Here’s a root cause for you: Accused subway killer Andrew Abdullah was freed without bail on car-theft charges, despite prosecutors’ request for a $15,000 bond, just weeks before the murder of Goldman Sachs employee Daniel Enriquez.
Now he’s cooling his heels at Rikers, charged with second-degree murder and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon. Too late.
Abdullah’s long rap sheet since 2016 includes charges of felony assault, robbery, attempted murder and a still-open gun charge from two years ago.
As Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said at the news conference announcing Abdullah’s arrest, the criminal-justice system failed Daniel Enriquez, and key to that failure is the law ordering New York judges not to consider dangerousness.
Indeed, judges across the state are reading the no-bail law to mean that only in rare cases should even clearly dangerous suspects be remanded — and the earlier Raise the Age act as telling them to send even clearly violent gangbangers into toothless Family Court.
In short, the “criminal-justice reform” extremists are as shameful as the National Rifle Association — and both sets of absolutes yield the deaths of innocents.
New York lawmakers need to find their backbones, reject the extremists in their ranks and amend these reforms so cops, prosecutors and judges can regain the upper hand when it comes to dealing with dangerous career criminals and recidivists.
Do it in the name of Michelle Go, Kyhara Tay, Daniel Enriquez and so many other victims of criminal-justice reforms that produce rank injustice.