Random barbarousness is becoming NYC’s new norm

Winston Ortiz, an 18-year old Bronx resident, was lured Wednesday into a stairwell by someone he had a dispute with. He was stabbed, doused with gasoline and set on fire. Ortiz died in the hospital Wednesday. Just the latest depravity in an increasingly depraved city.

Each day brings reports of fresh horror. More than 1,000 people have been shot so far this year, which is shaping up to be twice as bloody as 2019. There have been four murders on the subway usually there are one or two a year and felony assaults underground are way up, even as ridership is way down.

Random barbarousness is our new normal.

The streets have become filthy, as growing numbers of vagrants inhabit empty doorways. Open-air drug sales and shooting galleries the sort of thing Gotham hadn t seen in decades are common sights.

What happened that caused the mainspring of public order and safety to break and unwind so quickly? Mayor de Blasio likes to wave his hands in the air and talk about deep-seated economic inequality, or anger over the death of George Floyd, or a slowdown in the court system. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez seems to think that people are scrabbling for loaves of bread for their hungry children à la Les Misérables.

But none of these crimes zero can be connected to inequality or the need for anything except maybe vengeance, prestige or the satisfaction of a psychotic itch. When a man punches someone eating dinner outside, without even a hint of incitement or the possibility of a misunderstood insult, what s the societal root cause we can blame on Reaganomics, as de Blasio does reflexively?

via nypost.com