Latimer Petulantly Scolds Critics After Videos of Smash and Grab Robberies at High-end Mall Go Viral

WHITE PLAINS, NY -- After four years of year-to-year declines, key crime statistics in Westchester County increased 6.6% over the last full year for which there is data.

Between 2019 and 2020, Index crimes, violent crimes and property crimes, rose from 9,664 to 10,306 according to data on the New York State Department of Criminal Justice Services website.

In a speech Wednesday, Westchester County Executive George Latimer was having none of it, claiming crime has been decreasing since 2017 and calling out anyone who might disagree with him after a pair of videos of smash and grab robberies at the Westchester Mall went viral earlier this month.

It is not binary.

The six-year trend has been an overall decrease in crime, a part of that on Latimer’s watch, but since 2019 crime has been increasing. And the smash and grab robberies caught on cell phone video occurred in 2022.

When George Latimer preemptively accuses people of lying before he has even finished speaking, as he did on Wednesday during his pleadingly overwrought speech, it is worth paying attention. Latimer (and the staff he surrounds himself with) have a history of lying — about a car crash, to police about the car crash, to leadership of the New York State Senate, about taking his girlfriend — not his wife — to Europe, about a 14% sales tax increase, about press email lists, about Freedom of Information requests, about lawsuits, about County legal policies — so he is something of an expert on the subject.

And he and his team are lying now about Latimer’s crime speech.

The numbers are not lying, but Latimer and his team are lying about how those numbers were obtained and who did what “analysis” to produce “the report” Latimer referenced in his speech.

Over the past two days, we repeatedly requested a copy of “the report” Latimer said was prepared by the Westchester County Police Department based on “analysis” by the Westchester County Police Department only to be told by the Westchester County Police Department there is no “report” or that a few PowerPoint slides presented by Latimer are “the report”. We asked for the data that was the basis for Latimer’s presentation. We were told “it’s public”. We asked Latimer’s staff where it was public and asked for a link. Latimer’s staff asked the Westchester County Police Department to send us a link to the public data. We never got a link.

Westchester County PD cannot send us a link. There is no link. The data is not public. Data was not “downloaded” by the Westchester County Police Department. The “analysis” and “report” (the PowerPoint slides) were not created by the Westchester County Police Department.

If Latimer, and his team, are going to repeatedly lie about the source of their data and claim there is a report based on their data when no such report exists, why should anyone believe anything Latimer says about crime statistics — or anything else.

Latimer, anticipating that his balderdash would not hold up to even the slightest scrutiny, is counting on both the complete lack of curiosity among what remains of Westchester’s lapdog media (no media outlets reported on Latimer’s speech) and a favorite page from the Latimer playbook: impugn the motives of anyone who might not accept his fiddle-faddle at face value.

In his telling, anyone who disagrees with his cherry-picked crime stats, which he claims “prove” crime is going down, is purposefully advancing a narrative they know is incorrect.

“Then you're lying,” he pouted. “You're purposely lying.”

Wrapping himself in the mantle of his office, pulling himself up to his full height, King George lectured any of his subjects who might dare question his supreme command of crime statistics.

“Those of us in civil authority in this county can show that things have gotten significantly better,” he said, while noting “there will be voices that will disagree” but residents who look at the crime data in ‘an honest fashion’ will see Westchester is safe.”

“And they will try very hard to look at these numbers and reinterpret the numbers somehow, in order to try to keep their narrative alive. But the narrative is not correct. The narrative is incorrect…when the numbers are apparent, and you try to reinterpret the numbers and come up with a different way to analyze them, all you're trying to do is maintain a narrative that is proven false.”

Actually, one does not have to look hard at the numbers and there is no need to reinterpret the numbers: like all math, the numbers speak for themselves.

