now to muggings on mopeds people in the city are worried about the increasing number of criminals using mopeds to carry out snatch and grab robberies Suspects on scooters are being sought for snatching purses from women police are investigating 22 incidents just in Manhattan off a new crisis has befallen New York City gangs of thugs riding around on scooters stealing things from people as they walk down the street and although police have confiscated 10,000 illegal scooters since the year began experts say this problem is only going to get worse blink and you might just become a victim riding quickly along our roads and sidewalks mopeds are Central to a crime Trend seen recently across New York City take a look at this video this kind of gives you a sense of how these moped bandas actually operate they roll up on their moped and approach their victims from behind mopeds scooters and motorcycles they have become the getaway vehicle of choice in New York NYPD was also looking into three Queen moped armed robberies that occurred in less than an hour the police need to take all these scooters off their street all of them that I don't understand they should have been cracking down on these scooters a minute ago it's scary and this used to be a very safe neighborhood police are stepping up their Community response teams patrols that have already seized nearly 10,000 illegal scooters so far this year while making 1300 arrests but there's a lot of people around here who are really good people who can't afford to go any place else and now they have to deal with this [Music] nonsense if you're riding a scooter in New York it could end up in the Police Impound Lot look at that but what nobody's talking about is that although we're in the middle of a scooter related Crackdown the whole reason we have this problem to begin with is because the city never took it seriously and now it's so big it may be with us forever which means every New Yorker walking down the street now has to be alert for the sounds of a moped creeping up behind them because although purses and iPhones have been thieves favorite item for years stealing them has gotten easier and easier for thieves who can now ride these illegal bikes wherever they want with no fear of Retribution and the real reason we have this scooter related crime wave is because everything being done on them is illegal but the city's never crack down upon it lawlessness has been allowed to rain Supreme on our streets we're talking everything from riding too fast to riding the wrong way to riding in the bike lane or Worse on a sidewalk with pedestrians and this has caused the law abiding to get used to a certain level of crime that just goes on punished all the time and that's putting people at risk and people in a dangerous environment are letting their guard down wearing their headphones not paying attention and think about that if people Ride Scooters all day long on the sidewalk and nobody cares how long was it ever going to take thieves to see the opportunity to commit a new type of crime on top of that New York is a city of 8 million people many of whom are just not used to this type of thing which gives criminals more opportunities than ever to ride around looking for vulnerable targets and sadly not only are thieves well aware of what they can accomplish with one of these illegal bikes the number of illegal bikes that's going through the roof and these criminals are virtually impossible to [Music] stop here we have a ton of scooters and the number of these things in use climbs every single day it's exploding right now and although there are legitimate use cases for these there are also very illegitimate use cases and they have ushered in in a new era of lawlessness upon our city that nobody's ready for we're going to begin tonight with the search for two gunmen on scooters the NPD says scooters have increasingly become the vehicle of choice for criminals looking to flee quickly and to get around easily how newor so this latest incident Gang Related altercation that took place on multiple scooters but when you hear about something really bad happening with a scooter think about all the other crimes that had to be committed in order for that to happen for example a scooter with no license plate or a fake license plate shouldn't be allowed on the road yet these things are everywhere and no one seems to be doing anything about it that's your first problem and now people can ride these things around without fear of being caught violating basic traffic laws or injuring someone and fleeing the scene because there's no accountability because there's no license plate and if these things don't have license plates New York City's security apparatus with cameras virtually everywhere is completely useless they'll never catch anybody committing a crime on one of these and not only do we allow these scooters to roam the city with no life license plate half the time but there's also zero enforcement about where these things are riding and what that means is New Yorkers have to get used to a certain level of lawlessness always taking place these things are everywhere no one's cracking down on them the police don't seem to care and that's turning people into victims because if the police aren't doing anything about it it must not be an unsafe situation but it is right now we don't know too much about who is responsible we know the men were wearing hoodies they were mask and they were riding scooters so police have been trying to confiscate as many illegal scooters as possible to find who's responsible that so of course the people riding around on these had their bases covered and no license plates and couldn't be identified and there's a familiar pattern here most of the time when crime is committed with these it's a team of two you've got one person who's driving and then you've got another person who's on the back to do something else which probably means that if you're approached by two people riding a scooter you should be wary immediately and that's just one of the many ways these things are perfectly suited for illegal activity which we'll get into but consider how using these as crime Vehicles puts the police in a really difficult position for example how do police go about apprehending criminals who can be everywhere and nowhere at the exact same time you've got thousands of these things roam in the city at any given hour yet the police have no viable leads because there were no plates no identities know nothing that means the only tool police are going to have to crack down on this is going to be a very very broad blunt object because the people riding them are suspects whether they like it or not because of the actions of just a few criminals but to make matters worse because