexual assaults to a horrifying new level. Women and girls will be some of the greatest victims of Mamdani’s plan to release half the population of Rikers back onto the streets.
Criminals who have been kept in custody even under the current pro-crime regulatory regime because of their disturbing crimes, including violent felonies like rape, will be out on the street.
Among them, quite possibly, Mohammed Azeem.
Zohran Mamdani, who had proposed having social workers instead of the police respond to domestic violence (a problem that Muslim migrants disproportionately suffer from) also had a communications director who was charged with “sexual solicitation of a child” alongside Beau Biden’s top deputy. Mamdani described the staffer as a “big part of why we won”.
Even the ‘Rape is Rape Act’, used by Democrats to posture their opposition to sexual assault was actually proposed by Assemblywoman Aravella Simotas, a local Queens politician, whom Mamdani had moved from Manhattan to oust by exploiting the local Muslim bloc vote.
Sexual assaults also rose significantly in the areas that Mamdani represents.
But with or without Mamdani, the combination of thousands of illegal alien criminals and a justice system that has been retooled to free criminals instead of locking them up have sent sexual assault statistics soaring. And as the numbers keep rising, there’s no end in sight because there is also virtually no deterrent to sex predators committing their crimes.
In the final quarter of the previous year, less than 1 in 3 rapists were arrested.
It’s unknown how many of those arrested would ever see trial or the inside of a prison cell, but the system is currently rigged to give every opportunity to offenders and none to their victims.
Pro-crime politicians have made New York profoundly unsafe for women and girls. And predators emboldened by the knowledge that they can do what they want are carrying out horrifying attacks in public places. A homeless man entered a nail salon on Labor Day and tried to undress and assault an employee, she broke free and ran out, but he dragged her inside.
Then she hit him over the head with a vacuum cleaner.
As Mamdani’s plans to defund the police and free even more criminals take hold, more women will be left on their own to fight off criminals. And they won’t all have vacuum cleaners.
The nail salon rapist has been arrested and sent off, without bail, to Rikers Island. At least until Zohran Mamdani lets him out.