Latimer’s inchoate, justificatory address was not really about crime data — he just released the 2020 crime data a few months ago — it was meant to quell the fallout from a pair of 2022 viral videos depicting what Latimer called a “smash and grab robbery at the Louis Vuitton store at the Westchester Mall” and a second video from the Burberry store.

Both videos have been promoted heavily by Republican Gubernatorial candidate and former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino to bolster his claim that the “soft on crime” policies of New York Democrats, in particular New York Governor Kathy Hochul, have made New Yorkers less safe.

What are the numbers?

There are two sets of numbers: the Index crime statistics published annually each fall by the New York State Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) and a custom report based on incomplete, preliminary, non-public data prepared by DCJS at the request of the Westchester County Executive’s Office and delivered to the Westchester County Executive’s Office on February 7, 2022.

This second set of data is the basis for Latimer’s claim that crime in Westchester County is decreasing.

Division of Criminal Justice Services: Index Crimes Reported: 2016 – 2020 by County and Agency

Custom Report by DCJS for Westchester County Executive George Latimer Jan-Sep 2017 v Jan-Sep 2021

To put these two sets of data in context, we prepared our own database by combining both data sets, side by side.

Combined DCJS Crime Data Reports

Why did Latimer ask DCJS to provide a custom report based on incomplete, preliminary, non-public data?

Latimer is reacting to the overwhelmingly negative response to the two viral videos.

The first viral video was tweeted out by Astorino at 2:14 pm on Friday, February 4, 2022.

Seven minutes later, at 2:21 pm on Saturday, February 4, the White Plains Police Department issued a statement saying they were aware of a video regarding a theft at the Westchester Mall, that it occurred in January that they were actively investigating the incident and there had been no incidents since January.

The second viral video was tweeted out by Astorino at 9:14 am on Saturday, February 5.

Less than seven hours later, at 3:54 pm on Saturday, February 5, the White Plains Police Department issued a statement saying they were aware of a second video of a separate incident.

The DCJS sent a custom report “as of 2/7/2022” based on non-public, incomplete, preliminary data to the Office of the Westchester County Executive.

County Executive PowerPoint Slides

Between February 7 and February 23, Latimer’s Communications Director, Catherine Cioffi, says she and her team prepared a series of PowerPoint slides based on the DCJS custom report.

Cioffi also said she and her team created the video package based on the information in the PowerPoint slides presented by Latimer on Wednesday.

During his speech, Latimer asked county residents to “temper your fear, from an anecdotal standpoint, with an understanding of reality” because crime statistics show Westchester County is safe and any “fear factor” caused by watching videos of boutiques at an upscale mall being robbed by violent hoodlums is the result of a “false narrative” pushed by those with “political intent”.

Latimer said he wanted to address what he called the “perception and reality” of violent crime.

“We have a reality in our lives where we draw judgments we have, we develop opinions,” said Latimer. “We have perceptions, based on those things that we see or that we have some exposure to and that may or may not properly convey the actual reality of what that thing is, because we're not in a position to see all of the different elements that go into that situation, and to compare what we've seen against all other inputs.”

“Many of us saw a video that was circulated about a month ago that refers to an incident that occurred in the Westchester mall, prior to that, and in that video it reflected a smash and grab robbery at the Louis Vuitton store at the Westchester Mall. There was a similar smash and grab that occurred at another store somewhat after that. And in that you see the violence of crime on a video, and it's very striking.”

In a clear shot at Astorino, Latimer said:

“And when that video was circulated it was circulated out there with political intent by those that wanted to circulate a discussion, a chatter occurred in our community in which people saw the video and began to make the assumption and that was the direction that the author of the video wanted you to believe that crime is out of control, that criminals are running rampant, that there is something fundamentally more dangerous about life in Westchester today, that it was at some point in time previously, and that you should be afraid you should show that there's a fear factor that requires some action.”

Latimer then said he asked the Westchester County Police Department to do an analysis of crime data and “show exactly what is the reality of the crime that we see in an incident today.”

False.

