Anti-Semitic terrorist in New York had 7 arrests, little prison time

Deterrence. That is what’s missing from the equation in places like New York, and it is the overlooked reason why we are seeing so much violence against Jews, cops, and others in the Big Apple.

Much of the focus in the wake of the weekend anti-Semitic terror attack in Rockland County, New York, will be on the trend of anti-Semitism in the New York area. This was the 13^th anti-Semitic attack in just two weeks. According to the NYPD, anti-Semitic incidents have spiked by over 63 percent in New York City this year. We are now also seeing this in Jersey City in the wake of the anti-Semitic attack on the kosher grocery earlier this month in which a black supremacist couple killed four people, including a police officer.

However, there is no evidence that there is anything new fueling these outrages in the New York-New Jersey area. Unfortunately, there have long been many who subscribe to the poisonous Jew-hatred of the likes of Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan. That discussion deserves its own analysis and debate divorced from the criminal justice debate. What is new, however, is that there is no deterrent against such attacks any longer, just like there is no deterrent against other forms of crime, including drug trafficking, theft, subway violence, and assault on cops. Thus, all the potential violence, be it anti-Semitic, petty, or general violent crime, is now going kinetic.

Several years of policy after policy designed to reduce the prison population without reducing crime, culminating in New York’s omnibus jailbreak law beginning to take effect now, is likely the true culprit of all the violence. Societal changes have all thus far failed to stamp out hatred lurking in people’s hearts, but it takes only a functional criminal justice system that focuses on the victim and punishes criminals to prevent that hatred from killing or maiming people.

Just take the suspect in the Monsey attack, for example. He might be a raging anti-Semite, but he was also a generic criminal too. According to the Washington Post, Grafton E. Thomas, the 37-year-old resident of Orange County, New York, arrested for the attack, had seven prior arrests but served little time in prison:

But according to a security official briefed on the case, Thomas has been arrested at least seven times since 2001, on offenses that include assault, resisting arrest, killing or injuring a police animal, driving while under the influence, possessing controlled substances and menacing a police or peace officer. He appears to have received a jail sentence only for a 2013 arrest for possession of a controlled substance.

There are thousands upon thousands of people like Thomas throughout the country who are repeat violent offenders and barely serve time in prison. There is simply no deterrence against their behavior. Thanks to reduced sentencing, endless second and third chances for parole violations, abolishing pretrial bail, and seven ways from Sunday to plead down and get off on technicalities, we have reversed the gains we made against crime with policies put into place under Reagan and local officials who shared his vision. Disarming law-abiding citizens and treating cops like criminals is just the latest icing on the cake.

Assaulting civilians or cops sounds like a big deal, but you can’t blame these evil criminals for assuming they will not serve hard time. As the Daily Beast reports, Thomas’ first arrest in 2001 was for a firearms charge, but he served no jail time and got his case sealed. Other subsequent charges were of course reduced over time.

This is the epidemic nobody wants to discuss. We need criminal control, not gun control. The very same politicians who push gun control also refuse to deter and punish those caught illegally possessing or using firearms, even those with violent criminal records. It’s practically a miracle for prosecutors to land a conviction commensurate with the crime actually committed. Those claiming we over-incarcerate people are living in an alternative universe, because the reality is just the opposite. Yet all of the political momentum among the elites is behind reduced punishment, while the public remains largely unaware that these changes are being made.

Just take a look at some of the news stories out of New York as it prepares to abolish the requirement for cash bail for most crimes:

• Tiffany Harris, a 35-year-old Brooklyn woman, was arrested last week for assaulting three Jewish women and yelling, “F--- you, Jews.” Thanks to the new jailbreak law, Harris was released almost immediately without posting bail. The very next day, she was arrested for … you guessed it … assaulting another woman. Amazingly, she still has an open criminal case for assault from last November, and just last month she was sentenced to zero prison time for a criminal mischief conviction. According to the New York Post, she missed several court dates in that case, which is usually grounds to deny bail for subsequent charges, but that wasn’t even factored in.
• Last week, in Rockland County, New York, Jorge Flores-Villalba, a 27-year-old illegal alien, admitted to killing a mother of three in a reckless driving incident. He fled the scene and was driving without a license. The sad irony is that the victim, 35-year-old Marie “Rosie” Osai, was a legal immigrant. Thanks to the new jailbreak law, he was released immediately. Also, he was not turned over to ICE. Now, New York will reward the endless list of illegal alien drunk and reckless drivers by issuing them driver’s licenses, because, evidently, there won’t be enough of our own criminals on New York’s streets.
• The lack of deterrence is so evident that criminals are now randomly attacking cops, not even in the context of cops pursuing them. On Thursday, 40-year-old Steven Haynes was arrested for randomly sucker-punching a cop and then continuing to beat him on the ground in downtown Brooklyn. Guess what? He was released immediately without any bail.
• Earlier this month, Christopher Cole of Clifton Springs, New York, was released without bail after being charged with sending nude photos of girls as young as 10 years old.
• Mayor Bill de Blasio is planning to give those released from jail in January gift cards, Metro cards, and burner cell phones as a parting gift. Who says crime doesn’t pay?

The reality is that criminals are simply not deterred any more. This malignant movement to focus on the needs of criminals over victims has permeated every red state and Republican think tank and even policy aides in the White House. Unless Trump leads a national movement to fulfill his campaign promises on crime, we are headed back to the pre-Giuliani era.

What is evident from the Monsey attack and the growing violence throughout New York is that the best plan of attack against gun violence is criminal control; the best deterrent against anti-Semitism, white supremacism, black supremacism, or any other form of hatred that turns violent is criminal control. The best strategy against foreign criminals is not to let them into the country and to actually enforce immigration laws against them. In a twist, it turns out that the suspect in the Monsey attack is the child of an illegal alien who was amnestied in 1986. In a functioning sovereign nation, he would never even have been in the country, and in a functioning criminal justice system, he would have been behind bars long ago.

It’s law and order vs. anarchy. It’s that simple. Most dangerous criminals are repeat offenders and known wolves. Properly punishing and deterring them, while allowing law-abiding citizens to arm themselves, is the best defense against all forms of hate and violence. At its core, that is the job of government.

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