the city allowed this technology to get basically everywhere and to run lawlessly rampant that now puts the police force in a position where they've got to go after these things as if they were invented yesterday meaning when people get pulled over they have to check and see if the license plates are real they have to make sure the person riding has the proper type of license to operate one of these then they've got to check for insurance to make sure that's valid because unlike with cars which we do a great job policing everybody's got insurance all these license plates are legit with mopeds scooters whatever you want to call them it's a essentially the Wild Wild West because although we have rules nobody's been obeying them and nobody's been enforcing this and because the city's finally started to crack down on laws nobody's been obeying for years the sudden abruptness at which they're doing it has a lot of people very surprised about 3 hours later just 3 miles away police were attempting to pull over a man for driving recklessly on a scooter his bike had illegal plates the 34-year-old then took off going in the wrong direction down a Runway now we need moped related crackdowns but think of the mindset of somebody that's been breaking all of the laws regarding these things for years and then suddenly they encounter police who throw the book at them they're going to feel entitled to continue breaking these laws because they were never enforced and obviously this person was some sort of criminal they were driving an illegal bike with stolen plates and then they took off suddenly and they put everyone's life at risk by driving the wrong way down a one-way Street to try and Escape criminals know a police car is not going to follow them down a oneway street when there is oncoming traffic but again with no law enforcement anywhere on this issue people go the wrong way down on oneway streets on bikes all the time and as you're about to see this has led to people in America being the targets of criminals they never thought they would ever encounter because in an urban environment like New York not only are these the perfect getaway vehicle the police can't stop someone riding it from doing whatever they want in that [Music] moment so here we have a whole bunch of police vehicles and although these are great for stopping the types of crime that have existed in New York for a long time they're terrible at stopping scooter related crime in fact every piece of equipment the police have is designed for vehicular crime and that's why criminals love mopeds so much another crime police are tackling involving scooters drive by robberies I've lived in this neighborhood 52 years and I've never seen anything like it Suspects on scooters are being sought for snatching purses from women so not only are these snatch and grab robberies crimes that the police are ill prepared to respond for they're also something that pedestrians have absolutely no warning of before it happens and think about it this 5,000lb SUV it might go 100 m an hour it might be able to Ram virtually anything and take it out of commission but in a city where traffic jams are the name of the game it's not able to chase down a rocket propelled two-wheeler and that's got the robbers feeling pretty much Invincible their bikes are light they are Nimble they can ride on any part of the street a car can't follow them onto the sidewalk a car can't follow them into a grassy Park area where they try to escape or down a boardwalk somewhere they can fit down the little bike lane on the left hand side of the road here no problem and they've got all the advantages of a bike without any of the drawbacks because unlike an ebike which is going to be relegated to a 20 mph top speed and is going to have limited range because of its Reliance on electricity these gas powered mopeds don't have any of those drawbacks because these things have a top speed of 40 50 mph and unlike an ebike that takes 8 hours to charge with a battery you can fill these up in 10 minutes at any gas station on top of that they're incredibly affordable $1,200 is what some of these cost others are even less but that also makes them the perfect vehicles for Crooks I'm 74 and I'm terrified and my husband said to me you can't wear a pocketbook anymore he made me buy like a fany pack Deborah Newman wears a backpack which makes it harder for robbers on Wheels to grab and go she has so it looks like not only do criminals use the speed and maneuverability advantages of these things they go to areas where they know there are wealthy people or vulnerable people but literally anyone can be a victim because we've all got the one thing criminals want access to and that is your smartphone if you've got it out of your pocket and you're looking at it walking around totally distracted someone could see it and just rip it right out of your hand and this thing's got your whole life in it your bank account all your passwords you can transfer money send it to the wrong place and of course if they steal someone's bag there could be money other valuables inside of it like other electronic devices and what's frightening is that literally anybody walking down a sidewalk is a potential Target like look at this you've got the bikes right here you've got the sidewalk right here someone could easily swerve over and steal something and then just keep on going and remember the other problem of people getting accustomed to a certain level of lawlessness we've all heard the dull Roar of one of these mopeds coming up behind us and thought nothing of it because they're everywhere and no one's ever done anything about it but now it's a big problem and we're all used to it take a look at this video this kind of gives you a sense of how these moped Bandit actually operate they roll up on their mad and approach their victims from behind snatching their apple airpod max headphones and then speed off by the time the victim realizes what actually happened the thieves are well on their way the NYPD said so not only is being distracted by watching Tik toks on your phone a big problem if you're doing that and you've got those noise cancelling over the- ear headphones on you are in your own little world you are not paying attention to your surroundings not only could you get struck by an oncoming vehicle but you're a perfect Target for criminals Plus those headphones are so big and so bulky criminals will see that a mile away and know that you're not paying attention it's like a red flag it's like a come get me sign on top of that most headphones have noise cancellation which blocks out external sounds like engine noises and your ears which are there to keep you safe are now useless and I know that we're hearing about headphones being a problem