Democrat run cities have been spreading a fallacy - That crime rates have been going down and that their policies have been effective. This fallacy is supported by FBI crime rate data, but what Democrat don't say is that this data has been incomplete since 2020.
At the onset of the covid pandemic the FBI started an overhaul of it's crime data collection system. This change meant that numerous cities across the US were not required to provide full crime stats to the agency for years. New York and LA sharply under-reported crime data from 2020 through 2023. In fact, the FBI is only supposed to begin collecting that data in totality from all US cities in 2025.
That's right, this means that crime rates will look like they are exploding in 2025 just as conservatives take power in the federal government, but only because the stats will finally be complete. Crime was actually lower under Donald Trump from 2016-2020, and spiked by 43% under Joe Biden from 2020 to 2022.
Keep this reality in mind when Democrat officials like NYC Mayor Eric Adams or Governor Kathy Hochul claim that crime is going down on their watch. It's simply not true. Hochul was recently confronted by a reporter on this issue after a string of attacks in New York subways, only to duck the question.
NY Governor Kathy Hochul is literally left speechless as a reporter demolishes her "subways are safer" lie with crime stats pic.twitter.com/cPFbxBGcF5
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) December 19, 2024
Multiple violent attacks have occurred on NYC subways since Hochul declared the transit system safe, including a man pushed by an assailant into an oncoming train.
NYC subway shover is 23-year-old Kamel Hawkins and he’s just been charged with attempted m*rder for shoving a 45-year-old man in front of a train at the 18th Street station today.
— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) January 1, 2025
The victim will reportedly survive. pic.twitter.com/kouKZbhqzK
The suspect in that attack has been arrested by police and identified as Kamel Hawkins, a 23-year--old with a history of violent activity. After pushing the random stranger onto the train tracks, Hawkins fled the station and was arrested hours later above ground near Columbus Circle.
Hawkins has a record of aggressive behaviors and past crimes including an assault on a police officer. In 2019, Hawkins was charged with slamming an officer to the ground on Flushing Avenue, leaving him with a back injury. The suspect also has open cases for assault, harassment and weapons possession charges. Reports indicate that he was released without bail in a separate case in 2020 despite prosecutors asking that he be held.
Much like Jordan Neely, a NYC vagrant with an extensive criminal history and a history of mental illness, Kamel Hawkins was set loose upon the unsuspecting New York public even though he was a clear danger. Previous progressive policies of police defunding and lighter sentencing for repeat offenders has led to a wave of violence in leftist cities which Democrats refuse to report accurately.
Mayor Eric Adams was quick to dismiss concerns of rising crime in a press conference on the subway issue, once again repeating the false assertion that crime is falling even though complete data for New York has not been made available.
To Eric Adams credit, he did defend Daniel Penny after the Jordan Neely incident, stating:
“You have someone on that subway who was responding, doing what we should have done as a city in a state of having a mental health facility...”
However, these individual incidents of crime are not happening in a vacuum and Mayor Adams knows this. He also likely knows that New York has been under-reporting their crime stats for years and that Democrat policies are to blame for the continuing revolving door that allows repeat offenders back onto the streets over and over again. This is not ransom or "perceived" crime, it is a pattern that Democrats play a large part in perpetuating.
