By Ryan Saavedra
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) claimed on Sunday that the surge in crime in New York City is happening because people are “scared to pay their rent” and because of high unemployment numbers due to the pandemic.
Ocasio-Cortez made the remarks and other misleading statements during a Zoom video call that was posted to Twitter by The Hill.
Ocasio-Cortez claimed without evidence that the recent $1 billion budgetary cut by the New York City Police Department wasn’t “really real.”
CNN reported:
The approved budget includes nearly $484 million in cuts and will reallocate $354 million to other agencies “best positioned to carry out the duties that have been previously assigned to the New York Police Department, like the Department of Education, the Department of Health & Mental Hygiene and the Department of Homeless Services. Another $162 million was slashed through “associated costs,” the council said in a statement.
The approved budget also moves about $500 million of the department’s capital budget to other “badly needed infrastructure,” the City Council said, and reduces overtime spending by $352 million.
“So why is this uptick in crime happening?” Ocasio-Cortez asked. “Well, let’s think about it. Do we think this has to do with the fact there’s record unemployment in the United States right now? The fact that people are at a level of economic desperation that we have not seen since the Great Recession. Maybe this has to do with the fact that people aren’t paying their rent and are scared to pay their rent, and so they go out and they need to feed their child and they don’t have money so you maybe have to, they’re put in a position where they feel like they either need to shoplift some bread or go hungry that night.”
“Maybe it’s the fact that unemployment provisions have not been given to [everyone],” Ocasio-Cortez claimed. “May it’s because the fact that people, some people still haven’t gotten their stimulus checks yet.”
full story at https://www.dailywire.com/news/ocasio-cortez-nyc-crime-surge-maybe-due-to-people-being-scared-to-pay-their-rent-dont-have-jobs