FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 28, 2026
Contact: Team Saritha
Email: [email protected]

NEW YORK – Today, New York State Attorney General Candidate Saritha Komatireddy issued the following statement on the brutal murder of 12-year-old Jacob Freytes in the Bronx:

“Jacob “Kai” Freytes was 12 years old. He went to a bodega in Mount Eden to buy a ball. Today, he is dead. Shot by apparent gang members firing into a crowd in a dispute he had absolutely nothing to do with.

Jacob’s father is a retired NYPD Detective Sergeant who spent his entire career protecting this state. He did his job. Now he has to bury his son.

This is what unchecked violence looks like in New York. This is the human cost. And it reflects a fundamental failure of leadership at the Attorney General’s office.

For years, Letitia James has treated organized gang prosecution as an afterthought. She has deprioritized the organized crime task force and allowed violent networks like the Trinitarios and Sev Side Pinni to operate freely across our neighborhoods. In fact, she spends more time targeting cops than criminals: her own records show that she assigned more staff to the unit that investigates cops than the unit that investigates organized crime. 

Zohran Mamdani is making it worse. He announced a new command in the Bronx with great fanfare earlier this summer, and then backed out of his commitment to add 580 police officers to help staff it. 

He canceled the onboarding of 5000 new police officers on his first day in office. He is actively working to terminate the gang database that helps officers identify and disrupt gang violence before it erupts. And he spends more time visiting criminals in Rikers than visiting victims in the Bronx. So when community members talk about how there were once cops on that corner and there are no longer, or that gangs have become more prevalent in the area, or that they don’t feel heard, now you know why. 

Step by step, James and Mamdani will defund the police by cutting staff, cutting morale, and cutting the tools they need to keep communities safe. Unless we stand up and stop it. 

As Attorney General, I will not allow public safety in New York to unravel under progressive DAs, defund-the-police politicians, and the DSA. 

• I will stop Mamdani, Bragg, and the DSA from dismantling the police department because systemic enforcement failures, particularly those that disparately impact minority communities and result in greater victimization of certain races, are a violation of the civil rights laws.
• I will create a gang database at the state level that is available to local police to use and coordinate to tackle the organized crime enterprises that often operate across county lines.
• I will reboot and restaff the AG’s Organized Crime Task Force to take on violent gangs and other criminal enterprises — just like I did as a federal prosecutor.
• I will pursue maximum accountability for gang-related violence, ensuring that killers face real consequences in court.
• I will support law enforcement, and ensure that our local police have the resources and backing they need to protect our communities.
• I will stop New York City from releasing Rikers criminals back into our communities because closing Rikers without an alternative violates state law.

When you don’t prosecute criminals, when you treat organized violence as a secondary concern, children die. Innocent children in innocent moments. 

This never should have happened. 

New York families deserve an Attorney General who takes crime seriously. They deserve an Attorney General who hears victims’ and communities’ cries for help. They deserve prosecutions that work. They deserve law enforcement that has the resources and the will to protect them.

Jacob Freytes deserved to go to that bodega and come home. His mother should be hugging him right now, not planning his funeral. 

Jacob’s family will forever have an empty seat at the table. 

New York leaders who allowed for this senseless tragedy to happen have blood on their hands.”