NYC mayoral candidate Maya Wiley — who is campaigning on massive budget cuts to the NYPD — defended the private security company her husband is helping to pay for in her “upscale” Brooklyn neighborhood:
Maya Wiley, the NYC mayoral candidate who wants to cut $1 billion per year from police, pays for private security on her block in upscale Prospect Park South. A neighbor recounted her demands for more aggressive NYPD policing after her partner was mugged. https://t.co/tGhDq6Jq20
— Lee Fang (@lhfang) June 5, 2021
Wiley says the private security is “ridiculous and we shouldn’t have it” but since her long-time partner was the victim of a violent mugging that left him hospitalized, she understands why he’s paying for it:
“I think it’s ridiculous and we shouldn’t have it,” she told me, mentioning an incident where she’d scolded a driver for telling a neighbor’s teen sons, who are Black, that they couldn’t be on the mall where they were playing around — an incident she said was outrageous but also highly unusual. And she said, more generally, that “it’s neither effective nor does it create the sense of community that I support. And I don’t think it reflects the actual reality of our community in terms of whether it’s even needed.”
But, she explained, Harlan Mandel, her long-time partner, had started paying for it again after they hadn’t been for a while, and she’d only found out after I’d asked the campaign about it a few days before we spoke.
“The complicating factor is that Harlan was mugged after September 11th,” while walking from Church Ave. down Buckingham Road to their home. He was a few houses away from their home when he was beaten badly enough that he was hospitalized and out of work for six weeks. He still has no memory of the attack.
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He feels so unsafe in NYC that he “walks down the middle of the street”:
“To this day, if it’s dark out he walks down the middle of the street, he doesn’t walk on the [poorly lit] sidewalk. And he said, one night he was coming home from work and he saw the car at the end of the block and it just made him feel better. And so he started paying again and then I had a very hard time saying, ‘don’t do it,’ ” she said. “It’s not necessarily rational but it is his trauma response so it’s a complicated one for our family.”
How is it “complicated” though?
Fascinating piece. And reminder that life is more complicated than campaigns. https://t.co/5a5R0XU0Gi
— carolynryan 🏳️🌈🏓 (@carolynryan) June 5, 2021
Wiley was just endorsed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:
“If we don’t come together as a movement, we will get a New York City built by and for billionaires, and we need a city by and for working people,” @aoc said. “So we will vote for Maya No. 1.”
By @katieglueck https://t.co/SeLSAk7okl— Cliff Levy (@cliffordlevy) June 5, 2021
Boy, it really is weird how other journos are avoiding this story:
As far as @mayawiley is concerned re public safety, it’s interesting that only @harrysiegel reported that once her husband got mugged in Brooklyn she & her neighbors hired private security to patrol their block.
— Sal Albanese (@SalAlbaneseNYC) June 5, 2021
This is the future uber-liberals like Wiley and AOC want, apparently:
No, but she’s for slashing @NYPDnews budget which will diminish patrol strength & will result in wealthy folks hiring private security & of course ordinary people can’t afford that
— Sal Albanese (@SalAlbaneseNYC) June 5, 2021
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