Big Apple voters in near unison: Whoever wins must take on this crime wave!
Beyond the struggle between democrats and republicansthe approval or rejection of the Joe Biden Administration and the mixed emotions aroused by the figure of Donald Trump, for the New Yorkers who went to the polls this Tuesday to define the future of Congress, the governorship and the State Assembly, everything indicates that there is a great coincidence, which is summarized in an expression: We are overwhelmed by crime!
Without hesitation and without even thinking about it, the entirety of dozens of voters consulted by El Diario leaving the polling stations in Upper Manhattan, from their political extremes and their partisan views, they agreed that New York, and even more so the Big Apple, needs a turn in politics to confront rampant crime.
“We just want the streets to belong to the workers, the family, and the students. It can’t be that you walk at any time and what you see is that decadence of people taking drugs in the streets. And shops with closed cupboards, because thieves are not afraid to steal”, said the Dominican Celestino Cabral, 50 years old, when leaving to deposit his suffrage at the Juan Pablo Duarte school in Washington Heights.
Celestino, who has lived in Upper Manhattan since 2008, assures that there is an “abysmal difference” between the safe and prosperous city where he emigrated and where you currently live.
“I had first gone to live from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico. And I came precisely fleeing from the shootings. Now, here it is worse! You wonder every day if this is the place where you want to raise your children,” said the restaurant worker, who went to vote with his eleven-year-old daughter.
“New York needs a change”
The same opinion of the islander, he shared it at the “exit box” the Ecuadorian Angélica Palmawho for 25 years has not failed any electoral appointment, only that this year she went out to vote “stunned and scared” in the face of so much poverty and violence.
“It is not possible that in every block of this city and in the Subway, there are such aggressive and dangerous people loose, also demanding that you give him money. I came to vote for a change. New York needs a change,” she asserted.
Although in the political debate that was measured in these midterm elections, there were issues such as the economy, inflation, abortion, gender reaffirmation, crime, immigration and green energy, Until the last minute, what gained the most relevance in the polls in New York and that confronted the candidates for governor, was precisely the controversial Bail Law, a state penal reform that since 2019 stopped punishing minor crimes with jail.
Security! Security!
“We have years governed by the same party. And you look around you and everything is a mess, especially the crime, the homeless in droves. We are desperate for an economy that is not the same, but at the same time you have to be afraid that a bullet will kill you at any moment”stressed the Quisqueyana Carla Enriquez80 years old, leaving his polling station.
For his part, he Salvadoran Joaquín Colmenares, 68 years oldargued that when he went to vote at the Juan Pablo Duarte school in the “Little Dominican Republic”, he did not do it out of political sympathies, nor because he blindly followed any party, nor political leader, but because of “logical reasoning”.
“We must recover the security and benefits of citizens, of people who work honestly and pay their taxes. I don’t understand why any city, or state, they have to be financing the stay in hotels to those who enter illegally herewhen they have not been able to solve the housing problems of thousands and thousands of people”, concluded the retired teacher.
According to New York City Police Department (NYPD) statistics, crime increased by 15.2% last Septembercompared to the same time period in 2021.
Almost all categories of crimes especially robberies and theftshave increased between 2021 and 2022, with the exception of murder, which experienced a 23.5% decrease.
