The business owners who managed to keep things together during the pandemic shutdown only to have their livelihood destroyed by these looters are rightly outraged.
Jessica Betancourt owns an eyeglass shop that was looted and destroyed in the Bronx, she tells NBC New York, “I was in total shock that everything is being brushed off to the side.”
She says members of her local merchants association upon hearing the news of hundreds of looting cases being dismissed say it’s just “disgusting.”
“NYPD data reviewed by the NBC New York I-Team shows 118 arrests were made in the Bronx during the worst of the looting in early June.
Since then, the NYPD says the Bronx DA and the courts have dismissed most of those cases – 73 in all. Eighteen cases remain open and there have been 19 convictions for mostly lesser counts like trespassing, counts which carry no jail time…
In Manhattan, many major retailers and local shops were broken into in late May and into June. Amid the pandemic, mobs and organized criminals were taking advantage of huge protests rocking the city after the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd.
In Manhattan, the NYPD data shows there were 485 arrests. Of those cases, 222 were later dropped and 73 seeing convictions for lesser counts like trespassing, which carries no jail time. Another 40 cases involved juveniles and were sent to family court; 128 cases remain open.
Law enforcement expert and former NYPD Chief of Patrol Wilbur Chapman voiced anger at the DA’s dropping of so many looting and burglary cases.
“If they are so overworked that they can’t handle the mission that they're hired for, then maybe they should find another line of work,” Chapman said.”