A.G. Gancarski
If New York’s police officers want to leave the Big Apple after the new Mayor is elected, Gov. Ron DeSantis says he’ll make it worth their while.
DeSantis is proposing increases to the state’s current $5,000 recruitment bonuses to entice members of law enforcement from other states.
Speaking about Democratic New York City mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, DeSantis noted that Florida has “had a lot of people come down” from the New York Police Department (NYPD).
“What do you think is going to happen if this guy becomes Mayor? He wants to abolish NYPD, so you’re going to see a lot of people take advantage of that,” DeSantis predicted.
He went on to say that “some of these police officers say, ‘Why am I wearing this uniform and putting myself at risk when you have a Mayor that doesn’t even believe our job should exist, doesn’t believe these people should be held accountable for the crimes?’ That’s a huge, huge problem,” he said.
DeSantis made the comments Wednesday at the University of South Florida College of Medicine in Tampa.
DeSantis has mentioned Mamdani, who won Tuesday night’s Democratic Primary, on multiple occasions this week. He complained that the candidate wants to replace police with social workers. He’s also said three times now that he expects the price of real estate to go up because of the exodus of arrivals from the Empire State.
As DeSantis has before, he said Wednesday Mamdani would be worse than former Mayor Bill de Blasio.
“What I see them doing is potentially really rolling the dice. I was a big critic of de Blasio when he was Mayor, and I think the guy that they nominated has a potential to be much, much worse than even de Blasio,” DeSantis predicted.
The Governor expects Mamdani to win given New York’s strong Democratic lean. General Election opponents include incumbent Eric Adams, who is running as an independent, and Republican Curtis Sliwa of Guardian Angels fame.
