NYC needs cops, not violence interrupters

For another sign of the lunacy of lefty policies, witness the absurd-as-it-is-tragic arrest this week of Michael Rodriguez — who headed up a Bronx-based anti-violence program that employs so-called “violence interrupters” — as part of a massive upstate drug and gun bust. 

Rodriguez stands accused of supplying drugs to dealers in Middletown and Port Jervis; a raid on his home netted more than $165,000 in cash and two illegal guns.

How on Earth was this guy ever put in charge of keeping NYC streets safe?

Yet he was: BRAG (Bronx Rises Against Gun Violence) is one of the city’s partner organizations in its 2022 Blueprint to End Gun Violence. 

Look, there’s nothing wrong with the idea of community groups — in many cases staffed by older-and-wiser ex-cons — dedicated to outreach, squashing beefs and counseling kids away from crime. 

But interrupters can’t replace actual policing, as the left keeps pretending.

As witness Gotham’s crime numbers, with total felonies up 39% since 2021.

Murders are 40% above 2019 levels.

Indeed, the available statistical evidence to date suggests “interruption” programs do very little, if anything, to drive down crime rates.

That’s something even the diehard progressives over at Vox have been compelled to admit (though their political compatriots in the Big Apple are still holding onto pointless hope). 

Note, too, that Rodriguez isn’t the only such case. 

A Chicago interrupter, Jerel Taylor, was arrested in January after being caught with mucho cash, drugs and illegal guns; 2022 saw a Pasadena interrupter arrested on a domestic violence charge; in 2020, a DC interrupter was arrested and charged with murder.

Given that many interrupters themselves have troubled pasts, this is not unexpected — but it is a massive embarrassment for the policy’s backers. 

Mayor Eric Adams, ex-cop that he is, likely gets all this.

The outreach his admin has done toward such groups is politically savvy (it’s a bone thrown to the loony left) but less than useless for actual public safety. 

But the Rodriguez absurdity should serve as a turning point on how much theater Adams will tolerate as he tries to make New York safe again.