De Blasio criminal justice deputy arrested on gun charges

Reagan Stevens, a deputy director in the New York Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, was arrested along with two young men on Saturday for illegal weapons possession. The three were sitting in a double-parked car near the scene of a shooting in Queens. The vehicle reeked of marijuana, according to police.

A loaded, 9mm semi-automatic pistol with its serial number scratched out was hidden in the car’s glovebox. There was a spent shell casing on the floor near Stevens’ feet in the rear of the 2002 dark red Infiniti SUV, law enforcement sources said. Video reportedly recorded shots being fired from the car.

Stevens, 42, and the two men — who reportedly had knives on them — were arraigned in Queens Criminal Court. Stevens’ mother is a judge on that court. Her stepfather is an acting Queens Supreme Court justice.

The New York Post reports that one of the men arrested along with Stevens has a rap sheet with nine prior arrests. They include weapons charges, a robbery, and trespassing and harassment charges.

Stevens manages the de Blasio administration’s “youth and strategic initiatives,” whose main function is to implement a 2017 state law that will raise the age at which kids can be prosecuted as adults for non-violent crimes from 16 to 18. She has been suspended without pay.

De Blasio is, of course, a big supporter of strict gun control laws. Last month, he joined a student walkout following the shootings at that Florida high school.

News of Stevens’ arrest caused me to check out the leadership page of Mayor de Blasio’s Office of Criminal Justice. While the arrest will embarrass de Blasio, I think he should be more embarrassed by some of the bios and missions that appear on that page. For example:

Sarah Solon is the Deputy Director of Justice Initiatives. Prior to her current position, Ms. Solon served as Senior Communications Strategist at the American Civil Liberties Union and as Senior Program Officer at the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative.

And:

Susan Sommer is the General Counsel. After working as the Director of Constitutional Litigation at Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a national civil rights organization advocating for those who are LGBT and living with HIV. At Lambda Legal, she led its efforts to achieve marriage equality and parenting rights for LGBT New Yorkers and was Lambda Legal’s lead counsel in Obergefell v. Hodges, winning the right to marry for same-sex couples nationwide.

What does gay marriage have to do with criminal justice?

The Soros reach extends to this body:

Dana Kaplan is the Executive Director of Youth and Strategic Initiatives. Previously, Ms. Kaplan was the Executive Director of the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, a New Orleans based non-profit legal and advocacy organization. Ms. Kaplan has also been a Soros Justice Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), was the State-wide Organizer for the New York Campaign for Telephone Justice, and worked for the Brooklyn-based Prison Moratorium Project.

The arts are also represented:

Amy Sananman is the Executive Director of the Mayor’s Action Plan for Neighborhood Safety. Prior to joining MOCJ, Ms. Sananman served for nearly 20 years as the founding Executive Director of Groundswell, NYC’s leading nonprofit for using public art as a tool for social change.

And so on.

De Blasio’s criminal justice office looks more like a “social justice” operation than an organization concerned with combating crime. As for Stevens, she may be more involved in committing crime than in combating it.

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