Lefties' pro-migrant push-back on Tisch's e-bike crackdown is obscene

New York Post

2 days ago

City Council lefties just proved again that they care a lot more about protecting law-breakers than the safety of law-abiding New Yorkers.
Every. Single. Time.
The proof? How they used a budget hearing to assail NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch for deciding to issue criminal summonses to law-breaking e-bike riders, instead of mere traffic-court tickets, to discourage reckless road behavior.
Their gripe?
A lot of e-bike riders are delivery drivers for food apps, and a lot of delivery drivers are illegal immigrants — who might get deported if slapped with a criminal summons.
Ergo, the progressives insist, the NYPD should give up on any kind of meaningful consequences for every e-biker caught blasting through a red light, barreling down a sidewalk or otherwise putting other New Yorkers at risk.
Yes, really.
Queens Councilwoman Tiffany Cabán insisted cops will go out of their way to target minorities, offering this word-salad: 'A person who is more likely to be a person of color may end up in deportation proceedings. It's not just right.'
No, what's 'not right' is pretending that basic public-safety enforcement is somehow racist.
Meanwhile, Brooklyn's Lincoln Restler, a pro-cycling fanatic, worried about 'more people getting swept up in our criminal justice system who don't need it.'
Obscene: He had the gall to oppose increased enforcement just days after a fast-moving e-bike rammed a 3-year-old girl, sending her to the hospital, in his own district.
Nobody's getting 'swept up' in the justice system here as long as they simply obey the rules of the road.
Tisch held her own against the avalanche of 'questions' that painted the NYPD as racist jackboots, rightly noting: 'This is not a war on e-bikes, this is a response to very real concerns that are widely held across virtually every borough, every New Yorker in this city.'
She's spot-on: Most Gothamites have a story of a near-miss (or full-on collision) with an out-of-control cyclist, and it's only grown worse with the rise of e-bikes.
Even Restler has admitted that dangerous e-bikes are one of his constituents' top worries; apparently, he just doesn't care.
To these so-called progressives, the 'very real concerns' of everyday New Yorkers are irrelevant: Their overriding concern is that illegal migrants be treated as a protected class, able to break the law with impunity because they might — might — face larger consequences if they're held to the same standard as everyone else.
And that's so important, they reason, that the NYPD mustn't enforce any law that 'asylum seekers' are supposedly especially likely to break.
If a few more toddlers get mowed down because e-bikers get to ignore traffic laws — well, that's acceptable collateral damage.
Cabán and Restler insist on ignoring the safety of the people they're supposed to represent to protect hypothetical lawbreakers.
Their constituents should remember that come voting time.