NYPD commish Tisch says crime spiked in NYC thanks to Cuomo’s bail reforms, not COVID

Don’t blame COVID for a sick rise in crime.

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch on Monday blamed criminal justice reforms passed by ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo for a pandemic-era spike in crime — while ripping the idea of President Trump sending the National Guard to the Big Apple.

Tisch jumped in when the moderator at an-otherwise cordial Citizens Budget Commission breakfast kicked off the Midtown event by implying that crime in the city rose because of disruptions caused by the coronavirus outbreak.

“It really gets me when people say that,” Tisch said. “The pandemic was tied with drastic changes in our criminal justice laws that happened to take effect Jan. 1, 2020 — the whole time during the pandemic.

“In my opinion, crime went up as a result of the drastic changes we see in our criminal justice laws in New York City,” she said.

The commissioner singled out the state’s Raise the Age law — which upped the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 18 and was passed by then-governor and current mayoral contender Cuomo in 2019 — as creating a “consequence-free environment” for youth.

“It is maddening, and the results of it are even more maddening,” she said. “The number of kids  that are victims of shootings are up 83% since those laws changed. The number of kids that are shooters is up almost 100% in that time.”

Crime remained stubbornly high in the city after Mayor Eric Adams took office in 2022, and only recently showed promising signs of decline.

Shootings in the city this summer reached record lows, as murder and other major felonies steadily declined this year as Tisch imposed law-and-order on an NYPD racked by leadership scandals.

Major studies have consistently found a link between the COVID-19 pandemic and dramatic spikes in crime in the Big Apple and other major US cities.

The perception of crime still being rampant is one that’s hard to shake, Tisch argued at the breakfast, while noting that the work is far from being done.

“I want to be very clear: we are nowhere near where we need to be,” she said. “Meaning, just because crime is down doesn’t mean that in many categories it’s where it was … in the 2010s before those criminal justice laws.”

Still, Tisch continued to look askance at Trump sending the National Guard to New York City.

The president has sent troops into Washington, DC, and Los Angeles to deal with crime and disorder in those cities. He has threatened to do the same in New York City and, especially, Chicago.

Amid the threats, Tisch told Attorney General Pam Bondi that the NYPD has crime under control.

She repeated that stance Monday and added the National Guard simply isn’t trained to handle street crime, before registering her disgust at sending the military into a major city.

“One of the very major concerns that I have around this topic of deploying the National Guard to New York City or big cities across the country, is that it will introduce an amount of chaos and disorder and confusion that will be counterproductive,” Tisch said.

“To say nothing of the fact that as a lifelong New Yorker, I am revolted by the idea of the militarization of our streets.”

The city can have better types of partnership with the feds to address crime in the city, particularly on shutting down illegal gun pipelines.

“Some of those federal criminal laws, they’re unbelievable,” she said admiringly. “I would take many more gun cases federally if we had more federal prosecutors.

“Let’s focus on the right type of partnership with the federal government,” Tisch continued. “The National Guard happens not to be that thing.”