Head of NYPD Detectives Union Demands End to Cashless Bail

In response to New York City seeing its third police officer shot early Thursday, three weeks into the new year, Paul DiGiacomo, president of the Detectives Endowment Association, demanded New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers in Albany make immediate changes to the state's bail reform legislation.

"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the start of bail reform till now, there's a direct correlation to shootings, drug dealing and violent crime in this city," DiGiacomo said at a press conference at a Staten Island hospital, where the detective shot in a leg was undergoing surgery. 

"It's clearly not working," DiGiacomo said. "We've told the Senate, we've told the Assembly to fix the laws on numerous occasions, reaching out to the governor to fix the laws because people are dying at an alarming rate. Children are dying at an alarming rate. And this is not fair to the communities in which we serve."

New York’s bail reform law, which went into effect at the start of 2020 under former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, was intended to drive down jail populations by reducing the number of people held while awaiting trial because they could not afford to post bail, Fox News reports. 

The suspect accused of shooting NYPD detective Dominick Libretti in Staten Island during a drug raid Thursday—Nelson Pizzaro, 39—had nine prior arrests in New York and two other states.