...retired New York City police captain, member of the New York State Senate, first Black Brooklyn borough president, law and order Dem after a brief fling with the Publicans. The New York Times isn't fond of him, suspecting he may not actually be black..., gubernatorial primary challenger Rep. Tom Suozzi said he’s willing to wage war with fellow Democrats in a bid to tighten the controversial state law that eliminated cash bail for many criminal defendants.Citing surging crime, Suozzi directly challenged primary foe Gov. Kathy Hochul and Democrats who control the state Legislature, saying they will be failures if they refuse to take action in the 2022 legislative session to give judges more discretion over releasing criminal defendants pending trial.
"If we don’t address this problem, it’s a failure. Yes. Crime is a real problem in our state," Suozzi said during a Zoom presser Tuesday.
"It’s a shock to me that the governor hasn’t made this a priority at all," Suozzi said of bail reform and the overall spike in crime.
Suozzi cited statistics published by the Times Union that showed that about 3,400 criminal defendants out of 98,000 sprung under the cashless bail law for most misdemeanor crimes from July 2020 to June 2021 — or nearly 4 percent — were re-arrested for committing
"We’re trying to reform the system, and we’re trying to make a better system. And I’m saying that we need to give judges discretion in the cases where someone has a history of
"We need to take into account if somebody’s record has shown that person having a propensity for violence, and they’ve been arrested again, that we can’t let them out onto the streets again so readily."