Democrat New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been working hard at making herself a national celebrity on her “Fight The Oligarchy” tour with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and with other events she has hosted, but it may cost her the job that put her in the spotlight to begin with.
While she has been on the road elevating her profile as she mulls campaigning for higher office, the area she was elected to represent has decayed into a crime-ridden cesspool, and voters are furious with her, The New York Post reported.
Since she was first elected in 2019, major crime rose by a staggering 70 percent in her Bronx / Queens district.
“The 110th Precinct in Queens, which covers part of the infamous ‘Market of Sweethearts’ human-trafficking and prostitution mecca on Roosevelt Avenue, saw a 105% surge, the highest increase of any NYC precinct in that period,” The Post said in its report.
“Major crimes consist of murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny and auto theft,” the outlet continued.
The 115th precinct, which is also in the representative’s district, saw a whopping increase of 85 percent in major crimes, and her constituents are frustrated with their celebrity representative.
“She’s not doing s–t. She doesn’t live in the neighborhood, she doesn’t care,” Elmhurst resident Guadelupe Alvarez, a former supporter of Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, said to The Post.
Alvarez said she used to have dreams of building a life in the community, but those days are over.
“I can’t wait to get – pardon my language – the f–k out of here. It makes me so sad that they’ve done that to push me out of my neighborhood. And I’m not the only one. . . . I could never have a family here,” she said.
She told The Post that she attempted to talk to the representative about the issue at a town hall last year, but it did not go as planned.
“I asked, ‘Are you aware of how horrible it’s gotten? When was the last time you were in Jackson Heights, Elmhurst?’ She ignored me and told me, ‘You can ask this person questions’ … who I guess was her assistant. She did a very silent exit through the back,” Alvarez said.
“I think it’s disrespectful. You’re there because of people from my community, and you’re not doing s–t for our community,” she said.
Republican City Council candidate Ramses Frias also shredded the representative when he spoke to The Post.
“You have a mouth to speak up. People are suffering. They’re scared to go outside,” he said.
And her rhetoric on race and defunding the police has also had an effect on her district.
“Nobody wants to be a police officer, it’s been so villainized,” said Manhattan Institute Director of Policing and Public Safety, Hannah Meyers, said. “And that affects every function that the police do.
“It’s her district, she’s supposed to be looking out for people there. She has such a myopic focus on race,” she said, pointing to the fact that most of the victims of crime in her district are black or Hispanic. “You’re not helping the victims of crime by talking about how the system is racist.
“Rhetoric is really powerful,” she said.
In June 2020, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez declared, “Defunding police means defunding police,” and she has since continued that rhetoric, saying in 2022 that “police budgets have nothing to do with crime levels.”
“She talks about the whole fighting the oligarchy, and that’s what she’s all about – the poor people. And yet most people in her district are fearful, they don’t feel like they can walk out the door without encountering a drug dealer or a purse snatcher or a hooker,” National Police Association’s Betsy Brantner Smith said.
“And that goes against everything that you know she stands for. If you don’t feel safe, you’re not free,” she said.