Another nearby page covers the topic of capital punishment, but this page is about rampant crime that goes largely unpunished, for a variety of political reasons.  One of those reasons is that if criminals are released immediately after arrest, and never indicted, prosecuted, and convicted, the crime statistics in that city will be falsely deflated, and the politicians can claim that "crime is under control," when it really isn't.

Subsections:
News and timely commentary about crime and (no) punishment in general
The Death Of George Floyd and the unfair trial of Derek Chauvin

On other nearby pages:
Capital punishment in general
Specific capital cases
The use of 9-1-1 as a weapon
Cell phones in jails and prisons
Black violence in schools
Violent crime in Detroit, Philadelphia, Memphis, New York, St. Louis, Baltimore, Atlanta, Chicago, and elsewhere.

News and timely commentary about crime and (no) punishment in general:

MTA Barred From Using Facial Recognition on Fare Beaters.  The Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York has been barred from using facial recognition technology to catch fare beaters, according to Gothamist.  The prohibition was reportedly included in the new state budget at the last minute and requires the MTA to "not use, or arrange for the use, of biometric identifying technology, including but not limited to facial recognition technology, to enforce rules relating to the payment of fares."  State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani told Gothamist the ban was added to the budget to protect New Yorkers' privacy.

Washington's Sweeping Crime Wave Exposes The City's Distorted Priorities.  The concerns about crime, both big and small, pervade the populace, caused in no small part by a series of flawed policies on both the local and national levels.  Consider these news stories just from the first four months of 2024:
  •   CVS announced that a store plagued by rampant theft would close in late February; staff at the store told a local media outlet last fall that "dozens of kids were regularly going in to steal chips and drinks before school, after school, and late at night," and claimed that "street vendors were paying people to steal from the store so they could re-sell the goods."
  •   Last week, supermarket chain Harris Teeter started requiring customers to show their receipts before leaving stores and banned some types of suitcases and luggage in an attempt to prevent mass thefts.
  •   In February, supermarket chain Safeway installed security gates in multiple stores to combat retail theft and crime, immediately after thieves broke into a Safeway ATM, "stealing cash and ordering employees on the ground."
To this customer at least, the latter security measure had an eerie effect; passing through Safeway's security gates to enter the store gave one the feeling of going into jail, just to buy eggs or a gallon of milk.  The gates block egress at all checkout stands and doors, such that one wonders how readily one could leave the store if one decided not to purchase anything.

Soros-funded Chicago prosecutor will finally get tough on lawbreaking protesters — but only for the DNC.  Kim Foxx, the state's attorney of Cook County, is the chief prosecutor in Chicago and its inner suburbs.  The George Soros-funded catch-and-release Democrat has been a disaster for Cook County residents, except for the many criminals living here.  Nationally, the leftist ideologue is best known for botching the Jussie Smollett case.  Yeah, I keep bringing that up, largely because Foxx supposedly throws a fit whenever her name is attached to the hate-crime hoaxer.  Feel her rage.  By throwing his considerable weight around, both literally and symbolically, Illinois' governor, JB Pritzker, who hopes to run for president in 2028, brought the 2024 Democratic National Convention to Chicago.  This may prove to be Pritzker's undoing.  Chicago was hit hard by riots after the George Floyd murder, and the crime rate in Chicago and its core suburbs has soared since Foxx took office in 2016.  Fortunately, Foxx chose not to run for a third term.

NYPD: We're Handling Columbia Students 'with Kid Gloves' to Avoid 2020 Repeat.  On Wednesday's broadcast of the Fox News Channel's "The Story," NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry stated that the Columbia demonstrators "are kids" and "we are handling them with kid gloves, as you will say," because they don't want things to turn into a situation like in 2020, but "if they try to pull this rhetoric on the street or setting up encampments" that won't happen.  Host Trace Gallagher stated, "[I]t's kind of one of those things where you have to walk a very fine line, because we remember back to the Black Lives Matter protests and the arrests that were made and then the lawsuits that were filed against the New York Police Department and the millions of dollars that NYPD had to pay out, and that's why it seems like, sometimes, police officers are reticent to shut things down now like they used to five years ago."

Which Major City Will Completely Collapse First — Los Angeles, Chicago or New York City?  In 2024, virtually all major U.S. cities have certain things in common.  First of all, if you visit the downtown area of one of our major cities you are likely to see garbage, human excrement and graffiti all over the place.  As you will see below, some of our core urban areas literally look like they belong in a third world country.  Most of our politicians don't seem too concerned about doing anything to clean up all the filth, and so it shouldn't be a surprise that rat populations are absolutely exploding all over the country.  In some of our largest cities, the total rat population is numbered in the millions.  Meanwhile, rampant theft, out of control violence, endless migration, predatory gangs and the worst drug crisis in the entire history of our nation have combined to create a "perfect storm" of social decay that is unlike anything that any of us have ever seen before.  Millions of law-abiding citizens and countless businesses have been fleeing America's largest cities, and property values in our core urban areas have been absolutely crashing.  We really are in the early stages of a full-blown societal "collapse", and things just keep getting worse with each passing day.

Alleged Murderer in Killing of Rapper in Nashville Was Out on Bond in Another Murder Case.  The man who allegedly shot and killed rapper Christopher Cheeks, who went by the stage name Chris King, in Nashville last week was out on bond for another alleged murder that took place in September of 2021.  Cheeks was shot and killed after an altercation with a group of men who attempted to rob him, according to a press release from the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD).  A 29-year-old friend of Cheeks, who was also shot during the altercation but survived his injuries, told police that the group had been cordially hanging out in a Nashville alleyway before the alleged robbery.

The Democrats' Anti-Business Policies Create The Food Deserts They Decry.  Riots [...] are just one way a community can be destroyed.  Another, far more insidious, is common crime.  With riots, everyone can point to the damage and clamor for rebuilding, but with common crime, once the window is replaced or the body chalk is washed away, the neighborhood looks exactly the same as it did before.  But of course, it's not the same.  From citizens being scared to walk down the street to kids having to dodge junkies as they walk to school to upstanding members of the community not visiting certain neighborhoods — and not spending money there — the fear of violence has devastating consequences on any community.  Food deserts are one of those consequences.  Retailers typically are not charities.  They exist to make money.  When violence, security costs, and shoplifting make it so they can't make money, they usually close.  Hence, when all the food stores close, you have said "food deserts." [...] Why all this matters is because the chickens are coming home to roost.  Across the country, from San Francisco to Seattle to New York to Boston, stores are closing because of crime.

17-Year-Old Thug Who Shot And Killed A Store Clerk Over A Bag Of Chips Walks Free In Houston.  A grand jury this week declined to indict a teenager accused of murdering a Humble convenience store clerk in January. 17-year-old Mario Young was accused of shooting and killing clerk Asif Maknojia after Young and another man allegedly stole a bag of chips from the convenience store in January. [...] Both men turned themselves in to the Houston Police Department three days after the incident, and Young was charged with Maknojia's murder.  Activists claim that Mr. Young acted in self-defense since the clerk chased after them, asking for the stolen items back.  The 2nd teen was never even charged.  [Video clip]

Texas boy admits to shooting and killing man in 2022 when he was only 7 years old, police say, but he won't be charged.  South Texas police say that a 10-year-old boy admitted to killing a man in 2022 when he was only 7 years old.  The shocking admission came after the boy allegedly threatened to kill another student on a school bus on April 12. When the boy was questioned, he admitted to killing a man, and that prompted an investigation by the Gonzales County Sheriff's Office.  When questioned by police, the boy recalled in detail how he killed 32-year-old Brandon O'Quinn Raspberry in January 2022.  He said that he was visiting his grandfather at the Lazy J Recreational Vehicle Park and Ranch in Gonzalez County.  Raspberry was also at the park in his own RV.  The boy said he obtained a revolver owned by his grandfather from the glove compartment of his truck.  He used it to shoot and kill Raspberry as the man slept in his RV.

DHS' Admission About Laken Riley's Alleged Killer Will Make Your Blood Boil.  It's not news that the Biden administration's handling of its self-inflicted border crisis is an abject failure, but new information about the illegal alien charged with the abduction and murder of Georgia student Laken Riley illustrates how out of control things have gotten and how unconcerned the president and his cabinet are about following the law.  Reading from Department of Homeland Security files on Jose Antonio Ibarra, an illegal alien from Venezuela, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) revealed confirmation from DHS that Ibarra had been paroled illegally in September 2022 before he allegedly killed Riley on February 22.  As Graham explained Tuesday, Ibarra's file states that the illegal alien was granted "parole due to detention capacity at the central processing center in El Paso, Texas."  That is, "he was paroled because of capacity problems," Graham emphasized.

These attacks in New York City are called "random," but they are always interracial.
Unhinged Man Randomly Sucker Punches 9-Year-Old Girl in the Face in NYC Grand Central Terminal.  A nine-year-old girl became the victim of an unprovoked attack in the heart of New York City's Grand Central Terminal.  The assailant, identified as 30-year-old Jose Carlos Zarzuela, was apprehended following the attack that occurred in the terminal's bustling dining area.  According to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Police Department, Zarzuela, a recently released offender with a history of similar violent behavior, approached the young girl as she was standing near her mother and punched her in the face without any warning, amNY reported.  The impact of the assault caused the girl to suffer from pain and dizziness, necessitating her transportation to NYU Langone-Tisch Hospital.  Thankfully, she is expected to recover fully from her injuries.

Memphis Thug Kills Cop, Shoots Two Others After Being Let Out Of Jail Without Bail For Other Serious Crimes.  A Memphis police officer was killed in a shootout by a teenager who had just been released from custody.  Officer Joseph McKinney, 26, died in the early hours of Friday morning, in Memphis, Tennessee.  The 18-year-old male suspect was also killed during the incident.  The deceased suspect, Jaylen Lobley, had been arrested just last month for possessing an illegal weapon but was released without bond, according to law enforcement officials.  Another officer sustained injuries but is currently in stable condition, while a third officer was grazed by a bullet during the exchange of gunfire.  [Video clip]

Can America Survive if the Guilty Are Left Unpunished?  When I say a reckoning is necessary, I am not condoning violence.  But history has shown us that if humans don't pay a price for their crimes, violence will likely become that last resort.  I hope it never comes to that.  We as a nation are well beyond asking questions like, "Why are MAGA grannies getting busted for a peaceful 10-minute walk in the Capitol, but Antifa and BLM were allowed to burn the nation with near impunity?"  Then there was that whole censoring-Americans-on-social-media thing, when the CIA, FBI, and other governmental agencies convinced social media companies to shut down people who dared challenge the notion that COVID vaccines and masks made a difference.  We sat still as eight Trump associates were sentenced to prison (not to mention the DOJ's maniacal efforts to send Trump as well).  Yet, the Biden Crime Family still hasn't been charged despite the overwhelming evidence of bribery and influence peddling against them. [...] We sat still as eight Trump associates were sentenced to prison (not to mention the DOJ's maniacal efforts to send Trump as well).  Yet, the Biden Crime Family still hasn't been charged despite the overwhelming evidence of bribery and influence peddling against them.

San Francisco Mayor Can't Shut Down Street Vendors Selling Stolen Goods.  Have you ever wondered where all that stone booty in San Francisco ends up?  A lot of the shoplifted items end up being sold out in the open by street vendors.  San Francisco Mayor London Breed has been trying to crack down on the lawlessness by shutting down the illegal street vendors.  But that has proven to be difficult.  First, a 2018 state law has made it nearly impossible to enforce a ban because it prevents police officers from being involved in any crackdown.  Only in California.  But that's only half the problem.  Civil rights groups, Hispanic advocacy organizations, and the far left have all been quick to scream about taking the livelihood away from poor, honest, immigrants.  Apparently, knowingly buying shoplifted goods shouldn't be a crime for these honest folks.  Because of the ban on using police to enforce the law, Breed is forced to use other unarmed city employees to shut down the vendors.

The Rage of the Entitled White Woman.  There's a terrifying crime spree happening in New York that has most women in that city on edge.  Women, mostly young and mostly pretty, are being punched in the face by anonymous attackers as they walk down the street minding their own business.  The attacks happen in broad daylight, and the assailant comes at the woman from the front or the back.  CNN reports that the attacks have been reported all over social media by dozens of women.  While one attack is one too many, let's step back and take a breath before we make this the "next big thing" on the internet.  Too late.  Slate's Amanda Marcotte has carefully examined all the evidence.  After interviewing dozens of witnesses, poring over the forensic evidence, and finally putting her index finger in her mouth and raising it above her head to carefully gauge which way the wind is blowing, Marcotte has determined it's Donald Trump's fault.

FBI alleged a decrease in crime rates, but then an independent group of analysts dug a little deeper and found otherwise.  [Scroll down]  We know the books are cooked, because we feel the pain, like the barefoot resident of Oceania.  We're the ones left bleeding from a grocery run.  We're the ones getting punched in the face while walking down the NYC sidewalk.  We see the National Guardsmen deployed to the subway stations.  We're the ones getting laid off while illegals take our place.  We're the ones closing our small businesses because the market no longer supports us.  We're the ones losing our homes to squatters.  But again, the fake stats are everywhere, and despite our lived experiences, Joe Biden and his Bidenite bureaucrats assure us that things have never been better.

Buffalo Wild Wings president blasts city of Portland for allowing rampant lawlessness.  Buffalo Wild Wings has closed its downtown Portland bar after a long feud with city officials over a nearby car park it said became a crime haven.  Wray Hutchinson, president of World Wide Wings, which holds the franchise for that location since 2007, vented the company's frustrations in an email to staff.  'It is with a great deal of sadness, anger, and frustration I share with you that, after 17 years, we will be closing our sports bar on 4th and Morrison effective today,' he wrote.

The Crime Stats Are Juked.  We see the disorder in our cities, feel the anxiety that this causes, and can't help but notice that New York City had to call out the National Guard despite the Mayor of New York insisting that everything is fine and everybody's safe.  [Tweet with video clip]  The crime deniers are relying on statistics that back up their claims — statistics from the FBI meant to assure us that everything is fine, there is nothing to see here, move along, move along.  Those statistics are juked.  They are a farce. [...] The FBI will happily tell you that crime has dropped from 2020 levels — which, given how obscene the levels were in 2020 with the riots, is plausible.  But they won't tell you that the statistics are measured differently today than in the past unless you look into the footnotes.  For instance, major cities with lots of crime are excluded from the numbers.  It's like Chicago saying shootings are down if you exclude gang members.  Nice.  Useless info, but it is nice to know, I guess.  Do the bullets fired from gang members do no damage, or are you just gaslighting me?

Our cities could use a little law and order.  Last weekend, a young widow and her one-year-old son were the latest consequence of lawlessness in our blue cities.  A man with a long criminal record shot a police officer.  It reminded us of a couple of things:  First, criminals will always find guns, no matter how many laws or gun control speeches we hear.  Second, some criminals need to be in jail rather than sitting in a car waiting to kill someone.  This is the legacy of soft-on-crime policies and blaming guns rather than criminals.  A few days, A.G. Garland went public telling us about numbers and crime.  It fell flat because speeches about numbers don't keep people safe.

99 Cent Only Stores Shuttering all Locations, Citing Crime and Inflation as Key Factors.  One of the first places I discovered when I moved to California in the late 1980s was the 99 Cents Only Store.  One of my apartments was in walking distance of one, and I could buy a week's groceries for $20.  Those halcyon days are long gone, not just for me and others, but for the iconic 99 Cents Only Store.  When the company had to raise their price point from $0.99 to $1.01 a few years back, you kind of got the sense they weren't going to outrun this.  It was finally the weight of inflation and the COVID pandemic that did them in. [...] The press release did not mention rampant retail theft as a reason, but you know that factors in as well. 99 Cent Only Stores are extremely soft targets, with very little security presence.  In California, with Prop 47 in place, retail theft of up to $950 won't even be prosecuted.  So, thieves could take out three-quarters of the store and get away scot-free.

Just Deport the Criminals Already!  What do you get when eight illegal aliens are caught squatting at a home in the Bronx with guns and illegal drugs after dodging authorities for months?  Just one deportation.  Maybe.  And that's for the illegal (I think) who had previously been caught and released for attempted murder last year after previously having been caught and released at the border.  Six of his gun-toting/drug-dealing squatter companions, having been previously caught and released, have already been released this week after being caught again last week — without bail, natch.

Most of NYC migrant squatter crew set loose without bail after gun and drug bust.  Six of the eight gun-toting, drug-dealing migrant squatters busted last week in the Bronx were cut loose without bail — as frustrated neighbors said Tuesday that the unruly, noise crew brought nothing but trouble to the block.  The NYPD collared the squatters — who set up shop across the street from PS 56 inside a multi-family house on Hull Avenue in the borough's Norwood section — after one of them pointed a 9 mm CZ pistol at someone on the property last Wednesday night, police officials said.  "I see all the gangsters and wannabe gangsters running around here," one neighbor told The [New York] Post.

All the assailants are black and all the victims are white.  So let's blame China.
Mayor Eric Adams Cites 'Corrosiveness of TikTok' for Spate of Women Being Attacked on NYC's Violent Streets.  Just look at the "corrosiveness of TikTok" to understand the recent spate of attacks on women across the violent streets of New York City, Mayor Eric Adams explained Tuesday.  During an appearance on "Good Morning America," the Democrat was asked about the reported assaults after videos on TikTok went viral of women describing being randomly punched by attackers while on the sidewalk.  "Despicable," he replied.  "You know, they better hope that I'm not out on the street when I see that takes place."

Jonathan Diller's murder symbolizes the left's war on law and order.  What may prove to be a turning point in 2024 is the murder of 31-year-old NYPD officer Jonathan Diller.  That's because his tragic death operates at the intersection of so many Democrat party policies and values, exposing the rot behind all of them.  Diller, who left behind a wife and infant son, was shot to death by a recidivist; that is, a repeat criminal.  But this was no ordinary recidivist.  In the old days, that might have meant someone who had, at the very least, spent some time in prison.  Under the new rules, though, Diller's killer, whom I will not give the dignity of naming, had an endless history of previous arrests... 21 in total at last word.  Nor were these inconsequential arrests for things such as jaywalking or graffiti.  Instead, the killer, who was arrested with a gun in his hand and shiv carefully stowed in his rectum, was arrested for violent crimes.

Bringing Accountability To Our Criminal Justice System.  Prosecutors plea attempted murder down to assault or a judge sets an unconscionably low bail, and, suddenly, a violent criminal is back out on the street.  And it happens from the other direction as well, when gullible parole boards believe professional liars when they promise they're reformed and won't re-offend and allow them out years early.  Recently, two members of an Illinois parole board resigned (not fired) after a convict to whom they granted parole, within one day of his release, murdered the young son of the parolee's ex-girlfriend.  That's news only because it almost never happens that the parole board members take responsibility for their decisions.  The solution to this problem is actually quite simple, although there is zero chance it ever gets implemented.  What is it?  Accountability.  Judges and DAs should be held accountable for the crimes committed by the people they put back out on the street, at least for X number of years.  Same deal for parole board members.  They should be held accountable for the crimes of criminals they put out on the street for the length of time that person would have been imprisoned under the original sentence.

Some Men Just Want...  Why would anyone who purportedly cares about the welfare of his parents, spouse, or children, not to mention his fellow man, think it's a good idea to hamstring law enforcement while making it easier for criminals to roam the streets?  Or useful to allow the mentally ill to roam the subways while arresting good Samaritans seeking to protect their fellow riders?  Or prudent to allow some folks to riot, causing deaths, injuries and destruction — even during a pandemic — while other folks go to prison for a long, long time for taking a walk in the Capitol, with the Capitol Police kindly opening the doors and providing tours?

Recalled San Francisco DA Says Victims Don't Have Rights Under the Constitution.  Crime victims don't have rights under the Constitution, former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who was recalled by voters in 2022 amid an escalation of crime, said during a conference here at UC Berkeley School of Law.  Boudin's surprising comment came as part of a larger debate between the Left and Right on criminal justice issues at the March 8 gathering, called "Justice Unveiled:  Debating Crime and Public Safety Conference."  [Video clip]  The ousted San Francisco prosecutor led a discussion with California district attorneys that also included Cully Stimson, a Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow who is a crime expert and former prosecutor.

The losers in Biden's America.  As we see in San Francisco, Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Detroit, Los Angeles, St.  Louis, Dearborn, Portland, Seattle, and other leftist cities across America, retailers are being decimated by smash-and-grab theft rings, the rising cost of labor, and inflationary pressures driving consumers to buy fewer and fewer items.  Many stores have closed, with Dollar Tree/Dollar General announcing this week that it is closing 1,000 stores.  This is on Joe Biden and his leftist D.A.s.  It will get worse before it gets much worse.

Joe Biden's winners.  Crime-compliant D.A.s, funded by George Soros and sanctioned by Joe Biden and the radical left, are running roughshod in many inner cities, producing an increase in crime, violent crime, murders, rapes, carjackings, smash-and-grab heists, squatters, and sundry other criminal activities, without judicial recourse.  Increasingly, crime pays.

UC Berkeley Parents Hire Private Security to Protect Children From Violent Crime Surge.  Parents of students at University of California Berkeley have become so concerned about their offspring's safety they have hired private security to secure the local vicinity.  SFGATE reports that parents were forced to take matters into their own hands amid a surge in violent crime around the UC Berkeley campus located outside of San Francisco: [...] While the program will not be continuing beyond this weekend, parents hope that they will be able to convince the university to take more action.  "While we will not be extending the length of our private safety pilot beyond March 23, we will certainly continue to push the administration at UC Berkeley to do more to protect students from violence," Sagar Jethani, president of SafeBears, told SFGATE.

Democrats' Soft-on-Crime Reckoning.  After so-called "progressive prosecutors" implemented supposedly "equitable" standards in response to widespread violence in the summer of 2020 that caused upwards of $2 billion in damage across the country, the natural consequences of soft-on-crime policies followed:  more crime and more victims.  Democrats continue to insist that their embrace of such lenient policies and programs — ones that treat perpetrators as victims while pushing actual victims to the margins — have not, in fact, caused more crime.  Democrats say that "progressive" policies have actually helped reduce crime and claim FBI crime statistics prove as much.  But that's a scam, just like pretending treating violent criminals with kid gloves will reduce crime, and Americans are increasingly fed up.

If this guy so dangerous, why is he living in a halfway house?
'Extremely dangerous and violent' felon who fatally stabbed his mom at 13 escapes from custody for third time.  A convicted mom-killer and serial escape artist has done it again, walking away from a California halfway house where he was supposed to stay after a judge cut him loose.  Ike Souzer, 20, described by the Orange County District Attorney's Office as an "extremely dangerous and violent" offender who stabbed his mother to death when he was just 13, was set free on Wednesday after pleading guilty to felony vandalism.  Souzer was sentenced to 90 days in jail, followed by two years of probation — but Orange County Superior Court Judge Larry Yellin gave him time served.

Unfiled Paperwork [is] to Blame for Over 200,000 Deportation Cases [being] Tossed.  An academic group, Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), obtained some alarming data.  In over 200,000 cases, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) failed to file the proper paperwork with immigration courts in Houston, Texas and Miami, Florida.  The illegal aliens were issued a Notice to Appear (NTA) at the border, which creates a court date.  However, DHS never filed the paperwork with the court.  The asylum process can't move forward without filing the proper paperwork with the court.  The court date rolls around and the asylum-seeker shows up.  The judge doesn't have the paperwork so the case is dismissed.  It is hard to believe but more than half of the deportation cases in Houston and Miami — both considered illegal immigration hotbeds — have been dismissed since fiscal .

In Chicago, cartel-tied illegal Venezuelans trump transgender illegal aliens.  El Tren De Aragua isn't just a violent gang.  It's the largest growing criminal organization in the world and, thanks to Biden's policies, it's here in America, along with (probably illegal) foreign nationals who are working as transvestite prostitutes.  Combine this with leftist district attorneys, weak judges, and BLM-authored state bail laws, and we're left with a system in which alleged criminals freely walk the streets — even when they've allegedly shot the left's current favorite victim group.

There's A Deadly Race War Raging In America.  [Scroll down]  What I mean by that is that it's a perfect storm of Democrat malevolence.  That storm has three components.  The first is what seems to have become the primary plank of the Democrat party; namely, alleged white racism.  Before Barack Obama, America's race relations had been largely improving for 40 years.  With his "the police acted stupidly" comment, things got off on the wrong foot, and after the deaths of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, things went south quickly.  Then, George Floyd's death in 2020 sent race relations into a tailspin.  With the riots and the shilling for BLM by everyone from the NFL to Microsoft to congressional Democrats, things took a decidedly bad turn.  Suddenly, we were told systemic racism was to be found everywhere, from law enforcement to math to punctuality to proper English.  At the same time, we had the Pentagon, the White House, and practically every news organization in the country telling us that white nationalism is the single biggest threat to the country and that blacks were in constant danger. [...] The outcome of this perfect storm is that a significant proportion of the black population hates white people, has little belief that blacks have a vested interest in civilized society, and comes from homes in which no one teaches them right from wrong.

American Work Ethic:  Missing in Action?  We can't continue to be passive as our systems crumble around our feet.  Bad things happen when the canaries in the mine start chirping. [...] New York City admits recidivism is the problem.  Last year, the NYPD released a study that showed that just 327 people were responsible for 30% of all shoplifting arrests in NYC in 2022.  The study also showed that 67% of defendants released under bail reform, who had a prior violent felony arrest in the previous year, were rearrested within two years of their arraignment.  Almost half — 49% — were rearrested for a felon.  Ditto for Chicago, San Francisco and other Blue Cities with similar laws.

Another Weekend Another Night Of Violence And Chaos With Illegal Side Shows In Oakland.  An illegal sideshow occurred in the area of 98th Avenue and International Boulevard early Sunday morning, the Oakland Police Department said.  Oakland police officers said they responded to a report of 50 vehicles engaging in illegal sideshow activity in the area of 98th Avenue and International Boulevard around 3:30 a.m. on Sunday.  One vehicle crashed into the crowd and chaos ensued as the mob attacked the driver and his ride.  [Video clip]

Mendacity and Corruption in the Judiciary.  Something is seriously wrong with American law schools and the disciplinary outfits that are supposed to monitor corrupt conduct of practitioners.  You can see the effects of this degradation in the outrageous behavior of government prosecutors and in the judiciary, which ignores its responsibility to decide fairly and without bias.  We are churning out dishonest, corrupt lawyers and judges who are more than willing to look the other way at such behavior, condoning the most obvious selective partisan prosecutions.  As the awareness of the failure of the judicial system grows, the consequences will be enormous — respect for the traditional way of resolving disputes and obeying the law are fundamental aspects of a civilized, prosperous nation.  Once that is lost, other less tenable means will be employed.

San Francisco man who stabbed Asian woman, 94, multiple times gets probation after soft-touch judge was told he'd suffered 'trauma'.  A San Francisco man who stabbed a 94-year-old in the street has avoided jail after being sentenced to probation and a 'behavioral and mental health treatment program.'  Daniel Cauich stabbed Chinese and Vietnamese immigrant Anh 'Peng' Taylor multiple times in San Francisco's Lower Nob Hill neighborhood in broad daylight in June 2021.  The senseless attack was caught on camera and sent shockwaves through the city during a period of increased attacks on Asian Americans.

Toronto police spark outrage for telling residents to leave their car keys at the front door to avoid thieves breaking in.  Toronto police sparked outrage after advising residents to leave their car keys at the front door and let thieves to take their vehicles.  This shocking message comes as car thefts have soared by 150 percent over six years in Canada's largest city, forcing residents to hide their cars in secret locations and fortify them with round-the-clock security.  At a recent community safety townhall meeting held in Etobicoke, Toronto Police Service (TPS) Constable Marco Ricciardi addressed the issue and offered his controversial tip.  'To prevent the possibility of being attacked in your home, leave your fobs at your front door, because thieves are breaking into homes solely to steal cars.  They don't want anything else,' said Ricciardi.  This bizarre advice has left residents and social media users outraged, with many attributing the rampant car theft to lax bail and sentencing rules under the administration of Justin Trudeau.

The Editor says...
What is the purpose of locks and keys?  What is the point of private property?  Aren't these the same public officials who have been telling us to "lock your car, take your keys" for decades?  Maybe the thieves are only want your car for now, but what happens when they come back someday for everything else?  Especially after you let them have your car without a fight!

Scotland Yard axes 60 murder detectives to save millions.  Scotland Yard is cutting 60 murder detectives across London in an attempt to save millions from its budget, The Telegraph can reveal.  Metropolitan Police bosses are making large cuts despite the murder rate in London remaining stubbornly high and detectives warning they are already operating at full capacity.  Under plans seen by The Telegraph, every one of the Met's 20 homicide squads will lose three detective constables, reducing the headcount in each from 18 to 15.  The move is intended to shave £4.2 million or 10 percent off the murder command's annual budget, as the Met grapples with a £400 million funding shortfall.  As well as cutting the number of detectives in each team, the overtime budget will also be reduced, meaning those remaining are likely to see a drop in overall pay.

Georgia Gov. Kemp Signs Bill Targeting 'Rogue' Prosecutors Amid Fani Willis Scrutiny.  On Wednesday, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (R) signed a bill into law that is designed to reign in rogue prosecutors amid scrutiny of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, particularly regarding her prosecution of former President Donald Trump.  The new law grants the Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission, established just last year, the authority to establish its own rules for disciplining and removing prosecutors without seeking state Supreme Court approval.  At the bill signing ceremony, Kemp said the bill would help address the rising crime rate, saying, ["]This legislation will help us ensure rogue and incompetent prosecutors are held accountable if they refuse to uphold the law.  As we know all too well, crime has been on the rise across the country, and is especially prevalent in cities where prosecutors are giving criminals a free pass or failing to put them behind bars due to lack of professional conduct.["]  The law would make district attorneys and solicitors general prosecuting low-level cases in county jurisdictions to review each case individually, rather than refusing to prosecute entire categories of offenses.

Our failing, emotional, criminal justice system.  Anyone paying even minimal attention knows how far our criminal justice system has fallen, and how fast that fall is accelerating, particularly in blue states and cities.  The focus is no longer on preventing crime and catching criminals.  It's not on caring for victims and their families and communities.  The current focus is on pretending crime isn't a problem, avoiding arresting criminals and avoiding putting anyone in jail.  Carrying out death sentences?  Of course not. [...] We have prisons for two primary purposes: to keep criminals from preying on the public, and to protect criminals from the public.  When our criminal justice system fails in either or both of those necessary duties, the legitimacy of the justice system, and its civilizing influence, stand on shaky ground.

A Deep Dive into Chicago's Crime Data.  [Scroll down]  [A]nyone can go to the Cook County government website and find the open data portal.  From there, select data sets tagged "state's attorney" and several tables will pop up.  One of the most interesting is a table called "Intake."  This table, if queried correctly, will show the results of the CCSAO's "felony review" process over the years.  There are 17 fields for each record and the table contains half-a-million records going back to 2011.  When considering only cases brought by CPD and removing arrests that bypass the felony review process there are 178,085 records for the years 2011-2023.  When reviewing the five years (2011-2015) before Ms. Foxx arrived in office, the average felony approval rate was 83 percent.  The average rejection rate of the felony approval process was 10 percent.  In the five years subsequent to having Ms. Foxx at the helm (2017-2021) the approval averaged just 73 percent and the rejection rate jumped to 18 percent.

Becoming Haiti:  How Biden Is Transforming America Into a Gang-Infested Wasteland.  What is transpiring in Haiti is so post-apocalyptic — so unspeakably brutal — that it would be impossible to believe were it not for the steady stream of phone videos and first-person testimonials substantiating the media reports pouring out of the country.  "Millions of Haitians Face Starvation as Gangs Aim for Total Takeover, Free 5,000 Prisoners," reads one recent headline.  "Haiti Gangs Launch Main Airport Seige, Massacring People 'Indiscriminately' Days After Massive Jail Break," reports another.  This weekend's Washington Post report, titled "Haitians shot dead in the streets and there's no one to take the corpses away," paints a picture of the scene on the ground: [...] The situation is grim, even by Haitian standards.  (And the situation in Haiti has been varying levels of grim for the past 200 years.)  Reports suggest that a gang leader named "Barbecue" — a reference to his enthusiasm for burning people alive in their homes, not to his culinary prowess — is now "the most powerful man in Haiti."  Barbecue's gangs recently stormed two Haitian prisons and released thousands of prisoners before launching a full-scale attack on Haiti's main airport.

