‘There Must Be Consequences’: NYC Democrat Rep Slams Officials When Suspect Who Was Released Early Is Accused in Fatal Stabbings
A Democrat official in the Bronx is furious over failed criminal justice reforms that enabled 51-year-old suspect Ramon Rivera to allegedly go on a crime spree.
Rep. Ritchie Torres took aim at New York leaders Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) and New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) regarding the horrific case wherein three people were murdered, allegedly by the mentally ill man who was released from custody early, Fox News reported on Monday.
“The bureaucrat in DOC [Department of Correction] who authorized the early release of Ramon should be fired,” Torres said in his letter, adding, “Those who cannot be entrusted with public safety should no longer be employed by the people of New York.”
Rivera has a lengthy criminal history, and according to Fox, he was behind bars for a while until he was transferred to the psychiatric ward in Bellevue Hospital. While at the facility, he allegedly attacked a correction officer.
“There must be consequences when government fails and when innocent New Yorkers lose their lives. We live in a City and State where the only people who seem to suffer consequences are the victims of crime and their loved ones. Enough is enough,” Torres wrote in a social media post on Monday:
The homeless suspect was recently arrested for stabbing three people to death on November 18. The first victim was a construction worker, the second was a fisherman, and the third was a woman sitting quietly on a park bench, CNN reported on Sunday.
The outlet continued:
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat who represents the area where the stabbings occurred, on Thursday joined nearly a dozen city and state elected officials to demand accountability, saying Rivera was “released into the public without sufficient care or oversight.”
“Mr. Rivera’s case is a damning indictment of the failures of the criminal justice and mental health systems in New York City,” Nadler and the others wrote in a letter Thursday, echoing the mayor. The three deaths “may have been prevented,” they said in the letter.
Rivera is accused of stabbing the victims with a large kitchen knife, per Fox 5.
Video shows Rivera moments before the attacks began, donning a sweatshirt, hat, and gloves. He then retrieves what appears to be the knife out of his backpack before sliding it into his pocket:
“These tragedies are preventable but neither the city nor the state seem to possess the political will to prevent them, despite having the tools to do so,” Torres continued in his letter:
The state refuses to grant the mayor the legal authority he needs to prevent dangerous people from roaming the streets. The city refuses to hold DOC accountable for the early release of a demonstrably dangerous criminal who went on a stabbing spree. The end result is incompetence that is not only destructive but deadly for New Yorkers.
As a result of the stabbings, three families were left to mourn their loved ones:
A relative of the construction worker who was killed told CBS New York, “He was a father figure to me. Hundreds of thousands of people in Manhattan and why, out of every person, he chose mine.”
