Posted on 12/01/2008 11:41:39 AM PST by Jersey Republican Biker Chick
A fuming Mayor Bloomberg said Monday he wants Giants player Plaxico Burress prosecuted "to the fullest extent of the law" for accidentally shooting himself in his leg with an illegal handgun.
The mayor also called on prosecutors to throw the book at officials of the Giants and New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell for reportedly not alerting police about the shooting immediately, as required by law.
The incident reportedly occurred early Saturday inside the crowded LQ nightclub in midtown. Sources said the loaded gun Burress was packing slipped down his pants leg and went off as he fumbled to grab it. He was struck in his right thigh.
"It's pretty hard to argue the guy didn't have a gun and that it wasn't loaded," said Bloomberg, lashing out at the Super Bowl receiver. "You've got bullet holes in and out to show that it was there."
Bloomberg, who has been leading a national crusade against illegal guns, noted that under New York law if you are convicted of carrying a loaded illegal handgun "you go automatically to three-and-a-half years in the slammer."
"And I don't think that anybody should be exempt from that," he added. "And I think it would be an outrage if we don't prosecute to the fullest extent of the law."
"Our children are getting killed with guns on the street," the mayor commented during an unrelated press availability in the Bronx. "Our police officers are getting killed with guns in the hands of criminals."
A mayoral spokesman said Bloomberg was referring to the state law he successfully pushed through Albany last year that changed the penalty for illegal possession of a loaded illegal handgun from a one-year sentence to a mandatory minimum 3 1/2-year sentence.
The mandatory sentencing would apply if Burress is convicted as charged, but not necessarily if he is offered a plea bargain.
The mayor said that "people who live in the public domain" should be especially held responsible for their conduct because "they are the role models for our kids."
Not prosecuting celebrities and notables who "make their living because of their visibility" would make "a sham, a mockery of the law," the mayor asserted.
As for hospital officials who allegedly didn't immediately report that Burress had been brought to the hospital and treated, the mayor said, "It's a misdemeanor, it's a chargeable offense, and I think that the district attorney should certainly go after the management of this hospital."
He scoffed at the hospital's "lame execuse that they didn't know. This is a world-class hospital in a city where we all know what goes on in the streets of our city and where all should be working to get guns off the street."
He said those who treated Burress didn't immediately call the police and the hospital management "should make sure that the people that didn't no longer work there."
The mayor said the police only found out about the shooting incident from a TV report.
"The hospital didn't call and the Giants didn't call," he said. "And the Giants should have picked up the phone right away as good corporate citizens. I don't care whether (there is) the legal responsibility for them to do it."
Go away!
People have the right to respond to your comments. Them’s the rules.
It's the law. Change the law or accept it. Unless you advocate anarchy.
People have the right to respond to your comments. Them’s the rules.
Insulting someone is not responding. Hence, the "go away".
Law abiding citizens should be allowed to travel ALL of our 50 states, be it for business or pleasure, with the constitutional right to keep and bear arms for self defense.
Speaking out for second amendment rights to be upheld in all 50 states is NOT advocating anarchy.
To insinuate that it is, is insulting.
Bloomberg. Corzine. Idiocy knows no social status.
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