'The Purge' Comes to Pittsburgh.  "The Purge" is coming to Pittsburgh between the hours of 3 a.m. and 7 a.m., and if that works out well enough for the city's criminal class, maybe they'll expand those hours.  For those not in the know, "The Purge" is a series of dystopian thrillers — the first was decent, but the four sequels proved increasingly unnecessary — set in a near-future United States where, for one night each year, all crime is legal.  Whatever it is you want to do, from shoplifting to killing your mother-in-law, it's all good. [...] Under the new rules that went into effect at the end of February and were just given nationwide attention by End Wokeness on Twitter/X, there will be no Pittsburgh police at the city's six police stations between the hours of 3 a.m. and 7 a.m.  More ominously, police will no longer respond to calls "that aren't considered in-progress emergencies," according to WPXI-11 News.  "That means calls like criminal mischief, theft, harassment, and most burglary alarms will all be handled by an 'enhanced' telephone reporting unit."

Pittsburgh will only respond to dire emergency police calls at night.  [Scroll down]  The same stories repeat again and again in America's Democrat-run cities.  The institutions are hostile to ordinary citizens and bow before the criminals and their leftist enablers.  So it's no surprise, really, that Pittsburgh's Democrat policies are now creating a situation in which windows will be broken, cars stolen, houses robbed, and citizens assaulted, all without any meaningful police responses.  I end every one of my posts lately the same way:  Conservatives need to vote in numbers so overwhelming that every Democrat, from the President of the United States down to the local dog catcher, loses.  Otherwise, we're going to look like South Africa in a few years, for we will have slipped into a violent, dystopian reality.

New York Democrats Now Want to Hand $6,200 to Inmates as They Leave Prison.  It seems as though Democrats jump from one outrageous, soft-on-crime idea to the next and this time Dems in New York want to hand every inmate a hefty $2,600 check of the taxpayer's cash as they leave prison.  The proposal from two Dems. from New York City (naturally) would deliver a whopping 65 times increase in the $40 walking around money inmates now receive as they finish their sentence.

The Preventable Downfall of San Francisco.  What has happened to the downtown of one of the most beautiful cities in America?  Well, the pandemic happened — and according to reports, foot traffic in the area has never really recovered.  But more glaringly, crime happened.  No, Union Square has never been, at least in my memory, a place you could mistake for Disneyland.  But it was only in the 2020s that you heard regular stories of shoplifting, of an employee facing a machete-wielding man, of a mob bursting into luxury shop Louis Vuitton and grabbing goods, and of a car purposefully driving into Dior and thieves snatching items valued at $275,000.  Unsurprisingly, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, no disinterested party, pushed back on the idea that crime contributed to the decision by Macy's, telling the San Francisco ABC affiliate that there had been a "significant decline in crime" between Nov. 20 and the end of the year.  (Macy's executives haven't attributed the decision, which comes amid the closings of 150 Macy's locations, to crime.)  San Francisco put a heavy police presence in Union Square at the end of 2023 during holiday shopping.  But crime seems to be increasingly on San Franciscans' minds.  That's not surprising, as residents have had to endure not one, but two pro-criminal George Soros prosecutors as district attorney:  George Gascon from 2011 to 2019 and Chesa Boudin from 2020 to 2022.  Crime got so bad in 2022 that the progressives in the city recalled Boudin from office.  In a 2023 survey conducted by the city, residents gave San Francisco the lowest safety rankings since 2002.  Only about a third of San Franciscans said they felt safe walking at night, a sharp drop from 2019, when over half said they did.

Police solve no burglaries in half of England and Wales.  Police have failed to solve a single burglary in nearly half of all neighbourhoods in England and Wales in the past three years despite pledging to attend the scene of every domestic break-in to boost detection rates.  A Telegraph analysis of police data shows that no burglaries were solved in 48 percent of neighbourhoods — areas covering between 1,000 and 3,000 people — in the past three years.  In October 2022, all 43 police chiefs in England and Wales made the landmark promise to attend every break-in.  Home Office figures show that the proportion of burglaries resulting in a charge fell in the following year to 3.9 per cent (fewer than one in 25 reported burglaries) from 4.6 percent in 2022.

American Paralysis and Decline.  The crime epidemic is also similar.  Everyone accepts that no society can long endure quasi-legalized shoplifting or green-lighting smash-and-grabbers and carjackers to be released without bail.  But we assume that such a civilizational implosion will never reach our own sanctuary neighborhoods or safe places of work — at least not yet.  We also know that restoring deterrence by arresting, convicting, and jailing repeat felons will return safety to our streets.  But again, we fear even more that advocating "law and order" will earn slanders like "racist" or "reactionary."

Shoplifting In America Is Wildly Out Of Control.  Shoplifters are going hog wild all over America, and our politicians seem powerless to stop this crisis.  When I was growing up, shoplifting was something that was pretty rare.  Once in a while some irresponsible idiot would slip a candy bar into his pocket, but it wasn't something that retailers were too stressed out about.  But now everything has changed.  Retail "shrink" broke the 100 billion dollar barrier in 2022, and the final number for 2023 is expected to be even higher.  Stuff is being stolen from our major retailers on an industrial scale, and this is having very serious consequences.  From coast to coast, retail locations are being permanently shut down because there is no end in sight to this madness.  This is particularly true in our largest urban areas.

A California federal court bars feds from prosecuting white supremacists while ignoring Antifa.  In 2017, Antifa and its anarcho-Marxist allies and a few small white supremacist groups engaged in violent activity at political rallies.  However, the Department of Justice prosecuted only the white supremacists under the Anti-Riot Act of 1968.  A federal court has finally called foul on this unconstitutional government bias.  The decision, by Judge Cormac J. Carney (a George W. Bush nominee), is in United States of America v.  Rundo et al.  The defendants, both self-avowed white supremacists, moved to dismiss the charges against them under the Anti-Riot Act because the government violated the equal protection clause when it failed to prosecute anarcho-Marxists for identical activity.  Judge Carney concluded that the defendants were correct:  The federal government selectively prosecuted the defendants based on favored versus disfavored ideas, which is unconstitutional.

Houston Fails to Prosecute Thousands of Crimes Due to "Lack of Personnel".  Something is definitely amiss at the police department in Houston, Texas, and it's a problem that's been brewing since well before the border invasion began.  Houston has one of the highest per capita crime rates of any city of any size in the country, but amazingly, that's not the entirety of the problem.  The Houston Police Department is investigating crimes and bringing charges as they should be, though it's more difficult to keep up during the current era of soaring crime rates.  But in the cases where they do manage to launch an investigation, roughly ten percent of those cases have been suspended without a resolution, with the department citing a "lack of personnel" as the reason for setting them aside.  In the past decade, more than a quarter million cases have been suspended under this code, including more than 4,000 sexual assault investigations.  What can be done about this?

Disturbing new details emerge on St. Louis black female judge who let "killer driver" go free on $20k bond.  By now, you might have heard the horrific news:  a mother and daughter were tragically killed in a crosswalk, leaving a Drake concert in St. Louis.  They were hit by a Jeep speeding at about 70 mph as they were exiting the venue.  The driver, identified as Monte Henderson, has shockingly been released on bond.  This has sparked a flood of questions about the judge who decided to let this alleged perpetrator walk free on just a $20,000 bond.  The revelations about this judge are likely to stir up anger and calls for her immediate removal from the bench.  The whole situation is deeply troubling. [...] The truth of the matter is that she represents the typical left-leaning "activist judge," who prioritized the Soros-backed "soft on crime" agenda over common-sense law enforcement and the safety of citizens from dangerous lunatics.

The Editor says...
The perpetrator is black, the judge is black, and the victims were white.  That's the story.  If the colors were reversed, there would be rioting in the streets.

Illinois judge expelled from bench for shocking reversal of teen sex assault conviction.  The Illinois judge who reversed a teen's sexual assault conviction in a shocking move that sparked nationwide outrage has been expelled from the bench.  Robert Adrian will no longer serve as a judge after the seven-member Illinois Court Commission removed him from the bench Friday for reversing the conviction of Drew Clinton, then 18, at his January 2022 sentencing hearing.  Adrian had found Clinton guilty of sexually assaulting Cameron Vaughan, then 16, while she was unconscious at a 2021 graduation party.  However, when it came time to sentence the convicted sexual predator, the judge had a sudden change of heart.  Adrian testified that he felt Clinton — having already served nearly five months in county jail while his case worked its way through the court system — already served his punishment.  But the judge was not following the law, which states that the conviction carries a mandatory sentence of at least four years and he would be required to impose the term.

Black lawyer wants to legalize crimes to eliminate them "because criminal behavior is just black culture".  A prominent black lawyer-activist suggested legalizing crime to totally eliminate it.  He said that blacks are all just criminals at heart and that crime is just "black culture."  In an appearance on MSNBC's Black History and Culture special titled "Black Men in America:  Road to 2024" on Feb. 4, civil rights attorney Ben Crump played pool with MSNBC contributor Charles Coleman Jr. and civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton as they discussed police brutality and the Biden administration's justice system.  "We can get rid of all the crime in America overnight, just like that," Crump told his fellow guests.  "And people ask 'how attorney Crump?' — change the definition of crime."  He added that if one gets to define what conduct is going to be made criminal, then one can predict who the criminals are going to be... They made the laws to criminalize our culture — black culture," he said.  [Tweet]

Virginia Democrats Pushing to Release Rapists, Murderers, and Child Molesters Early.  When I first read about this bill on Twitter, I assumed the poster was exaggerating.  Then I went and read the bill.  Democrats really are pushing a bill to modify the sentences of some of the most horrible criminals incarcerated in Virginia.  [Tweet]  Just to ensure that they are totally on-brand, the bill specifically mentions reductions in sentences for pedophiles.

San Francisco Somehow Finds A Way To Make Catching Criminals Even Harder.  The San Francisco Police Commission passed new restrictions Wednesday that prohibit police officers from pulling over motorists for certain violations, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.  The Commission voted 4-3 on the policy, which prohibits officers from stopping cars for a variety of low-level offenses, the Chronicle reported.  Under the new general order, officers would not be able use nine minor violations, including broken taillights or an air freshener hanging from a rear-view mirror, as sole reasons to pull over a vehicle in order to check for a more serious offense.

Illegal Alien Accused of Causing Sgt. Michael Kunovich's Death Files Civil Rights Lawsuit Claiming Limited English Skills Make Him Disabled.  An illegal alien, accused of causing St. Johns County, Florida, sheriff's office Sgt. Michael Kunovich's death, has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit claiming his limited English-speaking skills make him disabled.  As Breitbart News reported, 19-year-old illegal alien Virgilio Aguilar-Mendez of Guatemala was arrested in May 2023 and has been charged with resisting an officer with violence and manslaughter in connection with Kunovich's death.  This week, Aguilar-Mendez's defense attorneys filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Kunovich's estate, Lt. Jose Jimenez, who also responded to the incident, and St. Johns County, claiming that their client is disabled because he does not speak English or Spanish and was thus denied his rights under the "Americans with Disabilities Act" and the "Rehabilitation Act."  [Video clip]

The Editor says...
[#1] Does a violent illegal alien have any such rights?  [#2] Is limited English now an excuse for crime?

Couple flees Minneapolis as crime turns neighborhood they once loved into 'third-world country'.  [A]t 29th and Lake in Minneapolis, outside an old Victorian home that Jeff Mammenga has meticulously cared for and owned for nearly two decades, we found a side of the city you won't see on the news.  "Yes, watch your back," Mammenga remarked to Alpha News.  Loidolt described how they were drawn to the area back then.  "We loved it at first.  We loved the neighbors.  But it has changed so much.  We don't feel any public safety and that should be our basic civil right, but we don't have that," Loidolt said.  The home sits less than two miles from the former Third Precinct that was surrendered to the mob and just steps away from their own neighborhood destruction.  "That was the gas station that burned down," Mammenga said, pointing to what used to be a Shell gas station.

Amazon driver fends off attack from drunk, naked NYC migrant — and ends up in cuffs.  A Big Apple Amazon driver said he had to slam a naked and drunk migrant in the head with a snowball to keep the deranged asylum seeker from making off with his packages — only to find himself in handcuffs.  The migrant, identified by police sources as Yeison Sanchez, 26, was allegedly stumbling drunk and clutching a beer bottle when the Amazon driver said he caught him red-handed trying to make off with packages he was delivering in Clinton Hill around 4:45 p.m. on Sunday.  That's when things got out of hand.  "I was unloading my stuff, and a guy — he was like a pervert, he had his penis out," the driver, who asked that he only be identified as Abu, told The [New York] Post on Monday.

We're Living Under A Tyranny Of Mediocre Morons.  You might think that it would be difficult to cause any kind of serious problem in a Wendy's drive-thru.  The concept is pretty simple:  You sit in the car, and when it's your turn, you drive up, get your order, and then you drive off.  In an orderly society, it's a pretty straight-forward, fool-proof system.  But in the days after George Floyd was canonized, of course, all rules were suspended.  Things started breaking down.  Accordingly, on June 12 of that year, a 27-year-old man named Rayshard Brooks decided to treat the Wendy's drive-thru like a motel room.  He got drunk out of his mind and passed out in his car, as he waited to get his hamburger and frosty.  Then, when two police officers arrived in an attempt to keep the drive-thru moving, Brooks started fighting with one of the officers, stole his taser, and began running away.  A few seconds later, Brooks turned around and pointed the stolen taser at the officers, at which point he was shot and killed.  It was not only a justified police shooting but perhaps one of the most justified police shootings ever caught on film.  Nevertheless, just a few days later, the top prosecutor in Fulton County Georgia, a guy named Paul Howard, decided to charge both officers on the scene with a variety of crimes.

Making Crime Great Again:  Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg Downgraded a Stunning 60 Percent of 2023 Felony Cases.  I've written extensively about soft-on-crime, George Soros-backed district attorneys like LA's notorious George Gascón, Philadelphia's ridiculous Larry Krasner, and so many others.  Why?  Because crime affects us all: [...] When we write about specific incidents of crime, gaslighters like CA Gov. Gavin Newsom and his supporters will look you straight in the face and reel off a bunch of statistics trying to convince you that what you're seeing isn't real.  But a new report supplies the numbers behind what we all know is happening — that progressives are literally legalizing crime right in front of our eyes.  It should be called the MAGA movement — the Make Assault Great Again crowd.  Here you have it, stunning numbers that show Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has yet to find a crime he doesn't want to downgrade (unless it involves Donald Trump).

Mayor Adams [intends] to Cut 6,000 Police to Fund Illegal Immigration.  In a city engulfed in crime, Mayor Eric Adams has decided to cut the police force by 6000 officers.  The result is NY police officers will be cut by 1/5, or 13.5%, by postponing the next 5 Academy classes, bringing officers below 30,000, down from 36,000.  These are the numbers we saw in the 80s and 90s.  This is being done to house and feed anonymous, unvetted illegal aliens from around the world.  Many of these people coming are criminals, terrorists, and freeloaders coming for the benefits.  I feel sorry for the people who are truly asylum seekers, but it is a very small number.  Democrats have decided to call all of the illegal aliens, refugees, or asylum seekers to further their political agenda, which is the same agenda we see fulfilled throughout Europe.

Trans Daycare Molester Scores Plea Canceling Prison Time.  A prosecutor is defending the decision to sign off on a plea deal getting a "transgender" convicted of sexually molesting an infant out of prison time.  The Spectator had the exclusive Feb. 9 on McCracken County Commonwealth's attorney Dan Boaz's excuses about the plea bargain.  According to Boaz, the 300+ days the sexual criminal already served in jail was sufficient punishment, versus the 12-month sentence he received after pleading guilty.  "Maria" Childers, a biological male who pretends to be a woman, was charged with "one count of first-degree sexual abuse of a victim under twelve and three counts of first-degree criminal abuse of a child under twelve."

Pedophile Gets Lenient Sentence for Being Transsexual.  It isn't only in the USA that transsexuals are rewarded for their politically favored perversion with kid glove treatment from the legal system after committing crimes against children.

Los Angeles Times Tells Angelenos They're Wrong About Crime, Everything Is Fine.  [Scroll down]  If crime ticks down, it may be because fewer arrests are being made or fewer crimes being charged.  What really matters is how people in the city feel.  And trust me, everyone in L.A. feels less safe than in any time in recent memory.  If we have not personally experienced crime, we know someone who has.  For me, it is a friend recently robbed at gunpoint at a 7-11 in West L.A.  They took his wallet and watch while slashing his arm with a knife.  Retail stores on Santa Monica's famous "Promenade" have closed due to shoplifting and smash and grabs.  L.A. gangs have turned from selling drugs to organized theft of homes, stores and trains.  The homeless who wander our sidewalks, parks and beaches are dangerous and commit petty theft.  The increases have all happened under Mr. Gascón's tenure, and it is clearly due to his policies.  While he was the San Francisco District Attorney, he masterminded Proposition 47, which converted a host of crimes from felony to misdemeanor in California.  Steal less than $950, and you face only misdemeanor charges.  We are feeling the effects of this change.

A Disturbing Story of Oakland Pizzeria Robberies.  Life can be tough anywhere for anyone, but especially in a Democrat-run big city that prides itself on wokeness and soft on crime policies that revictimize business owners and residential neighborhoods alike over and over again.  This has been especially notable in iconic American cities like San Francisco, where smash and grabs, car thefts/break-ins, rampant homelessness, street-pooping, and open-air drug use are now the norm, and where there is such disrespect for law and order that even the police department has faced burglary attempts at some of its locations.  Oakland is another one of those California cities run by Democrats that has seen a marked decline in quality of life over the years for residents and business owners.

Biden's 'Middle Finger' To Americans.  Police say that at least 12 illegal aliens pummeled two NYPD cops outside a taxpayer-funded shelter in Times Square on January 27.  Among five arrested, four were released without bail, three hours later.  Unrepentant, Jhoan Boada, 22, waved his middle fingers as he left court.  The New York Post reports that a church-affiliated NGO put these four suspects on a California-bound bus, three time zones from justice.  Gavin Newsom, the sanctuary state's Democrat governor, likely will welcome them with open arms and fresh freebies. [...] "Why aren't they in jail right now?" New York City Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry demanded Thursday.  "They brutally attacked a New York City police officer and a lieutenant.  Our criminal justice system is upside down.  It fails every day."

Hell Must Be Empty.  In New York City, the bad guys have long understood an unwritten rule:  you don't hit a cop.  In the past, doing so put you at the top of the NYPD's to-do list and ensured that you would not be free on the streets for long.  When 30,000 officers are tasked with securing a metropolis of nine million residents, the impenetrability of the "thin blue line" is a matter of life and death.  When video emerged of a group of illegal aliens wrestling two cops to the ground near Times Square and beating them with fists and feet, that thin blue line got thinner.  When news broke that the offenders were released without bail and that a left-wing "charity" had likely given them a free ride to California, the blue line all but disappeared.  By looking the other way as criminal invaders attack the people charged with protecting the city, NYC mayor Eric Adams and district attorney Alvin Bragg not only betray their duties to those who risk their lives every day for others' safety, but also prove their complicity with those who wage war against citizens of the United States.

NY Injustice:  Illegals Who Assaulted NYPD Officers Can't Be Arrested Because They Were Freed Without Bail.  On Wednesday, we brought you the terrible story of a group of illegal immigrants savagely beating two NYPD cops in Times Square and how several were arrested and all but one were quickly released without bail by the pathetic Manhattan District Attorney's office.  Of course, it turns out they all had prior arrests, and there is suspicion some may be tied to a notorious Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua.  As if that wasn't bad enough, several of the perps mocked us all as they departed the courthouse.  [Tweet] [...] Three of them are now believed to be on their way to California.  But here's where it gets even more ludicrous — even if NY cops tracked them down, they couldn't arrest them.  Why?  Because we live in Insane World.

Police believe four of the migrants arrested in cop beatdown near Times Square fled on a bus to California.  Four of the migrants cut loose without bail after allegedly ganging up on two NYPD cops near Times Square may be on the run, The Post has learned.  Cops believe the group could have hopped on a bus bound for California on Wednesday after giving phony names to a church-affiliated nonprofit group that helps migrants get rides out of the city, according to law enforcement sources.  The four accused cop-attackers believed to have skipped town were charged with assault on a police officer and obstruction immediately after the shocking, caught-on-video attack Saturday in Midtown.  Darwin Andres Gomez, 19, Kelvin Servita Arocha, 19, Wilson Juarez, 21, and Yorman Reveron, 24, were released without monetary bail by a Manhattan judge.

DC Attorney General Says Prosecution Isn't the Answer to Crime Wave.  The Washington, D.C., attorney general said Tuesday that the district can not prosecute its way out of the crime wave plaguing it.  "We as a city and community need to be much more focused on prevention and surrounding young people and their families with resources if we want to be safer in the long run," Attorney General Brian Schwalb (D.) said, according to Fox 5.  "We cannot prosecute and arrest our way out of it."  Schwalb's comments came at a panel discussion to address the rise in juvenile crimes, specifically carjackings, during the present crime surge.  While there was less crime in January 2024 compared with January 2023, the district saw a massive crime wave in 2023 compared with the previous year.  Motor vehicle theft increased by 82 percent and homicides by 35 percent.  By contrast, other large cities saw a drop in homicides last year.

The United States of Allah:  It Happened in My Neighborhood, Yours Is Next.  When I was a kid growing up in the Warrendale section of Detroit in the 1970s, the Polish presence was everywhere. [...] As in Warrendale, bars dominated the street corners of Hamtramck.  Paczki could be found everywhere around Easter time.  Most of the town spoke Polish.  Every Catholic went to church.  Across the southern and western borders of Warrendale is Dearborn, a largely Middle Eastern-dominated city.  A good friend I grew up with, whom I'll call Hoppy, remained in Warrendale until 2015 and only moved after some gang-bangers took a potshot at him as he was shoveling snow.  In true Detroit style, he snarled at them and returned to what he was doing, but the message was clear:  it was time to go.  In the years since my family left, Warrendale has become a ghetto.  It was already dangerous in the '70s.  All the kids in my neighborhood had been robbed, beaten, or stabbed.  Hoppy had a gun stuck in his face two different times at Cody High School.

Denny's closes Oakland restaurant that's been open for 54 years because California city is now so dangerous.  A 54-year-old branch of Denny's has closed its doors in Oakland amid threats to 'the safety and wellbeing' of staff and customers, as the Bay Area city struggles to contain soaring crime.  With robbery up by 37 percent year-on-year, burglary up 24 percent and motor vehicle theft rising 45 percent to reach an all-time record, those who live and work in the city do not feel safe.  Violent crimes have also spiked by 21 percent in 12 months.  And on Tuesday, Clorox[,] which has its global headquarters in Oakland[,] began providing security escorts for people walking to and from the train station.

Biden Pushes Inmate Voting With Help From Interest Groups.  A federal agency is working with left-of-center nonprofits to increase voting among prisoners and former prison inmates under an executive order from President Joe Biden designed to increase election turnout.  The Federal Bureau of Prisons has partnered with and regularly consults on voting issues with the League of Women Voters, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Campaign Legal Center, and the Washington Lawyers' Committee.  Emery Nelson, spokesperson for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which is part of the Justice Department, confirmed the arrangement to The Daily Signal.

California toddler killer to walk free unless Gov. Newsom overrules parole board.  A California child killer who reportedly beat his girlfriend's 3-year-old son so badly he suffered dozens of traumatic injuries, broken bones and "pulverized" organs, is one step closer to walking free after state officials approved his parole despite a prosecutor's pledge to keep him behind bars for the rest of his life.  The only chance to uphold that vow is now in the hands of Gov. Gavin Newsom.  Patrick Goodman, now 49, killed Elijah Sanderson in early December 2000. The medical examiner reportedly found that some of the injuries had been caused by swinging the child by his wrist into a wall repeatedly.  A parole hearing took place in December, where District Attorney Brooke Jenkins' office argued against Goodman's release.  Critics have become more vocal after the San Francisco Public Safety News site published the transcript Wednesday.

The Death of Citizenship.  [Scroll down]  The most egregious example is the disproportionally harsh treatment of the non-violent protestors on January 6, 2021 as compared to the lack of prosecution and leniency shown toward de facto allies of the Marxist-controlled Democrat Party.  A leniency exemplified by the lack of prosecution of those who throughout the spring and summer of 2020 sowed death, destruction, looting, and arson throughout the nation.  In today's America not all citizens are equal under the law.  Additionally, activist federal judges habitually overturn legislation they find contrary to their left-wing political beliefs, willfully impose their cultural beliefs on American society, and inject themselves in congressional redistricting to benefit the Democrat Party.  They do so in the unconcerned knowledge that they are cancelling the votes of untold millions of American citizens.

Wait Until Rep. Eric Swalwell Finds Out Who Is Responsible for the Carjackings He's Terrified Of.  Congressman Eric Swalwell, who we occasionally must remind ourselves tried and failed miserably to run for President of the United States, has taken to social media to bemoan the state of crime in California. [...] But it's Swalwell's mention of "soft on violent-crime prosecutors" that intrigues me.  It's definitely a partisan issue.  I mean, you aren't seeing Republican prosecutors giving a slap on the wrist (or less) to misdemeanor offenders, nor are you seeing them refuse to prosecute some major crimes.  But you are seeing this from Democrat prosecutors, like Diana Becton of Alameda County, California.  Becton, if you'll recall, feels that officers need to consider whether or not looters "needed" the goods they were stealing.  As one might guess, if looters can get away with just stealing whatever goods they "need," they tend to escalate.  Escalation in stealing things usually tends to lead to stealing cars.  Surely Swalwell understands this, right?

California Crazy:  Woman Who Stabbed Date 108 Times, Killing Him, Gets Only 100 Hours of Community Service.  I live in California and frequently write about its crime problems stemming from disastrous progressive policies like Proposition 47 — which changed a slew of offenses from felonies to misdemeanors — and woke George Soros-backed district attorneys like LA's George Gascón.  But even my jaw dropped when I heard about this judge's decision in Ventura County.  Bryn Spejcher, now 33, got high on marijuana in 2018, stabbed her boyfriend over a hundred times, knifed her dog and then herself, and yet received no jail time because defense experts deemed that she experienced "cannabis-induced psychosis" — a conclusion which the judge amazingly agreed with.  To put it bluntly, this is absolute lunacy.

Washington State Dems move to let felons vote, serve on jury, run for office while in prison.  Washington Democrats are attempting to pass legislation that would allow felons, including serial killers, to vote, serve on a jury and even run for office while incarcerated.  House Bill 2030 is sponsored by Dem.  Rep Tarra Simmons, an ex-convict who was sentenced to 30 months in prison in 2011 for theft, drug, and firearm crimes. [...] There are approximately 13,000 people in Washington prisons, but not all of them are citizens.  This legislative session, Simmons has also proposed a bill attempting to make it easier for level 3 sex offenders, rated the "worst of the worst" and most likely to re-offend, to renter society.  The Democrat is also co-sponsoring a bill that would allow misdemeanors to be dismissed, including assault, stalking, assault with sexual motivation, firearms offenses, and more.

Iconic Hamburger Chain Forced to Close Oakland Location Due to Constant Crime in Woke City.  In-N-Out Burger's decision to shut down its only location in Oakland, California, has sparked a debate about the state of the city and its safety.  The fast-food joint, which has been a beloved staple in the community for 18 years, cited rampant crime as the reason for its closure.  Despite turning a profit, the company could no longer ignore the constant danger faced by its employees and customers.  Oakland has seen a sharp rise in crime in recent years.  According to data released by the Oakland Police Department, robberies increased by 38% from 2022 to 2023, burglaries jumped 23%, and motor vehicle theft spiked 44%.

Colorado Considers $3,000 Payments to Criminals.  It pays to belong to an identity group favored by Democrats.  Consider criminals in Colorado:  ["]Democrats in the Colorado legislature have proposed a concerning new bill that aims to incentivize crime in the Centennial State.  Under this bill, criminals would receive a cash payment of $3,000 upon their release from a Colorado prison.["]  The ostensible purpose of paying people to be criminals through Senate Bill 12 is to prevent recidivism.  Were this an actual objective, authorities might consider making recreational drugs less accessible. [...] The actual purpose is to reward a group that has been loyal in its support.  If a criminal is going to vote, who else would he vote for if not the party of colleague Joe Biden?

The Hysterical Style in American Politics.  The [Covid] lockdown caused untold economic chaos, suicides, and health crises.  One result was the 120 days of looting, arson, death, destruction, and violence spawned by Antifa and Black Lives Matter in the aftermath of the tragic death of George Floyd while in police custody in May 2020.  Suddenly, a hysterical lie took hold:  American police were waging war against black males.  The details around Floyd's sudden death — he was in the act of committing a felony, resisting arrest, suffering from coronary artery disease and the after-effects of COVID, and being high on dangerous drugs — were off limits.  The riot toll reached $2 billion in property damage, over 35 deaths, and 1,500 injured law enforcement officers.  A federal courthouse, a police precinct, and a historic church were torched.  Police forces were defunded.  Emboldened left-wing prosecutors nullified existing laws.

Florida Man Faces Life For Crimes He Committed 3 Days After Getting Out Of Prison.  A 45-year-old Florida man is now facing life in prison for crimes he committed just three days after being released from prison.  Assistant State Attorney Tucker O'Neill, last week, with the Fifth Judicial Circuit State Attorney's Office secured a guilty verdict for a series of alarming crimes involving 45-year-old Rocco Dominic Gelonese. [...] Gelonese, who had just been released from prison only three days prior to his crime spree, faced serious charges related to the August 7, 2022, incident that occurred at the JC Penney store located in the Paddock Mall.  While in the store, Gelonese was observed attempting to leave without paying for a significant quantity of children's clothing and a pair of shoes.  Upon fleeing from store employees, he attempted to enter a van while forcefully threatening the occupants with harm if they did not comply with his demands.  Subsequently, Gelonese continued his crime spree by approaching another victim in their car, attempting to forcibly enter and demand money before fleeing.

A Government that Sows Division and Subsidizes Madness.  In the name of "social justice," San Francisco's Democrat-controlled government has responded to rising violent crime and general lawlessness in the city by attacking police officers as "white supremacists" (even the non-white ones) and reducing the penalties for and enforcement against violent crimes.  (As the economists say, when you want more of something, subsidize it.) Because citizens and businesses have been left defenseless against organized theft (and, in fact, are even told not to resist the robbers and thieves who assault them), businesses and entrepreneurs have had no choice but to move away.  Now that San Francisco's remaining residents (the ones who keep voting for poop-covered streets and subsidized crime) are finding it difficult to find (and maybe steal) basic necessities, they are very upset that grocery and convenience stores refuse to be perpetual victims.  Have Democrats learned a lesson?  Of course not.

Walgreens Closing Boston Location in Poor Neighborhood Due to Theft, Locals Outraged.  Walgreens is closing a store in a lower income neighborhood of Boston due to rampant theft and the people who live there are outraged.  They're actually protesting the store over news of the closure.  This is a familiar chain of events in liberal cities.  The Democrats who run the city allow theft and don't punish criminals.  Then the store decides to close and suddenly everyone is angry at the store instead of the people who actually caused the problem.  This is going to happen in more and more cities until Democrats decide they want to punish crime.

A Sure Shot at Fixing Crime.  Crime is killing New Orleans. [...] There is no way of counting the thousands of individual economic decisions driven by fear of crime that don't make the news.  How many people have moved out of the city because of this fear?  How many small businesses closed or moved because of this fear?  How many tourists avoided spending their vacation dollars there because of this fear?  Many deep blue American cities are in a similar situation.  These news stories will sound familiar to anyone in Memphis, Baltimore, St. Louis, Chicago, Memphis, Jackson, or Birmingham.  The ultimate tragedy is that we know how to fix this:  incarceration.  Violent crime is committed by a small number of young men. [...] Removing criminals from the population with long prison sentences is a sure way of reducing crime.  If a career violent criminal is incarcerated in his 20s, then released in his 60s, he will certainly be a much more docile man because of the toll age takes on his testosterone level.

