Tina Luongo, Attorney-in-Charge of the Criminal Defense Practice at The Legal Aid Society, decries Mayor Bill de Blasio’s recent mistruths regarding New York city’s spiking crime rate in a new op-ed in the New York Daily News.

The embattled Mayor, struggling to respond to a host of crisis, has sought to blame the elevated crime rates on a revolving door of shifting excuses, including bail reform, COVID-19 prisoner releases, and court closure, which have all been debunked.

Luongo suggests that the underlying motive behind these claims is de Blasio’s willingness to defer to Police Commissioner Dermot Shea, who has advocated for a return to normal court proceedings in the face of unprecedented backlogs of gun cases – despite the unprecedented risks of in-person court cases in the COVID-19 age.

“Rather than providing the resources and support necessary that would actually benefit New Yorkers and allow them to navigate an unprecedented scenario safely, the mayor is trotting out spurious claims to force the people, their attorneys and court staff back into the courts, risking further infections,” Luongo writes. “If Mayor de Blasio keeps misstating the reason crime is rising, how on earth can he pretend to have a plan to ensure that it starts falling again?”

Read the full piece here.