Man who punched 9-year-old girl in Grand Central was enabled by soft-on-crime Dems

What kind of sicko sucker-punches a child? Better question: What kind of depraved society helps him do it?

On Sunday, Jean Carlos Zarzuela was arrested for socking a 9-year-old Bronx girl in Grand Central Terminal, leaving her dizzy and in pain.

The kicker: The horrifying assault might have been prevented if it hadn’t been for soft-on-crime Manhattan Judge Laurie Peterson, who let Zarzuela out without bail after he was arrested for slugging an elderly woman on April 4.

Instead of keeping this clear danger to the public behind bars, Peterson — who has a record of springing violent criminals — put him back on the streets to find his next victim.

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In 2020, Peterson released an accused looter who allegedly assaulted a police officer , denying prosecutors’ request for $25,000 bail.

In 2016, she freed a defendant accused of assaulting a woman in Greenwich Village, who then went on to allegedly slash the faces of two more women.

Fiend who punched 9-year-old girl at Grand Central in provoked attack says he hit her because he was ‘thirsty’: prosecutors

Peterson knows the potential consequence of releasing suspects like Zarzuela is more innocent people harmed, and she does it anyway.

And judges like Peterson are encouraged and enabled by politicians like New York State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, who has resisted even small fixes to the disastrous no-bail law and recently claimed (preposterously) he doesn’t “believe raising penalties is ever a deterrent on crime.”

This is the leadership that’s turning New York into an anything-goes, consequence-free haven for criminals — and a nightmare for everyone else.

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The rot in the system is spreading: Over the weekend, two police officers were killed in a shootout during a traffic stop near Syracuse, just weeks after the murder of NYPD Det. Jonathan Diller .

In New York, the bad guys are going free, and the good guys and the most vulnerable are being sacrificed on the altar of “criminal-justice reform.”

If a 9-year-old girl being assaulted won’t move New York leaders to change their ways, nothing will.

The only option left for New Yorkers: change their leaders.

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