Manhattan’s woke district attorney has been blasted for trying to defend the release of a suspected teenage mugger who was filmed beating an NYPD cop two days later.
Alvin Bragg’s office was blasted over its decision to free the 16 year-old, who hasn’t been named, over a mugging on Madison Avenue last Wednesday – only for the same suspect to allegedly punch a cop 20 times in a Harlem subway station three days later.
Former prosecutor turned defense lawyer Mark Bederow, argued that the DA bungled the case which he told Fox News, definitely falls under ‘extraordinary circumstances.’
‘The DA clearly knew that they were prosecuting the same offender for a violent robbery,’ he told the news outlet. ‘If that is not an extraordinary circumstance, what is? If violence against police officers is unacceptable, why ignore the violent robbery arrest. This isn’t accountability. This is lunacy.’
Bederow spoke in response to Bragg spokesperson Emily Tuttle’s insistence that they’d made the right move with freeing the young offender – and letting him walk free again after the cop attack.
The youngster appeared in a Manhattan court Tuesday, and even asked if he could press charges of his own – but declined to say who he wished to prosecute.
‘Our system must respond to children as children and intensive community monitoring was the appropriate pre-trial determination for a fifteen-year-old child with no previous arrests,’ she said.
‘Violence against our police officers is unacceptable and given his age at the time of arrest, we consented to send his second case to Family Court as soon as possible, where he would receive the age-appropriate interventions and supports he needs while being held accountable,’ Tuttle continued.
But her words cut little ice with other criminal justice figures.
Police Benevolent Association leader Patrick Lynch seemed to throw his hands up over what he called failure of the system.
‘We’re having this debate about what court it should go to, but the reality is that it doesn’t matter at this point — they’re releasing everyone. The criminal justice system is no longer set up to protect the public from dangerous criminals. It’s set up to fail.’
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