Latimer asked the DCJS to provide partial data, so he could compare 2017 to 2021.

“Our Department of Public Safety did an analysis to the report.”

False.

According to Communications Director Catherine Cioffi, she produced the PowerPoint slides that contain the only “analysis”, subtracting 2017 from 2021 and dividing by 2017, for Total index crime, Total violent crime and Total property crime— not the Westchester County Police Department.

“(WCPD) drew information directly from the DJCS”

False.

According to a DCJS spokesperson, it was the DCJS that compiled the data between January to September 2017 and January to September 2021 not the Westchester County Police Department.

“Every village, every town, every city where there is a police department is required to report to the state.”

True.

“The county police department did a professional job of pulling that together to give us some aggregate numbers.”

False.

DCJS pulled together numbers not WCPD.

Latimer then paused while the video he had narrated was played.

“You might have heard that crime is out of control that criminals are running rampant. But let's look at the numbers. Let's look at the facts. Because here in Westchester County, crime is down. Westchester County Department of Public Safety compared January through September 2017 versus 2021”.

Crime is down during that period. DCJS did the comparison not WCPD.

“We see a decrease across the board. Total index crime has decreased 26.5% Total violent crime has decreased 27.6% total property crimes have decreased 26.3%.

True.

“This report compares 2017 to 2021. And you're looking at numbers that represent three quarters of a year, January through September 30. We picked three quarters of the year because we did not have year-end statistics for 2021, so we could not get an apples to apples comparison of the full year”.

Misleading.

Latimer is comparing two distinct sets of data, incomplete, preliminary, data from 2021 to complete, final data for 2017 — and leaving out the last 3 months of each year while comparing a time period where crime statistics are showing a decrease (2017) and a time period where crime statistics are showing an increase (post-2020) so exaggerating any declines in between.

The DCJS data table was provided to the Westchester County Executive’s Office directly, not to the Westchester County Police Department. There was no “report” prepared by the Westchester County Police Department. There is a table of data prepared by DCJS, PowerPoint slides prepared by Latimer’s Communications staff and a video produced by Communications Director Catherine Cioffi.

The DCJS said the data in their report is preliminary and does not include data from police departments from four municipalities: Bronxville Village, Briarcliff Manor Village, Mount Pleasant Town and Ossining Village.

Latimer did not mention the exclusion of Bronxville, Briarcliff Manor, Mount Pleasant and Ossining, but the exclusion is obliquely footnoted in one slide that flashes on screen for 3 seconds during Latimer’s video.

The data for Rye City PD is questionable, showing a 97% decline in Index crime, down from 60 total to just two larcenies.

A DCJS spokesperson said agencies are required to report index crime data to DCJS within one month after the close of a month: January data by the end of February, for example. Given that, there should be data for some jurisdictions, if not most, for all of 2021.

Because there are delays, and data typically needs to checked and “cleaned” and verified, DCJS publishes preliminary crime data for counties and agencies in late spring or early summer — not February — and then finalizes the data in the fall.

The most recent official crime data from DJCS for each county is for the year 2020. It was released a few months ago and is available on the DCJS website.

Latimer’s explanation as to why his office obtained DCJS data January to September 2017 and January to September 2021 is convoluted.

Latimer said “we” went “back to 2017 as well because it represents the last year before this administration took office.” Latimer them rattled off five years —2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 — then said, “there were four years we recognize that this is a downward trend that has been continuing throughout the course of the last four years.”

This statement is accurate but dissemblingly misleading.

There was a steady downward trend over four years in Index Crimes in Westchester County — 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019. Latimer took office on January 1, 2018, in the exact middle of that period. The DCJS data he is hanging his hat on shows he inherited a declining rate of Index Crimes from Astorino, but that trend was broken in 2020, two years after he took office.

There was a 6.6% increase from 2019 to 2020.

