The alleged one-woman crime wave who was recently cut loose twice in three days is the poster child for the chaos to come when state bail reforms kick in Wednesday, politicians warned.
Tiffany Harris’ whirlwind tour of the criminal-justice system — which landed her on The Post’s front page Tuesday — “points toward what everyone is worried about,” said Assemblyman Brian Barnwell (D-Queens).
Barnwell asked the chamber’s bill drafters to craft legislation that would rein in the nascent reform by giving judges the authority to remand defendants based on factors that include their criminal record and their perceived danger to the community.
“It’s a balancing task,” Barnwell continued in a critique of the law championed by his fellow state Democrats. “You have to give judges the power to consider the dangerousness of an individual, and this is a case that highlights the need for this.”
Harris, 30, allegedly slapped three Orthodox Jewish women in Crown Heights on Friday, was released without bail on Saturday and then allegedly punched another woman on Sunday.
She was cut loose in court again on Monday on the condition that she submit to monitoring by social workers at Brooklyn Justice Initiatives — only to be arrested a third time late Tuesday on a warrant issued after she allegedly skipped her first appointment, a law-enforcement source said.
Early Wednesday, Harris was awaiting her third arraignment in five days.
In each of her previous arraignments, Harris — who has pleaded not guilty — benefited from the lax bail reform laws by which city courts have been largely abiding throughout December so as to ease the transition when the changes are formally codified with the new year on Wednesday.
Part of a larger package of sweeping criminal justice overhauls, the new bail reform laws will allow suspects of more than 400 nonviolent offenses to walk free without offering so much as a dime to ensure their return to court.
Those offenses include most misdemeanors and even some felonies, running the gamut from criminally negligent homicide to peddling drugs on or near school grounds, according to memos circulated to prosecutors statewide and previously obtained by The Post.
Judges will still be able to hit alleged perpetrators of a few select misdemeanors — including sex crimes and violations of orders of protection in domestic-violence cases — with bail.
But the laws also prohibit holding without bail those accused only of misdemeanors, even if they appear to pose a future threat to the community.
Through his legislation, which is yet to be formally introduced, Barnwell hopes to grant judges at least that power to protect New Yorkers from obvious threats to public safety. He expressed particular concern for mentally ill suspects, who aren’t being connected to the services they need to get well but instead released without bail to commit more crimes — failing both the suspects and their victims.
“We need to do more, and I think this bill will do that,” he said. “Judges are in office and they should have the ability to decide to hold them for a few days … We still have to get the job done and fix it.”
In a rare show of across-the-aisle unity, Republicans in the state Senate voiced their own fears about the coming bail reform in a Tuesday press briefing on Long Island.
They, too, pointed to the Harris case as a harbinger of things to come under the reforms, which also include a massive rejigging of discovery limitations. Prosecutors will now be required to give defense attorneys pretrial access to a trove of information, including potentially the names and contact details of witnesses in their cases.
“It’s living proof, as the law is just unfolding, of how bad it can be,” said state Sen. John Flanagan (R-Suffolk), the chamber’s minority leader.
GOP state Sen. Phil Boyle, who represents parts of Suffolk County, also invoked Harris — as well as Steven Haynes, the vodka-swilling menace of Downtown Brooklyn who walked without bail after allegedly cold-cocking a cop the day after Christmas.
“Tiffany Harris in Brooklyn slaps three Orthodox Jewish women, is let out with no bail. The next day, she assaults another woman in Brooklyn, and again she is let out with no bail,” Boyle said.
“Steven Haynes punches a New York City police officer, and is let out with no bail,” he continued.
“These are supposed to be nonviolent crimes we are letting out with no bail. What part of nonviolence do Democrats not understand?”
Boyle conjured wartime imagery to offer a dire prediction of what the state would look like in the new year.
“Tomorrow, January 1, 2020, is D-Day,” he said on Tuesday. “By that, I mean defendants’ day.
“It’s not a matter of if — it’s when these tragedies are going to occur.”
Additional reporting by Paul Martinka, Reuven Fenton and Laura Italiano