Progressives’ refusal to lock up violent criminals is still slaughtering innocent New Yorkers — including ones living the American Dream, like East Village deli worker Abdul Saleh. 

This cold-blooded killing, allegedly by violent thug Kavone Horton, made a news splash for two reasons. 

First: Saleh spoke to a TV reporter a year ago about the dangers he and others in local retail face: “People get shot, killed,” he told WABC last May.

“Sometimes you get robbed and the police never respond quick, come three or four hours late.” 

A picture, in other words, of an NYPD hobbled by laws designed to make it easier for crooks to ply their trade — though Commissioner Jessica Tisch is leading it to real success despite those lefty-written laws.

Second: Horton’s rap sheet was a mile long, including a recent history of harassing customers in Saleh’s store. 

The alleged murderer was caught up in a major 2016 gang bust overseen by then-Southern District US Attorney Preet Bharara.

But actually keeping Horton off the streets is another matter: He got released on time served plus an agreement to enter substance-abuse counseling and testing. 

This, for being a soldier in a gang war that saw a 15-year-old stabbed and a 92-year-old woman killed by a stray bullet inside her own home.

With nearly a dozen arrests in total, Horton remained on the streets — exactly as progressive “criminal-justice reformers” desire.

Consider: Guy Rivera, who killed hero officer Jonathan Diller, just got a sentence of 115 years to life — yet could get sprung in just 19 years if progs manage to pass their Elder Parole bill in the Legislature, overriding all sentences to let even hardened crooks walk free once they turn 54. 

As it is, the state Parole Board, packed with soft-on-crime ideologues because the state Senate won’t confirm anyone else, has freed at least 43 cop killers since 2017.

Last month saw the release of Jesse Daniels, 23, soon after his latest arrest, for allegedly kicking a 7-year-old boy in an unprovoked Crown Heights attack.

Video shows the attack, but the assault charges don’t allow for remand under the state’s no-bail laws despite his six prior arrests dating back less than a year (according to police), including multiple random attacks on women plus an alleged decapitation of a pigeon in the middle of Penn Station. 

Lefties condemn “violence” but fight tooth and nail to not lock up the violent — though it’s the obvious, only solution.

Consider Baltimore, which gave Soros-backed prosecutor Marilyn Mosby the boot in 2022.

With new State’s Attorney Ivan Bates actually pushing to imprison violent perps, Baltimore’s seen murders drop from 334 to 133 in 2025, plus major gains in other major crime categories. 

But Gotham’s headed in the other direction, as the state Legislature looks for more ways to empty the prisons and Mayor Zohran Mamdani plots early releases from Rikers Island so the “replace Rikers” scheme can proceed.

To protect innocents like Abdul Saleh, New York needs to get back to locking up violent perps — and start rejecting the progressives who keep letting them loose.