NYC Mayor Eric Adams ousts head of NYPD’s hate crimes unit after surge in attacks on Asian-Americans because the department is ‘too slow to act’: 524 complaints filed in 2021 but fewer than HALF resulted in arrests
- Adams reassigned Inspector Jessica Corey, but didn’t say where she was placed
- His office hasn’t clarified who will take over the NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force
- Hate crimes were up a shocking 96 percent in 2021, reaching 524 complaints
- Only 219 people were arrested last year, and just 93 were arrested in 2020
- An Asian woman who was spat on and called a ‘carrier’ by a man on the subway last year said Corey tried to blame her for the attack
- Hate crimes against Asian-Americans were up 343 percent in 2021
New York City Mayor Eric Adams says the NYPD has been ‘too slow’ to investigate incidents as hate crimes, weeks after he reassigned the head of the police department’s hate crimes unit.
Adams reassigned Inspector Jessica Corey, who led the Hate Crime Task Force, last month. She was placed in the firearms & tactics section, a police spokesman told DailyMail.com Tuesday.
‘We were too slow in investigating [crimes] as possible hate crimes,’ Adams said Monday. ‘I wanted a new face there, a new vision.’
Racially-motivated attacks, especially toward Asian-Americans, skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the virus that caused it originating in China.
Hate crimes were up a shocking 96 percent in 2021. But only 219 people were arrested for hate crimes last year, even though there were 524 hate crime complaints.
In comparison, there were 265 hate crime complaints and 93 arrests in 2020, according to the NYPD.
In October, a man spit at Esther Lee, a Korean-American woman, and called her a ‘carrier’ aboard an A-train in Manhattan.
Lee told WABC that an officer refused to write down the words hurled at her in a police report. Moreover, she said Corey chastised her for filming the man.
!['We were too slow in investigating [crimes] as possible hate crimes,' NYC Mayor Eric Adams said during a press conference Monday. Above, Adams at the New York Stock Exchange on Monday](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/03/01/17/54808477-10565137-_We_were_too_slow_in_investigating_crimes_as_possible_hate_crime-m-12_1646155519294.jpg)
‘We were too slow in investigating [crimes] as possible hate crimes,’ NYC Mayor Eric Adams said during a press conference Monday. Above, Adams at the New York Stock Exchange on Monday
Adams reassigned Inspector Jessica Corey, who led the Hate Crime Task Force, last month. His office has not clarified where she was placed or who would replace her
Only 219 people were arrested for hate crimes last year, though there were 524 such complaints. In 2020, there were 265 complaints and 93 arrests
Asian Americans have experienced a 343 percent increase in hate crimes in 2021 with 133 attacks. Hispanics are also seeing a rise in attacks with eight attacks happening in 2021, compared to one in 2020
‘Jessica Corey telling me, “You know you really should not have filmed him, you really should not have taken your phone and started taking footage of him because you probably triggered him,”‘ Lee said.
Adams reassigned Corey a day after WABC informed him about Lee’s experience.
‘I don’t want a leader in that area that starts off with saying why something is not a possible hate crime,’ Adams said at the time.
An NYPD spokesperson added: ‘The incident was looked into by the Hate Crime Task Force and both parties were interviewed. A conferral was made with the NYPD’s Legal Bureau as well as the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and a legal determination was made that the facts of the case did not meet current hate crime statutes.’
Deputy Inspector Michael King, head of the Special Victims Division, was also reassigned. He was placed in the Patrol Bureau Queens South, according to the NYPD.
Both moves were characterized as routine reshufflings, according to WABC, but Corey’s controversial tenure has sparked whispers that her removal was performance-related.
Hate crimes surged by 96 percent in the Big Apple throughout 2021.
Asian hate crimes skyrocketed 343 percent from 2020 to 2021 as the pandemic rattled on, with 133 Asian Americans experiencing terrifying and dangerous experiences of discrimination, according to the data, which was first reported by Fox News.
Hispanic hate crimes were also up a staggering 700 percent last year with a total of eight people being harassed or harmed in 2021, up from one in 2020.
A total of 538 hate crimes occurred throughout 2021, compared to 275 in 2020.
Esther Lee, a Korean-American woman, says Corey tried to pin the blame on her after she was attacked in subway in October
In October, a man spit at Lee and called her a ‘carrier’ aboard an A train in Manhattan as anti-Asian crime was spiking, driven in part by the COVID-19 pandemic
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, 48 – who has found himself in hot water after downgrading many crimes and claiming that ‘prison is a last resort’ – said in January that his office will expand the hate crimes unit, created in 2018, to help address the increase in radically motivated attacks.
‘Our [Asian-American and Pacific-Islander] brothers and sisters have been spit upon, coughed at, told to go back home. In my office we are deepening our capacity,’ he said.
‘We’re expanding our hate crimes unit so that we can give these cases the resources that they deserve.’
