One Man Crime Spree

A rash of stabbings in New York City got a whole lot of attention, especially on the heels of a report saying that violent crime was up a tick over last year but still well below recent averages.

Well, it turns out that a single person was arrested in connection with four of the stabbings.

The police arrested Kenny Alexis early today in the Times Square area after two young women, Canadian tourists, were stabbed in the back as they stood in Duffy Square. A doorman at the nearby W hotel had called the police after witnessing the attack, and a doorman and a cabdriver had followed the suspect to a nearby McDonald's, where the police took him into custody.

Between the attack on Tuesday afternoon, on a C train in northern Manhattan, and the arrest this morning in Times Square, the police said, a man fitting the description of Mr. Alexis stabbed a man on the subway platform for the southbound F train in Rockefeller Center then stopped in a delicatessen on Broadway, where he took and drank a bottle of water then tried to take two beers without paying. When an employee confronted the man, he pulled a knife and fled, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said at a news conference.

This afternoon three of the four stabbing victims remained hospitalized. Christopher McCarthy, a 21-year-old tourist from Texas, was in critical but stable condition today at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center on West 114th Street, where he underwent surgery after being stabbed multiple times in the left side of his chest on Tuesday, the police said. Ambrosio Castro, 30, who was attacked on the F train platform was in stable condition at St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan. And Melanie Currier, 22, of Montreal, was in stable condition at St. Vincent's.

As we repeatedly see over time, criminals tend to commit more than one crime - and individuals who commit petty crimes often turn more violent over time. Taking one such criminal off the streets can prevent literally dozens of crimes, if not more.

Oh, and he apparently had a record of criminal activity in Atlantic City and Boston as well. Those were petty crimes - farebeating, shoplifting, and criminal mischief. In other words, this one person is responsible for at least seven crimes over the past few years. And those are the ones that he was arrested for.

There's a reason that NYC is much safer now than it was just a decade ago. It's because NYPD was directed to go after petty crimes - quality of life crimes.