Four of the Big Apple’s most troublesome transit nightmares were picked up by alert NYPD cops in the span of just 24 hours this week — but soft-on-crime state laws put them right back on the street.
Eagle-eyed cops recognized the career criminals, who were wanted for a series of thefts, in separate busts in Manhattan on Monday and Tuesday — but three of them were already back on the streets Wednesday, while the fourth was awaiting arraignment but is also expected to be cut loose without bail.
State bail reform laws bar judges from setting bail on non-violent crimes — giving them another break.
“Most of these cases get [declined] by the DAs, or they’re released from court to go find another victim,” one frustrated cop told The Post. “There’s a ‘permission structure’ that’s created.”
The accused crooks include Joseph Zimmerman, 56, who has 47 arrests on his rap sheet, who was arrested Monday and charged with two pickpocketing incidents earlier this month, sources said.
Zimmerman is charged with stealing a wallet from one man’s bag on Friday and making off with a debit card and $300 cash, and stealing $100 and a card from another victim on Feb. 2, then allegedly making illegal purchases at a local Foot Locker.
Ronielle Howell, 34, who lives at a Brooklyn homeless shelter, was picked up Wednesday and charged with snatching a phone from a Manhattan straphanger on Feb. 7.
Sources said Howell allegedly followed the victim into the subway and snatched their phone. --->READ MORE HERE
NYPD transit officers grabbed four alleged repeat offenders in the span of a day in the Bronx and Manhattan this week, only to watch three of them walk free without bail, according to reporting. The latest sweep, focused on alleged pickpocketing and phone snatches, is fueling complaints from cops who say they keep running into the same suspects on platforms and trains while riders wonder what, if anything, will change.
According to the New York Post, those arrested included 56-year-old Joseph Zimmerman, charged in two alleged pickpocketing cases and accused of using stolen cards at a city Foot Locker. Also in cuffs, the Post reported, were 34-year-old Ronielle Howell, accused of grabbing a rider’s phone, and 49-year-old Luis Maldonado, picked up after officers recognized him at a subway station. Rounding out the quartet was 50-year-old Danny Rijo, a repeat offender charged in a Bronx grand larceny and drug possession case. Investigators linked several recent thefts in the system to the four suspects, the outlet noted, and three of them were reportedly back on the street by Wednesday morning.
Citywide data and local write-ups offer a more complicated backdrop. Overall transit felonies have dropped over the past two years, but some subway-specific crimes and assaults on officers have climbed in certain parts of the system, according to borough CompStat figures cited by the Bronx Times. The NYPD says it is leaning on data to decide where to send more officers underground, even as month-to-month numbers swing sharply from borough to borough.
What cops say
An unnamed officer told the New York Post that “most of these cases get [declined] by the DAs, or they're released from court to go find another victim.” Transit detectives and union leaders, the outlet reported, argue that current pretrial rules make it tough to sideline people they view as chronic offenders, and say they are tired of seeing familiar faces shuffle back onto platforms almost as quickly as they are led off. --->READ MORE HERE
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