A 27-year-old man who hurled a glass bottle at an NYPD officer's head at a Queens public housing complex has been arrested and charged — but in a city where violent suspects are routinely cycled back onto the streets, working New Yorkers have every reason to ask whether this one will actually stick.
Robert Zuniga, of Astoria, was charged Friday with assault on a police officer, attempted assault, criminal possession of a weapon, and harassment, according to the New York Post. The charges stem from a Sept. 6 incident at the NYCHA Ravenswood Houses, where a 29-year-old officer was attempting to disperse a chaotic crowd around 12:45 a.m. when Zuniga allegedly launched the bottle at his head.
The officer suffered a bad cut and was hospitalized. A glass bottle to the skull can kill. This cop is alive because of luck, not because his attacker showed restraint.
The Post reported the facts straight: suspect identified, charges listed, location and time noted. CBS News did not cover this attack on an American police officer at all, opting instead to report on a captured serial killer in Brazil who was found wearing a dress and wig and carrying someone else's baby. Make of that editorial judgment what you will.
What neither outlet addressed — and what matters most to the people who live and work in these neighborhoods — is what happens next. Assault on a police officer sounds serious. In a functioning system, it is. But New York's progressive prosecution apparatus has made an art of downgrading charges, cutting deals, and releasing defendants pending trial. The politicians who built that system don't walk these halls. They have details.
Zuniga will be processed. A judge will set bail or won't. A prosecutor will negotiate or won't. And the people of Ravenswood — and the cops who answer calls there at midnight — will wait to see whether the system treats a bottle to a cop's head like the attempted murder it resembles, or like just another disorderly conduct case on the pile.
The question isn't whether this arrest happened. It's whether anyone with power intends to make it count.
