FILE:
NEW YORK (77WABC) — Controversial Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg admitted Tuesday that even his neighborhood of Harlem is in crisis as crime soars, pointing to an escalation surge of street violence.
“I still live in Harlem, in the upper part of the borough, which is really in the middle of a crisis,” Bragg said during a virtual talk with the nonprofit Coro New York Leadership Center in Lower Manhattan. “I was at an anti-gun rally on Saturday [in Harlem], and then I left and found out that a few blocks away at almost the exact time, there was another shooting,”
His admission comes the day after The New York Post reported on local outrage over the Manhattan neighborhood’s recent series of high-profile crimes, which have included the shooting deaths of NYPD cops Jason Rivera and Wilbert Mora. The embattled D.A. has been under fire for rolling back some misdemeanor and felony laws, putting pretrial detainees back out onto the streets.
Crime is up 30% in Harlem and over 70% citywide since the start of the year.
