What a topsy-turvy world Gotham has become.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is now prosecuting a cop who tried to stop a serial shoplifter — while Mayor Eric Adams’ team has agreed to pay Black Lives Matter protesters $13 million for fighting police.
It’s just the latest turn in a series of madcap moves where officials rush to defend — and even reward — law-breakers, while punishing victims and those who seek to protect the public.
Can any New Yorker feel safe in a world like that?
On Wednesday, Bragg indicted Manhattan NYPD officer Salvatore Provenzano for punching an unruly man he was escorting out of an Upper West Side Apple Store two years ago.
The incident involved just one punch, which resulted in absolutely no injuries, yet DA Bragg somehow saw fit to press charges against the officer.
This follows on the heels of Bragg’s indictments of other New Yorkers who were forced to defend themselves against street madmen:
* Last year, Bragg sought to bring a murder charge against bodega worker Jose Alba, even though surveillance video showed Alba was attacked first and sought to defend himself. Bragg later backed down under pressure.
* In May, Daniel Penny was arraigned on manslaughter charges involving the death of Jordan Neely, a homeless man who was threatening subway riders.
* Last month, straphanger Jordan Williams was charged with stabbing an unhinged ex-con who harassed passengers and punched his girlfriend aboard a J train, though a grand jury found that he acted in self-defense.
* And just this month, Bragg charged Scotty Enoe, a CVS worker, with stabbing a serial shoplifter to death during a fight inside a Midtown Manhattan store.
The progressive DA’s indictments of Alba, Neely, Penny, Jordan and Enoe are evidence of clear disdain for New Yorkers who defend themselves and others against violent provocateurs.
Now Bragg is charging a police officer with a crime for merely doing his job.
That, combined with the enormous $13 million payout to demonstrators who resisted police during the 2020 post-George Floyd Black Lives Matter protests, truly shows whose side New York officials are on.
Those payouts come to nearly $10,000 apiece for each of some 1,300 protesters.
Recall that this took place amid the billions in property damage of the “mostly peaceful” George Floyd nationwide protests that summer.
The messages officials are sending is clear: Lawbreakers get protection, law-enforcers and crime victims get punished. And it’ll only lead to more crime and crime in the streets.
Is that what officials want?