Mr. Liu, who represents northeast Queens, said a rise in crime has not been credibly linked to the bail law and added that calls to change it only demonstrate that the Asian American community has been shaken by the attacks. “When people are scared,” Mr. Liu said, “they jump to conclusions in search of answers and protection.”
The fault lines over crime were visible in last year’s city election. An exit poll of nearly 1,400 Asian American voters conducted by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund after the June mayoral primary found that anti-Asian violence polled just one percentage point below the top issue, which was jobs and the economy.
Mr. Adams, who pushed a tough-on-crime platform as a mayoral candidate, recently replaced the head of the Hate Crime Task Force, Inspector Jessica Corey. The mayor said the unit had been too slow to label and investigate incidents as potential hate crimes. He said that the inspector’s reassignment was not an “indictment” of her work but acknowledged that he “wanted a new face there.”
The stakes for Democrats were apparent at the Republican State Convention earlier this week, where the party’s designated nominee, Representative Lee Zeldin, referenced the recent attacks on Asian Americans, and the state party announced it was creating an Asian American caucus.
Ron Kim, a Democratic assemblyman from Queens, has called on Gov. Kathy Hochul to declare a state of emergency and implement special measures to protect Asian Americans. Mr. Adams and Ms. Hochul recently announced a plan to send mental health workers and police into the subway to remove the homeless people who shelter there.
Mr. Liu and Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou, who is running to be the first Asian American woman elected to the State Senate, are also pushing for $64.5 million to be included in the state budget to fund Asian American groups and to combat Asian bias.
The violence against Asian Americans has reignited opposition to planned homeless shelters in the city’s three Chinatowns — in Manhattan; Flushing, Queens; and Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Community leaders have expressed skepticism about the wisdom of placing homeless people facing mental illness into congregate shelters where they may not receive help. And opposition to building a new jail to replace the shuttered one in Chinatown in Lower Manhattan is growing.

Source: New York Times

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