The other side of the broken windows theory.  When Rudy Giuliani became Mayor of NYC three decades ago, he and his police commissioner, William Bratton, applied the criminological theory known as "broken windows."  It states that the signs of disorder in a neighborhood, like broken windows, encourage petty crimes and leads to more serious crimes.  In other words, when minor crimes are tolerated, criminals will soon be emboldened to commit serious crimes. [...] Looking back at that era, it's almost inconceivable to imagine how we became a lawless society in only a generation.  During that short span of time, broken windows has morphed from kids throwing rocks to mobs of thugs ransacking stores and carrying out huge amounts of merchandise with no fear of confrontation or arrest.  Hence, extrapolating on the broken windows theory, if we've come to a time in which felonies are tolerated, one can only imagine how much more emboldened criminals will become in the near future.  It's already unsafe to walk the streets in most urban areas.  How long before we experience similar fears in the rural and suburban areas?

New York and California make [prevention of] retail theft a 2024 priority.  The governors of New York and California announced sweeping plans to crack down on retail crime this week, as trade associations and police departments lobby for government action to curb theft.  The plans include new legislation designed to increase the penalties for retail crime offenses and more funding for police departments and district attorney's offices to help them tackle theft.  Both Govs.  Kathy Hochul of New York and Gavin Newsom of California, who represent the country's largest Democratic strongholds, made preventing retail theft a top priority this year as voters from both sides of the aisle point to crime as one of their biggest concerns ahead of the 2024 election.

Porch pirates deserve privacy, police warn not to post pictures.  Police officers are urging Canadians not to publicly share home security footage of porch pirate mail thieves, claiming it could be a violation of their privacy rights and defamatory.  Quebec provincial police (SQ) communications officer Lt. Benoit Richard told citizens "You cannot post the images yourself because you have to remember, in Canada, we have a presumption of innocence."  Instead, Richard suggested calling 911 if anything was stolen.  "We'll do the investigation, bring that person to justice and file some charges," he added.

Crime without Punishment.  From the recent introduction of police bodycam videos, one constant, infuriating theme emerges:  serious charges, such drunk driving, disorderly behavior, criminal trespassing and even assault on police officers, are simply being DROPPED by prosecutors.  We don't seem to be having any trouble catching criminals; the challenge seems to be making an arrest more than a minor inconvenience when we do.  [Video clip]

A Culture in Collapse.  We are witnessing the steady erasure of jurisprudence, both civil and criminal.  Does the law as we knew it a mere decade ago still exist?  Massive looting with impunity is now largely exempt from justice in our major blue-state cities.  In Compton, a van slams into a Mexican bakery as waiting crowds swarm, loot, and destroy the business.  And for what?  Some free pies and cakes?  Or the nihilist delight in ruining the livelihood of a hardworking family business?  Such smash-and-grabs rob stores of billions of dollars in revenue each year.  Can we even comprehend that employees and security guards are now ordered to stand down, as if the apprehension of such thieves might in some way seem illiberal or racist?

NYC blames illegal immigrants for its crime problem.  It's interesting how much Democrat New York City Mayor Eric Adams sounds like a Republican when he talks about the effects of illegal immigration on his city. [...] During a news conference where he was asked about rising crime in the Big Apple, he blamed the illegal immigrants who are coming into the city and are unable to work here legally.  "When I talk about the devastation impact that the migrant and asylum seekers, people only think about the volume of people that are coming in.  There are byproducts to this, cuts to services, like we had to postpone a police class, looking at some of the budgetary cuts, having a body of people, many young, who can't work," Adams said.  This is all correct, although it ignores why so many illegals are coming to the city.  It is a lack of border enforcement by the politicians Adams and his administration support.  He is part of the reason there is a problem.

Carjackings in DC Doubled to a Staggering 959 in 2023.  Our nation's capital is a model of dysfunctional, clueless blue city governance.  Nothing highlights that better than the explosion of crime — and especially carjackings — since 2020.  The official 2023 year-end tally of carjackings in Washington, D.C., ended up being a staggering 959, twice the number of the previous year.  There were 152 carjackings in 2019. That number more than doubled in 2020, and it has been soaring ever since.  What's particularly hard to believe is that 65% of the carjackings last year were committed by perpetrators under the age of 18.  And it isn't just carjackings that are on the rise.  In 2023, 274 people were killed in homicides, a 36% increase from the year before, according to WUSA-TV, Washington's CBS affiliate.  That's the highest homicide rate in two decades.

4 Ways The BLM And Antifa Riots Were Worse Than January 6.  The breakdown of law and order during the BLM and Antifa riots is obvious.  Bears repeating that even the "97 percent of BLM protests were peaceful" statistic means that within the 3 percent means over 500 violent incidents happened across the country that lasted for months.  One police station was overrun and burned, another was evacuated and led to the creation of an "autonomous zone," the White House perimeter was attacked, and a federal courthouse was under siege for over a month.  But once the rubble was cleared away and the National Guard was sent home, the criminal elements within our society saw just how much they were able to get away with, to little or zero consequences.  It is why we saw a spike in crime in the years afterward and why the crime rate has not returned to pre-2020 levels.  It is now considered "normal" to see looters come into a business, whether it be CVS or a luxury store, clean out merchandise and leave with people's only recourse to call the police, who may or not show up because of the dramatic decrease in manpower, if they even bother to call the police.

The Crime Wave Isn't Over.  Compton, California, is, to my knowledge, a Hellhole.  Some years ago I tried a case in Los Angeles.  At that time, local lawyers were buzzing about an incident in which a lawyer who was appearing in court in Compton walked down a stairwell in the courthouse, where he was confronted by a gang of "youths" who, for no reason, beat him to within an inch of his life.  The lawyer suffered severe brain damage from which he was not expected to recover.  So nothing that happens in Compton surprises me.  They can't even secure their own courthouse, so it is no surprise that bakeries are vulnerable.  On Tuesday, a large number of "youths" planned an after-hours attack on Ruben's Mexican bakery.  They drove a vehicle through a wall to create an opening, then swarmed the store and stole whatever they could.

Philadelphia's police department fired its first-ever DEI officer.  It is news that is sure to be welcomed by the throngs of people who are tired of the race-obsessed society the nation has become.  Earlier this week, the Philadelphia Police Department fired its first-ever DEI officer, Leslie Marant, Philadelphia's WPVI reported.  Marant was hired by former Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw in April 2022, according to multiple sources.  It was considered an odd move at the time by Outlaw, especially since the city was in the middle of a wave of violent crime.  Less than four months after setting a Philadelphia record for most homicides in a single year, Outlaw chose to pander to left-wing politics and hire Marant as DEI officer.  Moreover, Philadelphia would go on to have the second-highest total for homicides in its history in 2022, recording over 500 murders for the second consecutive year.

Illegal Immigrant Arrested at Capitol Carrying Machete Had Been Previously Held, Released.  A man who authorities arrested at the U.S. Capitol in connection with carrying a machete and a knife is an illegal immigrant from Venezuela who federal border authorities previously released from custody, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Tuesday.  Capitol Police first nabbed Jose Leonardo Marquez, 23, after noticing a machete under his clothes, and ICE took him into custody on last Wednesday, according to the agency.  Border Patrol apprehended Marquez on Aug. 21, 2022, and released him from custody "due to a lack of detention capacity," enrolling him in the tracking program known as "Alternatives to Detention."

Some criminal justice system reforms.  There are some criminal justice system reforms which can be implemented without much additional cost but many reforms can be made at additional cost which may be prohibitive to many financially stressed communities.  I will start with minimally costly reforms which mostly just require a change in laws and their implementation.  Implementing fair and proportional sentencing based primarily on age and previous criminal history.  Establishing clear guidelines on the use of force by law enforcement.  Treating drug addiction as a public health issue rather than a criminal one.  Expanding eligibility for criminal record expungement to help individuals with a past conviction secure employment and housing.  Imprisoning violent offenders and giving repeat violent offenders rather lengthy sentences.  For violent domestic offenders methods other than incarceration are usually advisable.

New Philadelphia mayor declares [a] crime emergency [on her] first day in office.  Philadelphia Democratic Mayor Cherelle Parker declared crime a public safety emergency her first day in office through an executive order that calls on the city's police department to "vigorously enforce" existing laws and for officials to develop a plan to increase the number of police officers.  Parker, Philadelphia's 100th mayor and the first female, took over the office from former Mayor Jim Kenney when she was formally inaugurated Tuesday.  "In our first 100 days, my administration will announce specific plans to increase the number of Philadelphia police officers on our streets — with a focus on community policing citywide," Parker said in her inaugural address. "We must rebuild trust between Police and the communities they serve.  Our officers must be guardians, not warriors."

JFK Airport Protesters Show That They've Learned the Lesson of the George Floyd Riots.  The George Floyd riots of 2020 showed leftists that they can do virtually anything in America today and suffer at worst only token consequences.  On Monday, pro-Palestinian protesters in New York City showed that they have taken that lesson to heart.  The New York Post reported that "hateful anti-Israel protesters yelling inflammatory chants snarled traffic and caused chaos as they descended upon John F. Kennedy International Airport Monday — creating a nightmare on one of the busiest travel days of the year."  Among the "inflammatory chants" was "NYPD, KKK, IDF you're all the same," which was as absurd as it was portentous:  it was a clear indication that New York City hasn't seen the last of these pro-Hamas thugs.

America's new arrivals now stage 'bogus robberies' to cheat the system.  The fact that the hordes of new arrivals know all the loopholes and legal angles to scam our immigration laws and maximize benefits on our welfare system, while the working American does not, is really quite astounding, and tells me that there have to be a number of lawyers involved, telling these people what they can do to cheat American citizens out of a country. [...] The U.S. government and the politicians that run it (Democrats and Republicans alike), are by far, the biggest aiders and abettors of criminal activity in the country — there's clearly no pretense of trying to hide it — and we know this is just the tip of the iceberg.  Build the wall, and deport them all.

Where Is Biden's 'Gender-Fluid' Thieving Ex-Nuclear Waste Chief Today?  In Old Joe Biden's America, there's justice if you're a patriot, which could mean spending years in prison for strolling through the Capitol and taking selfies after the cops opened the doors on Jan. 6, 2021, and there's justice if you're a member of the leftist elite, which means that you can essentially do anything you want, and little or nothing will happen to you.  Sam Brinton, the gender-fluid, in-your-face, cross-dressing, puppy-playing former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition in the Office of Nuclear Energy in the Department of Energy, is a member of that elite group, and so despite facing numerous luggage theft charges, he ended 2023 as a free man.

Sporting Goods Store Employees Fired for Trying to Stop a Thief From Stealing a Pistol.  In the latest example of corporate stupidity, three sporting goods employees were fired for chasing a man who stole a pistol.  Apparently, trying to stop someone from stealing a deadly weapon is against company policy.  This is yet another story in which a major company punishes employees for trying to protect it from entitled thugs who think they have the right to take what they want. [...] Four days later, [Michelle] Sutton said the store fired her and the two other employees for trying to stop the thief.  "Sutton said that they were let go due to Academy Sports + Outdoors policy on loss prevention, which states that employees are not allowed to chase or physically restrain a fleeing person suspected of theft," according to the report.

Outgoing Democrat Governor Pardons 40 Convicted Murderers.  Louisiana's Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, has pardoned 40 convicted murderers as he nears the end of his term, according to multiple reports.  Edwards' term ends on Jan. 8, 2024.  In his final weeks in office, he has been working on helping his state lose the title of being the World's Prison Capital, according to the New York Post.  He will reportedly release a total of 56 convicts in "separate batches."  "For as long as I can remember, Louisiana reflexively responded to an increase in crime by putting more people in prison and keeping them there longer," Edwards told local news outlet NOLA.com this month.  "We've never been made safer as a result of that," Edwards added.  "There is no data to suggest that an increase in crime here was because of the reforms."

The Corruption of Everything.  The justice system has been corrupted by partisan politics to the point where Republicans and conservatives are persecuted and prosecuted at a level far higher than anyone else.  We on the right can reliably depend on being prosecuted for "misgendering," contributing to conservative causes, being a Christian or a Jew, speaking out against the barbaric transing of children, defending ourselves with a firearm, and not being a Democrat.  We can depend upon getting arrested for protesting peacefully as the corrupt "Justice" Department singles us out for jail, bankruptcy, or keeping us off election ballots, while really destructive rioters go free.

Idiot Chicago Mayor Proposes Dumbest Possible Solution to the Increase in Violent Crime in His City.  Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, a Democrat, is advocating for a $16.77 billion budget that includes $500,000 allocated to reparations programs as a response to the city's rising violent crime rates.  During an interview with CNN's Poppy Harlow, Johnson emphasized the need for a comprehensive government approach to tackle the crime problem.  Harlow pointed out that while the murder rate had decreased from the previous year, all other forms of violent crime had risen by 17%.  She questioned whether Chicagoans would be safer in 2024 under the proposed budget.  Johnson argued that his plan, which he referred to as a "full out community safety plan," not only addresses the root causes of violence but also makes critical investments in various areas.  Johnson detailed these investments, including $250 million to address homelessness, $100 million for violence prevention, and an additional $80 million for youth employment programs.

DC business owner warns of 'out of control' prices and crime after 52 restaurants shut down.  Dozens of restaurants in Washington D.C. have closed their doors amid high rent costs and surging crime, with one business owner admitting he is tired of staff and customers being threatened, robbed and carjacked.  According to the Metropolitan Washington Restaurant Association, 52 restaurants in D.C. have shuttered in 2023.  The nation's capital is grappling with an escalating crime surge, having surpassed a 20-year record-high in homicides with 261 murders as of Dec. 14, according to Metropolitan Police Department data.  Robberies are also skyrocketing, increasing 69% year-to-date, while theft is up 24%.  Additionally, motor vehicle theft is up 84% and violent crime increased 39% year-over-year.

British Police give up on four crimes a minute without tracking down the culprits.  Police abandon investigations into four crimes every minute without tracking down the culprits.  The number of inquiries closed by officers without identifying a suspect has rocketed by nearly 250,000 year-on-year.  Forces gave up on investigations into 2,306,623 reported crimes in the year to June, including hundreds of thousands of violent offences and burglaries.  The official Home Office figures are equivalent to more than 6,300 every day on average, or one every 14 seconds.

Crime Soars As Punishment Vanishes.  There is a thread running through progressive ideology that explains a lot about the state of our country and the world: the Left doesn't like laws enforced or people punished for doing wrong.  Take the U.S. southern border, where we're seeing record numbers of illegal aliens "encountered," often with 5,000 a day just let go into the interior of the United States.  The unmitigated chaos is so bad, it sometimes gets covered by a legacy media that usually prefers to ignore reporting on the border. [...] The idea that if you don't enforce laws, people ignore them, applies in many other contexts, too.  In Washington, D.C., U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves didn't prosecute 67% of the suspects arrested by police last year.  Meanwhile, violent crime rose 39%, murder 34%, robbery 68%, and carjacking 88%.  Many of those carjackers are teens who should be in school.  In possibly related news, 60% of Washington high schoolers were "chronically absent" last year, and in one high school, almost 90% of the students were "chronically truant."

Texas State Troopers Will Stop Patrolling Austin Amid Rising Crime Rates.  Amid concerns about rising crime rates in Austin, TX, the city decided to end its collaboration with state law enforcement.  As major cities all across the country have been grappling with handling illegal activity, this move is sure to raise some eyebrows.  On Saturday, it was reported that the Texas state troopers would no longer patrol Austin for violent crime. [...] The Department of Public Safety told another news outlet that it will be devoting more of its efforts to the southern border.  As RedState reported, Gov. Greg Abbott recently signed legislation that would make it a state crime to cross the border illegally. [...] The rise in crime is the reason why state troopers had gotten involved in the city in the first place.  The issue isn't law enforcement as much as progressive district attorneys prioritizing violent criminals over the residents they victimize.  Jose Garza, the district attorney for Travis County, has come under fire for taking a soft approach to violent and property crime.

Man Not Arrested After Swatting Rep. Greene, Threatening to Skin Her Alive.  Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said Monday she was the victim of another "swatting" incident at her home in Georgia.  The Capitol Police have not arrested the man who did it.  He said he wanted to skin her alive and kill Trump, too.  "I was just swatted.  This is like the 8th time.  On Christmas with my family here," Greene said in a post on X.  Major Rodney Bailey of the police department in Rome, Georgia, said that a person based in Rome, New York, made a call to the suicide hotline claiming that he had shot his girlfriend at Greene's address in Georgia and threatened to kill himself next.  Police then contacted Greene's local security liaison to inform the congresswoman's team about the call.  Her security team decided officers didn't need to respond to her home. [...] They know who did it.  A man named Ben McLean did it and offered an absurd excuse, and he has not been arrested.  The lack of urgency is jaw-dropping.  McLean said he wasn't going to hurt anybody, so it's all good.  [Tweets]

California man busted 90 times for shoplifting arrested again hours after release from jail.  A Bay Area serial thief who has been busted a stunning 90 times for shoplifting was arrested again just hours after he was released from jail, according to a local report.  Jesse Leonardo Otero, 44, is well known to the California businesses he frequently targets as well as several local police departments who've dealt with his antics repeatedly over the years, KRON reported.  He was most recently picked up by cops outside a shopping center in Pleasant Hill, about 20 miles east of Oakland on Dec. 8.  He had been released from the Martinez Detention Facility jail on misdemeanor charges just hours earlier that same day, the outlet reported.

Target In The Bronx Now Has Security Measures Like Fort Knox, Can't Enter Without A Parent, Items Locked Up Behind Glass.  Retail theft has gotten so bad in blue cities that retailers are going to extremes.  Target shut down self-check registers and banned minors from entering in one Bronx location unless accompanied by an adult.  In many ways, Target[,] with its on-site Starbucks locations and snack counters[,] has become the new mall.  Teens can drop by for a drink, something to eat, and a chance to walk around the store, perhaps buying something, or maybe just window shopping.  At least one Target, however, has decided to prohibit people under the voting age from the store unless they're accompanied by someone who is at least old enough to purchase alcohol.

When Shoplifters Kill.  We see a man named Tyron Tunnell, a distraught looking figure who has a history of retail theft and drug-related cases in the Philadelphia area.  Tunnell has entered Macy's with the intention of shoplifting — no big surprise as Center City Macy's, since the beginning of 2023, has experienced over 250 reports of retail theft, something that Acting Police Commissioner John M. Stanford Jr. says is, "An ongoing problem, not just for large chain stores but in terms of businesses throughout the city." [...] Tunnell, who has an active warrant out for his arrest in Delaware County, shoplifts a few hats and then proceeds to leave the store when he is stopped by a security guard, 27-year-old Eric Harrison, who makes him return the hats while permitting him to go free, a gesture that's become all too familiar in big blue cities all across America:  Let the shoplifters go!  Yet Tunnell, not satisfied with his freedom, returns to the store intent on punishing the security guard because he thinks the guard showed him attitude when he made him put the hats back.  He lunges at Harrison and stabs him in the neck, then stabs another security guard who comes to Harrison's aid.

17 Convenience Stores Robbed This Week in Democrat-Run San Diego.  Over the course of a single week, 17 convenience stores were robbed at gunpoint in the Democrat-run city of San Diego, which sits in the Democrat-run state of California.  "San Diego Police said that over the past six weeks, several armed 'take-over style' robberies have occurred around the county," reports San Diego 7.  "Police believe that at least 10 of those robberies are committed by the same group and say the same group may be responsible for other robberies."  That group is a gang of five thugs who flood the store in ski masks brandishing guns.  "Police describe the suspects as young men, possibly between 19-25 years old, wearing hooded sweatshirts and masks," the report adds, "and are said to enter the stores in groups brandishing guns at store clerks while demanding money and products."

The Editor says...
The article above is illustrated with a stock photo of a convenience store robbery, in which the perpetrator is white.  It is highly unlikely that five organized armed robbers in a pack are all white.  Or that any of them are white.  But if a news article is illustrated with a stock photo of a black armed robber — if indeed any such stock photo exists — that would be considered racist and presumptuous.

Americans Must Choose Between Civilization or Its Destroyers.  Nihilism is the religion of the Left.  Anarchy is now at the core of the new Democratic Party. [...] In the old days liberals gave light sentences to criminals or reduced bail.  But today leftist prosecutors do not even seek bail.  They hardly prosecute theft or random assaults.  Criminals are arrested and released the same day.  Is the nihilist plan to destroy the entire body of American jurisprudence, and to ensure "equity" in being victimized?  Is the woke idea that all Americans — inclusive of diverse Beverly Hills elites, Hollywood celebrities, or members of Congress alike — must share victim equity, and thus experience first-hand street robbery, car-jacking, smash-and-grab, and home invasion?

Illinois Cooks Up Cashless Bail And Discovers It's A 'Perfect Recipe For Lawlessness'.  In July, after the Illinois Supreme Court upheld the state's controversial law eliminating cash bail, Chris Southwood predicted that the so-called SAFE-T Act would "put dangerous criminals back on the street instead of keeping them in jail or forcing them to post cash bail as they await trial."  "Many of those offenders will commit crimes again within hours of their release," said Southwood, the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police's president.  He was right.  But Southwood would be the first to admit it didn't take a soothsayer to see the looming criminal justice disaster that critics of the SAFE-T Act — officially known as the Illinois Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today (SAFE-T) Act — say is only getting worse.  Chicago Alderman Raymond Lopez, a rare Democrat speaking out against the end of cash bail in the Land of Lincoln, told Fox News' "America Reports" in October that innocent people are being "hunted down like prey."  "[T]hings like robbery, burglary, arson, assault, even threatening elected officials like myself, do not warrant you being held on bond anymore in the state of Illinois, and criminals are taking note," Lopez told the cable news outlet.

What the Democratic Party Has Become.  A recent headline in "The Epoch Times": "Chicago to Give Illegal Immigrants up to $9,000 Each for Housing Costs."  Chicago is paying people to break the law.  This is what the Democratic Party in America has become.  I guess Chicago did this.  The city is taking money away from hard-working, law-abiding, decent American citizens and giving it to people who should not be in the country.  People who are violating American laws, spitting in the face of our people, and mocking the United States.  They are criminals who are allowed to roam freely on our streets with no penalty, taking jobs from Americans, indeed, with money from honest people in their pockets, courtesy of the Democratic Party.  But this is what the Democratic Party has become.  They hate America.  What other explanation is there for robbing their own law-abiding citizens and giving the money to criminals?  America will never be saved until the traitorous, totalitarian, America-loathing Democratic Party is totally crushed.

Our Institutions Have Betrayed Our Trust.  The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis ended the lockdown as tens of thousands of "protesters" simultaneously ran into the streets looted billions in merchandise from local retailers and destroyed their own inner cities.  We were told by our trusted Federal Bureau of Investigation — an organization revered in American culture as the protector of law and order — that Floyd was an innocent man killed by police simply because he was black.  Here's how it's described on Wikipedia: "George Perry Floyd Jr. was an African-American man who was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during an arrest made after a store clerk suspected Floyd may have used a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill..."  Derek Chauvin and three other officers were sent to prison.  The news media at the time excused the ensuing riots and thefts as justified and peaceful, despite their own video footage.  But a courageous independent Minneapolis reporter now calls the entire narrative into question, using information mostly available at the time of the incident.  Floyd was not an innocent victim targeted because of his race by white cops, but a known criminal with a history of resisting arrest, drug use, and poor health.

Fulton County judge gives $500 fine, no jail time for rioters who burned down Atlanta Wendy's during BLM riots.  Two of the three suspects accused of setting fire to a Wendy's in Atlanta, Georgia during an infamous Black Lives Matter riot in 2020 have accepted plea deals, according to Fox 5.  Chisom Kingston and Natalie White were both charged with conspiracy to commit arson in the first degree and two counts of first-degree arson.  The pair pleaded guilty to their crimes in a plea deal, according to court records.  Kingston and White have both been sentenced to five years probation, ordered to pay a $500 fine and must complete 150 hours of community service, 11alive reports.  Their trial is set for next week and it's unclear how the plea deals will impact the outcome.  In addition to Kingston and White, John Wesley Wade, 35, was indicted on the same charges earlier this year in January.  All three initially pleaded not guilty and waived their arraignments in March 2022, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Crime and no punishment.  Why do we hear about African-Americans expressing frustration with Democrats?  Maybe it's because they live in areas run by Democrats, such as Chicago and Philadelphia.  Crime is turning into a real issue for Democrats. [...] No kidding!  Would you be happy if the criminals were running your street because Democrats are stabbing the police in the back?  The Democrats' problem is that crime comes with no punishment.  You get arrested on Monday and you are back on the streets on Wednesday.  There is no effort to make criminals pay for their crimes and the results are predictable.

California Teen Facing Thirty Years on Gun Charges Walks Away With Probation.  19-year-old Mikey Williams looks set to bring his basketball prowess to the University of Memphis after prosecutors in San Diego County offered the teen one heck of a plea bargain in connection with a shooting incident that took place back in March of this year.  Williams was arrested back in April and charged with a long list of felonies, including six counts of assault with a weapon, one count of firing into an occupied vehicle and two counts of making threats that could result in great bodily injury or death March 27 shooting at a home in San Diego County.  An argument just before midnight ended with gunshots being fired at a car that was leaving the house with five passengers inside it, police said in a news release.  Bullets hit the car, but nobody inside was injured, police said.  If Williams had been convicted and sentenced to the maximum time allowed, he could have been looking at three decades behind bars.

George Floyd Square Businesses Sue Over Rampant Crime.  The city of Minneapolis was the site of the infamous 2020 incident that turned George Floyd into a cultural icon and kicked the "defund the police" movement into high gear.  Riots across the nation followed, with billions of dollars in damage caused and dozens of people being killed.  Floyd was lionized to the point where the city named the intersection where he died "George Floyd Square."  But that was three years ago and some things have changed since then.  Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that many of those things have not changed, but people have become fed up with them.  Now, a group of five businesses located in George Floyd Square are suing the city.  They claim that the barriers erected there to "protect" the protesters drove away customers and that the subsequent lack of policing has made their neighborhood too dangerous for people to shop there.  The irony in this story is rich indeed.

The US Has Become Paradise for Criminals.  The United States has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, at number 6, according to recent figures.  So, how can I argue that our country has become a paradise for criminals?  It seems counterintuitive.  The answer is pretty obvious, actually: we quit putting criminals in jail in 2020 due to misguided "criminal justice reforms" put in place after the George Floyd riots.  Pro-criminal DAs and law enforcement officials were put in charge, and in many cases, public policy became anti-carceral.  [Tweet]  The results have been horrendous, with murder and other crime rates skyrocketing, and a criminal class has been empowered and developed contempt for the system.  The current spike in crime is, I believe, largely driven by people who might have been deterred by threats of incarceration or may never have thought of committing a crime but for the fact that they have been swept along into a rush for easy money or thrills without consequence.  [Tweet]

New York City's Police Department [is] Imploding.  New York City Mayor Eric Adams was elected largely because he ran as a moderate who would be tough on crime.  Now the embattled Mayor is facing challenge after challenge, not the least of which is that his NYC Police Department is imploding, and he doesn't even have the funds to run and hire from his own police academy due to the expenses stemming from the migrant crisis.  He is slashing $4 billion from city services in order to pay for taking care of the illegal migrants who have flooded New York due to its sanctuary policies.  So New York City has frozen hiring at the NYPD, which begs the question:  what do losses look like?  [Tweet]  New York City has the largest police force in the United States, but even an organization this large can't sustain losses of the magnitude New York is facing.  Especially during a crime wave so bad that it dominated the campaign for Mayor in 2021.

Gavin Newsom Frees Gangster 154 Years Early.  A former gang member and convicted mass shooter was released after serving just eight years of his life sentence by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) — and given a new job in the California State Capitol.  A Los Angeles Times puff piece aimed at softening the tale of violent offender Jarad Nava attempted to explain away his crimes by bringing up his rough childhood, and cited Newsom to make the case that he's a truly reformed member of society.  [Tweet]

Dems Are Getting Mugged By Reality, Often Literally.  Some Democrats are waking up and noticing that the policies they've been cheerleading have produced violent crime waves, a massive migrant crisis, and genocidal antisemitism.  One would hope the public at large is catching on as well.  Just over the past few weeks, we've seen a spate of headlines about lefty, soft-on-crime Democrats attacked on the mean streets they've helped create.  [Examples omitted for brevity.]  At the same time, Democratic mayors are finding their cities being mugged by the illegal immigrants that Biden and his open-border cronies have let flood into the country.  New York City Mayor Eric Adams recenty announced plans to cut $4 billion from the city's budget, including canceling the hiring of new police officers, to pay for the influx of more than 100,000 illegals in the past year.

Over 90 Percent Of NYC Grocery Stores [have been] Hit By Shoplifters This Year, Survey Finds.  New York City grocery stores have felt the impacts of rising crime, with 93 percent of stores claiming that they have been hit by shoplifters this year, according to the New York Post.  A survey conducted by the National Supermarkets Association (NSA) in September was shared with the NY Post, revealing that in addition to a majority of shops being burglarized, 60 percent claimed that their stores were robbed seven days a week.  "It's like they feel they're licensed to shoplift now," store owner Carlos Collado, of two Fine Fare stores in the city, told the NY Post.  Retailers within New York lost an estimated $4.4 billion in revenue within 2022 due to shoplifting alone, according to research from CapitalOne Shopping.  Many store owners believe that the issue stems from the fact that the shoplifters are not arrested or prosecuted for stealing less than $1,000 worth of goods, according to the NY Post.  "They feel there's no consequences, and they're making it a profession," Collado told the NY Post.

Upwards of 2,500 NYPD officers turned in their badges in 2023 amid concerning trend.  Budget cut-bolstered attrition set the Big Apple up for a "dramatic turn for the worse" as police officers have turned in their badges in staggering numbers.  A microcosm of the managed decline seen at the national level, New York City Mayor Eric Adams' (D) succession to Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) in putting leftist agendas ahead of basic safety and operations measurably set the city back decades.  As resources were reallocated to accommodate the out-of-control influx of illegal aliens, disenchanted and disgruntled members of the NYPD continued resigning in droves, even as they were short of the requirements to receive full pensions, according to the NYPD pension data.

Surging farebeating is a sign of bad things to come:  Reverse the soft-on-crime trend now.  New MTA reporting shows farebeating on buses and subways is still rising — a clear warning that broader public disorder is ahead.  Just what New York needs when Mayor Adams is looking to shrink the NYPD.  Reminder:  A crackdown on farebeating was the first major step in the city's historic gains against crime starting back in the 1990s.  Bill Bratton, then chief of the MTA police, directed that effort in order to make the subways safer:  If you commit a casual crime to enter the system, he realized, you become more likely to commit worse crimes while you're there.  Or to have already committed them:  Running the rap sheets of arrested farebeaters turned out to ID lots of perps that police already wanted on more serious charges.  Oh, and the farebeating arrests also caught a lot of illegal-gun-toters.

D.C. Issues Public Emergency as Juvenile Crime Spikes 10% from Alarming Rate in 2022.  Washington, DC, Democrat Mayor Muriel Bowser declared a public emergency in the nation's capital this week after the opioid fatalities spiked and juvenile crime soared ten percent from 2022's alarming rate.  The order will enhance the activation, implementation, and coordination of aid agreements between the District, federal, and local authorities to allegedly reduce crime. Crime soared in 2022 after U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves refused to prosecute 67 percent of those arrested.  In turn, 222 criminal homicides occurred in 2023, a 35 percent increase from the same period in 2022, according to police statistics.  The district eclipsed 200 killings on August 12, the earliest point since the late 1990s.

