“Two decades ago, this story would have dominated every front page in America for a week.”
America First Republican Again Calls for Restoration of Broken Windows Policing as Transit Crime Spirals
America First Republican candidate for New York’s 3rd Congressional District, Greg Hach, issued the following statement today in the wake of Saturday’s machete rampage at Grand Central Terminal:
“A man with a machete slashed and injured three people at New York City’s Grand Central subway station on Saturday before being fatally shot by police. Let me repeat that: A MACHETE-WIELDING MAN hunted down and carved up three elderly people in Grand Central Terminal on Saturday at 9:40 a.m.
“Two decades ago, this story would have dominated every front page in America for a week. It would have been the lead on every network broadcast. It would have been seared into the public consciousness as the kind of defining atrocity that demands accountability and immediate political action.
“Today, it’s just another Saturday in ‘progressive’ New York. Insane, broad-daylight attacks like this barely interrupt the news cycle before the next outrage takes its place.
“New York needs to return to what worked. Broken Windows policing transformed this city. When misdemeanor arrests rose by 10 percent — indicating increased use of the Broken Windows method — robberies dropped 2.5 to 3.2 percent, and motor vehicle theft declined by 1.6 to 2.1 percent, according to reports. Over the full arc from 1993 to 2013, the misdemeanor arrest rate increased by 54.8 percent, and during that same period, violent crime rates fell by approximately 72 percent — from 1,800 per 100,000 residents to 500. That is a proven, quantified, reproducible success.
“What did New York Democrats do with that legacy? They dismantled it. They eliminated bail requirements for violent offenders. They handcuffed prosecutors with discovery rules designed to collapse cases. They treated fare evasion — the gateway indicator of systemic breakdown — as a social justice issue rather than a public order crisis. They laughed at quality-of-life enforcement and called it racist. And now an 84-year-old man rides home from Grand Central with his skull fractured.
“Governor Hochul can issue her press releases calling it a ‘senseless act of violence.’ Mayor Mamdani can thank the NYPD for its ‘quick response.’ Both statements are the language of politicians who want to appear horrified while bearing zero responsibility for the conditions they created.
“Governor Hochul has presided over the bail reform regime that puts recidivist violent offenders back on the street. Mr. Mamdani is a socialist ideologue who has never met a policing tool he didn’t want to abolish. And Congressman Tom Suozzi — my spineless, poll-tested opponent — has been too busy repositioning himself for whatever political wind is blowing to take a coherent stand on any of this.
“These are not people who lack information. They lack will. They know exactly what Broken Windows policing accomplished. They know exactly what dismantling it has cost. They have made a political calculation that the commuters, the tourists, the elderly riders of the 4/5/6 are an acceptable price to pay for progressive credibility. I reject that calculation in its entirety.
“When I get to Congress, I will use every tool available — appropriations leverage, federal transit funding conditions, legislative pressure on Albany — to force a restoration of order-maintenance policing in New York’s transit system. The riders of this city are not laboratory subjects in a liberal criminology experiment. They are constituents. They are voters. They are human beings entitled to arrive at their destination without being carved up by a machete-wielding maniac already arrested more than a dozen times and put back on the street.
“New York Democrats built this. They own every drop of blood on those Grand Central platforms.”
