A city judge finally dared to order Tiffany Harris detained Tuesday — but only because he wants a psychiatric evaluation.
If she didn’t show signs of mental issues, she’d still be walking free, despite two arrests within days for attacking innocents. Indeed, as The Post has reported, most of the alleged perps in the rest of the recent wave of anti-Semitic assaults have walked soon after their arrests.
Similarly, video shows Steven Haynes of Brooklyn sucker-punching and wrestling a cop to the ground, yet he was released from jail the very next day.
Thanks to the state’s new “no-bail” law, which mandates near-instant release unless a suspect is charged with one of a handful of violent crimes — and slapping three Orthodox women while saying, “F U, Jews!” as Harris allegedly did, doesn’t qualify.
Only her latest bizarre behavior — pinching a social worker during a court-ordered sitdown — led Judge Joseph Gubbay to require her detention pending that psych evaluation. Shouldn’t officials have pushed for that after her second recent arrest — which follows more than a dozen other arrests?
Despite Mayor Bill de Blasio’s recent vow to make more use of Kendra’s Law to get mandatory Assisted Outpatient Treatment (or AOT) orders from courts, the city’s mental health system remains blatantly reluctant to in any way coerce those walking the streets with serious mental illness — even when they pose an evident public-safety threat.
Incidentally, while the city got AOT orders for nearly 2,500 people last year, it’s not reporting on the rate of compliance — and may not even be tracking that data.
Or, for that matter, trying to enforce the orders. It seems the new law won’t allow an arrest if cops, sheriffs or mental health workers encounter an AOT “absconder” — and it’s not even clear how they can force that person to go to a psychiatric ER.
Now the new no-bail law adds to the dangers, as even “moderately” violent criminal behavior won’t get you locked up — only “serious” violence.
Meanwhile, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office on Thursday let an accused drunk driver walk despite plans to charge him with manslaughter, because it can’t provide enough info to his defense lawyers as required by new state “discovery” rules.
The New York political establishment seems bent on ensuring that law enforcement can’t keep the general public safe.