The Editor says...
[#1] An increase of ten percent is most likely a step increase, not a spike.  [#2] This "emergency" is entirely the fault of the local government.  [#3] This problem can be completely solved in about a month, simply by locking up all violent criminals who can't post bail, and sending convicted felons to prison for extensive sentences.  The word will get around quickly, and crime will come to a halt.

Want Proof Democrats Don't Have A Handle On Crime?  Look At DC.  While crime rates may be going down around the country — if you believe the FBI's latest crime statistics, anyway — in the nation's capital, crime continues to rise.  The city is on pace to record the highest number of murders since George W. Bush's first term, and carjackings are skyrocketing.  It's the soft-on-crime policies promulgated by the District of Columbia government that's responsible for this crime wave, and everyone knows it.  What can be done to restore law and order?  A comparison of crime in the District of Columbia in 2023 versus crime in D.C. just a year earlier is instructive.  In 2022, there were 182 homicides; as of Nov. 15, 2023, there were 243 homicides, representing a 34% increase.  In 2022, there were 1,839 robberies; so far in 2023 there have been 3,075, a 67% increase.

Hochul is about to sign the Clean Slate Act — putting more New York lives in jeopardy.  Gov. Hochul is expected to sign the Clean Slate Act on Thursday, which will automatically seal records after three years for anyone who committed a misdemeanor and after eight years for anyone who committed a felony (except Class A felonies) and is not a registered sex offender.  If you killed someone and accepted a plea deal or were convicted of manslaughter, you get a "clean slate."  If you committed a rape alongside armed robbery and the rape wasn't prosecuted to spare the victim (it especially happens with child victims), you get a "clean slate."  Not only is this another kick in the gut to victims, felt in the very core of our souls; it is a huge risk to public safety — especially these days as antisemitic attacks are sharply increasing.

How the DOJ's 'Community Relations Service' Ministry Uses Propaganda to Minimize Anti-White Terror.  A little-known Department of Justice (DOJ) branch has been coordinating crisis responses and holding indoctrination exercises following anti-white terror incidents, in order to shield the cult of diversity and multiculturalism from well-deserved reprisal.  The DOJ branch, known as the Community Relations Service (CRS), snaps into action during an anti-white terror episode to make sure that broader questions about crime, culture and society are never broached by the victims to keep the status quo of civilization destruction and degradation going as planned. [...] A case study from Lewiston, Maine — a city besieged by Somali migrants trafficked into the country with federal dollars through the refugee resettlement program — demonstrates the pernicious influence of the CRS.

Why the suspect in murder of Detroit synagogue leader was released from jail.  A suspect who was taken into custody for the fatal stabbing of a Detroit synagogue leader was released without charges after prosecutors say cops failed to file any paperwork — a possible indication they're still building their case.  The unidentified suspect was arrested last week in Kalamazoo, Michigan, for the murder of Samantha Woll, but was released on Friday after 72 hours in custody — the longest that law enforcement can detain someone without a hearing under Michigan law.  "There is nothing before us," the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office told Fox News of the absence of a warrant request.  "This must happen before we can review the case for a charging decision," it explained.  "Until then, it is entirely a police investigation that they are continuing to work on."

10 Examples From 10 Different Cities Of The "Mad Max" Environment That Now Reigns In America's Streets.  It isn't just your imagination.  We really are witnessing a full-blown societal meltdown.  Earlier today, a song entitled "We Don't Need Another Hero" popped into my head.  Of course that song was recorded by Tina Turner for a 1985 film called "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" which featured Mel Gibson in his prime.  I hadn't thought about that song for many years, and so I pulled it up on YouTube and listened to it.  Needless to say, it really is a great song.  But why would I be thinking about it today?  There had to be another reason.  I started going through the news, and I quickly realized what that reason was.  In the United States today, there are millions upon millions of people that are completely and utterly lawless.  We really have become a "Mad Max society", and the future of our country is going to be exceedingly bleak if we continue going down this road.

How much did the DoJ spend to arrest J6 protestor Gregory Yetman?  Is this an agency that has too much money and not enough to do?  Not with an open border, zero knowledge of who's gotten in, and FBI Director Christopher Wray warning that he expects a terrorist attack based on the current scenario.  There are child-smuggling sex rings and child-smuggling labor rings to probe.  There is organized crime infesting the cities with mass shoplifting incidents that are out of control.  The Chicoms have yet to have most of their illegal police stations shut down, and Chinese and other foreign spies are being caught left and right, suggesting there's a lot of this stuff going on, what with nobody having to pass a background check anymore before getting into the military and the rest of the government.  There is antifa and its violent activities. [...] The bureau can't be investigating any of that?  Why are they constantly caught spending money on useless and even legally questionable cases — from the investigation of parents for protesting at school board meetings to the investigation of Latin Mass enthusiasts, both on terrorism charges, and now this obvious abuse of power against [Gregory] Yetman for political purposes [...]

Businesses Flee Blue City In Droves As Crime Crushes Profits.  Several restaurants and businesses throughout Washington, D.C., have been forced to flee the city because of rising crime and costs in the area, Fox5 DC reported.  Brine Oyster & Seafood House, a popular restaurant that opened its first location in the city 2020, will close both its H Street and DuPont circle locations in D.C. because of the violent crime that has "made it impossible ... to survive," the restaurant owners wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.  The restaurant locations will be the 47th and 48th to close in the city this year, according to Fox5.  "We've both been burglarized numerous times, both of my restaurants.  Numerous times," Aaron McGovern, the co-owner of Brine Oyster & Seafood House, told Fox5.  "So has everyone on the block, numerous times.  We started to see violence.  Not just 'Oh, there's a gunshot a mile away.'  We could hear the bullets.  It's... the restaurant I'm looking at right now had four shootings there four weeks ago."

Leftist cities:  Be careful what you wish for because you're going to get it.  A young friend of mine moved to Portland, Oregon, because, as a nascent hipster, he thought Portland would be a cool yet affordable place to live.  After less than a year there, he can't wait to leave.  The coup de grace to his dreams of a life in the hipster capital of the Pacific Northwest was the mini tent city that sprang up immediately outside the door of his apartment building.  Apparently, stepping through human feces, needles, and used condoms just isn't hip. [...] In 2020, Oregon voters decided to decriminalize the possession of hard drugs.  Technically, selling them is still a crime, but the police in Portland don't police that crime.  With a dramatically reduced force, why bother?  When your city has gone in a few years from one of the safest cities in America to one of its murder capitals, policing drug sales is a low priority.  The city has been adding police to its roster again, but it's a case of too little, too late.

California Spent Over $4M On Gender-Related Surgeries For Prisoners In Past 6 Years.  California has spent more than $4 million in taxpayer dollars on gender-related surgeries for inmates around the state, including numerous death row inmates, since 2017.  The Washington Free Beacon released a report where it stated that millions of dollars have been spent on sex changes and other gender-related operations and procedures for 157 inmates since California became the first state to agree to pay for these types of operations for prisoners, with four of those criminals on death row.  According to the report, since 2017, California paid for 35 male convicts to surgically receive artificial vaginas and vulvas at a cost of $2.5 million to taxpayers, and 11 male prisoners received breast implants at a cost of more than $180,000.  The state government also paid more than $1 million for the removal of 40 female detainees' breasts.

D.C. Has Run Out of Room Behind Bars to House Juvenile Offenders.  I wrote yesterday about the shocking rise in juvenile crime in Washington, D.C., including a 13-year-old who was shot and killed while allegedly trying to carjack an off-duty federal security officer over the weekend and several months after he was arrested and charged with nine earlier carjackings in the District.  Since that report we've learned that the teen's 12-year-old alleged accomplice has now been arrested in connection with the carjacking, and he's not the only youthful offender who's been busted for violent crimes in our nation's capitol over the past few days.  In fact, according to Fox 5 in D.C., juvenile crime is so out of control that the District has run out of space to keep violent juvenile suspects behind bars.

Despite Video Clearly Showing This Thug Beating An Asian Jeweler In The Head With A Hammer, A Jury Couldn't Find Him Guilty.  A jury could not reach a verdict in a brutal attack on a Wilmington, Delaware jewelry store owner, that occurred in 2022.  The jury began to hear evidence in mid-September of this year.  Wilmington jewelry store owner Chang Suh, 68, was tending his shop on Sept. 15, 2020 when a man — he presumed a customer — appeared at the front door.  Suh had installed a security system that required him to buzz each patron in.  His store sold high-dollar jewelry, after all, and the area had developed a bit of a reputation for crime.  But the person he buzzed in that day didn't plan to buy jewelry.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  [Video clip]

Downtown Pittsburgh merchants tired of what they are calling revolving door of justice.  Merchants in Downtown Pittsburgh say they are tired of what they are calling the revolving door of justice.  When you talk about a broken criminal justice system, Arnez Johnson could be the poster child.  He has been arrested more than a dozen times in the last two years and then he's back on the streets.  But police and merchants said he's not alone.  The police arrest him, take him to jail, and within a day or two — or maybe hours — he's been back out on the streets.  "Before the officer's shift ends, they arrest them in the afternoon and they're back in the same exact spot by the evening," said Dennis Scott of Weiner World.  KDKA-TV told you about Johnson back in the spring after he'd been arrested in Downtown Pittsburgh for the 13th time.  He has been accused of exposing himself to female workers and rubbing against them, repeated retail thefts, aggressive panhandling and open drug use.  But he has served little time in jail.  Last Thursday, police say he was at again.

Man Shoots Girlfriend's Dad, Bonds Out, Kills Her Mom.  A North Carolina felon shot up the home of his now ex-girlfriend's dad, sending the man to the hospital with serious injuries on June 20, 2023.  Michael Steven Ricker, 36, was charged with attempted first-degree murder, shooting into an occupied dwelling, and possession of a firearm by a felon.  The shooting took place after Ricker beat up his girlfriend, Amber Rose, and fought with her father.  That should be enough to keep a man in jail, right? [...] Initially, Ricker was denied bond but 12 days later, bond was set at $25,000 and Ricker was sprung from the Catawba County jail.  Then things got weird.

29 Cities in Los Angeles County Sue County Over Zero Bail Policy.  A lawsuit has been filed against Los Angeles County by 29 cities located within the county, challenging the county's recently-implemented zero bail policy making it easier for criminals to be released back onto the streets.  According to Just The News, the lawsuit states that the zero bail policy, which took effect on October 1st, does not "take into consideration the protection of the public, the safety of the victim, the seriousness of the offense charged, the previous criminal record of the defendant, and the probability of his or her appearing at the trial or hearing of the case."  The new policy declares that cash bail will still be required for those charged with assault, domestic battery, stalking, and violation of a protective order.

How much crime is too much for cities like Oakland?  Major cities in the country continue to see their quality of life decrease as crime increases.  It is not only violent crime that is causing problems, either.  As of mid-September, Oakland, California, had recorded 11,417 motor vehicle thefts or nearly 41 car thefts a day.  In just the week of Oct. 2 [through] 8, 125 cars were stolen, according to the Oakland Police Department crime data.  This does not include the 549 carjackings for the year, which falls under robberies.  Overall, car thefts are up 50 percent over 2022, and carjackings are up 21 percent.  As bad as these numbers are, they may actually be worse.  Police offices told CBS in Oakland that they believed the numbers to be even higher than reported because many residents have given up even reporting crimes because they can't get help. [...] This is what happens when a city government doesn't support its police force and instead, tries to enforce the law with progressive policies.  Oakland is just one of many cities experiencing the same thing.

Meet Joe Biden's D.C. Prosecutor Who Let 56% of Arrestees off the Hook in 2023.  Fifty-six percent of those arrested by the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) in 2023 can thank U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves for being released back on the street, where many taxpayers fear for their lives.  Nominated to the position by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the Senate in 2021, Graves is Joe Biden's handpicked Yale Law graduate to serve as both the local and the federal prosecutor for the nation's capital.  He is in charge of prosecuting crimes from misdemeanor drug possession to murders.  He also has the capacity to prosecute federal crimes, such as financial fraud and terrorism.  Graves claims to be "committed to ensuring the fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans," but many taxpaying residents cannot walk their dog, enjoy a local park, or pick up groceries without fear of being stabbed, robbed, or gunned down in the District, a 68-square-mile area described as a "war zone" and "the most unsafe capital city anywhere in the World."

District Attorney Has Work Laptop Stolen In Car Break-In.  Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price's work laptop was stolen during a car burglary Friday afternoon in Oakland, KABC-TV reported.  After waiting for the police to arrive on the scene for about an hour, Price was reportedly instructed to report the crime online using the California city's police department website, according to KABC-TV.  The incident occurred around 3:30 p.m. near 27th Street and Telegraph Avenue outside the Alameda County Family Justice Center, per the outlet.  Price was there attending a domestic violence event.  [Tweet]

The Late Hour of Our Republic.  It is my belief, and solely my own, that we, the United States of America, have been captured by the powerbase of the elite and that our representatives and senators now respond to that powerbase, that the people, that are the powerbase of America, have been conquered.  It was done in secret, behind our backs, not in a war or through attrition, but by trickery and now whatever fighting we do for our nation is done for the powerbase of the elite. [...] I tell you that the disinterestedness of our elected officials in our pleas to rectify the election process is a symptom of this capitulation to the powerbase of the elite.  They don't care, because they don't have to.  Anything that could implicate them in the fraudulent elections is discarded by those same elite.  This is the same with the immigration laws, with the laws against theft, rape and murder.  They don't matter, because we do not live in a constitutional republic.  Our rights have been subsumed by their system of graft and clout, of power and prestige.

Capital Crime Wave Prompts DC Mayor's Major Reversal on Police Restraints.  The House Oversight and Accountability Committee, whose oversight includes the District of Columbia, held two hearings earlier this year on the D.C. crime problem.  "Unfortunately, President Biden refused to stand by the Metropolitan Police Department and allowed the D.C. Council's anti-police bill to go into effect," House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., told The Daily Signal in a written statement Tuesday.  "As a result, crime in the District has continued to surge and now the D.C. mayor is even trying to roll the D.C. Council's disastrous law back," Comer said.  The D.C. Council previously enacted laws to restrict police and to reduce sentences for felons.  Congress voted to block both.  Meanwhile, Biden signed a measure — also pushed by the oversight panel to reverse a D.C. law reducing sentencing for felonies, including carjackings and burglaries.

'Reasonable Decisions': 70% Of Criminals Dem Gov Released Early Went On To Commit More Crimes.  Many of the criminals who Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear released under executive commutation during the COVID-19 pandemic went on to commit new crimes, a report from the state's government showed.  The report examined the criminal records of the approximately 1,700 criminals that Beshear had released in April and August of 2020 to reduce the prison population during the pandemic.  Of those released, roughly 70% went on to commit crimes, with 50% committing felonies within less than a year of their release.

More than 800 carjackings [have been] reported in DC this year.  New data shows there have been over 800 carjackings in D.C. this year — more than double the total number of carjackings reported in 2022.  That means the District is averaging almost three carjackings per day since the top of the year. [...] Around 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 17, officers were called to the 4200 block of 53rd Street where a man had just been carjacked at gunpoint.  Video released by police showed a black Nissan park behind a Jeep Cherokee on 53rd Street.  Police say three suspects hopped out of the car and approached the driver of the jeep with a rifle and handguns.  One suspect told the driver to "give it up" and he did just that, handing over the keys to his car.  The suspects drove away in his car, along with the fourth suspect driving the Nissan.

Rite Aid, CVS and Walgreens will shut more than 1,500 stores due to crime and competition.  The nation's largest drugstore chains, Rite Aid, CVS and Walgreens, will shutter more than 1,500 stores, leaving millions of Americans without access to healthcare in 'pharmacy deserts.'  Rite Aid said it will close 150 of its 2,100 US locations after they filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this month.  The pharmacy chain has been unable to settle hundreds of lawsuits that accused them of overprescribing opioids and has struggled to keep up with competitors.

Dozens Of Thugs Terrorize And Loot A 7-Eleven In Rio Linda California.  The Sacramento County Sheriff's Office on Friday released video, hoping to identify dozens of people who smashed windows at a Rio Linda 7-Eleven and ransacked the store earlier this month.  The smash-and-grab robbery at the convenience store occurred about 11:30 p.m. on Oct. 8 at the 7-Eleven on the southwest corner of Elkhorn and Rio Linda boulevards.  Sgt. Amar Gandhi, a Sheriff's Office spokesman, said the "looting" occurred at the store after a sideshow that had taken place nearby with about 40 to 50 people.  [Video clip]

Crime-Ridden Blue City Residents Underreported Crimes By Nearly 50%.  Nearly half of crime goes unreported in San Francisco, a poll published on Wednesday by local political research group GrowSF found.  The survey, which received 458 responses, found that although nearly a quarter of San Francisco residents have been the victim of a crime, 47% chose not to report the incident to the police, according to GrowSF.  Nearly 80% of respondents listed crime and public safety as a major concern for the city, while 65% said that they disapproved of how Democratic Mayor London Breed was responding to major issues in San Francisco.

They live at the police station!
Migrants with $2,700 worth of pot shoplifted a karaoke machine, police report says.  Two Venezuelan migrants living at the South Chicago (4th) District police station are facing misdemeanor charges after allegedly trying to shoplift a $130 karaoke machine while one was carrying more than a half-pound of pot.  Victor Franco-Espinosa, 28, and Georleannys Garcia-Renhifo, 29, were arrested at Walmart, 10900 South Doty, last Tuesday evening.  A Walmart security guard showed cops a video that showed Franco-Espinosa stuffing a karaoke machine into a bag and walking out the door, according to a CPD arrest report.  Garcia-Renhifo had 15 additional items in a bag, along with 248 grams of marijuana worth $2,700, the report said.  That's a little less than 9 ounces of weed.  They were both released from custody with instructions to show up in court.

Fact Check:  Red State Homicide Problem Is Mostly a Blue County Homicide Problem.  Aggregating local crime data to the state level overlooks the crucial fact that law enforcement and prosecutorial practices vary widely across local jurisdictions, often influenced by divergent political beliefs.  Reporting results at the state level neglects the nuances of local law enforcement approaches and differing prosecution approaches, which can significantly affect crime rates.  A noteworthy example of that is Travis County, Texas, which was won by Democrats Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020.  That county, situated in the traditionally Republican state of Texas and predominantly comprising the city of Austin, had initiated measures to reallocate more than one-third of resources from law enforcement to prioritize funding for COVID-19 and mental health services in 2021.  Travis County homicides saw a staggering 120% increase outside of Austin city limits in 2021, and the actual city of Austin now stands at 15th on a list of cities with the highest homicide rates in the United States.

It sure looks like a far-left Virginia state prosecutor is colluding with the state's Democratic "porn candidate" in the 2024 election.  You may have heard about Virginia's "porn candidate," Susanna Gibson, a Democratic contender for a spot in the state House of Delegates who was caught performing sex acts with her husband online for money.  We haven't written about it much here because it's a really gross, tawdry little scandal and we like to avoid turning your stomachs if at all possible.  But my goodness, it sure looks like this is going beyond "tawdry little scandal" right into full-blown political corruption territory:  [Tweet]  ["]A Virginia prosecutor may have violated ethics rules by colluding with the state's notorious porn-star candidate to help her navigate the scandal rather than prosecuting her for prostitution.["]  It seems rather black-and-white here.  The Daily Wire emailed Henrico County Commonwealth Attorney Shannon Taylor "asking if she planned to seek an indictment of Gibson for prostitution" given her sex-for-money scheme online.  This is pretty standard stuff.  A political candidate has committed what looks to be a crime; you reach out to the nearest relevant law enforcement officer to find out if they're going to do anything about it.

Punishing 'Hate' but Not Criminals.  America appears to be becoming a society with fewer and fewer laws, or at least not enforcing those that remain on the books.  We have decriminalized "recreational" drugs and reduced felonies into minor misdemeanors while ignoring open looting and rioting save in certain politically charged circumstances.  Cities have downsized their police departments while no longer prosecuting quality-of-life offenses such as public urination.  Filth and open drug markets are now tolerated as just part of urban life.  Yes, the criminal code has obviously been eviscerated, but the impetus for greater criminalization gains momentum elsewhere.  This new focus on crime centers on "hate" as the paramount evil facing society.

Washington DC crime is killing the city.  By now everybody has heard of the high-profile crimes in Washington DC.  Congressmen get beaten and robbed, carjackings are through the root, and even the soft-on-crime Mayor is complaining that her city is down 400 cops since the "Defund the Police" movement and George Floyd riots tore through the country.  But as bad as the prominent crimes are, what is going to kill DC unless things are radically changed are the crimes that impact the day-to-day lives of DC residents.  Congressmen getting carjacked, while disturbing, won't bring down a city.  Losing stores upon which residents depend will turn the city into a third-world hellhole.  [Video clip]  Gangs of teens are now stripping stores bare because they can.  Despite the theory propounded by the criminal justice reformers that somehow police are the cause of anti-social behavior being largely accepted and acted upon by Democrats across the country, somehow crime has skyrocketed.

Albuquerque murder suspect released from jail pending trial.  Daniel Gomez, 26, has been released from custody pending trial.  Gomez is one of three suspects arrested in the fatal shooting of 11-year-old Froylan Villegas near Isotopes Park on Sept. 6.  According to the Bernalillo County District Attorney's office, he is currently charged with murder.  "Prosecutors have to decide who is the most dangerous person.  Who do we keep in jail?  Who do we let out on conditions of release with different types of monitoring?  I mean, you know, it's just the system isn't set up to put everybody in custody," KOAT legal expert John Day said.

The Editor says...
There aren't that many murderers awaiting trial.  And if there are, build more jails.

Actions Have Consequences:  Crime [is] Out of Control in US Cities.  In 2020, far-left lawmakers and activists called for the defunding of America's police departments.  Claims like "Defunding the Police Will Actually Make Us Safer" from the American Civil Liberties Union discouraged policing and encouraged crime.  Now, America is reaping the consequences.  Meanwhile, in the nation's capital, violent crime has increased 39% so far in 2023, compared with the year before, according to Washington, D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department.  The issue of violence in America's cities is now affecting lawmakers themselves.  Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, was parking his car in the Navy Yard area of the city on Monday night when three gunmen approached him and stole his car.  [Tweet with video clip]  The congressman was not hurt in the carjacking, and police successfully retrieved his vehicle.  But Cuellar isn't the first member of Congress to fall victim to crime in the District of Columbia this year.

Even Starbucks Is Failing in Crime-Ridden San Francisco.  First, Whole Foods closed and now Starbucks is shuttering a slew of locations in San Francisco.  The Seattle coffee giant announced Tuesday that it would close seven of its 59 locations in the city, effective Oct. 22.  The city's "doom loop" is speeding up.  Starbucks didn't mention crime in its official reason for leaving the City by the Bay.  "There are several factors Starbucks considers when tasked with the tough decision of closing a store, but it is all part of ensuring a healthy store portfolio," Jessica Borton, Starbucks' regional vice president for Northern California, said in a statement to district managers.  That corporate-speak doesn't say much, but it's hard not to think that crime and the city's deteriorating street conditions didn't play a major factor in this wide-scale shutdown.  Starbucks has been known to jump into woke causes, then dodge woke consequences.  It's not surprising to see the coffee chain go mum on the crime issue.

Our Establishment's Alternate Realities.  One common denominator that explains why previously successful societies implode is their descent into fantasies.  A collective denial prevents even discussion of existential threats and their solutions. [...] Stranger still is the denial of the current crime wave in our major cities.  Predators and thugs have turned once iconic downtowns into either war zones or ghost towns or both.  Smash-and-grab swarming of stores and matter-of-fact shoplifting are destroying commerce in our major cities.  Unsustainable stores either leave or shut down.  Communities who vote for politicians who defund the police blame the stores for leaving — but not the criminals whose brazen thefts made it impossible to do business in the inner city.  Now modern-day pirates with impunity storm, sink, and rob boats of all kinds in the Oakland marina and estuary.  Leftwing journalists and activists, and even Democratic politicians, who all supported defunding the police, now cannot escape the resulting street violence and unleashed murderous predations.

Portland residents [are being] told not to call police for help.  Portland officials were proud of themselves in 2020 when they defunded the Police Bureau by $15 million instead of increasing it by $3 million as planned.  One commissioner was even upset that the council didn't remove more from the budget. [...] A year later, the council was trying to add funding and retain the city's police officers.  "The added police spending is occurring amid a year of a record number of homicides, the city's greatest police staffing shortage in decades and reform recommendations made by the U.S. Department of Justice," PBS reported.  It was too little, too late.  The damage was done, and the city has yet to recover.  In fact, the city government is telling residents not to call police unless their lives are at risk.  Given how dangerous Portland has become, it might not affect the volume of calls to police because more residents' lives are at risk from criminal activity than ever before.

And now, everything in the store is under lock and key, except sunscreen and Father's Day cards.
Bare shelves in CVS store in DC after being routinely ransacked by mob of up to FIFTY unruly teenagers.  The desolate results of America's shoplifting epidemic have been laid bare at a CVS in DC where entire shelves have been cleared by gangs of children who attack every day.  A sole security guard at the store in Columbia Heights is no match for up to 50 teens who routinely strip the store both before and after school, Fox 5 reported.  The pharmacist chain is in the process of closing 900 stores across the US in the face of a crime wave that the National Retail Federation says is costing the industry $112 billion a year.

Leftists are getting mugged by reality.  For years, conservatives have complained about leftist district attorneys, zero-bail laws, lenient sentencing, meaningless sentencing, police defunding, failure to back the blue, open borders, and other fixtures of the plague of violence now seen in America's blue cities.  The results are ugly, with mass numbers of Americans victims.  What has to come as a surprise to leftists is that they're not exempt from it, either.  They're getting mugged, too, same as other people in blue cities.  And worse.

Bodega clerk Jose Alba sues Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, NYPD for racial discrimination.  A former bodega clerk who was infamously charged with murder after fatally stabbing an attacker in his store last year in what he claimed was self-defense is suing lefty Manhattan District Attorney Alvin and the New York City Police Department for racial discrimination.  Former clerk Jose Alba, who stabbed ex-con Austin Simon to death during a fight at the Blue Moon bodega in Harlem in July 2022, claims he was hit with second-degree murder charges and endured days under lockup on Rikers Island because of Bragg's pursuit of "racial equity" in the Manhattan criminal justice system, according to the Manhattan Federal Court suit filed Friday.

Woke DA Alvin Bragg [is being] Sued After Questionable Murder Charges [were] Dropped.  Far-Left Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is getting a taste of his own medicine after a bodega clerk filed murder charges against him after fatally stabbing an attacker in his store last year.  Jose Alba was attacked behind the counter of his store by 35-year-old Austin Simon and his girlfriend, Tina Lee, last July.  According to the lawsuit, Alba is suing Bragg for racial discrimination after being sent to Rikers Island and charged with second-degree murder despite it being self-defense.

Criminal-Friendly Seattle Is So Bad This Guy's Shocked When a Judge Won't Let Him Go.  Seattle's so woke that the criminals think they run the justice system now, and we can prove it.  There was a delicious bit of schadenfreude in court on Thursday listening to an accused bad guy ask plaintively of a judge (paraphrasing here) "Wait, why can't I get the easy-on-criminals treatment that every other bad guy has gotten?"  The crimes this guy and five of his friends are accused of pulling off are egregious and frightening, as I reported recently in my West Coast, Messed Coast report.  The six black men are accused of following Asian people in several Seattle area neighborhoods and attacking them at their homes, sometimes using a taser to disable their helpless victims.

Connecticut Psych Ward Frees Cannibal for 'Good Behavior' Despite Disturbing Confessions.  Tyree Smith, a man with a history of cannibalistic tendencies, has been released from a psychiatric ward in Bridgeport, Connecticut.  This early release, a staggering 50 years ahead of his scheduled date, was granted due to Smith's 'good behavior.'  This decision raised eyebrows and sparked controversy, given that Smith had previously expressed a desire to consume the flesh of his own psychiatrist.  Tyree Smith, who was 36 at the time of his sentencing, was committed to the psych ward for 60 years in September 2013.  This was effectively a life sentence, following a jury verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.

Far Left San Francisco:  Less Than 3% Of Restaurants Have NOT Been Vandalized In Last 30 Days.  As lawlessness in San Francisco shows no signs of abating, local businesses are reeling from the consequences.  A recent survey from the Golden Gate Restaurant Association reveals that a staggering 97% of 74 restaurants surveyed in the city have fallen victim to graffiti or property crime in the last month.  While the liberal mayor pours money into temporary relief, the persistent problems of crime, homelessness, and open-air drug use are driving businesses and consumers away.

Voters are the reason Chicago has food deserts.  Crime is so rampant in major cities like Chicago that shoplifting calls have become something police no long have the time to respond to.  They are short-staffed and crime is growing virtually unchecked.  Many store chains have policies for employees, including security, to not stop shoplifters for fear of the employee being hurt.  This invites criminals to take what they want, leaving the company to take the loss.  For those who say, crime is not a problem (and it is doubtful that most of the politicians in office would try to make this case anymore), look on the streets of the city and see what is happening.  Hundreds of teens rioting, damaging property, and attacking people, for no reason other than they were encouraged to do so on social media.  The result is that stores in high-crime areas are dealing with a greater number of shoplifting incidents that police can't respond to because they are short-staffed and shoplifting isn't as important to them as dealing with a murder, rape, or assault.

Dealing with Consequences.  [Scroll down]  Consider the crime wave that is currently ruining cities with Democrat mayors.  Far-left Soros funded district attorneys such as Alvin Bragg and Chelsa Boudin and George Gascón have made the decision to not prosecute criminals.  As a consequence, crime is rampant and 'Criminal Justice Practices to Enhance Public Trust and Public Safety' are nonexistent.  To say that Biden has removed our opportunity to vote on his decisions concerning his policies would be a major understatement.  But that's only half the story.  Biden is trying to create a consequence-free society.  Decisions have consequences in the real world, but not in Biden-world.  Making decisions without consequences is simply not possible.  Every decision has consequences, be they favorable or unfavorable, expected or not, intended or unintended, or some combination thereof.

California karate instructors seen on video thwarting attempted carjacking, busting up suspects' vehicle.  Two good Samaritans in California were seen on video stopping an attempted carjacking last month after running at the suspects' vehicle and busting its windows with what appeared to be wooden sticks.  The incident unfolded on Aug. 14 at 2:45 p.m. on Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, according to surveillance footage obtained by FOX KTVU.  The victim is seen crossing a street to return to his parked car when another vehicle pulls up and two masked, hooded men jump out, the video shows.  As the suspects grab the victim's car keys, the two onlookers race from across the street to help.  The good Samaritans, who reportedly work as karate instructors nearby, are seen on video smashing the windshield of the suspects' vehicle.

The Editor says...
Until recently, the "Good Samaritans" would have been called "vigilantes," but in the absence of effective law enforcement and meaningful prison sentences, the vigilantes are all that's left.

Democrats Have Become The Party Of Authoritarianism.  They Only Understand Power.  Perhaps you saw the news last week that two women in their 70s, Jean Marshall and Joan Bell, are each facing up to 11 years in federal prison for blocking the entrance to an abortion clinic in 2020.  Federal prosecutors charged the pair for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which Biden's Justice Department has been aggressively enforcing against pro-life activists, convicting 26 people last year alone.  You might have also seen, a few weeks earlier, that a 42-year-old North Dakota man who ran over and killed an 18-year-old kid for being a Republican was sentenced to just five years in prison on a manslaughter charge, and with credit for time already served on house arrest, will spend only about four years behind bars.  Seeing these two things, maybe you wondered how it could be that two grandmothers might well spend twice as many years in prison for the nonviolent offence of sitting in front of an abortion clinic as a man who intentionally killed another man for his political beliefs.

Cashless bail:  Judge refuses to jail Chicago man accused of shooting dog, having 50-round ammo magazines.  A Cook County judge rejected a prosecutor's request to jail a Chicago man who allegedly shot a dog as a threat to public safety on Monday.  Instead, Judge Mary Marubio sent Darrick Bender, 19, home with a nighttime curfew and orders to stay away from the dog's owners, court records show.  Chicago police initially responded to a ShotSpotter gunfire detection alert in the 5000 block of South La Crosse late Sunday night.  Before they arrived, dispatchers radioed that a 911 caller reported that a man had just shot his dog one address away from where the ShotSpotter indicated a gun had been fired, according to a Bender's CPD arrest report.

