'Gravity Knives' Pulling Albany and NYC Onto a Collision Course

NEW YORK CITY, NY — An unresolved legislative stalemate has pit Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York's law enforcement community against advocates, attorneys and now nearly everyone in the State Assembly and Senate, all over an item referred to by a science fiction-sounding name: a "gravity knife."

Far from being fanciful, however, the struggle's consequences will — depending on whom you ask — significantly reduce public safety, or do away with the pointless arrests and prosecutions of thousands of New Yorkers annually.

Gravity knives are knives with a deployable blade that can theoretically be opened with a flick of the wrist. The knives are easy and legal to purchase at hardware and sporting goods stores, and are typically used for a variety of purposes. But the NYPD and some district attorneys see them as illegal under a 1958 statute, one originally designed (according to those seeking to change the law) to outlaw switchblade weapons:

A traditional gravity knife. Photo via The Legal Aid Society.

Attorneys with The Legal Aid Society (LAS), which is leading the charge to change the '58 law, say that for years, it's been applied to many other types of knives, such as those used by workers to open boxes or perform other manual tasks. All that matters in the eyes of law enforcement, they say, is whether an officer has the ability to flick it open, even if that's not how the knife is designed to be used.

A knife connected to a felony prosecution. Photo via The Legal Aid Society.

Such an interpretation, LAS says, has proven hugely significant. The organization, which represents indigent defendants around the city, reviewed six months of its case files dating from July through December of 2015, and found 849 instances in which an individual was charged with a misdemeanor for possessing a so-called gravity knife, including 254 cases in Manhattan and 112 in Brooklyn.

That number, however, is likely a fraction of the total charges brought against knife owners, LAS argues. A review of NYPD arrest data the group conducted found that from 2000 through 2012, 69,999 arrests involved possession of a weapon classified as illegal under a specific legal statute, known as Penal Law 265.01(1). And LAS attorney Hara Robrish said that 69 percent of those charged with the violation in Manhattan from July to December, 2015 were accused of possessing gravity knives.

In other words, if that percentage is representative of the broader situation in the city, then tens of thousands of New Yorkers have been cuffed in recent years for gravity knife possession, even if they bought the knife legally and simply own it for their work.

Further complicating the situation, advocates say, is a lack of equal enforcement and prosecution. Under current law, LAS notes, prosecutors can link a gravity knife arrest to a previous infraction, and then "bump up" their charge from a misdemeanor to a felony.

Once again, LAS looked at its six months of cases from 2015, and found that the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance was far more likely to do that than any other DA's office. During that time period, LAS represented 65 Manhattan clients charged with a felony for possessing a gravity knife, according to the group's statistics. In Brooklyn, it had five such cases, while it had four in the Bronx, five in Queens, and none in Staten Island.

Image via LAS.

"We really feel that his office abuses his discretion," Robrish said of Vance. "We think the other offices are at least really reviewing cases and only [bumping up] people with the worst record."

Vance's office declined to comment Friday on LAS's statistics.

And LAS says that not just geographic but also racial disparities exist in knife prosecutions. The group says, for example, that of the 65 clients prosecuted in Manhattan for felony possession, 90 percent were black or Hispanic. By comparison, just 6 percent were white.

In June, the State Assembly and Senate overwhelmingly passed legislation advanced by Manhattan Assemblyman Dan Quart and State Senator Diane Savino, whose district includes Staten Island, Sunset Park, Brighton Beach, Bay Ridge, and Gravesend, to change the existing rules on gravity knives.

As summarized by Quart's office, the legislation would legalize "common folding knives, regardless of whether they are designed to open with one hand or two hands."

"All such common folding knives have a bias toward closure evidenced by some means, including but not limited to friction, that tends to keep the blade safely closed in the handle when at rest," Quart's office wrote. "The original gravity knife will remain unlawful and is readily distinguished from common folding knives because a true gravity knife has no bias toward closure or opening, and by design opens identically for every person, every time, regardless of skill, by force of gravity."

"Everyone to a man sees the inherent injustice in this archaic interpretation of the law, which captures average working men and women for doing nothing more than possessing a tool that's legal to buy," Savino told Patch on Friday, in defense of the bill.

But the proposed law has been sitting on Gov. Andrew Cuomo's desk since then. While he hasn't offered much commentary on it — his office didn't respond to a request for comment for this story — a variety of high-level opponents have.

Vance has provided consistent criticism. In a May memo sent to Savino and Quart, he argued that the change "would create disproportionate public safety concerns by completely legalizing not only those knives commonly used for employment purposes, but many other currently illegal and inherently dangerous knives that are commonly used to commit crimes of violence."

Vance's memo also presented four alternatives to the bill, including outlawing gravity knives with blades longer than 1.5 inches; exempting knives "secured in a closed container being used for the purpose of transporting tools"; and exempting knives owned by workers who had it on them "while at work, or while commuting to or from work."

The changes, however, have not been accepted by Quart, Savino, or their backers. Savino made a point of dismissing Vance's proposal that laborers could get out of a charge by proving they need the knife for their job.

That would only happen after an arrest had already taken place, she said, before adding, "Why should a person that is doing nothing illegal have to prove their innocence?"

But Vance isn't alone in opposing the legislature's bill. In October, de Blasio and NYPD Chief James O'Neill sent a letter to Cuomo (embedded below) making a public safety argument against it, one local to New York City.

The officials cited the "approximately 4,000 stabbing and slashing incidents" recorded in the city in 2015, a crime rate they said had increased by about 8 percent through this October.

Law enforcement was working to address the problem, they said, but, "Legalizing gravity knives at this juncture would be antithetical to these efforts and would have a chilling impact on the ability to rein in this criminal activity."As examples of the link between gravity knives and crime, they cited the 2012 stabbing of NYPD officer Eden Loor, and the August, 2017 stabbing of a subway rider on 125th street in Manhattan, both of which employed the knife in question.

The letter was signed not just by Vance, but also by Brooklyn D.A. Ken Thompson, the DAs for Queens and the Bronx, and several law enforcement union leaders. (Staten Island's DA had previously come out against the bill as well, as reported by The New York Daily News).

De Blasio and O'Neill Gravity Knives Letter by JVS Patch on Scribd

But LAS attorney Hara Robrish disputes any meaningful link between gravity knife possession and criminality. Once again, she referenced LAS's six month sample of clients. What the record showed, she said, was that fewer than than five percent of those charged with illegal possession of a gravity knife were also charged with the intent to use it illegally.

"It's fear mongering," she said of the city's position. "They're trying to scare people about changing the law, when in fact it's really common-sense legislation."

What a change would do, she continued, is prevent people from going to jail needlessly.

"The people who have been arrested for this, it's usually their first contact with the law," she said. "The arrest and staying in jail overnight is very traumatizing for them."

Robrish said it's also common for those arrested to subsequently lose their jobs, since employers don't want to be connected to those with an arrest record.

With just hours to go in 2016's legislative year, Savino said she was still holding out hope that Cuomo would "look at the very long and growing list of people who are calling on him to do the right thing and sign the bill."

But if he vetoes it, she said, she'll meet with her fellow legislators next year to discuss plans for an override.

"You can't tell me it's legal to sell this knife in the state of New York but illegal to own it," she said. "It's ridiculous."

Pictured at top: a gravity knife. Image via The Legal Aid Society.