While cultivating a name for herself as a firebrand in national politics, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been missing in action in her own Bronx and Queens district where crime has risen a whopping 70 percent since she took office in 2019 — an increase almost twice that of the rest of the city.
That’s the conclusion of a New York Post analysis of New York Police Department data culled from the lawmaker’s congressional district as well as reactions from local residents and community leaders to the runaway crime spree.
Major crimes consist of murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny, and auto theft.
Most notably, the 110th Precinct in Queens, which covers the prostitution and transnational gang crime area of Roosevelt Avenue, saw a 105 percent surge, which the Post cited as the highest increase of any city precinct.
As Breitbart reported this week, the Roosevelt was the site of the “bodega brothel” operating across from two elementary schools. Police padlocked the operation after community protests where local advocates complained they received no help from the congresswoman.
Other precincts in Cortez’s Queens-Bronx congressional district similarly saw major-crime increases higher than the citywide average. Some residents blamed the increasing crime on the AWOL lawmaker. Reported the Post:
“She’s not doing shit. She doesn’t live in the neighborhood, she doesn’t care,” vented Elmhurst resident Guadelupe Alvarez, who has lived in the 110th Precinct her whole life and is one of several constituents who ripped the jet-setting absentee “Squad” member for letting the district turn to “trash” while she focuses on elevating herself on the national stage.
Alvarez, 34, a former AOC supporter, told the Post she has had to endure a brothel operating across the street from her childhood home. Drunken men, she said, constantly swarm in and out of the place. She said she also regularly witnesses gang activity, car thefts and assaults, but nothing gets done.
She added, “I can’t wait to get — pardon my language — the fuck out of here. It makes me so sad that they’ve done that to push me out of my neighborhood. And I’m not the only one. . . . I could never have a family here.”
Elmhurst’s Ramses Frias, a Republican City Council candidate, also blamed the lawmaker whose celebrity in left wing circles has spawned her trademark nickname, AOC. “You have a mouth to speak up,” Frias told the Post. “People are suffering. They’re scared to go outside.”
The Post article also pointed out that during the defund the police movement, Ocasio-Cortez slammed a proposed $1.5 billion cut to the NYPD as not going far enough. That year, New York Finest’s canceled an incoming cadet class that would have added 1,163 officers to the force
As Breitbart reported Friday, last fall Mayor Eric Adams launched “Operation Restore Roosevelt” to try to clean up the two-mile stretch of Roosevelt Avenue. The effort has apparently made some headway, with hundreds of arrests and a 37 percent drop in crime this year in the area.
But overall, according to the Post, the Roosevelt corridor crime rate remains well above 2019 levels.
The Post detailed its methodology in coming up with the crime figures:
For the analysis, The Post looked at the NYPD’s historical crime data for the seven major felony offenses for the precincts that remained part of Ocasio-Cortez’s 14th Congressional district throughout her time in office — the 43rd and 45th precincts in the Bronx, and the 109th, 110th, 114th and 115th precincts in Queens.
According to the newspaper, Ocasio-Cortez’s office did not return the publication’s request for comment.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
