Former Gov. David Paterson said Sunday that he has never felt less safe in the Big Apple — and warned local Democrats they could be in for an electoral “monsoon” if they don’t get crime under control.
“I never felt as unsafe as I do now just walking around,” the ex-governor and lifelong New Yorker told host John Catsimatidis on WABC Radio’s “Cats Roundtable.”
“For the first time in my life, even in the late ’80s and ’90s when the crime rate was killing 2,000 people a year, I never felt as unsafe as I do now just walking around,” he said.
Paterson noted several recent high-profile subway assaults, including three knife attacks that occurred in a single day Thursday.
“You’re hearing about an assault on the subway almost every other day,” he said.
Felony crime in the city was up over 15% citywide last month compared to September 2021, recent NYPD statistics showed.
The number of subway assaults also has increased year-over-year, while remaining below the levels seen before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to NYPD.
Paterson, a Democrat who served as the state’s first black governor from 2008 to 2010, chastised his party for failing to address “a rather small number of who seem
to repeat these offenses and get arrested 20, 30, 50 times.
“People start to think that power lasts forever, and people can start to think that they are immune from any kind of repercussions,” Paterson said of fellow Democrats.
He pointed to Democratic losses in Nassau County’s executive and district attorney races, when he said the party got caught in the “monsoon” of voter concerns about crime.
“That could happen again unless some of these people who have not been speaking out start doing it,” he said, adding, “I don’t want to be the one in November to say, ‘I told you so.’ “
Speaking to The Post on Sunday afternoon, Paterson called on Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers to introduce a so-called ” ‘dangerous’ standard” to give judges more discretion under the state’s 2019 bail-reform laws.
“There is a ‘ “dangerous” standard’ in every state except New York. There should be a ‘ “dangerous” standard’ in New York,” the former governor said.
He declined to criticize Mayor Eric Adams, saying he’d give Hizzoner a “B+” for his handling of crime thus far.”
Mayor Adams is doing as well as can be expected at this particular time,” Paterson said. “He’s talking about getting Albany more involved. He deserves more time to get his arm around the problem.”
