NY Gov. Cuomo Calls for Bail to Be Set for Accused Looters

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo suggested Thursday that bail should be set on people using the George Floyd protests as an opportunity to break windows and steal.

“It would be nonsensical if the police were arresting looters and they were then being arrested and returned to the street the next day to loot again,” the Democrat said at a press conference, in a message apparently aimed at New York City prosecutors. “That would be nonsensical.”

His comments calling for bail stand in contrast to his previous remarks on the topic.

“It’s inarguable that you shouldn’t be making these decisions based on how wealthy a person is, which is how bail winds up being,” Cuomo said earlier this year, according to a transcript. “If you can pay, you get out. If you can’t pay, you stay. That’s the bottom line, and wealth is often a proxy for race.”

On Thursday, the third-term governor said scenes of looting captured on video were “indefensible and inexcusable.”

Queens Defenders, along with other organizations, issued a joint statement on Thursday saying Cuomo’s response instructs district attorneys to “trump up” charges and “inflate allegations” to jail New Yorkers.

“This blatant disregard for truth in prosecution is aberrant to the demand for a fair justice system that protesters are now demanding. We demand that Governor Cuomo reject this dangerous plea,” according to the statement from various organizations, which included The Legal Aid Society.

Cuomo pushed back against the suggestion that he was urging prosecutors to upcharge crimes, instead saying he wants them to “charge appropriately.”

“Look at the facts, look at what they did and charge appropriately. That’s what I’m saying,” Cuomo remarked.

Danny Frost, a spokesman at the Manhattan district attorney’s office, weighed in on Thursday, saying in a statement that the “overwhelming majority” of looting cases in Manhattan cannot be charged as second-degree burglary.

“The facts of those cases don’t support such a charge,” he said in a statement.

State law says a person can be guilty of second-degree burglary if they use “or threatens the immediate use of a dangerous instrument” in “effecting entry or while in the building.”

“I understand some of the district attorneys may feel uncomfortable charging that as burg two, because traditionally they [charge] that as burg three. But they have the tools available to them,” said Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor.

David Hoovler, president of the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York, issued a statement saying the state’s penal law does not support the idea that prosecutors can charge second-degree burglary in situations where people throw rocks “through windows of closed businesses to loot.”

That act alone does not rise to a second-degree burglary charge, “if the premises are not directly shared with a dwelling,” he said in the statement.

“The mere use of a brick or rock to smash a window does not rise to the status of a dangerous instrument unless it is used in a way that would cause serious physical injury to someone on the other side,” he said in a statement.

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