Manhattan’s DA Alvin Bragg, 48, said he was will be partnering with local communities and expand resources to address the increase in hate crimes
Bragg, the first black man to hold his position, said that he would be expanding resources by partnering with local communities to ‘strengthen our community ties,’ but commended the existing ‘small’ hate crimes team for having ‘great leadership.’
‘What I’ve heard as I’ve traveled throughout Manhattan is that there’s a reluctance to come forward to law enforcement from some communities, and some people are more willing to go forward through a community group,’ Bragg said on Friday.
‘We are both focusing on building cases and prosecuting cases and [are] also mindful that we might not be hearing about everything that we want to be, so strengthening our community ties as well.’
NYC hit by spate of hate crimes
Yao Pan Ma, 61, (pictured in April) died on December 31, eight months after he was attacked
Yao Pan Ma, 61
Ma died on December 31, eight months after he was brutally beat by a homeless career criminal in April 2021.
A Chinese immigrant, he was left in critical condition and placed in a medically induced coma after Jarrod Powell, 49, stomped on his head at least six times while Ma was collecting cans to make money for his family.
‘When I saw him in the hospital…his face, I cried. I still cry,’ his wife Baozhen Chen said in April. ‘I hope he wakes up and talks to me and gets better and comes home. It’s really hard to believe.’
His death has been ruled a homicide.
Powell was taken into custody at Ward’s Island men’s homeless shelter just days after the attack in April and was initially charged with second-degree murder and two counts of assault.
Powell had been arrested 15 times since 1988.
Joseph Borgen
Joseph Borgen was beaten by a group of five men yelling anti-Semitic epithets while on his way to a pro Israel demonstration
Borgen, an accountant who lives on the Upper East Side, was wearing a grey kippa and walking toward Times Square around 6.30pm on May 20, 2021 when he alleged that a young man with a black bandana started chasing him.
‘I turned around to try to figure out what was going on and the next thing I knew I was surrounded by a whole crowd of people who proceeded to physically attack me, beat me, kick me, punch me, hit me with crutches, hit me with flag poles,’ he told DailyMail.com.
‘I thought I was going to die. I thought I was really going to die.’
Borgen said there were eight to 10 people taking part in the beatdown and they were shouting anti-Semitic slurs such as: ‘You filthy Jew. We’re going to f*****g kill you. Go back to Israel. Hamas is going to kill you.’
Faisal Elezzi, 25, of Staten Island, was charged with assault as a hate crime, menacing as a hate crime and aggravated harassment as a hate crime
Waseem Awawdeh, 23, was the first man arrested over the violent assault and was charged with assault as a hate crime, gang assault, menacing, aggravated harassment as a hate crime and criminal possession of a weapon, police said.
Prosecutors say he told a jailer: ‘If I could do it again, I would do it again. I have no problem doing it again.’
Exclusive DailyMail.com photos show Awawdeh wearing a black t-shirt with ‘Palestine’ emblazoned on the front, as he was led out of the 5th Precinct in handcuffs
Vilma Kari
Vilma Kari’s (right) vicious racist attack was caught on camera last year. Her daughter, Elizabeth (left), said a good Samaritan lured her attacker away
Vilma Kari was 65 on March 29, 2021, when a man later identified as Brandon Elliot kicked her and stomped on her while yelling anti-Asian slurs outside a building in New York City.
Footage of the horrific attack captured the country’s attention, particularly because it showed doormen in a nearby building seeming to not only ignore the violence but shut Vilma out by closing the door.
She was hospitalized and treated for serious injuries, requiring a walker to leave later that day.
Brandon Elliot, then 38, has pleaded not guilty to charges of assault as a hate crime and attempted assault as a hate crime.
He reportedly shouted anti-Asian slurs and told her, ‘You don’t belong here,’ before casually walking away.
Christina Yuna Lee, 35
Christina Yuna Lee, 35
Lee was found dead on February 13 in the blood-soaked bathtub of her Chinatown apartment in New York’s Lower East Side.
The 35-year-old Asian advertising creative was knifed to death by a homeless serial criminal who was free on bail.
Terrifying footage showed Assamad Nash, 25, creep into the building behind Lee after she got out of a cab.
She entered the building, but didn’t realize that Nash – who did not appear to know his alleged victim – had sneaked in behind her after watching her exit a taxi, and was following her up six flights of stairs to her home.
Her death has not been investigated as a hate crime, but it took place during rising anti-Asian incidents in New York City.
Michelle Alyssa Go, 40
Michelle Go, 40
Go, 40, was on the N/Q/R/W platform at West 42nd Street and Broadway at around 9.40am on January 15 when Martial Simon, 61 shoved her from behind with both hands while she looked down at her phone, authorities said.
She was a senior manager of strategy and operations for management and acquisitions at Deloitte Consulting, according to her LinkedIn.
She graduated from University of California Los Angeles with a bachelor’s in economics and public policy, and got her master’s in business administration from New York University.
When Simon, who has a lengthy criminal history, was asked by a reporter if he had been the one to push Go, he said: ‘Yes, because I’m God. Yes, I did it. I’m God. I can do it.’