On Sept. 19, Angelo King, a conservative and the Republican endorsed candidate vying to become the representative for New York’s District 27 in the State Assembly sat down with Vision Times to discuss what motivated him to run and the issues he finds most important to New Yorkers.
King is looking to unseat Democrat Daniel Rosenthal who has represented District 27 in the NYS Assembly since 2017.
King told Vision Times that “jobs and safety” are his priorities and that the legislature’s inaction during the COVID-19 pandemic is what inspired him to run for office.
He said he noticed “one little thing that wasn’t functioning” during the COVID-19 pandemic and that was the New York State legislature.
“The legislature stood back, they said nothing, they just let the Governor do whatever she wanted and they sat back and didn’t listen to the constituents,” he said.
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King, an electrician by trade, says he is “not a politician” but an “up-and-comer from Queens.” His parents legally immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic in the 1970s and King said that he had the opportunity to live in the Dominican Republic for about a year as a teenager where he gained the experience of what it is like to live under a corrupt government.
He said that when he returned from the Dominican Republic, that he “stepped out of that airport and kissed the ground and said ‘God bless America.’”
King says that he has seen first hand, on multiple occasions, the fallout of the bail reform laws and the state’s lax enforcement on crime, saying that one of the first things he would do if elected — other than contributing to the repeal of all COVID-19 mandates — is to seek the removal of New York District Attorney, Alvin Leonard Bragg Jr., who he holds accountable for the lax law enforcement and the subsequent surging crime rates he is seeing across the state.
“I have to fight to keep America from going backwards. I don’t want it going backwards,” to the state it was in the 80s and 90s. “I’ve had three guns pointed to my head, I’ve had a knife at my throat, I’ve been robbed,” King shared with Vision Times.
He spoke up for his local small businesses telling Vision Times criminals keep coming back to victimize small businesses who are not only struggling with the fall-out of the COVID-19 pandemic but also with surging thefts that no longer attract the attention of law enforcement or New York’s District Attorney.
He said the DA’s decision to stop prosecuting thefts under $950 is having a disastrous impact on small businesses across the state.
King told Vision Times about an incident where he entered a store to find a security guard wrestling with a thief. He said that after several minutes the thief was eventually ejected from the store and that the security guard then returned to his post behind the register. “This is the life we are living in right now,” King told Vision Times. He said police officers didn’t even attend the scene, leaving the small business to contend with the criminal on their own.
He said it appears as though the rights of law-abiding citizens are taking a backseat to the rights of criminals.
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- New York’s 2018 Bail Reform Law Blamed for Surge in Crime Across State: Report
‘Let’s unite with a common goal’
“I’m here. I want to be of service to the people. I want to serve the people and I want to do the right thing,” King told Vision Times.
When asked what the common goal is that he wants New Yorkers to unite behind he said, “That common goal is that we have to help to restore, and heal, work together, put parties aside and try to help one another and put all hate aside,” adding that, “Our kids, our children are the future of New York and we have to focus on them.”
King says that the community not only has to focus on providing educational opportunities for all New York students but that the psychological impact on youth due to the pandemic needs to be addressed. He said this issue is being ignored and that it should be “all hands on deck” to address mental health issues in the community.
He wants all New Yorkers to “work together and try and make something” to rebuild New York City and to address the right issues; the economy, jobs and to help troubled youth.
“Young kids, dropping out of school. No one talks about that. These are things that need to be addressed,” he said.
The 2022 midterm elections are scheduled to be held this November 8 when New Yorkers will choose representatives for NYS Assembly for all 150 districts across the state.