Latimer said “we” picked 2021 because “it's the most recent year that we have that reflects recent experience.” Except he did not pick “2021”, he picked “a fraction of 2021”; the data is incomplete, preliminary data that the DCJS says it will not officially release for 8 months.

Latimer said, “when we look at 2020 we have the reality of a pandemic that shut down the economy and external activities for a significant portion of 2020 and potentially affected what would be a normal baseline year.”

The pandemic did not “shut down the economy and external activities” in 2020 any more than was the case in 2021, arguably less so because the pandemic-related mandates were not fully in place for the first quarter of 2020 but were in place for all of 2021.

Even if it were true that there were pandemic-related shutdowns of the economy and external activities only in 2020 and not 2021, those shutdowns with less people commuting to work, shopping, dining out ought to have meant less crime not more so if 2020 is not a “normal baseline year” it is only because Index Crimes were suppressed by any shutdowns. But Index Crimes rose in 2020 to their highest level since Latimer took office on January 1, 2018.

Latimer does not actually explain precisely why 2020 is not a “normal baseline year” or why three-quarters of 2021 is a better measure than 2020 but regardless he fails to state the obvious: the DCJS report does not use 2020 or 2021 as the baseline year. The baseline year in the report is 2017.

Latimer says, “during this period of time some of the actions that have been taken in the state legislature occurred post-2017 And in theory would be affecting the 2021 numbers”.

The changes he referred to took place long after 2017. Bail reform went into effect on January 1, 2020. “Defund the Police” gained currency after George Floyd was murder in May 2020.

“When you hear the rhetoric, the rhetoric, and the narrative that says ‘well, we've handcuffed the police with these reforms,” said Latimer, “That's not true.”

Latimer is hinting at another question with the DCJS crime data — are police choosing not to make some arrests as a form of BLM backlash? Are prosecutors choosing not to pursue charges as part of criminal justice reform?

Latimer said, “we drew a three-quarter analysis between 2017 and 2021 as a fair analysis, with enough time in between it to see what the numbers showed us. Here's what the numbers showed us. Total indexing crime, categorized crime is down by 26.5% in Westchester County. Aggregated through all of the different police departments of Westchester County, approximately 40 of them, ranging from very large cities to small towns and small villages.”

You might think the Westchester County Executive George Latimer would know how many police departments there are in Westchester or that not all of them are included in the imaginary WCPD “report” he is citing or which police departments are excluded from the imaginary WCPD “report”.

There are 38 cities, towns, and villages in Westchester County that have police departments that report crime data to the DCJS. Data from 34 of those cities, towns, and villages is in the DCJS report.

34 not 40.

The DCJS data for Westchester is not just police departments in cities, towns, and villages. It also includes data for the Westchester County activity of the New York State Police, the Metropolitan Transit Authority, and the New York City Department of Environmental Protection Police (which protects the Water Supply System of the City of New York) as well as the Westchester County Police Department and Westchester County Park Police.

Westchester County Police provides patrol services in Mount Kisco and Cortlandt; Index Crime data is not reported to DCJS separately for Mount Kisco and Cortlandt.

“Total violent crime, which is a subset of index crime, has decreased 27.6%,” Latimer continued. “These are facts. This includes topics such as murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. Total property crimes have decreased 26.3% That includes burglary, larceny, and aggravated assault”.

Property crimes include burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft. Aggravated assault is not a property crime.

Latimer later corrected himself.

“When you see the index of total crimes of Westchester County, that 26.5% represents a reduction from 2017 of 8,434. Down to in 2021 same period, three-quarter period 6,196 When you look at violent crimes 1,484 in 2017 1,074 and 2021. These are numbers compiled by our County Police Department directly from New York State's statistics”.

False.

The numbers as of February 7, 2022 were compiled by DJCS and delivered to the Westchester County Executive’s Office.

“These aren’t statistics that we created out of thin air, and these are the numbers that are reported by every single Police Department in Westchester County”.

False.

