POLITICS: UWS crime nightmare has lifelong NYC residents vowing to flee

Fresh off The Post’s reporting on surging crime rocking Manhattan’s ritzy Upper West Side comes news of a terrified UWS assault victim and her husband vowing to leave the Big Apple because her alleged attacker was set free to return to the scene of the crime.

The brazen lawlessness on the UWS has involved daylight robberies and frightening gun-point carjackings on consecutive Sunday afternoons.

The lifelong city resident told amNY of being attacked Nov. 6 near a W. 72nd Street Dunkin’ Donuts by violent cane-wielding vagrant later ID’d as Charles Rogers — whose arrest history spans 40 years.

Cops caught up with him two days later and . . . issued a desk appearance ticket for misdemeanor assault and menacing. When he didn’t appear in court, a warrant was issued.

Meanwhile, Rogers returned to his haunt outside the Dunkin’ — with cops failing to pick him up there.

His decades-long criminal history includes 39 arrests for assaults and other crimes, starting with a 1987 charge of robbery with a dangerous instrument.

Upper West Siders have every reason to be up in arms about the recent crime surge.

Recent random violence includes an 81-year-old woman sucker-punched while walking on West 66th and a 55-year-old Danish tourist randomly stabbed on West 86th.

NYPD data shows robbery and burglary up over 30%, assaults up 14% and shooting victims up an astonishing 250%.

Obviously, these thugs feel emboldened by kid-glove treatment from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and criminal-court judges who apply the most liberal possible interpretation of the state’s misbegotten justice “reforms.”

If Bragg won’t protect wealthy Manhattanites, what chances do lower-income crime victims have to receive a measure of justice?

Unless and until the local Democratic Party gets real about crime, voters — even on the lefty UWS —have no better option than to vote Republican, e.g. for ex-Democrat Maud Maron’s challenge to Bragg’s re-election next year.

The lawless nightmare won’t end until the politicians realize that crime victims won’t take it anymore.