THE ISSUE: DA Vance’s refusal to offer plea deals to those arrested in last week’s “wilding.”
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Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr. stated that he will not take pleas from any of those arrested for the gang wilding incidents in Times Square on Easter Sunday (“Wilding Wake-Up Call for ‘Soft’ Cy,” Andrea Peyser, April 8).
If Vance is bluffing and winds up making a bunch of plea deals, he will look like a fool, and his reputation will be a joke.
Vance has to put his money where his mouth is and send every good case to trial. If he does so, he will prove that he can be an effective prosecutor after spending almost 20 years trying to keep thugs out of jail.
With the recent increase in violent crime, one can sense that these young thugs are giving up on education and work and choosing guns and drugs instead.
Michael J. Gorman
Whitestone
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It’s pretty funny to listen to Vance talk tough.
While not offering plea bargains to the defendants in the Times Square incident may seem like tough talk to the average citizen, anybody who has been involved in law enforcement or has dealt with DA offices knows that this promise is pure fiction.
Just wait and see how quickly ADAs make offers to the defendants’ lawyers when witnesses disappear, victims refuse to testify and judges want their backed-up dockets moved along quickly.
Of all people, our rookie district attorney should know this, since he was a defense lawyer for a quarter of a century.
While Vance wants to show the world that he is tough on crime and that the streets of Manhattan won’t go back to the 1980s on his watch, reality will prove different.
Christopher Bisignano
Staten Island