Manhattan DA clarifies policies after a month of criticism | Live Well

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FILE – Alvin Bragg speaks to supporters during his campaign for Manhattan district attorney, June 22, 2021. Bragg, the new Manhattan District Attorney, made clear on Friday, Feb. 4, 2022, that gunpoint and knifepoint stickups at stores and other commercial places will be prosecuted as felonies, updating a controversial policy memo he put out days after taking office last month.

FILE – New York City Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell, center, speaks during a news conference at a Harlem hospital after the shooting of two NYPD officers, Jan. 21, 2022, in New York. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, after conferring with Sewell, made clear on Friday, Feb. 4, 2022, that gunpoint and knifepoint stickups at stores and other commercial places will be prosecuted as felonies, updating a controversial policy memo he put out days after taking office last month.

By JENNIFER PELTZ – Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Manhattan’s top prosecutor tried Friday to blunt questions about his commitment to trying cases of armed robbery and assaults on police, backing away from some controversial policies he outlined days after taking office last month.

In a new memo, District Attorney Alvin Bragg said gunpoint and knifepoint stickups at stores will be prosecuted as felonies, as will illicit gun possession in most cases. The Democrat said his office will also “prosecute any person who harms or attempts to harm a police officer.”

“This office will continue to make case decisions that serve safety, accountability, fairness and justice,” Bragg wrote.

The memo comes a day after President Joe Biden visited New York to pledge more federal effort to help police and community groups combat gun violence, which has worsened nationally during the coronavirus pandemic. In New York, an 11-month-old baby and six police officers are among victims of gunfire since the start of this year; two of the officers died.

Bragg, a former federal prosecutor and civil rights lawyer who grew up in Harlem in the high-crime 1980s, campaigned as a progressive with firsthand experience of both violence and the toll of the criminal justice system. He said as a candidate that he would decline to pursue many low-level offenses.

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