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This is the third part of a Fox News Digital series about “defund the police” politicians and crime in the areas they represent. Read the first two parts here and here.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., who has repeatedly called for defunding the police, has seen skyrocketing crime in the Northern Bronx part of his district.
Bowman, a Democratic socialist who joined the far-left Squad with Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., upon their swearing-in last January, has been vocal about his support for dismantling the U.S. criminal justice system.
“A system this cruel and inhumane can’t be reformed. Defund the police, and defund the system that’s terrorizing our communities,” Bowman tweeted the month after his election on Dec. 29, 2020.
“Republicans want to defund every government program except for those that actively terrorize Black and brown people,” he tweeted April 19, 2021.
‘SQUAD’ MEMBER CALLS FOR DRAMATIC REDUCTION’ IN POLICE IN ‘POOR COMMUNITIES’ AMID CRIME SPIKE
U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) speaks at the National Action Network’s (NAN) three-day annual national convention on April 07, 2022 in New York City. ((Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
“It’s time to disarm the police,” Bowman tweeted Oct. 14, 2019.
Since taking office, Bowman has seen violent crime on the rise in the Northern Bronx region of his 16th congressional district, which includes the Spuyten Duyvil, Woodlawn, Eastchester Heights, and Co-op City neighborhoods of the New York City borough.
According to the New York City Police Department’s crime map, Bowman’s district encompasses all or part of precincts 45, 47, and 50 in the Bronx. Every week, the NYPD publishes statistics regarding the seven major crime categories in each precinct, which includes murder, rape, robbery, felonious assault, burglary, grand larceny, and grand larceny auto.
Fox News Digital took the total number of violent crimes reported in those three precincts so far this year (3,396) and compared it to the total number last year (2,609), according to the NYPD’s Aug. 1-Aug. 8 report.
The analysis found that violent crime is up roughly 30% overall in the Northern Bronx compared to last year, with the biggest uptick occurring in Precinct 50 with a 74% increase. That precinct, which includes the neighborhoods of Spuyten Duyvil, Fieldston and Riverdale, also recorded a 123.5% increase in robberies and a 153% increase in grand larceny auto since last year.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) speaks at a demonstration where MoveOn.org delivered over 1 million signatures calling for Congress to immediately investigate and impeach Clarence Thomas at the US Supreme Court on July 28, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for MoveOn)
Other parts of Bowman’s district are also experiencing an uptick in violent crime. The much less-populated city of Mount Vernon, for instance, has seen a 39.4% increase so far this year compared to 2021, with a 20.7% jump in robberies and 21.7% increase in burglaries.
Smaller cities in Bowman’s district, like New Rochelle and Rye, don’t report as up-to-date information as New York City, but reported a nominal decrease in some violent crimes between 2020 and 2021. In New Rochelle, violent crime was mostly down except for rape and burglary, which both increased. In Rye, burglaries were down, but assaults remained the same during that time.
Paul Mauro, a retired NYPD inspector, penned an op-ed for Fox News Digital on Aug. 8 that similarly examined the district of Ocasio-Cortez, perhaps the most prominent advocate for defunding the police.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., speaks during a rally for immigration provisions to be included in the Build Back Better Act outside the U.S. Capitol, Dec. 7, 2021 in Washington. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Mauro found that Ocasio-Cortez’s 14th congressional district, which also covers parts of the Bronx and shares precinct 45 with Bowman, had seen a 44.1% increase in violent crimes compared to 2021.
Mauro noted that during the George Floyd unrest of 2020, Ocasio-Cortez complained that a proposed budget cut of $1 billion to the NYPD’s annual budget didn’t go far enough, and that “Defunding police means defunding police.”
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Then-mayor Bill de Blasio wound up signing the fiscal year 2021 budget in July 2020, cutting about $382 million – or 6.8% – from the NYPD to $5.22 billion, City & State reported. The fiscal year 2022 budget saw a slight increase to $5.44 billion for the NYPD and another increase to $5.53 billion in the 2023 budget, which was adopted in June, the publication said.
The offices of Bowman and Ocasio-Cortez did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.
