The vicious murder of a woman via immolation on the F train — allegedly by an illegal migrant — has brought New York’s total subway murders to match 2022’s 25-year high, with 10 for the year so far.
That’s terrifying, but seemingly the new normal.
So how does our fearless leader in Albany, Gov. Hochul, react?
Well, on Sunday — the very day of the horrific arson-murder — she opted to brag about her supposed progress in reducing subway crime.
“In March, I took action to make our subways safer for the millions of people who take the trains each day,” she tweeted.
Now, “crime is going down, and ridership is going up.”
You’ve got to be kidding.
Could a political leader be more out of touch?
Or more oblivious to the horrors her constituents are facing?
Then again, who can forget her cold-hearted denials during her 2022 campaign when she claimed fears of crime were simply manufactured by “master manipulators” in a “conspiracy” ahead of Election Day?
And asked her foe, Lee Zeldin, why crime was “so important” to him.
Here’s the painful truth: Crime is simply not a priority for Hochul, even though she clearly knows the public cares deeply about it.
Hence, her gaslighting tweet Sunday.
It’s pathetic: Hochul has never been willing (or able) to take on the Albany pols who’ve enflamed crime via their monstrous progressive policies and or pro-perp prosecutors and judges who couldn’t care less about the public.
Their pro-thug “reforms” to criminal-justice law have seen crooks empowered and cops hobbled.
Farebeating is no longer meaningfully prosecuted, even though evidence shows people who jump turnstiles often go on to commit worse crimes, as that small lawlessness paves the way.
Meanwhile, President Biden’s open border, coupled with our obscene “sanctuary city” laws, have brought an influx of pimps, killers and psychos here, like the F-train immolator.
On top of all this, add the ongoing mental-health crisis in New York, in which crazy people are “compassionately” left to wander the streets thanks to highly limited legal means of compelling them into treatment.
It amounts to a recipe for total horror underground.
As we have seen again and again.
From the 2022 murder of Michelle Go to Sunday’s killing.
And straphangers are too frightened to step in and help, not least because doing so carries with it the risk of prosecution from crime-loving Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
That’s what happened when Daniel Penny bravely stepped up to defend his fellow riders from a deranged vagrant.
Hochul can post away while Rome burns.
But barring wholesale political change from her on down, best to keep your hopes in check for major improvement any time soon.