Speaking during the Wednesday, May 22 broadcast of “Fox & Friends” on Fox News Channel, Fox Business anchor Charles Payne spoke out about a personal tragedy that recently struck his family, saying that his niece has been shot in Harlem on the street he grew up on. The sad news comes as many large urban areas experience shockingly large amounts of violent crimes.
Payne, speaking about the news, noted that not only was the incident a sad personal one, but shows the larger and often underreported problem of violence blighting America’s urban areas and making the lives of those living in them miserable.
Explaining what happened, Payne first noted that his niece was in Harlem to attend the memorial service for the son of a longtime friend and that, while there, she was shot in what appears to have been a targeted attack against some of the individuals present at the service. He said, “My niece was shot on the street that I grew up on,” adding that she had to undergo four hours of surgery and is now recovering from her wounds.
Continuing, he added, “She’s okay now,” but then went on to explain how the gang issue has gotten extremely bad. He explained, “Whether it’s in places where the opioid epidemic is out of control or places like my neighborhood was being gentrified, but this gang thing has really been amazing. I had no idea it was getting, it was this bad. It’s really bad.”
Then, connecting the gang violence issue to the illegal immigrant issue with which New York City, a sanctuary city, is trying to deal without backing away from longtime leftist reluctance to turn illegal immigrants over to immigration authorities. In any case, Payne, speaking about the illegal immigrant issue and how it is connected to the gang issue, said, “These illegal immigrants are gangsters. They’re all intertwined in these gangs. No one will report on it, but it’s because it’s really bad.”
For reference, New York Police Department Commissioner Edward Caban, speaking in February of 2024 about the “migrant crime” issue in the city, said, “In recent months, a wave of migrant crime has washed over our city, but by no means do the individuals committing these crimes represent the vast number of people coming to New York to build a better life.”
Watch Payne here:
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Further elaborating on the gang issue around the same time, Gregg Etter, a criminologist who studies a Venezuelan gang called Tren de Aragua that is now present in New York, told the Washington Times, “Tren de Aragua engages in extortion, kidnapping, robbery, homicide for hire — these guys are hit men — drug and human trafficking, smuggling, all kinds of different things.” He added, “One thing about this group is they’re extremely adaptable and they have a very short learning curve.”
Similarly, Vickie Paladino, a Republican on the New York City Council, said, when speaking about the gang members, “They’re from these impoverished countries where they can’t eat, so they rob people.” She went on to add, “They have no money, so they knock old ladies down like they did here on a moped.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video