Two offsetting trends are plaguing New York City. One is a rise in anti-Semitism. The other is the systematic release of perpetrators of hate selected crimes against Jews without bail. In one case, a woman was arrested and released three separate times for anti-Semitic assaults. The fact that a preponderance of the suspects behind these crimes are black adds an interesting wrinkle to the phenomenon. (RELATED: At a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise, why do prominent black anti-Semites get a pass?)
The latest offender is a Brooklyn native named James Polite. On Tuesday he was set free without bail after having been charged with hate crimes and arson in connection with his having set fire to seven Jewish sites and vandalized a synagogue.
You might expect Polite to know better, not only as a member himself of two “oppressed groups” — he is black and identifies as “queer” — but as a graduate of a respectable college, Brandeis University. Even more puzzling about his animosity toward Jews is the fact that as a young child he was taken in by a Jewish couple after his mother left him in “unsanitary” conditions. It’s all very curious, and yet here we are.
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According to The Daily Caller, Polite was captured on security footage setting fires at seven synagogues and yeshivas in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. The Daily Caller adds that he is alleged to have written “Die Jew Rats” and “Hitler” at the Union Temple of Brooklyn in November 2018.
After Polite’s arrest, the New York Times reported that “mental illness and addiction” were factors in his alleged crime spree, adding that he had “struggled with marijuana use” while in college. “A day before the alleged hate crimes, Polite posted a picture of a burning American flag on Facebook.”
So why has a firebug and Jew hater with a drug problem and a screw loose been set free on New York City streets? The answer can be found in New York’s new “bail reform” legislation, which requires that “suspects in non-sexual assault cases who don’t cause physical injury … be released without bail.”
How ridiculous is that law? So much so that even Mayor Bill de Blasio, arguably the most far-left figure on earth, has problems with it. According to Fox 5 New York, the mayor has said:
We think the impulse behind that legislation is a good one but that legislation needs to be improved to protect the rights of judges to have flexibility to hold someone in when they present a danger to the community.
Hear, hear.
