The may have won the NBA Championships, but Judge Adam Levy said the celebrations went too far when the city descended into chaos and violence.
Some Knicks fans in responded to their teams win by lighting school buses on fire, climbing scaffolding, light poles and statues, and getting violent. Witnesses reported gunshots in Times Square that the NYPD told Fox News Digital left a 17-year-old wounded.
The New York Police Department also had their hands full a few nights before, when the Knicks pulled off the biggest comeback in NBA Finals history. They arrested several people on charges stemming from a watch party gone wild in Bryant Park.
Levy, the son of Judge Judith Sheindlin who will soon be starring in the new show “Adams Law,” said enough is enough, noting that the law-abiding citizens were the ones most impacted by Saturday’s onslaught.
“Well, I would focus on the thousands of fans who celebrated peacefully,” Levy told on Tuesday. “So the vast majority of people who went to watch the game in New York City when the Knicks won were peaceful. They celebrated. And that’s the way it’s supposed to be. They took pictures, they hugged strangers, and they went home. They were raised to understand the difference between celebration and destruction. The minority, a very small number of individuals, are the ones that the NYPD and prosecutors should be focusing on.”
Sixty-three individuals were arrested in Saturdays postgame disorder. Levy hoped they’ll face swift justice.
“And out of that 63, the prosecutors should be focusing on the repeat offenders to dedicate their resources against,” he said. “There should be nobody at this point – none of the 63 should walk away with a slap on their wrist.”
Levy said there are a number of factors that could have contributed to the lawless environment, starting at home.
“I say that the fish stinks from the head down and that when I say that, it’s not just one group, it’s just not one fish,” he said. “You have parents who failed their kids. You have schools that failed the kids and you get the government who failed – when I say kids, I mean the rioters – and the government failed them. It’s a trifecta, that parents for whatever reason are failing to teach morality in the home, responsibility in the home. Schools are focused on things other than reinforcing that. And the government is most certainly responsible for looking the other way and putting law-abiding citizens’ safety and lives at risk, by failing to enforce and prosecute those who violate the law. And the results are exactly what you see with these 63 nutballs.”
Levy, a former district attorney in New Yorks Putnam County, has plenty of experience with criminals.
“Twelve years I defended knuckleheads like this,” he said. “And for 13 years, I prosecuted them. So I know the difference between just stupid mischievous kids, and those who really need a swift kick in the a–. And who needs a weight of the criminal justice system weighing over them. So, they don’t become hardened criminals. It’s not rocket science.”
Levy warned that authority figures need to remember to lay down the law and not be too concerned with being cool or of the potential fallout of doing their jobs properly.
“And when you have people in charge – when you have parents and school personnel and government officials who want to be the kid’s friend, who are afraid of being called names by, you know, by members of the public who completely have a wrong view of parenting and schooling and teaching and government’s responsibility to protect law-abiding citizens. When you have those people who are afraid of getting called names. You know, ‘You’re a, you’re a Nazi. You’re, you know, you want to throw everybody in jail.’ It’s not, and refusing to make excuses for the kids. ‘It’s not their fault, it’s their environment. It’s not their fault, the