Four municipalities did not report data in 2021 and five non-municipality agencies did report data.

“We see a decrease in every single category, less murders, less rapes, less robberies, less aggravated assaults. Those are the violent crimes that affect the person. The property crimes are also down from a total of 6,950 down to 5,122. That generates the 26.3% decrease that I've just alluded to burglaries down from 719 to 490, larceny is down from 5,791 to 4,208, motor vehicle thefts down from 440 to 424. In every one of these single situations, what we see is crime, statistically analyzed crime, by county professionals and state professional, show that crime in Westchester County is down. Now. That is the reality of it. The perception may be based on what you see in a video, it may also be based on those people that want to sell you a philosophy. And they will try very hard to look at these numbers and reinterpret the numbers somehow, in order to try to keep their narrative alive. But the narrative is not correct. The narrative is incorrect. And if you purposefully advance a narrative that you know is incorrect, then you're lying. You're purposely lying, you might make a mistake until you see the numbers. But when the numbers are apparent, and you try to reinterpret the numbers and come up with a different way to analyze them, all you're trying to do is maintain a narrative that is proven false.”

The speech became increasingly bizarre.

Latimer went on to quote from the TV show “Law and Order” — even adding the “dump dump” sound, as he called it before reading from the script of the show’s introduction: “in the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups, the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders.”

Latimer then introduced the “commissioners sheriff of the county police department, Thomas Gleason” to talk about his department.

Gleason said, “part one crime statistics in most Westchester municipalities have been trending downward for several years.”

During the period Latimer is describing, January to September 2017 v. January to September 2021, about one in five municipalities did not see a decline and 6 agencies had large declines.

7 of 34 (21%) municipalities have not seen a reduction in Index crimes during the period: Buchanan, Dobbs Ferry, Irvington, Mamaroneck Village, New Castle, North Castle, and Sleepy Hollow.

5 jurisdictions plus the Westchester County Police Department had the biggest drops in Index Crimes during the period: Mount Vernon (1,356 to 799), New Rochelle (1,020 to 653), Rye (60 to 2), White Plains (813 to 590), Yonkers (2,078 to 1,712) and Westchester County Police Department (267 to 94),

“We understand that these seven specified part one crimes identified and tracked by the FBI and the New York State Department of Criminal Justice Services do not cover all crime categories,” said Gleason.

True.

Among those crimes not covered are Hate Crimes, Domestic Violence Incidents and Illegal Gun Possession, all of which increased during the pandemic.

In the most bizarre moment of his speech, Latimer sought to address the perception that some states are soft on crime and some states are tough on crime by asking, “What is perception? And what is reality?”

Latimer went on to name three people he apparently ripped from the headlines — Michael Burger, Trent Paschal and Daniel Redmond — and described their alleged crimes:

Michael Burger shot and killed two individuals, and he exchanged gunfire with the police when confronted by a member of the law enforcement community.

Trent Paschal was out on bond, cut off his ankle bracelet, stole a Chevrolet Tahoe at knifepoint then escaped and eluded police patrol until he was ultimately cornered.

“Michael Berger and Trent Paschal committed their crimes in the state of Texas. Texas is routinely seen as a state with some of the toughest crime legislation on the books. They have a death penalty in Texas. And they have a three strikes you're out provision that guarantees life incarceration, for crimes.”

Daniel Redman shot and killed a man, leaving him to die in a driveway. He tried to elude capture before he was caught.

“That happened in the state of Florida. Florida is also considered one of the toughest states when it comes to crime legislation. They have a two strikes law with incarceration to follow. 13,600 individuals in the state of Florida are serving life without parole.”

“The work of Daniel Redman in murdering someone, the work of Trent Paschal and the work of Michael Burger, the evil work that they did, were done in states that are routinely pointed to as exemplars of being tough on crime.”