Brothers Who Killed Ethan Liming, Stomped on His Chest, Broke His Neck and Took His Car Acquitted of Involuntary Manslaughter Charges.  The U.S. Marshals Service last year arrested three men accused of fatally beating 17-year-old high school student Ethan Liming to death outside the school founded by LeBron James in June.  The three men beat Liming to death and later bragged about it to friends.  According to reports, Ethan Liming, whose father is a pastor, tried to calm the situation in the parking lot when he got jumped and hit in the head from behind.  The suspects broke his neck.  We learned from the police report that the suspects took Liming's car and prevented his friends from driving him to the hospital.  Liming was later pronounced dead in the parking lot.

Rough first week for the "Purge Law" in Illinois.  A legal challenge, struck down by the Illinois Supreme Court, delayed the start of Illinois' ludicrously misnamed SAFE-T Act, but it finally went into effect last Monday.  The SAFE-T Act's opponents refer to it as the "Purge Law," a reference to the movie about a generally peaceful dystopian society, except for an annual 12-hour period where all crimes, including murder, are legal.  The SAFE-T Act abolishes cash bail.  Accused criminals are either set free after their arrest to await trial.  Or they are locked up with no bail.  The latter category is reserved for the most heinous criminals, as well as flight risks, and those who are suspected of being likely to intimidate witnesses, and the like.  Most accused criminals in Illinois, public safety [notwithstanding], will walk free, albeit some while wearing an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet, which, in case you didn't know, are very easy to remove.  Of course, without cash bail, which often is paid for by a friend or relative, accused criminals can be expected to be more likely to skip out of town and blow off their trial dates.

Is the Left Happy That They Got Their Wish?  Critical legal theory has now trickled down into most of our large cities.  It insists that criminals are not criminals at all, but rather victims of prior racial and class oppressions.  Thus their victims should blame society for their injuries, not their predatory victimizers.  Critical legal theory is a sort of Marxist redistribution schema — the middle class almost deserves its equal share of violence commensurate with that of the inner city.  As a result, in Chicago and Oakland and hundreds of other cities, prosecutors let out criminals without bail or sometimes even indictments — in part out of spite and hatred of middle- and upper-middle-class America that supposedly deserves a payback for its bourgeois indifference, in part out of sheer ignorance of the unleashing of human nature once all deterrence is removed.  And the result?  Anxious liberal professionals are fleeing our major cities in the greatest out-of-state migrations since the 1930s.  Or they simply avoid their own downtowns.

Berkeley Retail Shutting Down Just Like San Francisco.  Rising crime, looting, and tolerance of drug-addled transients taking over the streets has led to an exodus of retail establishments from San Francisco.  Now another Democrat-controlled California city is enjoying the same exodus of retail establishments:  Berkeley.  Here YouTuber Metal Leo looks at streets near Cal Berkeley University, where store after store after store are closed, boarded up or for lease.  [Video clip]  Banks, pharmacies, cinemas, pizza chains: all closed.  The only thing that seems to be open are Starbucks.

Minnesota murder suspect finally caught after 2-year manhunt ... then promptly set free by mistake.  28-year-old suspected murderer Kevin Mason was on the run from the law for two years before finally being apprehended on September 11.  Mason had been wanted for allegedly gunning someone down in a Minneapolis parking lot in 2021, in addition to parole violations and weapons charges.

Trial In Delaware For Man Seen On Video Beating A Jewelry Store Owner In The Head With A Hammer Ends In Hung Jury.  A jury could not reach a verdict in a brutal attack and robbery of a Wilmington, Delaware jewelry store owner.  Calvin Ushery was on trial for various charges, including robbery and assault.  Prosecutors say he violently attacked the owner of Solid Gold Jewelers on September 15, 2022.  Surveillance video shows 68-year-old Chang Suh being stomped on and hit in the head at least a dozen times — twice with a hammer.  Suh was so badly beaten he is still undergoing rehabilitation.

The Editor says...
There are those who will refuse to convict a defendant just because he (or she) is black.  People like that are willing to lie about their stubborn prejudice in order to get on a jury and save the day for the defendant.  That's one thing wrong with our trial-by-jury system.  The other thing is that the lawyers want the members of the jury to be easily-swayed dupes who can be persuaded to see things one way or another, regardless of testimony or other evidence.  As a result, the lawyers are willing to say anything at all as they engage in small town theater in the courtroom.

Coast Guard called in to battle woke Oakland's sea pirate problem.  Basically, it's an extension of the organized theft gangs that have plagued the Bay Area, forcing private businesses to take billions in theft losses which is driving many of them from the cities. [...] Oakland's wokesterly mayor, Sheng Thao, is utterly useless, given that she has turned her city over to thieves of all sorts in the name of social justice, meaning, homes, cars, businesses and retail malls are all targets of mass looting that rarely ever gets punished now.  It's gotten so bad the local NAACP has protested.  Much of it is Mexican and Central American cartel-fueled, and with laws largely unenforced in that region, the cartels have had a field day, branching out into actual sea piracy.  Thao remains feckless, though, and can't attract cops to her police department, given the left's demonization of police which pretty well tells police officers that one thing goes wrong and the politicians do not have their back.

[Black] Thug Ransacks A Shop In Chinatown Los Angeles Before Brutally Assaulting Elderly Asian Woman.  Security video captured the moment a thief ransacked a shop in Chinatown before brutally attacking an elderly woman inside.  The robbery happened on Thursday at Angies Boutique on the 800 block of North Broadway around noontime.  The shop owner said the man, who was captured on surveillance camera, had come into the store a day earlier to purchase items and scope out the place.  As the suspect entered the shop on Thursday, he began quickly taking items from behind store counters as an older woman tried to stop him.  [Video clip]

SoCal Smash-and-Grab Thieves Steal 23 Rolex Watches in 20 Seconds in Broad Daylight Robbery.  A group of smash-and-grab robbers stole 23 luxury watches worth about $250,000 from a Southern California jeweler in under half a minute.  Newport Beach Police said the crime took place on September 8th after 4pm.  Four suspects ransacked the front display at the Jewelers located at 149 Riverside Ave. in Newport Beach, CA.  [Video clip]

To Market, to Market.  [Scroll down]  Retail theft also increases prices, and that is a perfectly predictable consequence of the Defund the Police movement.  And it's a big problem:  [Statistics omitted for brevity.]  That movement was drummed up by the corrupt Black Lives Matter exploitation of the death of a lifelong drug-addled, seriously ill criminal, and it is devasting business, particularly in Democrat-run cities like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, and Portland, which thought the Defund movement was a great idea.  Businesses are leaving, tax rolls are down, and consumers are being seriously inconvenienced in their ability to buy what they want.  Law enforcement officers are leaving these places in droves and recruiting new ones is so hard that Chicago is hiring even illegal immigrants for those positions.

Wild rise of the 'flash rob mobs'.  A distressing new crime trend known as 'flash rob mobs' is on the rise and likely to cost California a whopping $19 billion a year, guidance from the LAPD warns.  The incidents have become increasingly frequent in soft-on-crime California, where detectives in the state's largest police force are now assembling designated teams to tackle the problem.  The groups have been pillaging stores including Nordstrom and Versace.

Appellate panel rules Philly teacher who was stabbed 20 times, 10 times from behind, was a suicide.  An appellate court panel in Philadelphia has unbelievably ruled the brutal death of a 27-year-old teacher in January 2011, who died from 20 stab wounds including 10 from behind, was a suicide.  The panel upheld a prior ruling that Ellen Greenberg had somehow killed herself, which would be a real feat considering the massive stab wounds to her neck and head from behind.  They blasted the police investigation as "deeply flawed," according to court documents.  "The family of Ellen Greenberg, 27, has fought for more than a decade to overturn the city's ruling over the death of the teacher, whose corpse was riddled with stab wounds, including 10 to the back of the head and neck," the New York Post reported.  The teacher's family hired a team of experts following her death who noted that a knife in her apartment was overturned, potentially indicating that she had been in a struggle with an assailant.  They also surmised that a deep gash to the back of her head most likely rendered her unconscious and unable to fend off her attacker.  One of the stabs from behind reached her spinal column.  Another from the front penetrated four inches into her heart.  She was discovered with a knife in her chest and with bruising.

Federal Court Strikes Down Felon Voting Ban As 'Cruel And Unusual Punishment'.  A federal appeals court ruled against Mississippi's permanent voting ban for certain felons, going against Supreme Court precedent in doing so.  The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month that the Mississippi Constitution's lifetime voting ban for felons convicted of certain crimes violates the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.  The Mississippi Constitution revokes an individual's right to vote permanently if they receive a felony conviction for crimes including arson, bigamy, bribery, embezzlement, forgery, murder, obtaining money or goods under false pretense, perjury, rape, or theft, as well as those crimes the Mississippi attorney general determines fall under those explicit categories, such as armed robbery and timber larceny.

Criminal Justice is Just Plain Ugly.  I think that the crime problem, the mass incarceration problem, and mental health problem arise out of the liberal cultural beliefs and liberal political power that our liberal friends have used to impose their beliefs and culture on the rest of us.  And for most people not in the laptop class liberal culture and power make things worse.  But I could be wrong.  Earth to liberals:  Urban violence and murder rates are a witch's brew of fatherless homes, welfare, and the separation of sex from marriage and child-raising.  And You Did It.  Earth to liberals:  Mass incarceration and three strikes laws are the knee-jerk response of ordinary people to the rise of crime and violence that amped up in the Sixties with the Great Society.

Progressive DA lets the criminal walk and convicts the cop.  In Minneapolis, a progressive district attorney prosecuted and convicted a police officer of vehicular homicide and later dropped all charges against the perp he was chasing related to the death of an innocent bystander.  It's an example of how leftist prosecutors and judges are perverting the law to make the innocent guilty and guilty innocent.  It also shows why such extreme leftist prosecutors need to be removed from office.  They aren't doing their jobs.  They are furthering their agendas.

Suspect in $1.6M fentanyl case fails to show for court hearing.  A man who was released on nonmonetary bond after police said they caught him with $1.6 million in fentanyl in Pittsburgh failed to show for a court hearing Monday morning in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court.  Yan Carlos Pichardo Cepeda, 27, of New York did not answer repeated phone calls by pretrial services over the past several days.  Messages left with his father and grandmother also were not returned, said Lindsay Black of pretrial services.  Common Pleas Judge Edward J. Borkowski issued a nationwide arrest warrant for Cepeda following the hearing.

Why San Francisco is the car break-in capital:  Low-risk, high reward.  In case you've somehow missed all the news coming out of San Francisco for the past several years, the city has the highest rate of property crime in the country.  The SF Chronicle published a story today asking the obvious question:  "Why is it so bad here — and not elsewhere?"  The answer the article comes to is not entirely satisfying but it does make some amount of sense.

What happens when the local police just give up and disband?  Goodhue is a small city in Minnesota, roughly halfway between Minneapolis and Rochester.  Calling it a "city" is a bit of a stretch, since its population barely tops 1,000.  But Goodhue now has a problem that is becoming far too common, particularly in blue states around the country.  Last month, after a couple of years of wrangling over budgets and administrative logjams, the town's police chief and its few remaining officers quit, leaving Goodhue without a police force.  So what happens now?  That's a question that more and more municipalities are grappling with today and it's happening when crime rates around the country continue to rise.

Tax cheat Hunter Biden not prosecuted by California:  Where is the outrage from Governor Newsom?  Hunter Bided failed to pay federal income taxes on millions in income and some of that income was earned while Biden was living in California, so he likely failed to pay state taxes as well.  The Plea Agreement between Hunter Biden and federal prosecutors filed in the Delaware shows that Hunter failed to pay taxes on millions from companies and individuals in Ukraine, China and Romania.  Hunter was living in California for at least part of the time according to the later filing by prosecutors to dismiss the tax charges in the plea bargain agreement and the intent to refile in California or the District of Columbia.  We can assume that Hunter failed to pay his state income tax as well, since federal and state returns are filed together.

Why is the 'greatest serial murder ever in American history' being covered up?!  Not sure if you've noticed, but our culture has become rather apathetic when it comes to death.  It seems we can't even begin to process a tragedy before the next one strikes ... and then the next one.  "We have this culture of death," says Daniel Horowitz.  "We become mind-numb robots at a time of the internet where we should know more than ever," and yet "we know less than ever; we care about less than ever."  "We're gonna talk about a story that should be the greatest crime story of our lifetime, and I'm not exaggerating," he says — a story that is "probably the greatest serial murder ever in American history."  What's perhaps most disturbing, however, is the fact that so few people know about this story.  Between the years of 2016 and 2018, Kenyan national Billy Chemirmir was accused of smothering 22 elderly women to death and stealing their jewelry in several different senior centers across the Dallas metroplex.

Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw Quits amid Soaring Crime.  Philadelphia's Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw has quit as the city battles soaring crime rates.  Mayor Jim Kenney announced Tuesday that Outlaw is stepping down as the city's top cop.  Later this month, Outlaw will take on a new job with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.  "Commissioner Outlaw has worked relentlessly for three and a half years during an unprecedented era in our city and a number of crisis situations, and she deserves praise for her commitment to bringing long-overdue reform to the Department after years of racism and gender discrimination prior to her appointment," Kenney said in a statement.

The Editor says...
Many Democrat-dominated cities have found out the hard way that appointing a black chief of police, especially a black female, is not guaranteed to reduce crime.  Yet the black female is almost always the leading contender for such a job every time a position opens.

Looters Pick the Wrong Disaster Area, End Up with Million-Dollar Bails.  A man and a woman from Palmetto, Florida, almost 200 miles south of where Idalia made landfall, were arrested Wednesday after an officer from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission heard noises coming from outside a home in Horseshoe Beach.  The officer found the man and woman loading up items from the waterfront home into a rented pickup truck.  One of the suspects told deputies that the homeowner had given him permission to remove items from the house on stilts.  But the homeowners told deputies when contacted that they had done no such thing, according to a statement from the Dixie County Sheriff's Office.  Each suspect was charged with burglary of an unoccupied dwelling during an emergency, grand theft and trespassing, with bails set for each at $1 million.  "We are taking strong action against this criminal activity," the sheriff's office said in the statement.

Washington, D.C., Imposes Teen Curfew.  It Could Have Gone Better.  Teen curfews have become all the rage in U.S. cities this year.  The explanation is simple: politicians need to be seen to be "doing something about the problem" of crime and mayhem involving kids under the age of 16, and even though they don't make a spit's worth of difference, imposing a useless curfew is better than nothing.  Washington, D.C., decided to start enforcing its curfew, on the books since 1995, on September 1.  The police set up youth curfew enforcement areas and assigned officers to patrol them.  Unfortunately, the very first night the curfew was being enforced, four people were killed in shootings in or near the curfew enforcement areas.  And no teens were taken into custody to be turned over to the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services.

The Decline of American 'Civilization'.  Are the inner cities of most Democratic Party-controlled metropolises "civilized"?  I, personally, would not call them that.  There is some behavior everywhere that classifies as "civilized," but when that certain standard is no longer reached, barbarity becomes dominant.  The streets of Chicago and San Francisco are probably more dangerous than an Amazonian jungle.

"Nonviolent Crime" Is a Myth.  Five days after sustaining serious injuries, a San Francisco store clerk named Yowhannes "John" Tewelde has died.  He was beaten with a baseball bat by a man whom he tried to stop from stealing beer from his store.  Tewelde's death marks yet another homicide in the Bay Area, which, between San Francisco and Oakland, has seen an enormous amount of crime and mayhem in recent years.  The nature of Tewelde's death illustrates an important reality that progressives working to ease up on supposedly nonviolent crimes don't seem to appreciate: even "minor" offenses like retail theft, open-air drug use, and smoking on subway platforms are frequently backed by a threat of violence.  Had Tewelde not intervened, allowing the thief to take what he wished, progressive prosecutors like former San Francisco district attorneys George Gascón and Chesa Boudin probably would have refused to prosecute him, citing the nonviolent nature of the offense.  All we'd have is a lowly shop owner forced to shoulder the cost of a few cheap beers.  No big deal, right?  Wrong.  The decision to ignore the theft would allow an individual who was in truth both willing and able to kill over $10 to remain on the street.  It would be only a matter of time before he did something terrible.

Shopowner Takes on a Shoplifter, and It Goes Very Badly for the Would-Be Thief.  Rising crime has been a plague under the Biden regime, largely spurred by prosecutors who refuse to enforce the law, thereby incentivizing criminal activity.  That's been especially true when it comes to so-called "smash and grab" robberies.  Sometimes carried out with a group of thieves and other times done solo, the technique is to rush into a place of business and steal high-value items.  Technology and jewelry stores have become prime targets.  Nowhere is the problem worse than in California due to Prop 47, which reduces some felony thefts to misdemeanors.  That has created an environment where criminals can steal at will, knowing that they will likely either get a ticket if caught or let go shortly after booking.  Sometimes, justice is served in other ways, though.

Supermarket Chain To Remove Tide, Colgate, Advil Amid Increasing Crime Rates.  A supermarket chain has decided to remove popular household brands from a store in Washington, D.C., citing rising crime rates.  The Ward 8 location of the grocery retailer Giant Food will no longer be carrying brands such as Tide detergent, Colgate toothpaste or even Advil ibuprofen, over a continued rise in theft and crime rates, the Washington Post reported.  The company has previously weighed shutting down operations after it lost 20% of its revenue.  "We want to continue to be able to serve the community, but we can't do so at the level of significant loss or risk to our associates that we have today," Ira Kress, the president of Giant Foods explained.

California Dem-led committee advances bill to let killers serving life without parole request re-sentencing.  A bill that would allow killers serving a life sentence without parole to possibly be re-sentenced cleared a major hurdle Friday in California's Democratic-led state Legislature.  The state Assembly Appropriations Committee advanced Senate Bill 94, which now moves to the next phase of voting.  The bill would allow California prison inmates serving a sentence of life without parole (LWOP) for certain crimes to petition for re-sentencing if the offense occurred before June 5, 1990, and the completion of at least 25 years of their sentence.  Those convicted of first-degree murder of a police officer would be exempt.  Those who are re-sentenced would have the opportunity to someday go in front of a parole board, which could deny them release.

Bay Area Councilman Has Keys, Wallet Stolen While Speaking to Shopkeepers About Safety.  A councilman in California's Bay Area was speaking to shopkeepers about safety when he had his wallet and keys stolen, according to a report from CBS Bay Area.  Reportedly, Emeryville council member Kalimah Priforce rode his bike to Bay Street to spend the afternoon "visiting nearly every store to ask employees about their experience and sense of safety."  "A lot of stores that can't afford private guards, they need panic buttons, a direct line to the police, so they don't actually have to pick up the phone, call the police dispatch," explained Priforce.  While he was at the mall, Priforce phoned police because he discovered his wallet and keys were stolen from his bike bag.

Los Angeles (Just Like California) Is Dying A Slow And Painful Death.  Just over a week ago, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass declared war on the recent smash-and-grab robbery trend infecting the county's retail stores.  She announced a new regional task force consisting of 22 investigators to focus entirely on curbing the shoplifting phenomenon sweeping Southern California.  Unfortunately, it seems lawless perpetrators did not get the message.  Since the task force — including officers from police departments across the region, along with state and federal support — was assembled, at least three more large group incidents have been reported.  On Tuesday of this past week, a video from the Citizen app showed five masked thieves ransacking a Dior counter inside a Macy's at the Shops of Santa Anita Mall.  They grabbed boxed sets of perfumes, threw them into trash bags, and ran away as onlookers gasped.  In a separate incident, also posted on the Citizen app, a video shows the aftermath of a flash-mob robbery at a Footlocker store on Melrose Avenue, one of the city's most popular shopping districts.

LA's smash-and-grab epidemic:  Voters helped break California's justice system.  Smash-and-grab robberies are happening in broad daylight at stores throughout California and no one seems to be doing anything to stop them.  Two weeks back, a Nordstrom store in the west San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles was attacked by a flash mob of 30 to 50 masked thieves.  They made off with armloads of designer merchandise valued at an estimated $60,000 to $100,000.  Online video of the robbery showed metal-and-glass display shelves sliding along the floor as the thieves dragged expensive handbags, still attached to anti-theft cables, toward the exits.  The previous week, a gang of thieves helped themselves to about $300,000 worth of goods from a Yves Saint Laurent store in a shopping mall owned by the recent candidate for LA Mayor, Rick Caruso.

L.A. Mayor Bass:  Lack of Consequences for Crime Isn't Causing Retail Theft, 'Things Like This Happen' if There's Profit.  On Friday's broadcast of "The Issue Is," Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass stated that the issue of retail theft in the city has "nothing to do" with a lack of consequences for crime in the city and "things like this happen" when there are profits.

Why was this alleged rapist and drug dealer allowed to walk free for so long?  A pretty remarkable story about a man named Sean Williams.  Back in April, police in North Carolina found Williams sitting in his car, apparently passed out.  They searched his car and found cocaine and heroine along with two thumb drives.  They got warrants to search the thumb drives and found evidence of dozens of rapes: [...] The other drive allegedly contained child porn.  Police had stumbled upon a monster.  It turned out that Williams was a fugitive from Tennessee who had been on the run for two years.  But this is where the story takes a pretty disturbing turn.  Nine different women had accused Williams of sexual assault before he went on the run.  They claim that police did little to nothing with their cases.  Lawyers for the nine women sued the Johnson City PD over it.

Chicago sues automakers over cars being stolen.  For several years now, Chicago's spiraling crime rates have featured a shocking increase in the number of vehicular thefts and carjackings.  The Chicago Police Department recorded an increase in car thefts from 9,000 to 21,000 in just the past three years.  Among the most popular cars to steal are Kias and Hyundais, possibly because they are the easiest to break into and drive away.  In response, the city's new anti-cop mayor, Brandon Johnson, has decided to finally do something about it.  Will he be sending out the police to arrest the thieves and break up the criminal gang?  Don't be silly.  Of course not.  He's filing a lawsuit against Kia and Hyundai, claiming that their cars are too easy to steal.

San Francisco:  Federal Agency Tells Employees to Stay Safe at Home.  It's getting so lawless in San Francisco that government agencies are telling their employees to work from home.  The Bay Area's reputation for and encouragement of open-air drug use has turned this once pristine region of the Golden State into a distinct shade of brown.  Literally.  We are certainly witnessing the rapid disintegration of San Francisco, a city with enormous advantages in wealth and geography, but a serious disadvantage in the realm of common sense.  Officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services told employees working at — and you just can't make this up — the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building on 7th Street and Mission to steer clear of the building for "the foreseeable future" because street conditions were so deplorable.

Chicago would like gang members to only shoot people at night, please.  When Chicago's old anti-cop mayor was replaced by its new anti-cop Mayor, Brandon Johnson, some were concerned that he wouldn't do enough to combat the gang violence that has been leaving a trail of bodies around the Windy City for years.  Well, fear not.  The Mayor and the City Council are working with a local community group called Native Sons to develop a messaging campaign aimed at Chicago's street gangs.  Rather than threatening to lock them up and throw away the key, they are politely asking the gangbangers to restrict their shooting activities to between the hours of 9 pm and 9 am when they are "less likely" to gun down children and innocent bystanders.  How did nobody think of this before?

Chicago Alderman 'backs plea for Windy City's criminals to only shoot guns between hours of 9pm to 9am.  A Chicago politician and a community group desperate to slow the city's spiraling crime problem is begging for 12 hours a day where people don't shoot their guns.  Alder Maria Hadden, a Democrat, boosted a proposal by the group Native Sons calling for 'The People's Ordinance' -- a ceasefire between 9 am and 9 pm. [...] They're asking for the refrain from gunshots to reduce risk to Chicagoans who are 'not involved in high risk activities.'  'We have to start somewhere,' Tatiana Atkins, co-founder of Native Sons, told CWB Chicago.

The Editor says...
If you "have to start somewhere," you could start by enforcing the law and locking up perpetrators.  Asking them to obey the law during the day is just mealy-mouth public-school thinking:  Use your words.  Tell me how you feel.  Put down the gun.

Urban progressives blast the unsafe cities that they created.  The capital of the most powerful and prosperous country to ever grace Earth is an unpleasant — even unlivable — place to call home.  Over the past decade, Washington, DC, has transformed from a beautiful, bustling and vibrant metropolis into a city that often feels like a ripoff of Batman's Gotham.  Between 2013 and 2019, DC recorded between 104 and 166 homicides per year.  In the three full years since, it's recorded 198, 223 and 203 murders.  This year, it's on pace to bear witness to 256.  All this has been accompanied by skyrocketing crime rates across the board.  The capital has already far eclipsed the staggering number of carjackings that took place there last year.  Worse yet, only 80 arrests have been made in connection with 2023's 606 carjackings so far.

Shoplifter suspect gets busted after returning to the same Target to steal another TV.  A man, who once got away with stealing a TV from Target, went back to the same store on Wednesday, leading to his arrest, the Atlanta Police Department says.  The incident happened at a Target store on Caroline Street NE after a Target security guard told police that "a suspect had stolen one television from the store and returned moments later to take another."  The video released by APD shows the moment of a confrontation between the man and a police officer.  The alleged shoplifter tried to run away before a police officer took him down.  [Video clip]

A Very Bad Week for Civilization in California.  A group of "up to 30" teens poured into a Nordstrom's store in Topanga, Calif., in a "smash and grab" looting that went off with military precision.  [Tweet with video clip] [...] Dear Californians:  It ain't rocket science figuring out what's happening in your beautiful state.  This is a direct result of lax enforcement of the law and a reluctance of prosecutors and district attorneys to uphold the basic values of civilization.

How much is all this shoplifting costing us?  Shoplifting increases the cost of goods for all people.  The thief does not "stick it it to the man" rather the thief sticks it to the neighbors.  Stores will be shuttered in proportion to the level of theft and if the trend keeps going, then at a certain point all stores will be forced out of business leaving people to pay more to have food and goods delivered only to be possibly stolen in the mail rooms of apartment buildings or on the doorsteps of those who cannot afford to be home and who cannot afford to hire personal assistants.  Increasing shoplifting is a perfect example of an unsustainable activity despite the widespread recognition that sustainability is key to having a world in which all can thrive.

DeSantis Suspends Another Soros-Funded Prosecutor After Two Police Officers are Shot by Gunman With Extensive Rap Sheet.  Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Wednesday suspended the top prosecutor in Orlando, saying her soft-on-crime policies endangered the community.  DeSantis, who is running a distant second behind former President Donald Trump in the Republican primary, signed an executive order firing State Attorney Monique Worrell less than a week after a gunman with an extensive criminal history shot two Orlando police officers during a traffic stop.  Worrell served in the 9th Judicial Circuit, which covers Orange and Osceola counties.  According to Worrell's office, the shooter's rap sheet included charges of sexual battery and molestation, aggravated assault and battery.  He also had three pending arrest warrants — one in Georgia, and two in Florida, where he was wanted for a fatal shooting in Miami.  "It is my duty as Governor to ensure that the laws enacted by our duly elected Legislature are followed," DeSantis said during a news conference in Tallahassee announcing the suspension.

Braveheart 7-Eleven shopkeepers could face action for defending their shop against an armed thug.  If you are a career criminal and looking to prosper without fear of the law, California is the place to migrate to.  There is perhaps no other place in the U.S. or even in the world, where criminals can flourish with such impunity.  Videos of criminals ambling across departmental stores casually picking items from shelves and leaving without paying no longer shock anyone.  The employees and owners are usually left with no option but to stand and stare, because these thieves are usually armed and dangerous.  It's probably not uncommon for thugs to assign themselves shops that they regularly and repeatedly target. [...] The situation is so bad that law enforcement officials no longer bother to intervene.  Even if they do intervene, liberal pro-crime judges release the thugs back on the streets where they are free to engage in criminal behavior[.]

What a Collapsing Civilization Looks Like.  [Scroll down]  The author's closing line captures it better than I could: "Progressive architects of New York's post-2019 criminal-justice regime, from state lawmakers to DA Bragg, claim that they want to keep minority men out of prison.  Now, one is dead, and another sits in a failing jail, hoping that a grand jury refuses to indict him for murder.  This is progress?"

Gavin Newsom wants to make America Oakland.  The CNN report is just ghastly.  One woman is crying her heart out as she leaves a place she's spent her whole life is.  I should say, "Is forced to leave."  But I also wonder who she's been voting for all these years as things went south.  [Tweet with video clip]  Gangs are targeting Asian families.  We keep hearing that's a problem — a racist problem — but you never hear who's doing it, although we've all seen the videos.  And then, when perpetrators are caught in these racially targeted crimes?  What happens in Newsom's CA to offenders, when they are arrested for RACIST crimes against innocent people, usually elderly, who can't defend themselves?  [Tweet]

[White] Woman Screams For Help As [Black] Man Pushes Her Down And Walks Away With Her Bike In San Diego.  Looks like San Diego Is reminding Los Angeles and San Franciso it's not such a safe city anymore since blue politics have ruined it over the decades.  [Video clip]

After you're mugged, you'll also receive a ticket for noise pollution.
Police in Democrat-Run Oakland Urge Residents to Use Airhorns if Targeted by Criminals.  Police in Democrat-run Oakland, California, are urging residents to use airhorns as a way of sounding an alarm when criminals strike amid a surge in crime.  Crime has risen to a point where police are not only advising the purchase of airhorns but also the placement of "security bars to... doors and windows," CNN noted.  Burglaries in the city are up 41 percent "and robberies by more than 20 percent."

The Destruction of Common Law.  By defunding the police in major cities, and by showering leftwing district attorney candidates with millions of dollars in campaign funding, the Left systematically eroded the law as we know it in our major cities.  As a result, downtowns are after-dark, no-go zones, as once great metropolises resemble veritable combat theaters.  Cities are becoming depopulated as consumers and businesses no longer find it safe to conduct commerce.  Criminals and homeless now routinely break the law with impunity.  Public violence, defecation, urination, fornication, and injection do not even rate as misdemeanors.  The Left has redefined violent crime to such an extent that shoplifting is no longer actionable.  Flash mobs that take over streets and swarm to loot stores are rarely if ever arrested.  Security officers who apprehend thieves or intervene to stop violence are more likely to be prosecuted than criminals themselves.  There is no longer any immigration law; it has been utterly destroyed by Joe Biden.  Seven-million illegal entrants flood into the U.S. and, along with the Mexican government, make demands on their hosts to accommodate their illegality.

Soon the Cadillac dealerships will be open 24 hours a day!
Protestors line up for their cut of $4.9 Million settlement over violent 2017 St. Louis riot.  Lawlessness was rewarded in St. Louis as police protesters began lining up to collect from a more than $5 million "kettling" settlement.  A now more than decade-old police officer involved shooting death led to dozens taking home an average of $43,000 after failing to heed disbursal instructions.  After originally proposing the settlement for $5.2 million in January, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the process of handing out checks rewarding civil unrest began Friday.  The sum of $4.9 million was set to be divided among 84 plaintiffs named in the class action lawsuit that had been filed following the 2017 protests of the acquittal of former police officer Jason Stockley, with three individuals claiming the remainder at $85,000 apiece.

Black man's drug conviction vacated by U.S. appeals court after White judge said he 'looks like a criminal'.  A Black man who was sentenced to more than ten years in prison on drug trafficking charges had his conviction vacated Friday after it was revealed the White judge who oversaw his case said he "looks like a criminal."  The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the case of Leron Liggins, who was sentenced to more than a decade in prison in March 2022, court records show.

The Editor says...
Where's a picture of the defendant?  Maybe the judge was right.  A defendant's demeanor in a courtroom is evidence for or against him.  The lawyers say it isn't, but it is.

