Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon says Albany ‘reforms’ are causing more gun violence

Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon said juvenile justice reforms such as the age-raising law “make it harder to hold teens accountable” and predicted the situation would only get worse.

“What we’ve seen for the most part is gun violence outside of schools, but the next thing we’re going to see is that we’re going to see it in schools,” McMahon, a Democrat, said.

On Monday, an 18-year-old pointed a black revolver at a 17-year-old classmate at City-As-School HS in the West Village.

On the same day, someone blew out the windows of two classrooms at PS 78 in the Clifton section of Staten Island. Adult students were in one room, and the other was empty. McMahon said the shooting was gang-related. No one was hurt, there were no arrests.

In October, a stray bullet hit a 14-year-old walking in front of Tottenville High School in the same area when one in five people started shooting. The school was closed, and the students were told: “This is not a teaching!”

“It seems to be the smallest thing that can make them angry, be it a swear word or an insult on social media. They go to war. For them, war means picking up a gun and firing it,” McMahon said.

Under the state’s 2017 Age Raise Act, persons under the age of 18 cannot be prosecuted as adults in almost all cases.

McMahon said the youngsters are “absolutely” aware of the law and that older crew members hide guns with younger ones.

“If you are 16 years old, you are caught with a loaded gun and sent to family court, you will be discharged in an hour or two. I can’t even prosecute this case,” said McMahon, a former congressman. “They should show the gun so we can at least try to file a case.”

He said he wanted to bring lawbreakers to justice by “using the levers of the criminal justice system to try and reconnect them to society.”

“I’m not saying that every 16-year-old should go to jail. But there is no meaningful result here, so they went back to it,” he said.

McMahon also cited a “shocking” shortage of school security agents and a shortage of school counselors as contributing to the spike in violence.

He said only one school security agent was on duty at PS 78 at the time of the Monday shooting.

“The criminal justice system was really thwarted by the Albany laws,” he said.