Two cheers for small defeat in NYC left’s pro-crime crusade — but the fight’s NOT over

Yay: New York City’s pro-crime left has been handed a partial defeat in its endless assault on the NYPD.

The taxpayer-funded Legal Aid Society, a key player in the battle of Gotham progressives to turn the streets over to thugs and killers, went to court to try to force the department to turn over the photographs and tax-ID numbers for all “active members.” 

Such a disclosure, of course, would serve no legitimate purpose. 

Why on earth would an organization tasked with providing legal services to poor people need a rolodex of photos and tax info for every cop in the Big Apple?

Well . . . 

To intimidate those cops. 

To turn them into potential targets for criminals, and perhaps the various career protesters and worse who do the modern left’s dirty work. 

Above all to hinder them from protecting the public. 

The request was too much even for Judge Arthur Engoron (whose main claim to fame is stage-managing Donald Trump into a business fraud conviction waaaay outside any normal legal bounds). 

He rightly pointed out that since Legal Aid is not “bound by confidentiality,” this would be like “having a billboard in Times Square posting the photographs, names and tax identification numbers of every police officer.” 

Then again, Engoron left open the possibility that he might grant a followup request tailored to “exclude material that would compromise police safety.”

Hmm, that could mean: I’m happy to help screw over the cops, guys — just tone it down a little, wouldja?

And if Engoron fails to oblige, you can expect Public Advocate Jumaane Williams or mayoral hopeful Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani to propose a city or state law demanding what Engoron refused.

The left’s attack on policing is inexorable — but it must be resisted, on all fronts, or public safety will vanish like smoke.