'Homeless vagrant' charged with assault walks free, allegedly beats two women in New York, is released again

Prosecutors and a judge in Manhattan deemed it appropriate on Friday that a "homeless vagrant," Darrell Johnson, with a history of randomly assaulting people on the streets of New York, multiple times, should be free to be released again under "supervised monitoring."

"You keep giving him more tries so that he finally kills someone, and then you lock him behind bars?" said the husband of one of the latest victims.

It’s a story that law enforcement brought to the attention of the New York Post. Johnson is currently 28 years old with "more than a dozen arrests on his rap sheet dating to 2014," says the outlet.

The situation started on August 3, 2020 when Johnson repeatedly punched a man in the face, as well as kicked and stomped him on the streets of Harlem. The presiding judge in the case had to let Johnson go free because of how bail restrictions work in the state of New York.

These reforms by progressives facilitated Johnson's freedom to violently assault a 50-year-old woman Thursday morning on Broadway and West 79th Street in Manhattan. While this first victim was left to tend to a "laceration" on her face, Johnson moved to West 80th Street where he began repeatedly punching a 32-year-old woman in the face as well.

The husband of the 50-year-old said that his wife "needed stitches on her lips and cheek. Her face is swollen and eyes are partially shut."

This is what New York County Defender Services had to say in response to media reports about their client.

The issue of "bail reform" surfaced at the forefront of current events amid the Waukesha massacre last month. Suspect Darrell Brooks was freed by authorities on low bail earlier in November amid a situation where he allegedly tried using his car to run a woman over.

Brooks went on to drive a red SUV through a Christmas parade, killing six people and injuring dozens more. Meanwhile in California, Los Angeles looters initially detained for a spree of thefts were also freed under lax bail policies.

The reform of cash bail was put into effect in in January 2020. The idea was to prevent poor, non-violent offenders from being held while waiting for trial. However, the changes made it possible for many to be released with only their word that they would come back and face trial, and a hope that they did not offend again while that trial was pending. Johnson's case is only one of many in which an offender was arrested, set free, and offended again, only to be arrested and set free to offend again.