How 600-plus California Inmates Got More Than 11,000 Years Cut Off Their Prison Sentences.  Neko Wilson wasn't present when Gary and Sandra DeBartolo were brutally killed in their Central Valley home in 2009.  Still, Fresno County prosecutors alleged he was culpable for their murders because he had helped plan the botched robbery.  At the time, California law allowed for people to be charged with first-degree murder if they were involved in a felony that led to a killing, even if they hadn't intended for anyone to be hurt and didn't commit the violence themselves.  For years, the felony murder law was used to lock up entire groups of offenders for the violent acts of one or two among them — often for decades, sometimes for life.

The Editor says...
[#1] That's what juries are for, and that is also why prosecutors don't want anybody sitting on a jury who can think for himself.  [#2] Conspiracy to commit a crime is itself a crime, and if the plans result in homicide, then the conspiracy is a serious offense that calls for prison time.  [#3] I saw no mention in the article above about Mr. Wilson's criminal history.  [#4] On the other hand, this frees up prison space for those who deserve to occupy it, and there are many who do.

The High Cost of Crime:  Oregon County Loses $1 Billion as Residents Flee Lawless Portland.  Residents who fled Multnomah County, Oregon, in 2020 took over $1 billion in income as they searched for a better life in other areas.  The news is according to an analysis of data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Oregonian reported Sunday.  "Numbers gleaned from annual income tax returns provide the most detailed information available on where Americans are moving — and taking their money," the outlet said.

And Chicago, and Houston, and Portland, and San Francisco, and St. Louis, and New Orleans, and Baltimore, and Philadelphia.
How the Left's is turning New York into a crime-ravaged, drug-infested nightmare.  Give us pizza or give us death!' So chanted New Yorker Scott LoBaido a few weeks ago in downtown Manhattan before he started hurling large slices of pizza over the gates of New York's City Hall.  LoBaido, a conservative artist and activist, was staging a lone and eccentric protest against a new green crackdown on coal and wood-fired ovens.  Opponents say it will badly hit the city's already struggling small businesses — particularly its iconic pizzerias — which face paying tens of thousands of dollars to install oven filters that must be regularly inspected. [...] The city is suffering a crime epidemic so bad even ice cream and laundry detergent are security- tagged in shops, and endless anti-business measures are driving down earnings, but politicians appear more preoccupied by the culture wars: woke causes and green issues, such as air pollution.  Yet for all the concern about air quality, the authorities have only themselves to blame for the all-pervasive stench of contraband weed on its streets, a consequence of officials' disastrous tinkering with cannabis legalisation on the grounds of 'racial equity', which has led to the proliferation of 1,400 illicit marijuana shops.

If this is true, the minimum voting age should be 25 or higher.
Dem rep advocates for lesser penalties for teen criminals, saying 'the brain doesn't fully mature until at least 25 years old'.  Rep. Mike Johnson pointed out a rather shocking change in perspective from Democrat California Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee as he headed up the House Judiciary Subcommittee's hearing on "The Dangers and Due Process Violations of 'Gender-Affirming Care' for Children" on Thursday.  Lee had previously stated that teens are not fully capable of making permanent, life-altering decisions until their brains fully mature at 25-years-old, but when it comes to sex changes, she apparently is entirely on board with kids making these kinds of decisions at incredibly young ages.

Sex offender camp growing in Florida woods; public apparently not warned.  A Florida camp powered by solar panels and a generator is home to about a dozen sex offenders who claim they were sent there by probation officers, but there is no indication the public was alerted.  Land records indicate the tents that sit under a structure made from branches are on land owned by the Florida Department of Transportation.  An FDOT spokesperson said they were "not aware of this."  Several sources, including a defense attorney, told Nexstar's WFLA that anyone on probation is still "under sentence," and they said that telling them to live outdoors violates state administrative code.  A DOC spokesperson denied offenders are told where to live by probation officers.

They are rubbing our noses in their filth.  This regime has no shame.  Those stories about the discovery of a bag of cocaine in the White House were not an accidental leak of the truth.  The leak was psyops meant to destroy the morale of their enemy, which is the American people.  The discovery was meant to show that Biden and his crooks will do anything they want and get away with it, and they do.  Law enforcement did nothing — and what will Republicans do about it?  Cry?  Biden's crew ignores congressional subpoenas without consequence, just as Eric Holder did when he was Obama's AG.  In January, Speaker McCarthy promised to make the videos of the January 6 protest public.  Six months later, the videos remain under lock and key — right next to Epstein's client list.  We can guess at some of the names on the list just by looking at the celebrities who hit Trump hardest.  The deep state is better at blackmail than the Mafia.

Violent robberies in Washington, D.C. are soaring — up 60% from last year!  Many large U.S. cities have become unlivable hellholes over the past few years — especially (by far) those that are controlled and run by Democrats.  And Washington, D.C. — which isn't a freaking gem of a city even on a good day, as it is filled with politicians and vagrants — is very much no exception:  [Tweet]  One of the consequences of this kind of crime wave is that thieves get more and more confident.  Where before they might have confined their crimes to dark alleyways and under bridges, they're now just assaulting people in broad daylight and in crowded public spaces.  Next to the crime itself, the most frustrating aspect of all of this is how committed many people seem to denying it.

Illegal Immigrant Who Beheaded His Girlfriend Is Found Not Guilty Due To Mental Issues.  The illegal immigrant from Cuba who decapitated his partner in broad daylight in a Shakopee neighborhood two summers ago was deemed not guilty of murder because of mental illness.  A ruling not sitting well with the victim's family.  Alexis Saborit, 42, was convicted of first-degree premeditated murder in court on May 11 in the death of 55-year-old America Thayer.  However, Judge Caroline Lennon ruled on Saborit's mental competency on Monday, citing in part psychologists determined "[Saborit's] mental illness prevented him from understanding his actions were morally wrong," the order reads. [...] The family believes Saborit should rot in prison.  Doctors though, concluded he was mentally ill, and District Court Judge Caroline Lennon agreed, finding he cannot be held criminally responsible for what happened.

Transgender Triple Murderer Harassing Women in California Prison, Inmates Say.  Inmates at California's largest women's prison say a former transgender activist who was convicted of murdering a lesbian couple and their son has been making life miserable since his transfer to their housing unit.  Dana Rivers shares a cell with several female inmates at Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, where he was incarcerated last month.  Women in Rivers's housing unit say he ogles them, speaks demeaningly to them, and demands they push him around in his wheelchair.

Salesforce CEO Warns San Francisco's Downtown [is] "Never Going Back To The Way It Was".  San Francisco is a 'hellhole' that epitomizes everything wrong with how progressives govern cities.  That's because Democrats in City Hall believe that most criminals are victims — don't arrest them — which allows for open-air drug markets, homelessness, and violent crime to thrive.  Due to failed social justice reform policies, the business conditions in downtown San Francisco have become challenging.  Furthermore, the ongoing structural decline in demand for office space has thwarted any potential economic recovery in the area.  [Tweet with video clip]  Marc Benioff, chief executive officer of Salesforce, the city's largest employer and anchor tenant in its tallest skyscraper, understands the metro area is in trouble.

Illinois Supreme Court Ends Cash Bail in Middle of Crime Wave.  The Illinois Supreme Court issued a decision Tuesday that will allow a state law ending cash bail to take effect September 18, despite a crime wave and concern that arrestees will commit more crimes while awaiting trial. [...] A new law abolishing bail across the state of Illinois, passed by Democrats and signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D), will free from jail thousands of suspects accused of second-degree murder, kidnapping, burglary, robbery, and other violent crimes.  Beginning January 1, 2023, Illinois will become the first state in the nation to have eliminated cash bail — even for some of the most violent crimes.  As a result, local district attorneys say they will be forced to free thousands of suspects accused of crimes like murder and kidnapping.  A group of local law enforcement agencies sued to stop the law from taking effect, and a judge declared the law unconstitutional.  That decision was appealed to the Supreme Court, which overturned it.

Illinois Becomes First State to End Cash Bail After Supreme Court Ruling.  Illinois is on track to make history as it becomes the first state in the nation to abolish cash bail after the state Supreme Court upheld a landmark law.  The highest court of Illinois stated that it did not violate the state's constitution, according to reports from Fox News.  The decision comes after legal challenges from prosecutors and sheriffs in multiple counties argued that the law was unconstitutional, posed risks to public safety, and jeopardized law enforcement.  However, the state's highest court overturned the previous ruling, allowing the provision in the SAFE-T Act to take effect.

Crime up 66%? Paint a mural!.  Federal data shows that Minneapolis has the most crime-ridden light rail system in the country and that year-over-year crime is up by 2/3rds from 2022 to 2023.  Transit ridership is about 1/2 of pre-pandemic levels, and barely bouncing back from the levels hit since the lockdowns were eased.  [Illustration]  In other words, you only ride it if there is no other choice.  And lots of people have a choice.  The geniuses at Metro Transit have come up with a solution that my local newspaper StarTribune seems to love: murals.  [Tweet]  Now I have nothing against murals, and I am not even in the mood to object to the rather steep price tag for the latest one they painted unless it gets covered in graffiti right away.

Portland Has an Apparent Serial Killer.  His Accomplice May Be the Governor.  Portland, Oregon, appears to have a serial killer on its hands, and the murderer's biggest accomplice may be the governor who let him out of prison early.  Before she left office, Governor Kate Brown commuted the sentences of people in prison who behaved well while under lock and key.  She released others who she were near the end of their sentences, and chose to shorten the "sentences of 912 nonviolent inmates at risk of contracting COVID, granted 130 pardons, cleared death row, and wiped away cannabis possession convictions of nearly 50,000 people," Willamette Week reported.  In December 2022 I wrote in PJ Media that when she was on her way out office, Brown abolished the death penalty.

Portland's suspected serial killer is a convicted felon released early by former Oregon governor: police.  A man that was released early from an Oregon state prison is a suspected serial killer in the greater Portland metro area, authorities say.  Jesse Lee Calhoun, 38, of Portland, Oregon has allegedly been linked by detectives to four of six women found dead earlier this year in the Portland metro area, according to Willamette Week.  Calhoun was released from prison in 2021, twelve months early, after being granted clemency at the direction of former Democrat Gov. Kate Brown.  Brown began to issue mass commutations during the Covid-19 pandemic, which included early release to prisoners that were either considered to be well-behaved, were nearing the end of their sentences, and were vulnerable to the virus, the outlet reports.  Calhoun, who has been described by law enforcement as a "prolific thief and career criminal," was one of the more than 1000 prisoners that had been granted early release under Brown's criminal justice reform policies.  Calhoun's clemency has since been revoked and he has been placed back into custody.

The Classic Psychology Text That Predicted Today's Urban Decay.  It's a question that most Americans who follow the news ask themselves daily:  "How can the residents of so many of the nation's largest cities keep supporting local officials who tolerate the ongoing destruction of their communities?" [...] Why has there been no serious movement to get New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to initiate proceedings to remove Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who refuses prosecute "low-level" crimes, all while promising to downgrade felony charges and to decriminalize resisting police arrest?

California Dems Want to Give Jail Time Based on Racial Quota.  So whites would get more prison time, blacks and Hispanics less (and Asians?  Who knows?) for the same crime.  This may, unbelievably, be the idea behind a new bill making its way through the California Legislature.  So much for equality under the law. [...] One problem here, among other things, is that the above reparations payments are based on false premises.  For example, there is no "over-policing" in black communities; rather, there's a level of policing congruent with the (high) level of crime.  Black Americans apparently agree, too, as evidenced by a 2020 Gallup poll finding that 81 percent of blacks "want police to spend [the] same amount of or more time in their area."  And why wouldn't they?  An inordinate amount of crime is non-white-on-non-white, after all.  Just consider the Big Apple as an example. "In New York City in 2019, 319 people were murdered," related the New York Post in 2020.  "Fully 88 percent of them — 280 people — were black or Hispanic.  And 93.2 [percent] of them were murdered by other people of color."  "Almost 96 percent of all shooters and shooting victims in the Big Apple in 2019 were people of color," the paper adds.  This is despite non-whites being only about 65 percent of the city's population.

New York Judge Releases Knife-Wielding Creeper Without Bail.  A man arrested for following a group of musicians through Times Square with a knife was released Friday without bail on prosecutors' recommendation.  Photos of 22-year-old Deqon Massiah show him sneaking up behind the performers with a six-inch knife and putting his hand on the shoulder of one of the performers.  Massiah was charged with menacing, harassment, and criminal possession of a weapon, according to the New York Post.  None of the crimes are eligible for bail.  The stalker's release comes as Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg has freed violent offenders.  Bragg freed a man without bail last year after he was charged with beating a 67-year-old man to death, despite the alleged attacker's long criminal record.  In two months, he also released two offenders before trial who were later charged with murder.

Liberals' 'Solutions' for Illegal Immigration [and] Shoplifting Only Make Matters Worse.  In the furtherance of left-wing ideology, California passed Proposition 47 in 2014, reducing thefts totaling less than $950 from felonies to misdemeanors.  According to the Desert Sun, "Many police say this law is a major factor in the wave of shoplifting that has plagued cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles and closed many stores."  Stores have adapted by (a) closing or (b) locking things up.  At the same time, they instruct their employees not to stop thieves, on pain of being fired.  Meanwhile, New York City's shoplifting complaints rose 44% from 2021 to 2022.  All this retail theft angered businesses in his city, so Mayor Eric Adams announced a plan.  Dead last of his seven points is the creation of an "Organized Retail Theft Task Force."  Higher up are "two diversion programs" for offenders, and the installation of "resource kiosks in stores to connect individuals in need to critical government resources and social services."

Wired magazine says Ring cameras turn owners into vigilantes.  [Scroll down]  In the modern world, we associate vigilantism with the complete breakdown of an effective legal system.  For example, in South Africa, as the system breaks down, there's been a return of "necklacing," which sees a mob summarily dispense justice by placing a tire soaked in gasoline around a person's neck and setting the tire on fire.  Likewise, in Mexico, another country with a broken system, vigilantism is on the rise as people frustrated by the legal system's ineffectiveness summarily execute those they believe guilty of a crime.  It would not surprise me to see this happen in American cities that have abandoned a functioning justice system, such as Chicago or Los Angeles.  What's very clear, though, is that vigilantism does not define taking evidence of criminal activity to the police so that the legal process can be used to capture and try an alleged criminal.  Nevertheless, Wired magazine claims that citizens working with police to keep their community crime free constitutes racially based vigilantism that should be discouraged.

DC Council Chairman:  'You Can Get Away With Murder In This City'.  The Chairman for the Council of the District of Columbia slammed police investigators Thursday, claiming individuals can "get away with murder" in the nation's capital, as officials move to vote on a new emergency crime bill.  Phil Mendelson expressed frustration at emergency legislation proposed by Councilmember Brooke Pinto aimed at addressing rising incidents of crime and violence in Washington D.C. The legislation, comprised of three bill, is seeking to "address pressing gaps in [D.C.'s] legal system and public safety apparatus by promoting accountability for offenders, supporting victims, ensuring police have the tools they need to keep communities sate, and improving accountability and transparency at [the] 911 call center," Pinto shared in a release

Squatters invade homes and refuse to leave.  How is this legal?  [Scroll down]  Prosecutors and politicians play a critical role in these scams.  Local authorities have done little to assist homeowners for a variety of reasons — from political calculations to negligence.  Instead, they force landowners to go into overtaxed housing courts with notoriously slow dockets.  It often takes months or years to get an eviction order.  The resulting lack of deterrence is evident in the brazen attitude of these criminals.  A retiree friend of mine was away from her home is Sarasota, Florida, when a squatter moved in and refused to leave.  The woman falsely claimed that she had a lease and trashed the home.  Eventually, she was arrested but promptly released.  She then returned and stole my friend's car.  The police said there was likely little that would happen to the squatter.

Thieves boost over $700K worth of rare wines in daring break-in at Southern California store.  Thieves got away with over $700,000 in rare wines imported from France and Italy during a break-in at a Los Angeles area wine shop over the weekend.  Video captured the thieves cutting a hole in the ceiling of Lincoln Fine Wines, just above the cellar where some of his most expensive wines were stored.  The thief reportedly used rope to climb down into the cellar from the roof and stayed inside for several hours, stealing hundreds of bottles from the establishment.

New Court Ruling Means Native Americans Could Be Exempt From Traffic Laws In Oklahoma.  The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals found Wednesday that local ordinances, such as traffic laws, do not apply to Native Americans in large portions of the state of Oklahoma as a result of a 2020 Supreme Court decision.  The 10th Circuit's ruling reversed a $150 speeding ticket that the City of Tulsa had issued in 2018 to Choctaw Nation member Justin Hooper, with the court noting that Tulsa lies within the historic boundaries of the Muscogee Nation and thus lacked jurisdiction to issue such a ticket as a result of the Supreme Court's 2020 decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma.  In McGirt, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the historical Muscogee reservation was never formally disestablished, and thus roughly half of Oklahoma ought to be recognized as "Indian country" for the purposes of determining criminal jurisdiction.

Shoplifting in NYC is so bad supermarkets are locking up, installing anti-theft devices on $6 ice cream.  Shoplifters are running so wild in the Big Apple that pints of high-end ice cream now have special locked lids to thwart cold-hearted crooks.  The Fairway supermarket on the Upper West Side is guarding $6 cartons of Häagen-Dazs with bolted plastic tops — which can only be removed with a device at the register — as other shops padlocked freezers of the treats.  A sign at Fairway gives shoppers the scoop on why there's now a barrier on the popular summertime sweets.  "To help maintain the lowest possible cost, a protective lock has been placed on some units of ice cream," it reads.

Chicago DA Who's Funded By Soros Drops Charges After Mother And Son Murdered A Man At A Restaurant.  Cook County prosecutors have dropped murder charges against a woman and her 14-year-old son in the shooting death of a man during a fight in a West Pullman restaurant, after video came to light showing that man punching the woman before her son shot him.  Carlishia Hood, 35, and her son had been charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of 32-year-old Jeremy Brown on June 18 at the Maxwell Street Express located in the 11600 block of South Halsted Street.  Hood, who was a valid FOID card and concealed carry license holder at the time of the incident, was also charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor.  All charges against both Hood and her son were dropped on Monday.  In a statement, Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx's office said the decision was "based upon our continued review and in light of emerging evidence."  [Video clip]

8 Cases Where Mishandling of Classified Information Went Unpunished.  The core of the accusation against former President Donald Trump is the allegation that he retained and mishandled classified information and national defense secrets.  Special Counsel Jack Smith justified this unprecedented prosecution by citing the need to protect classified information and the rule of law.  But do we really have "one set of laws in this country"?  Here is a list of eight past examples of high-profile individuals who were never prosecuted for the same basic or similar allegations.

'Someone's got to go to prison'.  When will any of these low-down thugs who have a grip on our nation go to prison?  Probably never.  They lie with impunity and most of the Republicans in Congress are such squishes that the few that lobby for justice get nowhere when they try to make a Democrat pay for his or her crime.  We do have a two-tiered system of justice, and everyone knows it.  In this administration's view, patriots and good Samaritans must go to prison, not drug dealers, car-jackers, shoplifters, murderers or pedophiles.  To our now far, far Marxist left, those folks are victims of white supremacy and must be spared the inconveniences of abiding by the rule of law.  Sadly, there are too many Soros-seated judges who go along with the pro-criminal, anti-victim agenda of the left.

Two and a half years later, San Francisco still hasn't prosecuted man for killing caught on video.  I was pretty certain I wrote about this case more than two years ago but I can't seem to find it.  It involved an 84-year-old man in San Francisco named Vicha Ratanapakdee.  Vicha was near his home taking his daily walk when a 19-year-old named Antoine Watson charged at him for no apparent reason and body slammed him into a concrete driveway.  Vicha suffered a head injury from the impact and died two days later in the hospital.  [Tweet]  All of this happened in January 2021.  Watson was arrested a couple of days later.  The killing made news around the country and sparked a real uptick in activism aimed at anti-Asian crimes in San Francisco.  Ratanapakdee became known as "Grandpa Vicha" and was frequently pictured on posters carried by activists. [...] There's a disagreement over who is responsible for the delay.  Watson's defense attorney blamed it on a backlog of cases that still exists from the pandemic.  But prosecutors blame a defense strategy to drag this out as long as possible.

New York is hiding criminal histories.  New York is inviting criminals to move to the state.  Not literally, but their actions once again are showing that they won't hold criminals accountable.  It began with liberal politicians decriminalizing certain crimes and forcing police to prioritize the calls they answer because of shortages of police officers.  However, some criminals do get arrested.  If that happened, liberal district attorneys drop charges or liberal judges dismiss cases.  If criminals are unlucky enough to be convicted for their crimes, well, New York now wants to make sure no one can find out about a person's criminal record.  The state legislature passed a bill that automatically seals most criminal records, and Democrat Mayor Kathy Hochul is expected to sign it into law.

DOJ Sentenced Famous Rappers to Years in Federal Prison on Gun Charges — But Hunter Biden Given Slap on Wrist for Same Charge.  News broke on Tuesday morning that Hunter Biden has agreed to plead guilty to multiple criminal charges according to CNN.  The investigation into Hunter Biden has supposedly lasted five years.  After five years of investigation the Biden DOJ found Hunter Biden guilty of TWO MISDEMEANORS and ONE GUN CHARGE!  Of course, this is a complete bastardization of the US Justice System.  The serial criminal is slapped with misdemeanors after we know he was using classified documents leaked to him by his father to set up lucrative deals with foreign officials.  Hunter will serve NO TIME in prison for his latest criminal actions.

Hunter Biden Gets Probation For $1M In Tax Evasion, Gun Charge.  Hunter Biden had been caught red-handed with enough bad stuff that the feds couldn't just do the Hillary thing and announce that "no reasonable prosecutor" would ever prosecute a guy evading seven figures in taxes.  They just do the usual pro-crime thing and treat it as a misdemeanor and hand out probation.  So many street things are benefiting from this brand of progressive justice, why not the president's own thug? [...] The average jail time for tax evasion is 3 [to] 5 years.  However the average jail time for the crackhead spawn of presidents is zero.  The tax code states that, "Any person who willfully attempts in any manner to evade or defeat any tax imposed by this title or the payment thereof shall, in addition to other penalties provided by law, be guilty of a felony."  But the tax code doesn't apply to Bidens.

In Oakland, Many Businesses Are Going Cashless To Ward Off Armed Robberies.  A number of Oakland businesses are getting rid of cash registers amid crime concerns.  After suffering their third break-in in less than a year, Asha Tea House in Oakland's Uptown neighborhood decided to go cashless.  There's a sign announcing the policy on its storefront.  Across the street on Grand Avenue, Cafe Umami also put up a similar sign stating: "no cash on premises."  It was targeted multiple times by thieves.  [Video clip]

Why Do We Tolerate Crime?  I wrote yesterday about the appalling murder — call it what it was — of five young Somali women by a career criminal named Derrick Thompson.  Derrick is the son of John Thompson, a former DFL legislator who is best known as an anti-police activist, and who also has a considerable criminal record, largely related to traffic violations.  Derrick Thompson was clocked at 95 to 100 mph on Highway 35W, probably the Twin Cities' busiest highway.  Before the Highway Patrol could pursue him, he exited the highway off a down ramp to Lake Street and immediately ran a red light, essentially vaporizing a car containing the five innocent young women.  [Video clip]  Twin Cities media outlets are focusing on the less-than-vital question of how that video leaked to the press.  That seems to be of more moment, in their eyes, than the five lives that were lost, and the left-wing criminal justice system that made the whole thing possible.

Judge rules that Seattle must not enforce law against graffiti.  A federal judge has created a preliminary injunction which prevents the city of Seattle from enforcing the law against graffiti and misdemeanor property destruction.  The SPD released a statement today. [...] Seattle saw a big surge of graffiti during the pandemic.  It was up 52% in 2021 compared to 2019 numbers.  Because this was a surging problem, Seattle's mayor Bruce Harrell announced a plan to combat the problem last year.

One Nation, Two Sets of Laws.  When Barack Obama announced that he was unilaterally legalizing millions of illegal aliens while further opening the border, he described it as using "discretion about whom to prosecute".  In the years since, pro-crime prosecutors have virtually dismantled the justice system in some jurisdictions by using their "discretion" not to prosecute thieves, drug dealers and violent criminals.  Some prosecutors announced that they wouldn't prosecute rioters and looters, others that they would stop prosecuting prostitution, public urination or thefts of under $1,000.  In the decade since Obama announced his exercise in prosecutorial discretion, the country has been overrun with criminals and illegal aliens who benefited from that "discretion".  But prosecutorial discretion, like most leftist policies, works both ways.

Chicago makes the case for ending "juvenile" crime distinctions.  At first glance, this recent story from CBS News in Chicago is sadly not at all unusual.  On Thursday, a 27-year-old woman on the West side was physically assaulted and robbed.  Previously, the same assailant allegedly committed similar assaults and robberies against a 20-year-old woman and a 16-year-old girl in nearby West Garfield Park.  When police finally caught up to him, he resisted arrest and fought with them.  But we don't have a name for the suspect because he was also only 16 years old, so his identity is being shielded as a minor.  What do you suppose is going to happen to him now? [...] Initially, the boy was charged with three felony counts of robbery and two misdemeanor counts of resisting arrest and battery.  But as you would imagine, public defenders are already pushing to have his case handled in juvenile court, where he will almost certainly be released and directed to some sort of "rehabilitation" program instead of serving any time.  In other words, it's quite likely that he will be back out on the streets holding people up in no time.

California Advances Bill To Help Shoplifters Steal.  Shoplifting in California may get a lot easier, after the state Senate passed a controversial bill on May 31 that would make it illegal for store employees to confront thieves.  SB 553, authored by Democrat Senator David Cortese (San Jose), requires employers to maintain violent incident logs, provide active shooter and shoplifter training, and to discard policies requiring workers to confront suspected active shoplifters, the Epoch Times reports.

It took six years to get one deranged dirtbag off the streets of San Francisco.  This is the kind of story that only seems to happen in places like San Francisco, cities where a certain progressive view of crime and criminals has taken hold.  The focus of this particular story is a dirtbag named Bill Gene Hobbs.  Hobbs is 6 foot 4, weighs more than 200 pounds and has the word "evil" tattooed on his knuckles.  He also has a hobby that he has repeatedly practiced on the streets of San Francisco.  He likes to grab women he doesn't know, scaring them to death.  Sometimes he kisses them and sometimes he just gropes them.

Radio Free America.  [Scroll down]  Woke companies like Walmart, CVS, Target, and even specialty brands like Old Navy were sucked into "doing the right thing" and building in "underserved" areas of big cities.  Now, those very same names are pulling out in droves as they count their losses in the billions, but won't mouth the reasons why as established corporations, they can't survive in buzzing districts.  The truth is obvious, but wokeism won't allow you to say that the principal causes are shoplifting, violent crime, weak or unenforced laws, and courts that return the most profligate and violent offenders for endless rounds of mayhem.

This is the equivalent of legalizing shoplifting.
Bill to Stop Employees Confronting Shoplifters Passed by California Senate.  Lawmakers in California are hoping to push through controversial legislation that would ban retail staff from stopping thieves stealing from their stores.  Senate Bill 553, which was submitted by State Senator Dave Cortese, has been passed by the State Senate and will now progress to policy committees in the State Assembly.  Cortese hopes the proposed law will prevent workplace violence and protect staff from being forced by their employers to step-in during robberies.  But some store bosses are furious about the plans, with the California Retailers Association mocking the move as an open invitation for thieves "to come in and steal."

California Christians push back against light sentence for saint statue vandals.  The justice system had a chance to "draw a line in the sand" against vandalism of Christian property but botched the opportunity when it gave misdemeanors to five activists who toppled a statue of St.  Junipero Serra, a local Catholic activist told the Washington Examiner.  Faye Bourret is a parishioner at St. Raphael Catholic Church, the same Marin County parish where vandals destroyed a statue in 2020 of the priest and saint who evangelized California.  She organized a group on Tuesday of over 30 people, Catholics and Protestants, who recently protested the decision by District Attorney Lori Frugoli to require community service and a written apology instead of jail time for the criminals.  This rally was held at the parish, but Bourret said the next step will be to protest outside of the district attorney's office.

California County Judge Robbed Right Outside Court House In Soros-Backed Prosecutor's District.  Just how dangerous are areas where a Soros-backed prosecutor serves?  Well, to put it in perspective, even county judges are getting robbed at gunpoint in the courthouse parking garages in District Attorney Pamela Price's Alameda County.  On Thursday, Kron 4 reported that local police confirmed that three masked individuals carrying firearms mugged a judge heading into work.  Per a local Fox affiliate, the victim was Judge Kevin Murphy.  The individuals took his "personal belongings," according to police.  The alleged crime occurred at 8:50 a.m. local at a parking garage located right outside of the René C. Davidson Courthouse building in Alameda County.  Unfortunately for the judge, Price's track record suggests she will go lenient on his assailants if they are ever caught.

Trans-Identifying Man To Be Placed In Women's Prison, Receive Nearly $500K After Settlement.  A man who identifies as a woman will move to a women's prison and receive a nearly half-million dollar payout after a settlement with the Minnesota Department of Corrections (MDOC).  Christina Lusk, 57, was convicted of a First Degree Felony drug charge in 2019 and incarcerated in MCF Moose Lake, a medium-security men's prison.  Lusk sued MDOC in 2022, arguing that MDOC's placement of Lusk in a men's prison based "solely on genitalia" is unconstitutional and unenforceable.  The settlement includes Lusk's transport to Minnesota's women-only Shakopee prison and access to "gender affirming healthcare," NPR reported.  On top of the new placement, Lusk will receive a $495,000 payout, which includes $250,000 in legal fees.

The Editor says...
If the elected officials of Minnesota had any backbone at all, they could easily prove the man is a male (and insane), on the basis of his chromosomes, his pelvis, his numerous public records, and his history.  The state of Minnesota missed its chance to make this guy prove he's a woman.

The Party's Over.  Too many of our fellow citizens, stressed and shell shocked by the blitzkrieg carried out by the former Democrat party, have been emotionally damaged and driven into hiding, along with their families, in the ruins of their homes, lives, and businesses.  The fires and intimidation of Antifa and BLM still smolder across the land, and every day new attacks are launched against our school children at every grade level, as we are lectured and harassed to accept, nay, welcome, their corruption, sexualization, mutilation, and indoctrination.  Meanwhile, those normative guardrails for any civilization to exist:  Law and order, safety, common values and heroes, trustworthy lawmakers and leaders, and respect for the sacrifices and gifts of our ancestors; these are all being dissolved in an acid wash of lies and propaganda.

Three Years Later, No Justice for BLM Insurrection in D.C..  "Our office prosecutes all acts of violence, regardless of political motivation, the same."  So said U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves — under oath, mind you, and with a straight face — during a hearing of the House Oversight Committee earlier this month.  Representative Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) questioned Graves' disparate treatment of Black Lives Matters rioters who terrorized Washington, D.C., in 2020 versus Trump supporters involved in the events of January 6, 2021.  Although the start of both incidents was a mere seven months apart, they are a world away in terms of accountability.  In what Graves calls the "Capitol Siege" investigation, more than 1,000 Trump supporters have been criminally charged.  Graves, a Biden appointee, has promised to double that caseload before he's finished.  His office announces new arrests every week.  That, however, is not the case for rioters who caused far more violence and inflicted far more damage in the nation's capital in 2020. The rioting that began on May 29, 2020 at Lafayette Square prompted the lockdown of the White House; Donald Trump, his wife, and teenage son were ushered to an underground bunker for their safety as looters and arsonists repeatedly tried to scale the fence and break through police barricades erected outside the White House.

Residents in This Very Liberal City Are Angry Over High Crime.  Residents of Oakland, California voiced their anger at the city leaders during a community meeting for the high crime rates, particularly against women, and pleaded for the police to be able to do their jobs.  The Berkeley Scanner reported hundreds of residents turned out for the meeting, telling stories how they have been beaten and robbed, often times by teenagers.  "Two kids beat [...] me in front of my house last Monday night," one woman said.  "Down on the pavement.  Punching me, kicking me, dragging me through the street."  "They did not get my purse.  I have lungs.  And my neighbors heard me and they came out," she added.  "I'm almost 60 years old.  I'm one of the old women that just got taken down.  And it's happening everywhere."

