more than 100 vehicles took over 69th Street and Eliot Avenue<\/a> in Queens. <\/p>\nDrivers did donuts around a fire between two gas stations, blocked the road and damaged a marked NYPD vehicle.<\/p>\n
This was not some harmless meetup. <\/p>\n
It was chaos.<\/p>\n
Officers were handling another car meetup elsewhere.<\/p>\n
That is the reality when lawlessness erupts in more than one place: understaffed precincts make impossible choices. <\/p>\n
The NYPD has made arrests, but five people connected to the Eliot Avenue takeover are still wanted.<\/p>\n
At Juniper Valley Park, I saw dozens of e-bikes recklessly circling the track.<\/p>\n
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My office called the precinct and was told officers would respond. <\/p>\n
They never did.<\/p>\n
About an hour later, a 5-year-old girl was struck by an e-bike.<\/p>\n
When we called again, we were told only two patrol cars were out covering one of the city\u2019s largest precincts. <\/p>\n
Our cops are doing their best. <\/p>\n
But they cannot be everywhere at once, and families should not have to wait until someone is hurt before a dangerous situation gets attention.<\/p>\n
This is not just a Queens problem. <\/p>\n
Every borough needs quick responses, visible officers and real enforcement. <\/p>\n
Our parks need more Parks Enforcement Patrol officers, too.<\/p>\n
Mamdani had room in this budget to make public safety a priority. <\/p>\n
Instead, he walked away from an NYPD headcount increase. <\/p>\n
At $125.8 billion, that is not a lack of resources. <\/p>\n
It is a choice. <\/p>\n
New Yorkers deserve better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Democrat City Council member Phil Wong represents Central Queens. Here, he questions why Mayor Mamdani\u2019s budget includes no…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":904500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,31361,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,5257,1269,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,5301],"class_list":["post-904499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-budgets","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nypd","tag-opinion","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116842511174554205","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=904499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/904500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=904499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=904499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=904499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}