Latimer must not have read beyond the headlines if he believes the three cases he cited support his ideas about Texas and Florida. He could not have picked three worse examples to make his point.

Michael Burger is facing the Death Penalty in Texas after he was charged with Capital Murder.

Daniel Redman is facing the Death Penalty in Florida after he was charged with First Degree Murder.

Trent Paschal was facing the Death Penalty in Texas after he was charged with Felony Murder but bonded out of jail courtesy of a far-left District Attorney whose campaign was largely financed by George Soros. Paschal killed himself after a manhunt ended in Florida.

Michael Burger

20-Year-Old Texas Man Arrested For Allegedly Shooting, Killing His Parents

Police Chief William McManus said Sunday, Feb. 20 that Michael V. Burger, 20, was arrested at the scene after a brief exchange of gunfire with an officer who heard the shooting from across the street.

Court records show Burger is jailed on a capital murder complaint pending filing of a formal charge.

Capital Murder is the most serious crime in the state of Texas. It is the state’s only offense punishable by death.

Daniel Redman

Inverness Man Arrested For The Murder Of His Brother

Citrus County Sheriff’s Office Major Crime Detective has arrested Daniel Redman, 29, of Inverness, for the premeditated murder of his brother. Daniel Redman has been arrested for the following charges:

• Possession of a firearm as a convicted felon
• Shoot/throw deadly missile into dwelling/conveyance
• Burglary with battery
• Premeditated murder
• Kidnapping with intent to commit/commission any felony

The crime of First Degree Murder is a Capital Offense in Florida and only has two possible sentences: Death, or Life without the possibility of parole.

Trent Paschal

Tipster leads officers to Florida, where they found fugitive accused of wife's murder in La Marque

The man accused of killing a La Marque woman in October of 2020 has died by suicide in Florida. According to officials in Florida, deputies approached the vehicle Trent was in late Friday night, knocked on the door, and that is when they say he shot himself.

Trent Paschal had been on the run for more than nine months, since April of 2021. Deputies say after the murder, they tracked Trent to Harris County, where he was shot by deputies after a brief confrontation. Trent spent months recovering from his injuries, and eventually bonded out of both Galveston and Harris County jails. In April of 2021, investigators said Trent cut his ankle monitor and held a car salesman at knifepoint before taking off with the Chevy Tahoe he had been test driving.

"How many other Trent Paschals are out there? Within in the past year, there have been six shootouts involving law enforcement officers and wanted felon bond forfeiture defendants," Andy Kahan, the director of victim services and advocacy with Crime Stoppers Houston, said at a briefing Monday afternoon. "That's just in Harris County."

Harris County DA & George Soros

Kim Ogg is the Harris County (Houston, TX) district attorney. She was elected with the aid of about $878,000 from the Soros-funded Texas Safety and Justice PAC.

Houston DA Not Liberal Enough

Four years ago, Ogg won election by promising to reform the county’s justice system. Now she’s getting primaried by two of her former prosecutors, who say she hasn’t done enough.

Some of what Latimer said about the crime data is true, some not true, and some misleading.

It is true that the broader six-year trend, starting before he took office and continuing during his first two years in office has been a decline in Index crime. It is also true that crime was up 6.6% in his third year in office.

The only truly false narrative in his speech is the one he concocted about the role of the Westchester County Police Department in downloading data from the New York State Department of Criminal Justice Services, analyzing that data and preparing a report based on that data. Latimer trotted out Westchester County Police Commissioner Thomas Gleason merely to give that false narrative a patina of legitimacy.

EDITOR’S NOTE 2022-0227:

We have requested copies of all relevant internal communications between the Westchester County Police Department and the Westchester County Executive’s Office as well as all relevant communications of both with the New York State Department of Criminal Justice Services.

As police departments report Index Crime data each month there should be such data for most, if not all, police departments in Westchester County. We have requested all monthly Index Crime data collected by the New York State Department of Criminal Justice Services from January 2017 and the present.