Just how gross was it at that San Francisco Whole Foods?  Whole Foods on Monday shut down its ritzy new flagship store in San Francisco, after just a year in operation, citing crime and safety concerns. [...]Obviously, the bums were taking over, or, as another commentator noted, Whole Foods had become "a food bank for the druggies and homeless."  Another said it was "never a good sign to see your grocery store filled with cops and security."  Fox News commentator Geraldo Rivera noted that what went on in that store and throughout the crumbling city amounted to an utter rejection of civilization.  Every now and then, Geraldo gets one right.  Who would want to shop at such a place, particularly for food?  When the bums are allowed in repeatedly, bringing in sanitation issues with them, and can make drug-addled spectacles of themselves, customers go other places.  That's why Whole Foods just shut the place down.

Maybe this will get CA to take shoplifting seriously.  Shoplifting has gotten so out of hand in California that the value of the goods stolen just keeps going up.  But this time thieves struck at a California icon — Apple — and if this doesn't motivate the law to get involved, then it will take a large-scale theft of Bud Light to do the trick. [...] When four people can simply walk into a store and steal more than $50,000 of products with the certainty that absolutely nothing will be done you know that something is fundamentally broken in our society.

Colorado retail theft rising: "It's just a free-for-all," says witness.  A Denver woman says she was just engaging in some "retail therapy" as she shopped at a Ross Dress for Less store on South Colorado Boulevard just before closing time earlier this month.  But as she was checking out, she couldn't believe what happened.  "It happened really fast.  It was really loud and scary," said the shopper, who asked that her name be withheld as she feared retaliation.  Three people entered the store, grabbed suitcases and bags from the store and began stuffing them with whatever they could get their hands on.  The female shopper said the chaos went on for an estimated five to seven minutes and she videotaped some of it with her cellphone.  She shared the video with CBS News Colorado.  "It's just a free-for-all," said the shopper.  "It was really frightening."

Lululemon Employees Fired for Calling 911 on Looters Robbing the Store.  Rachel Rogers was employed as a sales associate at the Lululemon store in Peachtree Corners, Ga., for five years.  But after the same group of looters attacked the store for the fourth or fifth time, making off with thousands of dollars in merchandise, she called 911.  Assistant Manager Jennifer Ferguson described the scene. "All of a sudden we see some gentlemen run into the store in masks and hoodies," Ferguson said, "They swiped until they couldn't hold any more product and ran out the door."  But a week later, Rogers was fired.  She had apparently run afoul of a company policy that had a "zero tolerance" for calling 911.  Certainly one can understand a company directing employees not to interfere in a looting incident.  But Rogers was fired for disobeying a company policy that prevented her from calling the police to the scene.  As it was, the same group of thieves hit another Lululemon store in the area the next day and were caught.  The "no 911 call" policy was initiated to protect the company, said Ferguson.

The Editor says...
They should put up a big sign about their "'no 911 call' policy" on the front door, next to the "Gun-Free Zone" sign, and watch what happens.

Michigan GOP Blasts Dems' Proposal To Give Most Violent Convicts Chance For Reduced Sentences.  Convicted felons in Michigan, including most murderers and sexual offenders, could have a better chance of returning to society if Democrats get their way.  A package of legislation introduced last week by Democrat state Rep. Kara Hope aims to amend Michigan's penal code to allow nearly every criminal to petition for a reduced sentence after serving 10 years behind bars.  Michigan Republicans, led by House Minority Leader Matt Hall, blasted the Democrat-sponsored legislation, arguing that it prioritizes criminals above victims.  "The Democrats make these conversations largely about these criminals and how unfair the criminal justice system is," Hall, who represents areas around Kalamazoo, told The Daily Wire in a phone interview Friday.  "And what we're trying to do is make sure the voices of the victims are heard."

Thug Who Pushed Another Man Under a Train, Killing Him, is Released Without Charges!.  A 29-year-old St. Paul man was released without charges from the Hennepin County jail Wednesday following his involvement in a fight on a Metro Transit light-rail platform that ended when another man was fatally struck by a train.  Reginald Eugene Snelling, 41, of Minneapolis, died from multiple blunt force injuries and asphyxia from colliding with and being compressed by the train following the fight at 1:30 a.m. Saturday at the Warehouse District/Hennepin light-rail platform near 5th Street and 1st Avenue in downtown Minneapolis.  His death was ruled a homicide and the other man involved was arrested that night.  The Star Tribune does not generally name suspects until they have been formally charged.  [Video clip]

Michigan Man Who Shot 84-Year-Old Pro-Life Activist Sentenced To 100 Hours Of Community Service.  A man in Ionia, Michigan, has been sentenced to 100 hours of community service after pleading no contest to shooting an 84-year-old woman while she was advocating against abortion.  Richard Harvey, 75, pleaded no contest to charges of felonious assault, careless discharge of a firearm causing injury and reckless discharge of a firearm, 9 and 10 News reported.  Harvey will complete the 100 hours of community service and serve one year of probation.  If he does not comply with the terms of the arrangement, he will serve 60 days in jail.  He is not to have any contact with the woman he shot.

The Left Has Pushed the Envelope.  In New York, a threatening subway career criminal with 42 prior arrests was subdued by a bystander and died during the confrontation.  The criminal is now deified.  The would-be Samaritan is charged with felony manslaughter.  The deceased's uncle is vocal about his late nephew's confrontation.  But he himself was just arrested with stolen property and armed with a knife.  He was mysteriously still roaming the streets despite 70 prior arrests and current active arrest warrants.

More Chicago teens released without charges after killing.  Back in February, in the town of Robbins, southwest of Chicago, three teenagers stole a KIA and took off in a high-speed chase.  They wound up crashing the stolen vehicle into a car being driven by 70-year-old Donald Carter.  Carter was killed in the crash.  An investigation was launched (sort of) and questions were raised about how it was being handled.  Now, months later, the teenagers have all been released and no charges have been filed against them.  David Carter's family is apoplectic, as you might imagine.  And the more details that we learn about the entire incident, specifically the involvement of Robbins Mayor Darren Bryant, the more it smells like something is really rotten in that town.

Convicted Murderer Freed By Innocence Project Becomes Drug Dealer And Murders A Man.  Shaurn Thomas, a black man who was freed for murder in Philadelphia by the Innocence Project and given $4 million in restitution by the state, allegedly became a drug dealer upon release, killed a man for owing him a $1,200 drug debt and told his accomplice it was his "third" homicide.  Shaurn Thomas was a millionaire, but prosecutors say he killed a man over a $1,200 drug debt.  Thomas was paid more than $4 million three years ago after spending 24 years behind bars for a murder conviction that was later overturned.  [Video clip]

Voter Fraud Convictions Result in Light Sentences.  Election integrity advocates have been warning that the trend of light sentences for those convicted of election fraud will not result in any actual deterrence from further election fraud crimes being committed in upcoming elections.  As reported by Just The News, while prosecutors have been going after those accused of perpetuating voter fraud, the final sentences are often produced as a result of plea deals, and thus often lead to little or no jail time.  "The good news is [prosecutors] seem to be more aggressive about going against these kinds of cases," said Ned Jones, deputy director of the Election Integrity Network.  "But the sentencing is ridiculous.  It's not harsh enough."

California: Person of Color Torches College Students, Doesn't Even Get Probation.  This is how Equity works.  While the Social Justice-obsessed liberal media manufactures race hoaxes to defame pregnant white women, a California DA has let a Person of Color convicted of literally setting students on fire at UC Berkeley skate without prison or even probation.

The Absurdities of Our Age.  Ideology now has made a mockery of the cherished traditions of blind justice and equality under the laws.  Whether you are arrested, indicted, and convicted increasingly hinges on your politics.  During the 120 days of 2020 riots, looting, arson, and assault that saw $2 billion in damage, 35-40 killed, hundreds of injured police officers, and 14,000 arrests, were there mass detentions, thousands of convictions, and lengthy sentences handed out to Antifa and BLM members for the violence?  After all, the insurrectionary rioters staged iconic attacks on the idea of government, whether defined as torching a police precinct or federal courthouse.  Why then were so many protestors of January 6 demonstrations at the Capitol that saw no violent deaths at the hands of another — except a Trump supporter lethally shot for the misdemeanor of entering a broken window of the Capitol — given lengthy prison sentences?

When a Whistleblower Ain't a Whistleblower.  [Scroll down]  The testimony of these men solidifies what we already know: the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been horrifically politicized and weaponized against its agents and the American people.  Let the facts speak for themselves.  Parents who attended school board meetings over their concerns about the indoctrination of their children were designated as domestic terrorists.  I find that rather interesting because I have yet to see a concerned parent riot, commit violent acts, and burn down a school.  Yet, we have an organization, Antifa, that is doing exactly that, including committing acts of violence against law enforcement agencies.  Not a doggone thing is being done about it, and no investigation.  However, if you were in Washington, DC, on January 6th, you had FBI agents visiting your home.  Indeed an act of weaponized intimidation.  The FBI has found itself showing up on the doorsteps of pro-life activists.  We know it has even had agents infiltrating the Catholic Church, all because of supporting the first unalienable right, life, for the born and unborn.  However, it seems that the FBI cannot seem to infiltrate the organization Jane's Revenge which claimed responsibility for firebombing pro-life advocacy centers and vandalizing churches.  Instead of infiltrating the Catholic Church, what about the Satanic Temple of America?  They freely admit abortion — really infanticide — is a part of their "rituals."

Former Pfizer VP: "There Never Was A Viral Pandemic".  Former Pfizer Vice President Dr. Mike Yeadon says that the COVID-19 virus does not exist and there never was a pandemic.  The ruling classes of the globe all lied to control and manipulated the population.  Dr. Yeadon, who is a former Pfizer executive said health authorities have lied about the public health emergency, as well as the necessity and usefulness of the measures to address the nonexistent COVID-19 hoax.  "They lied to us about absolutely everything," he said. "They lied to us about the magnitude of the public health emergency which never existed.  They lied to us about the necessity of having measures like lockdowns, mass testing, social distancing, and masks and it goes on and on."  Not to mention they lied about and tried to force an mRNA injection on everyone.  "There never was a viral pandemic of a novel pathogen.  I don't believe there has been a novel cause of significant illness and death, other than our government's responses to the fake 'pandemic,'" he said.  "The deaths that we saw, I'm afraid, were medical malpractice at best and murder at worst.  Basically, we were lied to from the beginning."

Mayor Adams gets tough on crime.  But what, exactly, does being tough on crime mean to Adams?  Not what you and I think it does.  New York, as with other Democrat-run cities, is experiencing a crime wave.  Retail theft — shoplifting — has gone through the roof.  Gangs of people go into stores and steal with impunity, leaving with thousands of dollars worth of merchandise.  It is both organized crime and disorganized.  Thousands of people engage in the practice, with hundreds at least who do it as a living.  [Tweet]  Those statistics are misleading, actually.  The vast, vast majority of the people doing this are not kids stealing candy bars but repeat offenders.

Teen who allegedly killed, stuffed newborn baby in hospital trash can released from jail.  A 19-year-old who allegedly killed her newborn son by stuffing him in a hospital trash can was released from jail on $100,000 bond ahead of her high school graduation.  In December 2022, investigators claim Alexee Trevizo went to an Artesia, New Mexico hospital complaining of severe back pain.  She was treated and released.  A few weeks later, she went back complaining of back pain again, but while she was there, hospital staff members believe she locked herself inside a bathroom, gave birth, then stuffed the baby into the bathroom's trash can. [...] Trevizo will be allowed to attend her high school graduation on May 25.

The Cataclysm to Come.  Prosperity and leisure have misled a complacent society into thinking the modern age no longer needs to worry about law and order.  As we recoil from spontaneous street violence and looting, Americans are coming to learn just how degraded the foundations of their society have become.  Criminals walk out with stolen merchandise without fear of the law or even the outrage of witnesses.  Defunding the police has discharged a torrent of criminals into the streets.  Downgrading felonies, no cash bail, and no jail time are spiking violent crime.  Lawlessness has become a political matter where race, ideology, and politics decide how the law will be enforced.

Living Room Pundit's Updated Guide to Soros District Attorneys.  The Kyle Rittenhouse trial, the Jussie Smollet hoax, the attack on the Waukesha Christmas parade, the organized mob lootings in San Francisco, and now the potential indictment of President Donald Trump have each attracted national attention and spotlighted an issue that many in law enforcement and politics have been warning of for years: the threat of activist district attorneys (DAs).  Specifically, the public imagination has been captured by the stories of activist DAs backed by the shadowy figure of George Soros.  Many have heard of him, and most understand that he spends millions on U.S. politics, but very few know the specifics.  As a result, Soros has become something of a folklore monster whose reputation often exceeds reality.  But when it comes to Soros's involvement in backing left-wing district attorneys, Soros really is the archvillain that rumor makes him out to be.

Soros-Backed Prosecutor Dropped Previous Assault Charges Against Man Arrested For Attacking Dem Staffers With A Bat.  Xuan Kha Tran Pham, the 49-year-old man being investigated for the Monday assault of two congressional staffers with a metal bat, was previously charged with assaulting a police officer, but the local Soros-backed prosecutor declined to pursue the charges, court records show.  The office of Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney Steve Descano, whose campaign was backed by far-left billionaire George Soros, declined to prosecute Pham in 2022 after he was charged with assaulting a police officer, according to court records.  Pham allegedly attacked two staff members at Democratic Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly's district office with a baseball bat Monday morning and has been charged with aggravated malicious wounding and malicious wounding; he is being held without bond, according to ABC 7.

Shoplifters at San Francisco Target strike every 10 minutes.  Workers in a San Francisco Target store say they are being shoplifted every ten minutes, as the city faces an exodus of retail stores due to theft.  Employees say they have watched individuals actively 'shoveling' goods into bags before making off.  Multiple products including shampoo, deodorant, toothbrushes and some foods are now kept behind barriers that require staff to open them.

The Impending Thermidor Reaction in Jacobin America.  [Scroll down]  So, the world became topsy-turvy.  Throwing a firebomb into a police-occupied patrol car earned a light sentence, while protesting illegally at the Capitol won a decade in prison.  An American who did not get vaccinated was to be thrown out of the U.S. military; an illegal alien crossing the border unlawfully without a vaccination might earn a free phone and free lodging in a big-city hotel.  The more the government printed money it did not have, the more the country was slandered as cruel and mean to its underclass.  The more standards were dropped for admission, hiring, promotion, and retention, the more employers were deemed unfair and bigoted.

Seattle Cops Walk Through A Group Of Junkies Smoking Crack, Ask Then Politely To Put The Pipes Away.  It's remarkable what bad policy can lead to.  [Video clip]

Cook County prosecutor quits after 20 years: 'this State and County have set themselves on a course to disaster'.  A 20-year veteran prosecutor walked out of the Cook County state's attorney's office for the last time on Friday.  Jason Poje, a long-time felony trial attorney for the office, entered his two-week notice on April 21.  But before he moved on to the next chapter of his life, Poje sent a goodbye email to 85 colleagues late Friday afternoon.  In his farewell, Poje extended thanks and appreciation to his colleagues.  And he explained why he decided to leave the office — and the state.

Violent Street Takeover In Oakland Shows How The City Has Fallen.  Wild Video from Oakland California sideshow street Takeover Saturday night.  [Video clip]

American Despotism.  Democratic long-term rule over cities like Baltimore, Detroit, and Chicago shows the country's trajectory.  Gentrifying cosmopolitans drive out middle-class voters with high rents and plan tent cities of drug users and street defecators.  Homicides in major cities rose 44 percent from 2019-20, another 5 percent from 2020-21.  Nationwide they rose 30 percent, a 60-year high.  Even as the homeless filled cities like Los Angeles, the elites welcomed in millions more illegal immigrants, who bring the Mexican drug cartels' wars with them.  As Houston reported skyrocketing homicides, the Harris County sheriff reminded deputies to share their personal pronouns in introductions.  No longer prosecuting property theft, cities like Dallas and San Fran- cisco released criminals from prison to terrorize the public and only enforced violations on citizens who could pay fines.  The city of Chicago decided not to prosecute gangsters involved in a deadly public shoot-out because they were engaged in "mutual combat."

The Left Is Making Terrorism by Criminals the Norm.  Recent events are further demonstrating with undeniable clarity what many of us have been pointing out for years:  That the Left will not be satiated with mere electoral wins or political dominance; they will not constrain themselves to "traditional," mainstream American political tactics.  On the contrary: The Left is not only capable and willing, but all too eager to use terrorism as its standard political tactic.  Ultimately, leftists not only want to win elections, but want to see us dead.  This is more than apparent in light of the leftist response to recent high-profile killings.  Following the death of black man Jordan Neely after being restrained in a chokehold by a Marine for threatening passengers on a New York City subway, the reaction from the Left was to immediately paint this as another instance of racism against blacks.  Forget the dozens of charges, including for attempted kidnapping of a minor, that Neely had accumulated throughout his life.  Forget the fact that he could easily have harmed any of the passengers on board the subway if not for the Marine's intervention.  For leftist politicians and their allies in the mainstream media, the most important thing is that Neely, more than a decade ago, impersonated Michael Jackson.

Chicago Police to City Businesses Facing Rising Crime: "Buy Riot Glass".  Chicago is a difficult place to own a business.  Riots, looting and burglaries make it almost impossible for retailers to survive.  Smash-and-grab thieves robbed a Rolls Royce dealership in Chicago's Gold Coast neighborhood in December and made off with millions in luxury watches.  Thieves attacked and pepper-sprayed a security guard while robbing two luxury retail stores in Chicago's Gold Coast neighborhood.  Retails, like Walmart, say they are losing tens of millions of dollars a year operating in Chicago and have announced the closure of four stores.

Rounding Up The 500 Most Dangerous Psychos In NYC Could Make The Streets And Subways A Lot Less Chaotic.  Statistically, NYC still isn't all that dangerous.  But because the point of NYC is to take public transportation, even a small amount of chaos on the sidewalks and in transit imposes huge psychological stresses on innocent commuters, compared to cities where everybody commutes in locked Ford F-150s.  But making commuting in NYC more civilized doesn't sound that hard.  [Tweet]  It's common in NYC for dangerous loons to have a long paper trail in the media.  For example, years before the "Free Hugs Guy" Jeremy Himmelstein went viral with a video of punching a Canadian girl in Times Square, the NYT and many other outlets had warned about him.  The Free Hugs guy was such a pest in Times Square and Washington Square Park in 2012-2016 that he is portrayed in the Angry Birds movie.  I live 3000 miles away, but a woman I know was punched in the head by Jeremy in the 42nd St. subway station.  The NYPD said in effect, "Whaddaya whaddaya, we already arrested him 15 times.  They'll just let him out again."

Soros-backed prosecutor mired in scandal resigns from office.  An embattled George Soros-bankrolled prosecutor in St.  Louis resigned Thursday amid a legal effort by Missouri's attorney general to fire her for allegedly neglecting her duties.  St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner, the city's top prosecutor, is stepping down following repeated, bipartisan calls for her resignation from officials across the state.  Gardner's office tweeted her resignation letter, which was addressed to the people of St. Louis.  [Image]  Gardner is one of the first progressive prosecutors whom Soros, a liberal billionaire and Democrat mega-donor, bankrolled in 2016 and again for her re-election in 2020.  She announced last month that she would seek a third term.  Her resignation is effective June 1.  For years, Gardner's office has faced criticism for mishandling cases and office dysfunction.  The final straw for Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey came in February, when a teenage volleyball player visiting St. Louis with her team was struck by a car and lost both of her legs.  A man was charged in the crash with assault, armed criminal action and operating a motor vehicle without a valid license.  He was out on bond awaiting trial for a separate armed robbery case despite violating the terms of his bond several dozen times.

Kim Gardner [has been a] student at SLU nursing school since 2021, [and the] Missouri AG wants answers.  St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner has been enrolled in a post-Master's nursing program at Saint Louis University (SLU) since 2021, the university registrar's office confirmed to News 4 Investigates.  This week Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey subpoenaed SLU and another healthcare clinic asking for information about Gardner.  The AG is trying to remove Gardner from office, saying she has willfully neglected her duties as the Circuit Attorney.

The Editor says...
How many other public officials are enrolled in college classes when they are supposed to be working?  How many public employees appear to be busy, but are in fact doing nothing?

Attempt to Remove Soros-Backed Prosecutor Moves Forward; She Vows to Fight 'Witch Hunt'.  Days after an embattled prosecutor vowed she would never resign from office, a judge ruled that removal proceedings against her would continue.  On May 2, Visiting Judge John Torbitzky ordered seven out of 10 claims against St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner to move forward.  He denied her lawyers' request to throw out all of the accusations.  Torbitzky has been presiding over the case that Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey brought against Gardner, a Democrat.  Gardner has accused Republican Bailey of playing politics.  Bailey filed a petition alleging that Gardner shirked her responsibilities and should forfeit her elected office.  Her lawyers say Gardner committed no intentional acts that would warrant her removal.

Judge rules Kim Gardner will go to trial on seven counts of neglect of her duties.  In February there was a tragic story out of St. Louis.  A teen named Janae Edmondson was downtown as part of a high school volleyball tournament that she was participating in.  Afterwards she and her family were crossing the street when a car driven by 21-year-old Daniel Riley came speeding through town.  Riley flipped the car and crushed Janae Edmondson's legs.  She survived but both of her legs had to be amputated.  At the time of the crash, driver Daniel Riley was out on bond for a robbery that took place in 2020 but he still hadn't been tried.  The really unbelievable part was that Riley had remained out on bond even though he'd violated the terms more than 50 times.  The prosecutor's office in this case was run by Kim Gardner.  Her office immediately offered an excuse for why Riley hadn't been tried in three years.  But the first explanation offered turned out to be false.

Nordstrom closing 2 San Francisco stores, cites 'dynamics' of downtown area.  Nordstrom will close both of its downtown San Francisco stores in the coming months, citing the "dynamics" of the downtown market as the region continues to see a rash of retail thefts by brazen thieves.  In a memo to employees, Chief Stores Officer Jamie Nordstrom said the company will not renew its lease for its San Francisco Centre Nordstrom store and the Market Street Rack store across the street. [...] The Westfield mall, where the downtown Nordstrom is located, and its owner, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, said the closures "underscores the deteriorating situation in Downtown San Francisco," the San Francisco Standard reported.  "A growing number of retailers and businesses are leaving the area due to the unsafe conditions for customers, retailers, and employees, coupled with the fact that these significant issues are preventing an economic recovery of the area," a mall spokesperson said.

San Fran drops charges against crowbar attacker.  Earlier this month, former San Francisco Fire Commissioner Don Carmignani was attacked by a homeless person with a crowbar.  The attacker, Garrett Doty, was one of a group of vagrants who had been blocking Carmignani's mother's driveway and acting in a threatening fashion.  The attack sent the former fire chief to the hospital for emergency surgery with a hole in the back of his skull.  He also had a broken jaw and required fifty stitches.  This looked like a fairly open-and-shut case, but last night the San Fran District Attorney's office suddenly dropped the charges against Doty and dismissed the case.  How is this happening in a major American city?

Pennsylvania Democrats fiddle while Philly burns.  Few people would deny that the City of Brotherly Love has a serious issue with crime.  Philadelphia had more than 500 homicides last year, and lesser crimes are soaring as well, with police already recording more car thefts in the first four months of the year than the entirety of 2019.  Instead of focusing on those criminal offenders or the policies of D.A. Larry Krasner, who's overall conviction rate for violent crimes stood at just 33% last year, the Democrats now in control of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives are intent on pushing a series of gun control measures aimed at legal gun owners; [...]

Murders jumped 10% since 2021 in major Democrat-led US cities thanks to soft-on-crime policies: study.  The murder rates in major US Cities have soared more than 10% in the past two years — with most homicides occurring in Democratic areas with soft-on-crime policies.  In a study released by WalletHub Wednesday, researchers found that Memphis, Tennesse; New Orleans, Louisana; Richmond, Virginia; Washington, DC; and Detroit, Michigan are suffering from the biggest homicide rate problems.  All five cities are led by left-wing mayors.  After comparing the rise in murder rates in 45 of the country's most populated cities between 2021 and 2023, scholars noticed that killings were rising faster in Democrat-led cities than in their Republican counterparts.  Though the Covid-19 pandemic can be blamed for the initial jump in homicides, scholars theorized that soft-on-crime policing has exacerbated the issue in progressive cities.

Another day, another store closing in San Francisco (actually two).  Earlier this month I wrote about San Francisco's flagship Whole Foods supermarket which announced it was closing after just one year because of high theft and security issues for employees who worked there.  Today, SFGate reports another store downtown is closing after two decades. [...] Anthropologie didn't say why it was closing.  Is it inflation?  Was it the pandemic and the subsequent urban doom loop?  Or did it have to do with retail theft and threats against employees from deranged street people?  The reality is it could be all three at once but don't discount theft as a big factor.  San Francisco leads the nation in property crime.

DA accused of 'extreme departure from California law' with charges in 5-year-old girl's murder.  A radical California DA is under fire for going easy on three gangbangers charged with shooting a 5-year-old girl through the heart and killing her earlier this month.  Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price declined to add gun and gang enhancements to murder raps against the suspects — a "staggering" move which could significantly lessen their sentences.  "Not filing gun and gang enhancements in a case like this is an extreme departure from California criminal law practice," veteran Los Angeles County prosecutor Jason Lustig told The [New York] Post.  "It's extreme."  The Berkeley Scanner first reported the lack of enhancements alongside basic murder charges and called it a "break in precedent" and the "first time anything like it has happened in Alameda County" in such a serious case.

Biden's theme is "finish the job."  Have you seen the job thus far?  The talking heads at CNN try to deny or downplay it, but the streets are far less safe today.  A record number of homicides were recorded in nine large cities last year.  Property crime is up significantly almost everywhere.  Major crimes in New York City rose by 20% in both 2021 and 2022.  In places like Chicago, carjacking has transformed from a serious crime to the national sport.  And yes, people have been killed while being carjacked.  Major retail outlets in cities like Portland and San Francisco are shutting their doors and leaving because they are being looted so frequently.

Refusing to enforce the law.  [Scroll down]  The most recent example comes from Chicago.  There, a 17-year-old and a 14-year-old [...] stole a car and promptly crashed into another car.  In that second car was a 34-year-old mother with her three children, aged 15, 7, and 6 months.  The crash killed the baby.  In a sane world, the 17-year-old would be tried as an adult for murder (probably second-degree), while the 14-year-old would spend the next seven years in juvenile detention.  However, Chicago is not a sane world; it is a leftist world.  That's why the prosecutor charged the boys with [...] a misdemeanor for criminal trespassing.  Again, they stole a car, drove it recklessly, and killed a baby, which equals three separate felonies.  The news is filled with stories like this, with unquestioned crimes being undercharged or dismissed.

Teens face only misdemeanor charges — of criminal trespassing — after crashing stolen car, killing infant in Chicago.  Two teenage boys are facing only misdemeanor charges after they allegedly stole a car and crashed it into another vehicle, killing a 6-month-old baby in Chicago last week.  The boys, ages 17 and 14, were each charged with just one misdemeanor count of criminal trespassing in the deadly April 16 crash in the city's West Garfield Park neighborhood, according to Chicago police.  The teens were driving in a stolen Hyundai when they slammed into a Ford pickup truck at an intersection of West Washington Boulevard and North Kostner Avenue shortly after 5 p.m., according to cops.  The 6-month-old boy, Cristian Uvidia, died in the hospital following the crash.

VIDEO: Out of Control Mob Takes Over California Gas Station.  The entire state of California is literally turning into mob rule.  While Governor Gavin Newsom is off making cute videos in red states, mobs are organizing and ruining small businesses in his state.  Sunday morning, for example, a mob gathered a Compton gas station, broke in, and took whatever they wanted.  This is a new thing where people ignore the rules and take whatever they want.  Staff are being told to let them go and don't even try to stop them, so being are getting bolder and bolder.  [Video clip]

Looting as a way of life.  Karl Marx's famous prescription for economic equity is "from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs."  A more honest version is "robbing Peter to pay Paul," which takes brute force in most cases.  This is the ethos of the radicalized Democratic Party, whose mantra is centralized power and redistribution of wealth.  The street version is called "looting," but that word aptly summarizes their entire agenda.  The Biden administration's war on America's energy sector has unleashed ruinous inflation, which pushes people into higher tax brackets so the government can take more of our income.  And taxes are never high enough.  Democrats portray any resistance to more spending as the equivalent of kicking a begging orphan in the teeth.  The party's power rests on plundering the middle class and increasing the ranks of their Free Stuff Army.  As for the street version of looting, Chicago's next mayor, Brandon Johnson, refused to strongly condemn rioting in his city.  Hundreds of "youths" rampaged downtown, attacking tourists and smashing things.  But the mayor-elect seemed more worried that the little rascals might have become unpopular.

Americans In High-Crime Cities Are Having Their Cars Bulletproofed, Says Armorer.  Americans in cities racked by violent crime are taking a drastic approach to protect themselves, their valuables, and their loved ones.  Armormax is an armorer that bulletproofs cars for foreign diplomats and corporate CEOs.  But in an interview with the New York Post, Armormax's Mark Burton said that the Utah-based company is fielding orders to bulletproof cars for residents of cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Memphis, and Las Vegas.  "It's been pretty shocking," Burton told the New York Post. "I would say it really started about 18 months ago.  It used to be politicians and CEOs.  Almost all international.  Now we're bulletproofing Honda Accords."

Suspected felons have Walked Free in HALF of cases since Alvin Bragg took office.  Suspected felons have walked free in half of cases since Alvin Bragg took office, sparking fears that some of New York's worst criminals still roam the streets, DailyMail.com can reveal.  The proportion of cases in which the Manhattan DA's office has not asked for felony suspects to be held on bail has more than doubled since 2018, according to its own data.  It has sparked fears that more suspects will be released before trial, leaving them free to reoffend.  Campaigners have accused officials of 'a depraved indifference to human life' and pointed to a spate of recent cases in which suspects have been released without bail before going on to commit heinous crimes.

Chicago Is Quickly Becoming The Disgusting Ghetto Mayor-Elect Brandon Johnson Wants It To Be.  Within just the last week, Walmart closed half its store locations in Chicago, and the city police department instituted new curfew and bag-check policies at public parks and beaches following days of "reckless, disruptive and violent behavior."  A sane person who prefers living in a clean, safe, and prosperous city would see that news and say things are going in the wrong direction, and the people who are responsible for it need to be held accountable. [...] A person who is perhaps not sane or who is, at minimum, a societal parasite sucking the life and goodness out of everything would react just the opposite.  He would excuse the ne'er-do-wells, thieves, and fiends.  Instead, he would direct blame at those who refuse to tolerate anti-social behavior.  That's how deadbeat incoming Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson reacted.  (I assume you don't need me to tell you he's a Democrat.)  Following a weekend of street thugging and mayhem around the once-cherished Millennium Park, during which two teens and a six-year-old boy were shot, Johnson saw no urgency.

Price Is Not Right.  Oakland has always been a gritty city — the tough-luck twin to wealthy San Francisco.  Under newly elected Alameda County District Attorney Pam Price, Oakland could be headed for a fate much darker than gritty.  Price has been following the de-prosecution and decarceration playbook of radical district attorneys across the United States.  If she stays on that course, Oakland is in for a "hella tough time," to use the language of the Bay Area.  Price took office this year with no prior experience as a prosecutor, having spent her entire career as a criminal defense and civil rights lawyer.  If that sounds familiar, it should: Price's background matches the career history of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner.  Like the equally inexperienced Krasner, Price ran for office attacking the police and promising to dismantle what she perceived to be the systemic racism of the criminal justice system.  Krasner has brought disastrous results in Philadelphia, which has set its all-time record for homicides during his tenure.  Price has already begun shedding staff.  She has fired or placed on leave experienced prosecutors and investigators.