in the context of moped robberies but how many people do you think end up getting victimized because they don't hear the footsteps of someone sneaking up behind them or rushing up behind them when they walk down the street somebody who was never riding a moped but in spite of the uphill battle faced by the NYPD they've been making Headway confiscating tens of thousands of mopeds since the year began but even though so many of these illegal vehicles have been confiscated city leaders are now realizing that the problem is a lot bigger than the police may be able to [Music] handle so here we have the local prec / moped jail where behind this fence are a whole bunch of illegal vehicles and food trucks apparently that were impounded confiscated but unfortunately there's not enough room here to hold all the illegal bikes that are running this town police are stepping up their Community response teams patrols that have already seized nearly 10,000 illegal scooters so far this year while making, 1300 arrests we've taken a record that's ridiculous I can't believe there's so many of these roaming around and these are just the ones that They confiscated there's so many more out there last month 1,600 of them taken in a 10day period That's 160 confiscated bikes a day and that's because as great as these bikes are for illegal activity that's super low price $1,200 that's cheaper than an unlimited metro card they are literally the cheapest way to get around the city and if you use them for delivery work you'll never miss a shift because since it's got gas in the tank it's always ready to go but now the question is if these things are so easy to run from police on on how are they catching them and taking them off the streets it's become a common sight motorized scooters illegally riding in bike Lanes many without license plates our cameras were rolling as the NYPD stopped a driver and confiscated his scooter his offens is unlicensed operator and unregistered vehicle so the way to get these things off the street and to confiscate them is to have checkpoints set up where you're catching people who are riding these doing something else that's illegal revolutionary idea oldfashioned police work and the big ones recently have been the bridges for the last several years these were infested with moped riders in the bike lane police were setting up checkpoints at the bottom of the bridge where you get off it's like a windy little path and there's no Escape you've got concrete walls on either side stopping people and you might be asking yourself why weren't these crackdowns happening originally well there is a progressive reason for that but before we get into what it is understand that when police stop somebody for some sort of traffic violation then they can start doing all of their other checks they can see if the plates real they can see if person has a license and when they do that their name is going to come up in a database maybe there are warrants out for their arrest if there are they search the person what if they find a weapon or something either on that person or inside the bike's storage compartment and at a minimum if the bike isn't registered it gets put in moped jail like you see here and based on the number of bikes that you see back here and how successful this Crackdown has been to get bikes off Bridges you'd think that the same thing would be possible if you extended those crackdowns to sidewalks and bike Lanes all over town but unfortunately not everybody thinks that that would be a good idea because again the police they have to use use very broad Strokes to crack down on moped related criminals and some folks in New York are worried that while the criminals get busted the innocent might get busted as well but on the other hand how are you innocent if your bike is illegal and unregistered Professor Jeffrey buts of John J College says the department needs to focus on the root causes of crime although cracking down on scooters sends an important message and until we do that a lot of problems are going to continue not just crime but d ous behavior on scooters so I hope people deal with thatd commanders that right there is the real problem and that's why we've got this growing moped related problem and whenever you hear someone mention the root causes of crime that's their way of saying they're going to try to police crime without actually doing anything about it based on the idea that crime exists for reasons that have something other to do with the mindset of the person that committed it and to help you understand how this idea of root causes of crime is connected to the confiscation of 10,000 mopeds since the year began you've got to think of what could be the reason why people aren't obeying the laws D maybe it's education maybe people don't understand the law and that's why 10,000 bikes have been confiscated but there's no way that's the case City officials have made it clear that the vast majority of people getting arrested in these moped related crimes freees are people that are from New York these are Americans and that's got critics saying the only way to Stamp Out moped crime for good is to stop running New York like a city that has no laws for example if police had permission to go after these types of crimes when when they see them in progress less people would feel emboldened enough to the point where they would go out and get an illegal bike to begin with like this BMW motorcycle right here either it was used to commit a crime or it had no license plate and that's why it's back here but the progressive viewpoint on all of this is that policing crime punishing criminals confiscating their property when they use it illegally that's just going to make the problem worse and to give you an example a fictitious example consider the plight of somebody who's broke they've got $1,200 they buy a moped and for some reason they don't obey the law they don't register it and then it gets confiscated well now what are they going to do since they don't have any money and they still need to work a delivery job or something maybe they'll go out and steal one has that made society better this is that type of thinking but the contrary view to that is that if people thought there were real consequences to crime they wouldn't try to steal a moped to begin with because they would go to jail but all this talk about disperate impact ignores the one group of people that is disproportionately negatively affected by all of this crime and that is your everyday working person just walking down the street minding their own business who is now a target for criminals all over the city what about the disperate impact for them what do you think about that let me know I appreciate you watching I'll see you in the next video
