- While the team was created in 2022, it sparked backlash over the weekend after making an appearance on local television
- The seven-officer team’s very public promotion comes as New Yorkers worry about the city’s ongoing migrant crisis and a recent wave of crime
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes is the latest New Yorker to slam the NYPD over its dance team.
‘How many school music programs got defunded for this,’ asked the Democratic Socialist as she shared a clip of the dance crew on X on Monday.
While the team was created in 2022, it sparked backlash over the weekend after making an appearance on local television.
The seven-officer team’s very public promotion comes as New Yorkers worry about the city’s ongoing migrant crisis and a recent wave of crime connected to asylum seekers.
Still, some of AOC’s own critics took her post as an opportunity to slam her and her progressive politics.
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes is the latest New Yorker to slam the NYPD over its dance team
While the team was created in 2022, it sparked backlash over the weekend after making an appearance on local television
One comment read: ‘How many school buildings were shut down for migrants @AOC?’
Another said: ‘Isn’t this the type of police that you like, the ones who don’t actually enforce laws’
Others found common ground with the controversial congresswoman after her tweet taking aim at the dance crew.
One X user said: ‘This is the kind of “defund the police” that I think we could both agree on.’
The dance team members are apparently aware of the backlash, with team vice president Lauren Pagan defending the initiative.
‘I’m just answering 911 jobs all day, all day, all day out of roll call until it’s time to go home,’ she said.
‘Music is amazing. And when I get to sit here and just listen even if it’s the same song over and over, it’s a nice place to be. Everybody here loves to dance. They love being here.’
Martinez said the club was designed to provide officers with a place to ‘express themselves creatively.’
‘We have a dance team because the mental health kind of takes a toll while doing this job,’ she explained.
The dance troop’s recent appearance on local media comes as highly-publicized instances of migrant crime have drawn attention and theft continues to rage.
More than 160,000 migrants have arrived in the city since the spring of 2022 and the crisis is only deepening as they continue to be bussed from Texas where record numbers are pouring over the border.
In one of the most viral incidents of the past month, three NYPD officers were pummeled by a group of migrant men in Times Square and left with minor injuries.
In another case, a 15-year-old Venezuelan migrant opened fire at a sneaker store during an attempted shoplifting.
He was arrested and charged as an adult after the bullet struck a Brazilian tourist and he continued to shoot at police while fleeing.
More than 170,000 migrants have landed in the city since the spring of 2022.
That number is only rising as Texas Governor Greg Abbot continues to bus people up north in retaliation of the federal government’s border policy.
Appearing on ‘Good Day New York’ in January, Mayor Eric Adams estimated between 2,500 and 4,000 new arrivals each week.
However, the NYPD touted decreases across several major crime indexes in January.
Murder fell by 25 percent; rape by 24.4 percent; burglary by 19.8 percent; grand larceny auto by 3.8 percent; and felony assault by 1.5 percent.
In addition, arrests for all major crimes citywide increased 5.7 percent year over year.
But statistics for other types of theft-related crime saw an increase – robbery rose 5.4 percent while grand larceny saw a 0.4 percent uptick last month.
The department attributed the increase to ‘organized pickpocket teams’ and so-called ‘lush workers’ targeting drunk or sleeping victims in the subway.
