Gov. Kathy Hochul is set to meet with embattled Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on Friday afternoon — just hours after hearing a slain NYPD cop’s widow blast his soft-on-crime policies at her husband’s funeral.
During an unrelated news conference on Long Island that followed the memorial service for rookie Officer Jason Rivera, Hochul called it “heartbreaking to see the riveting pain that young widow was experiencing.”
“It literally brought me to tears as I was sitting there,” she said.
Hochul said that “we need alignment with our men and women in uniform because they’re out there putting their lives on the line to keep us safe.”
“And yes, we have to protect people’s rights and ensure there’s fairness and justice in the criminal justice system, and there’s been shortcomings and we need to address them,” she said.
“But these are not mutually exclusive objectives.”
In reference to her planned meeting with Bragg at her Manhattan office, Hochul added: “I’ll be having a conversation about my desire to achieve both those objectives simultaneously because I believe they can occur.”
Bragg attended Friday’s funeral and tweeted that he was “grieving and praying” for Rivera and his partner, Officer Wilbert Mora, who was also fatally shot after responding to a domestic incident in Harlem on Jan. 21.
“Violence against police officers will never be tolerated, and my office will vigorously prosecute cases of violence against the police,” Bragg wrote.
On Wednesday, Hochul put Bragg on notice that she had the power to remove him from office over his controversial directives for assistant district attorneys to not prosecute some minor crimes, downgrade certain felonies and not seek bail or “carceral” sentences in cases that don’t involve serious violence.
“I have options, but I will be monitoring the situation very closely,” she said during a meeting with The Post’s editorial board.
Bragg outlined his progressive vision for the Manhattan DA’s Office in a Jan. 3 “Day One” memo that sparked calls for his ouster and led to the resignations of at least nine ADAs, including top trial prosecutor Joanne Illuzzi-Orbon.
Earlier this week, Bragg replaced his spokesperson with former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s last press secretary, Danielle Filson, and also hired a leading white-collar defense lawyer, Peter Pope, for the newly created job of executive assistant district attorney for gun violence prevention.
