New York City has a huge problem, but they’re not alone. Pretty much every city in the nation is seeing a huge spike in violent crime, so the Big Apple isn’t unique in that perspective.

However, like many of our larger cities, they’re somehow resistant to using law enforcement to, oh, I don’t know…enforce the law.

Yet now, an officer has been shot and the president of the Policeman’s Benevolent Association is less than amused.

At a news briefing offering preliminary details of the shooting, PBA president Pat Lynch appeared alongside de Blasio, a rare appearance as tensions between the two intensified last year following protests on police violence and the PBA’s endorsement of President Donald Trump.

The 31-year-old officer, a six-year veteran assigned to a plainclothes anti-gun unit, was shot by the suspect in Soundview following a stop at the corner of Lafayette Avenue and White Plains Road on Tuesday night, according to police. The officer was identified by Bronx Councilmember Fernando Cabrera as Daniel Vargas, who is in stable condition.

Following remarks by de Blasio and NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea, Lynch took to the podium to criticize de Blasio’s crimefighting strategies that include a greater number of violence interrupters to preempt violent encounters among gangs.

WATCH as @NYCMayor and @NYPDShea provide an update on the officer who was shot down in the Bronx earlier this evening. pic.twitter.com/oczhp8owWD

— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) January 27, 2021

“Millions of dollars on violence interrupters and all these different programs, and thoughts and prayers aren’t gonna work,” Lynch said at the briefing at Jacobi Medical Center, where the officer was treated. “What we need to do is put cops on the street doing the job we know how to do, train them, hire them, put them on the street, allow them to do the job, and then prosecute the cases when we bring them in.”

…

But notwithstanding Lynch’s comments of an NYPD hamstrung by policy, the majority of shootings remain unsolved for 2020, according to the NY Post. Shea told the Post that the lack of witness cooperation drove that figure.

 

Of course, some New York officials opted to instead blame guns, claiming the federal government needs to pass more gun control. Nevermind this was a revolver with electrical tape holding the grip together, suggesting this thing had been on the black market so long it was pathetic. For an anti-gunner, that’s par for the course.

But does Lynch have a point?

Absolutely. As noted, most of the shootings remain unsolved, likely because there just aren’t enough officers on the street to solve them. That means these violent individuals are free to shoot other people. I mean, this isn’t rocket science here.

See, where New York is screwing up is in trusting just their intervention strategies to take care of things. That’s not how it works. It’ll stop a lot, sure, but you should couple that with a full complement of police officers to act if they don’t work. That’s the big problem with the “defund the police” movement. They expect programs that may take years to produce results to suddenly cut crime. So much so they cut law enforcement personnel and then wonder why crime is rising.

It’s not surprising that de Blasio is one of those who can’t see past his own ideology. The question is how many more people will be hurt because of that ideology?