Mob of shoplifters descends on convenience store in Los Angeles.  If it's antisemitic to call out soft-on-crime George Soros-backed district attorneys, then we guess we're antisemitic.  Our first warning flag probably went up in 2019, when Dallas County District Attorney John Ceruzot announced that he would not be prosecuting "low-level crimes," such as shoplifting less than $750 worth of merchandise.  "Criminalizing poverty is counter-productive for our community's health and safety," he said.  "For that reason, this office will not prosecute theft of personal items less than $750 unless the evidence shows that the alleged theft was for economic gain."  In any case, we've been assured that all of those looters we've seen on video have been stealing bread.

Portland's only REI store to close early next year, citing rise in break-ins, thefts.  The REI store in Portland's Pearl District will close at the end of February 2024, the company announced on Monday [4/17/2023].  In a letter to REI members, the company cited concerns over safety and an increase in crime over the last few years as reasons for the closure.  "The safety of our employees, members and customers is always our number one priority.  In recent years, Portland has been dealing with increased crime in our neighborhood and beyond.  Last year, REI Portland had its highest number of break-ins and thefts in two decades, despite actions to provide extra security," REI said in its letter.

Mob of Looters Hits California Gas Station for Food, Alcohol, Condoms.  Looters targeted a gas station in Compton, California, overnight Sunday and left the store severely damaged.  Thousands of dollars' worth of items were reportedly stolen during the incident that happened at the Arco gas station near Alondra Boulevard and Central Avenue, according to ABC 7.  Video footage shows two individuals apparently trying to break through the glass door by hitting it repeatedly as a crowd gathered around them.  At one point, someone began kicking the glass.  Once the door was opened, the mob poured inside the building while some at the scene held up their phones to record what was happening:  [Video clip]

The shoplifting blues.  Once upon a time, we used to call shoplifting stealing.  But recently, shoplifting has been the latest episode of "No justice no peace."  In other words, there are many blue city district attorneys who don't think that shoplifting is worth arresting you.  Let them steal and let the corporate cats eat their losses.  Well, it turns out that the corporate cats have limits and can't just sit back and let their stores get sacked.

Can We Do Anything About America's Decline?  Our largest cities are becoming uninhabitable — dilapidated, dangerous, and dysfunctional.  The challenge is not just rampant crime, but the realization that if you, the citizen, are stabbed, shot, or beaten up on the street, the perpetrators may well be exempt from most punishments.  And the victim either will be forgotten in his misery or, indeed, blamed for bringing such violence upon himself. [...] Urban chain stores are closing down on the principle that if police cannot or will not stop consumer violence and theft, then consumers there should not have any store to buy anything, anyway.  If there is no store, how can it be looted or shop-lifted?

A list of the big box shops which have closed due to millions in losses from rampant theft.  In 2021 retailers lost a combined $94.5 billion to shrink, a term used to describe theft and other types of inventory loss. [...] Walmart decided to shut 17 of its stores across nine states after CEO Doug McMillon warned in December that theft was the highest it's ever been around the country and if it did not slow down, stores would have to close.  And the company announced on Tuesday it would be shutting half its Chicago stores, mostly located on the crime-ridden city's south and west sides, because they are losing tens of millions each year. [...] Target revealed it lost an extraordinary $400 million in profits last November due to organized gangs of shoplifters who had been stealing merchandise from its stores.  And its CFO said the company expected retail thefts to reach $600 million by the end of the year.  Now the retailer has announced it is closing four stores in three cities in the coming months. [...] Walgreens has previously complained about retail shrinkage largely due to organized shop lifting last year and spent money on extra security measures including glass panels and security guards as preventative measures.  But its chief financial officer James Kehoe came out earlier this year and said 'maybe we cried too much last year when we were hitting numbers that were 3.5 percent of sales'. [...] Shopping mall staple Macy's is closing four stores in the first quarter of 2023, with malls in California, Colorado, Hawaii and Maryland losing out.  The closures are part of Macy's three-year plan to close 125 locations as an increase in organized retail crimes cuts into the profits of businesses. [...] Best Buy CEO Corie Barry highlighted the growing problem with theft at its stores back in November 2021.  The big box retailer sells very high value gadgets including computers, TVs and phones -- many of which are smaller in size but high in value, making them prime targets for shoplifters.

The Editor says...
The article above is accompanied by numerous video clips which seem to show that the perpetrators of the widespread theft seem to have one thing in common.  See if you can guess what it is.  This attribute was omitted from the text of the article, almost as if it is a forbidden topic.

A Tiny Number of Shoplifters Commit Thousands of New York City Thefts.  New York City's storefront businesses, already weathering inflation and an uneven recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, are also contending with what the police say is a dramatic increase in shoplifting.  But statistics also reveal a startling reality: A relative handful of shoplifters are responsible for an outsize percentage of retail crime.  Nearly a third of all shoplifting arrests in New York City last year involved just 327 people, the police said.  Collectively, they were arrested and rearrested more than 6,000 times, Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said.  Some engage in shoplifting as a trade, while others are driven by addiction or mental illness; the police did not identify the 327 people in the analysis.

Lt. Col. Vindman Admitted Leaking Documents Meant To Help Democrats Impeach Trump, Never Served Time.  Alleged Pentagon document leaker Jack Teixeira was arrested Thursday and, according to Attorney General Merrick Garland, is now being investigated for the "alleged unauthorized removal, retention, and transmission of classified national defense information."  Social Media users have responded to the conflict by calling for the arrest of Alex Vindman. [...] Vindman was accused of leaking national security information but never served jail time.  One Twitter user made it clear that he believes there is a two-tiered system of justice in place.  He said, "Despite destabilizing a Commander-in-Chief and helping provoke a war in Ukraine," Vindman now goes on chat shows.  Whereas Jack Teixeira leaked information showing how the government is lying to you and the world, I'm furtherance of those wars.  He's in a cell now.

Thugs Robbing A Parked Car At Whole Foods In San Francisco Shows Exectly Why The Store Is Shutting Down.  Whole Foods is temporarily closing a large store in downtown San Francisco due to concerns over employee safety, the company said on Wednesday.  The closure arrives roughly a week after the high-profile killing of Cash App Founder Bob Lee in San Francisco, which sparked crime fears among some city residents.  Overall, crime in San Francisco is down nearly 10% this year compared to last year, but homicides are up 20% and robberies are up more than 13%, San Francisco crime data shows.  [Video clip]

What Is Going On In Atlanta?  Scenes like this seem to be the norm in Atlanta, especially around Georgia State University.  [Video clip]

Chicagoans Blame Walmart for Closing Down Despite Losing Millions Due to Theft.  Local leaders in Chicago's Chatham neighborhood, located in the south side, held a press conference to demand the area's Walmart to not close down, going as far as to blame the company leaving the area is the reason they not are economically thriving.  "We have healthcare deserts.  We have food deserts.  And we wonder why!  Our communities look like they look!  That we have violence every single day!  It is not just on us, it is on the corporate citizens that come into our community and ravage our community.  And Walmart, you should absolutely be ashamed of yourselves.  You are the reasons that our communities lack the investment that they have," one speaker said.  "We deserve!  We deserve to be able to shop, work, play in our own communities."

Sam Brinton Avoids Jail Time For Stealing Women's Luggage While Meme Creator Faces 10 Years Behind Bars.  Nearly 80 percent of Americans believe there is a two-tiered justice system.  This week's courtroom episodes only validate the public's perception.  On Friday, President Joe Biden's allegedly "non-binary" nuclear waste expert, Sam Brinton, was sentenced in a grand larceny case over stealing women's luggage from U.S. airports.  Police say Brinton stole a bag from Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas with an estimated worth of around $3,670.  Authorities also charged Brinton with stealing luggage at a second airport in Minnesota.  The former Energy Department official took a plea deal over the Las Vegas bag theft Friday, agreeing to pay a $3,670 fine to the victim and a $500 criminal fee — no jail time required.  The Minnesota theft remains an open case, with the next hearing scheduled for Monday, according to Fox News.  Contrast Brinton's slap on the wrist to a pro-Trump meme creator convicted of illegal election influencing last month, and it's no wonder Americans see a two-tiered justice system.  Douglass Mackey faces 10 years behind bars over a 2016 post mocking how low Democrats want to set barriers to the ballot box.

Whistleblowers: Female Inmates in Washington State Prison [are] Forced to Bunk With Male Rapists and Murderers.  Female prison inmates inside the Washington Corrections Center For Women (WCCW) revealed in secret video footage this week how biological males are gaming the state's Transgender Housing Program and victimizing vulnerable women.  Washington State's Department of Corrections (DOC) boasts that it has been "a leader in the nation working with incarcerated transgender individuals providing gender affirming care to include housing in gender appropriate facilities."  DOC officials, however, reportedly refuse to disclose how many genitally intact biological males have been incarcerated in state women's prisons, and are not taking allegations of sexual abuse seriously, according to whistleblowers.

Protesters demand trans inmates be removed from all-female New Jersey prison, where 1 in 15 people were born male.  Protesters are demanding that transgender women be removed from New Jersey's only all-female prison — where 10 transgender women, including one who says she has a "taste for blood," are held out of a total of 356 prisoners. #GetMenOut activists held a protest at the state Capitol in Trenton on Friday, reading letters from four biologically female inmates at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility, where one transgender inmate impregnated two women last year.  The women described from behind bars their fears at being housed with biological men who identify as women.

The Editor says...
People who were born male are men.  Threrefore, it's not an all-female prison.  A mentally-ill man who "identifies" as a tomato is still just a mentally-ill man.

Just how bad is crime in Chicago?  We all are aware that crime is a growing problem in Chicago. [...] San Francisco, which has been getting attention for its crime problem, isn't nearly as violent as people suppose.  It is a hellhole, yes, but not especially violent.  But Chicago?  It is not just a hellhole, but a horribly violent one too.  And getting more violent.  And will continue to do so because they just elected a pro-criminal mayor — again.  Wirepoints, an Illinois-based public policy nonprofit, did the math and it looks pretty horrible.  And as they show, it looks horrible because crime does pay and people do get away with almost all the time.

Why did Biden choose Chicago for the Democrat convention?  Chicago is a very troubled city so naturally, the Democrats are going to reward its failures with the economic boom brought about by hosting the Democrat National Convention in August. [...] Why Chicago when they could have had their convention in a city like Atlanta?  Granted, Atlanta has some problems with violence and crime, as all big blue cities do, but I would have thought that a focus in 2024 will be on retaining Georgia in the D column for the presidential election.  Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have made numerous trips to Atlanta since they came into office, pandering to voters.  It looks like they are more concerned about winning the Midwest states in 2024.

The Editor says...
It is far more likely that Barack H. Obama makes decisions of this sort, even in the year 2023, than Joe Biden does.  Plane loads of Democrats visiting Chicago means more money in the pockets of Obama's Chicago buddies.  Also, please note that if hundred of Democrats get mugged and beaten while they're visiting Chicago, it won't make any difference in their voting habits.  Everybody who attends the national Democratic convention is a die-hard socialist.

Biden nuclear fuel and waste official, nonbinary Sam Brinton, gets no jail time for felonious luggage theft at Vegas airport.  I am outraged by the favoritism enjoyed by (now former) top Biden administration nuclear fuel and waste official Sam Brinton, who wantonly (and we know repeatedly) stole luggage from strangers at airport baggage claim areas. [...] Nevada law holds that theft with a value of $1,200 or more is a felony.  And the restitution ordered clearly indicates that this threshold was exceeded.  So, why the leniency?  Yes, it was a plea bargain, but why did prosecutors settle for a suspended sentence, which enables Brinton to escape any incarceration unless he violates the terms of his probation?  There's CCTV footage of the theft, so obtaining a conviction seems almost certain.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed defends city as safe after violent, deadly attacks.  San Francisco Mayor London Breed defended her city during a tense interview following criticism that the city has become too dangerous because of progressive policies after a tech executive was stabbed to death last week, and a former fire commissioner was brutally attacked.  Breed, a Democrat, was speaking with FOX San Francisco when she said reports surrounding the death of Cash App founder Bob Lee were "inaccurate."  "I think that oftentimes because of social media, because of cameras and how people are able to publicize things that are happening in a moment, it is taken completely out of context in terms of highlighting the entire city as being unsafe," she said.  "That's not entirely true."

The Editor says...
Maybe it's not entirely true, but it's largely true.

9 Reasons Chicago Is the Perfect Site for the 2024 Democratic Convention.  [#1] The rampant crime:  Like most big cities the Democratic Party has controlled for decades, Chicago has a crime problem that its elected leaders are unable or unwilling to do anything about.  The city's murder rate has jumped nearly 40 percent since 2019, while car theft has more than doubled in the past year alone.  Kim Foxx, the George Soros-backed district attorney in charge of prosecuting crime in Chicago, has a history of letting violent offenders off the hook.  Convictions have dropped nearly 30 percent on her watch.  Naturally, the city's voters just elected a radical new mayor who in 2020 said "defund the police" was "an actual real political goal."

Crime in San Francisco is so Bad that Whole Foods is Forced to Close Down After One Year in Business.  The Whole Foods Market in Downtown San Francisco will be closing down.  The decision comes just over a year after the store first opened.  San Francisco, one of if not the most liberal city in the country, has been plagued by rampant crime and homelessness in the streets.  A Whole Foods spokesperson said, "We are closing our Trinity location only for the time being.  If we feel we can ensure the safety of our team members in the store, we will evaluate a reopening of our Trinity location."  One of the managers of the troubled grocery store located on Market Street stated that in October of last year, the store reduced its operating hours due to "high theft" and [unwelcome] visitors.

Walmart closing 4 locations in Chicago.  Walmart plans to close four stores in Chicago by mid-April, the company announced Tuesday. [...] Officials with the department store cited profit margins as the reasoning behind the closing.  "The simplest explanation is that collectively our Chicago stores have not been profitable since we opened the first one nearly 17 years ago — these stores lose tens of millions of dollars a year, and their annual losses nearly doubled in just the last five years.  The remaining four Chicago stores continue to face the same business difficulties, but we think this decision gives us the best chance to help keep them open and serving the community," a press release stated.

The Editor says...
How does a Walmart store lose tens of millions of dollars per year?  The most likely reason is that merchandise is walking out the door, without having visited a cash register.

Whole Foods shuts down its flagship store in San Francisco after just one year over city's failure to control crime.  Just days after a top tech executive was killed in a random street stabbing, and a former fire commissioner was beaten by a bum with a metal object, the wokester leftists running San Francisco can take another bow.  The huge new ritzy Whole Foods Market flagship store in San Francisco, which opened only a year ago, has announced it's closing shop, citing the city's out-of-control crime. [...] This wasn't just any Whole Foods Market high-end grocery store.  This was the 64,737-square-foot flagship store in a fleet of nine grocery stores, built as a state-of-the-art establishment to cater to a high-end clientele.  There were art sculptures and fancy flooring in the courtyard, and electrical vehicle charging stations in the secure parking lot.

Whole Foods Is Shuttering Its Flagship Store in San Francisco Just a Year After It Opened.  Whole Foods opened its 64,000+ square foot "flagship" store in downtown San Francisco in March of 2022.  On Monday, the grocery giant announced it was shuttering that location — at least for now. [...] As indicated in the statement from Whole Foods, safety is a serious concern.  ["]The beleaguered grocery store on Market Street slashed its operating hours due to "high theft" and hostile visitors in October last year, according to one of the store's managers.  And in November, the store enforced new bathroom rules after syringes and pipes were found in the restroom.["]

Virginia AG Lashes Out at DC Leaders For Ignoring the City's Crime Problem.  Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares calls out D.C. leaders for ignoring the city's sweeping crime problem that has plagued the nation's capital.  In a letter addressed to top D.C. officials and Democrat Mayor Muriel Bowser, Miyares accused them of allowing for a "crime explosion" in the District, adding that D.C.'s crime problem has now "become Virginia's crime problem."  "Washington, D.C., is dealing with a crime explosion.  Actions speak louder than words — and the only actionable items taken by Washington D.C. leadership have been ways to lessen criminal penalties, further fostering an environment for criminal activity," his letter reads.  "There is no deterrent for illegal behavior in Washington, D.C., as these repeat offenders know they will either not be charged or let back on the streets in no time."  Miyares backed up his claims, citing data that proves murders are up by over 30 percent, as well as the increase in carjackings.  In addition, he explained that armed robberies are also up, and sexual assaults are up 84 percent.

An emerging Silicon Valley-Homeless Industrial Complex power struggle in San Francisco?  Something about the apparently random street murder of Silicon Valley tech executive Bob Lee seems to have overturned a crawly rock in San Francisco's political scene, suggesting a brewing power struggle on the horizon.  On the one hand, we have a very vocally angry Silicon Valley tech community speaking out about the out-of-control crime situation in the city with the very valued and talented Lee's untimely death from some night creature who crawled out from some sewer or encampment and stabbed him to death, quite possibly in a drug-addled haze.  That's expected if you live in a place full of bums and criminals, but Lee didn't live in a place full of bums and criminals.  He had actually fled the city for Florida based on its engulfing crime, and came back only for a brief business trip.  On the other hand, we have a soggy, entrenched political establishment seeking to assure that there's really no crime problem at all.

The more you trust the media, the less accurate you are.  The other day I wrote about the correlation between political ideology and assumptions about how many unarmed Blacks are killed by police.  In it I discussed a study done by the Skeptic Research Center that showed that people who identify as liberal are least likely to guess how many unarmed Black men are killed by police.  Not by a little, but by a lot.  Almost none of the liberals guessed in the right range — the number is about 10 a year — and over half guessed that the number was between 1000 to 10,000.  [Numerous tweets]  The most accurate group was conservatives, with very conservative being the best, and very liberal being the worst.  It's not even close.  Liberals have no idea what the truth is, and they believe the very worst to be the case.  Yesterday the organization released more data from their study, in order to explain why that is the case.  Their findings were equally interesting because they give a very strong clue regarding what is driving that disparity.  And it's exactly what you think:  the greater the education you have and the higher the trust in the news media the less likely you are to have a grasp of reality.

This Is Who Chicago's New Mayor Says Should Respond to Crime Scenes.  Chicago Mayor-Elect Brandon Johnson (D) told CBS News on Thursday his plan to tackle the city's crime problem:  Send more social workers to crime scenes.  Johnson, a staunch progressive, pointed to instances where police killed black men as evidence to say more police officers are not the solution.  "This is really about making sure that people understand the context of the level of frustration when you see that type of brutalization over and over again, it can be discouraging," Johnson explained.

San Francisco's ruling elites go all 'Chesa Boudin' on crime in wake of tech executive's killing.  Looks like getting rid of leftist district attorney Chesa Boudin didn't really get rid of the problem he represented for crime-battered San Francisco. [...] Someone stabbed the man who had recently fled the city but returned for a brief business trip, while he was walking at night in a seemingly random attack; a productive citizen with no criminal background who apparently had no enemies and was successful in his field.  When he tried to flag down a car to get himself to the hospital, the cars he pleaded with all drove past him, not helping him; leaving him to die, which happened shortly afterward.  It's a horrible story of seemingly random crime brought on by the layers and layers of crime already engulfing San Francisco, accentuated by citizen flight, and an emerging culture of distrust, like you see in places like Argentina and Venezuela — where someone who seemingly needs help is fled from in terror as a likely ruse for robbery.  And yes, the tech community is alarmed and beginning to protest[.]

Study: Over 72% of NYC Violent Crime Suspects Freed Without Bail Go On to Commit More Crimes.  Felony suspects released without bail thanks to New York's bail reform law are more likely to be rearrested for more felonies, including violent crimes, than suspects who were given bail before the law went into effect.  A study by researchers at John Jay College of Criminal Justice reviewed cases prior to the New York law taking effect and cases after the law was implemented where most suspects arrested for crimes are not required to pay any bail to be released from jail.

Chicago Chooses Crime.  Brandon Johnson's "victory" means that Mayor Lori Lightfoot will be replaced by someone far worse.  Lightfoot at least made occasional efforts to fight crime, Johnson's message is that criminals are the victims. [...] Chicago loves crime, but this isn't the Capone kind of vote, it's the solidarity between the Left and the thugs running the streets.  The old Chicago machine alternated between tolerating crime and cracking down on it.  It cut dirty deals with bosses and busted hoods.  The new machine loves street level criminals. [...] And in Chicago, where the Democrats used to court the working class vote, there were serious efforts to at least fight street-level violence.  Not anymore.  The old coalition is in shards.  What has replaced it are leftist wokes, teachers' unions and gang members.

America's Broken Windows.  Tackling smaller forms of criminal mischief nips violent crimes in the bud.  Although Wyatt Earp and other Wild West lawmen put the theory into practice long before social scientists James Wilson and George Kelling wrote about it in the 1980s, Mayor Rudy Giuliani and police commissioner William Bratton popularized its use when they successfully implemented "broken windows" policies that saved New York City from a decades-long crime spiral.  Communist Mayor Bill de Blasio later framed "broken windows" policing as inherently racist, retreated from many sensible initiatives, and punished cops for proactively fighting crime.  The residents of NYC have subsequently paid the price with their deteriorating safety.

Violent Assaults Across NYC Surge as Officials Exhaust Resources on Trump.  Felony assaults on New Yorkers are continuing to rise across New York City, specifically in the borough of Manhattan, as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) exhausts city resources on a 34-count felony case against former President Donald Trump.  In 2022, violent crime in New York City rose 23 percent, with more than 126,500 arrests made for murder and non-negligent manslaughter, robbery, felony assault, rape, burglary, grand larceny, and grand larceny auto — the seven major crime categories.

LA County's proposal to 'decarcerate' jail population withdrawn after pushback from public, law enforcement.  A controversial proposal by Los Angeles County Board members to "decarcerate" jails was withdrawn from Tuesday's agenda after opposition from the public and law enforcement.  The agenda item was titled "Los Angeles County to take Actionable Next Steps to Depopulate and Decarcerate the Los Angeles County Jails."  Introduced by Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Hilda Solis, the proposal outlined that it would "Declare the state of mental health services and overcrowding in the Los Angeles County jails a humanitarian crisis, requiring the County to move with all deliberate speed on meaningful solutions; and prioritize decreasing the number of individuals entering the Los Angeles County Jails."

Regressive Prosecutors.  On a Saturday night this past February in St. Louis, 17-year-old Janae Edmonson's life was shattered.  A 2023 Audi Q5 sped through a downtown intersection, failed to yield, and struck another car, rolling into the high school volleyball star.  Edmonson will never set or spike again — both of her legs had to be amputated.  The driver of the Audi was 21-year-old Daniel Riley, who had no driver's license and was accused in 2020 of armed robbery with a firearm, a Class A felony.  Since his release on bond for the latter offense, he had violated the terms of his supervision more than 100 times, with no accountability resulting from St. Louis circuit attorney Kim Gardner.  A short time after the accident, Missouri attorney general Andrew Bailey called on Gardner to resign.  After the deadline for this demand passed, he issued a quo warranto, a rarely used proceeding that requires Gardner to provide legal justification for her actions or face immediate dismissal.

Here [are] All the Crimes Alvin Bragg Shrugged Off to Go After Trump.  While police are catching criminals on New York City's unsavory streets, Soros-tied Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has caught a chronic case of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS).  The politically ambitious Bragg, whose self-styled crowning achievement is indicting a former U.S. president for the first time ever in American history, is using what he alleges to be a federal campaign-finance violation as a means to upgrade an otherwise-misdemeanor charge to a felony via an untested legal theory.  Simultaneously, as Bragg seeks to prosecute President Donald Trump, the GOP's top 2024 contender, to the fullest extent of the law no matter the cost, the soft-on-crime DA has downgraded felonies to misdemeanors in a majority of his cases, handing get-out-of-jail-free cards to hordes of hardened criminals with little regard for the victims of these violent crimes in his own jurisdiction.

Los Angeles County Democrats Propose Plan to 'Depopulate' Local Jails Because of 'Systemic Racism'.  Los Angeles County Supervisors Hilda Solis and Lindsey Horvath have proposed a plan to "depopulate and decarcerate" county jails, releasing criminals to address what they call a "systemic racism" in criminal justice.  Solis, a former Democratic congresswoman and Secretary of Labor under President Barack Obama, and Horvath, a former mayor of West Hollywood who tried to bar President Donald Trump from the city, have proposed the plan, which will be voted on at the next Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday.

Austin Seems to Be Circling the Liberal Drain as a Massive Brawl Engulfs the Street Saturday Night.  [Video clip only.]

Why did Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon refuse to charge an armed suspect that threatened a school?  On March 21, police arrested an unnamed suspect after he had made several threatening posts against a school on social media, and also had possession of stolen guns on him when he was taken into custody.  Yet, despite obvious proof that he was a threat to those within the school, Gascon refused to press charges.  The reasoning?  Absolutely asinine.  According to Fox News, Bell Gardens police noted in a statement, "On March 21, 2023, the filing District Attorney at Downey Superior Court initially rejected the entire case, stating they needed additional information regarding the criminal threat."  So let me see if I've got this right.  They found the suspect had made threats against a school.  Online.  In California, where several "active shooter" events have taken place.  They also found he had stolen guns, not registered to him.  And yet, with all that, Gascon felt they needed "additional information regarding the criminal threat?"  Excuse me, that is the criminal threat.

The Criminals Alvin Bragg Refused To Prosecute.  While Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was busy searching for ways to indict Trump, violent criminals were taking over New York City streets.  During Bragg's first year in office, major crime in New York City increased by 22 percent.  Since then, the DA has made a career out of reducing charges for armed robbers, freeing cop-beaters, relaxing bail, and letting violent antisemites off.  Bragg's soft-on-crime policies may have earned him left-wing billionaire financier George Soros' favor and dollars, but even Democrat-voting New Yorkers know that he's no stranger to giving better treatment to convicts than law-abiding people like this bodega owner who defended himself against a murderous criminal.

California Man Arrested 10 Times in 31 Days, Faces 33 Charges.  A man in Fresno County, California was arrested 10 times within a span of 31 days, according to the Clovis Police Department.  Keith Chastain's first arrest was on Feb. 19, and his tenth was on March 21.  He was booked by Clovis police six times and other agencies four times.  Chastain, 38, faces 18 felonies and 15 misdemeanors.  Charges include six stolen vehicles, vandalism, DUI, possession of a controlled substance, fraud, and more, according to authorities.  "I don't know what is happening in his life to cause him to steal so many people's vehicles and property.  It's sad; I hope he gets some help," Clovis Police Corporal Meredith Alexander told KMPH Fox 26.  On his tenth arrest, police received a tip over the phone and caught Chastain driving a stolen truck in Old Town Clovis.  Police said he was on his way to the police station in the stolen vehicle to pick up his personal property.

US attorney declined to prosecute 67% of arrests in DC as nation's capital suffers crime spike.  The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia declined to prosecute the vast majority of arrests made in the nation's capital last year, according to a new report.  U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves, who was appointed by President Biden, declined to prosecute 67% of those arrested in the city in 2021.  While critics argue Graves is leaving criminals on the street, he states that the majority of the declinations are for nonviolent crimes, like gun possession, drug possession and burglaries.  "I can promise you, it's not MPD holding the bag on this.  That's B.S.," D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee told The Washington Post.  "Of course we are concerned.  We believe every person we arrest should be off the streets."  The shockingly low prosecution rate comes in stark contrast to those of other major U.S. cities.  The U.S. attorney operating in Detroit declined to prosecute just 33% of arrests, while the attorney for Chicago declined 14% and the attorney for Philadelphia declined just 4%, according to the Post.

How real is America's discontent?  Alvin Bragg, who grew up in a section of Harlem aptly named Striver's Row, is by most accounts one angry man.  Since he was elected New York County's district attorney in 2021, he has set himself to punishing the city for what he takes to be generations of wrongful prosecution of black offenders — and incidentally most other lawbreakers.  His policy writ large has been to treat all felonies as misdemeanors, which are promptly dismissed.  He occasionally compromises in favor of prosecution but only if the crime has aroused a special level of public outrage.  Bragg's tenderheartedness towards criminals, however, has limits.  When it comes to Donald J. Trump, Bragg appears ready to emulate famed Texas lawman Judge Roy Bean, who handed out verdicts with a rope.  Alas, in this case, Bragg hasn't been able to find a justiciable case.  The roistering Trump once paid the gamesome Stormy Daniels to play mum about their frolics (which he says never happened).  Only by building a bridge of conjecture, hypothesis and ad hominem does Bragg attempt to find something to indict.

More than 60 percent of Scotland's trans prisoners began transitioning after being convicted.  More than 60 percent of transgender prisoners behind bars in Scotland only began transitioning after they were locked up, it has emerged.  Data obtained under Freedom of Information laws state there were, at the start of last month, 19 transgender prisoners in custody, 12 of whom (63 percent) are recorded as beginning their transition "after their date of admission".  There were seven trans women — biological men identifying as female — being allowed to serve their sentences in the women's estate, despite the public and political outcry this year over transgender double rapist Isla Bryson.  Bryson was initially sent to Cornton Vale women's prison near Stirling to await sentencing after being convicted but was later moved to the male estate.  The 31-year-old only began transitioning from male to female in 2020 after being charged with raping two women.

Judge stops California Soros prosecutor from slashing triple murderer's sentence.  After rejecting her in 2018, the voters of Alameda County, California selected Pamela Price as their new District Attorney last year.  Price had taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from George Soros for her two campaigns.  That probably tells you most of what you need to know, since Soros only funds candidates who are soft on crime and willing to empty the jails as much as possible.  Price quickly proved herself no exception, seeking to cut a plea deal with a killer who had been arrested for one triple murder for hire, was accused in the murder of a court witness, and several other violent crimes.  Rather than the 75 years to life sentence that Delonzo Logwood was eligible for, Price wanted to cut him loose after fifteen years.  Thankfully, a County District Judge stepped in and rejected the deal out of hand.

Victims of black crime matter, too.  The Black Lives Matter movement has only focused on how law enforcement treats blacks.  The movement has taken no responsibility for the victims of black criminals, and this is despite the fact that the vast majority of victims at the hands of black criminals are black.  Yet the BLM movement never uses the billions of dollars donated by corporations to care for the victims of black criminals.  Not a word, not an apology, not a regret, not a dollar.

Miami Beach braces for new spring break chaos after 2 murders in 36 hours.  Florida's Miami Beach is still reeling from two shocking execution-style murders on crowded streets during spring break last weekend and business owners told The Post they fear the lawlessness and carnage will continue over the next three days.  "These people have zero respect for any property, for anybody.  Drugs, prostitution, you name it we've seen it," said Sebastian Labno, who co-owns a number of restaurants in the area.  "You walk on the street on a daily basis and you've got guys coming up to you, [asking] if I want coke, if I want marijuana."  "You walk on the street on a daily basis and you've got guys coming up to you, [asking] if you want coke, if you want marijuana," said Sebastian Labno, who co-owns a number of restaurants in the area.  "The people that come to Miami Beach in the last couple of years are no spring breakers," Labno said.  "They're adults.  They're troublemakers."

Missouri's Attorney General Sues To Remove Soros-Funded Crime-Enabling Saint Louis DA.  Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey added additional evidence to his lawsuit on Tuesday to remove St. Louis circuit attorney Kim Gardner because she "knowingly and willfully failed to do her duties as a prosecutor in many ways," Bailey's office said in a press release.  Gardner is the local DA elected with money from George Soros who prosecuted Saint Louis homeowners instead of the Black Lives Matter mob of some 300 rioters who threatened them, filed a blatantly political prosecution of former Missouri Republican governor Eric Greitens, and allowed criminals to walk free, resulting in a high school volleyball player losing her legs after a released criminal plowed into her with a car.

Maryland wants to treat murderers like children.  A Democrat mayor of Washington, D.C., dozens of Democrat senators and representatives, and a Democrat President all thought it was a bad idea for the District to pass a law that reduced sentences on some violent crimes in the capital city.  It would have made the Democrats look soft on crime and encourage criminals at a time when voters are demanding action be taken to reduce the soaring crime rates in major cities around the country.  Despite this, a Maryland House of Delegates member introduced on legislation in February to raise the minimum age suspects must be before a prosecutor can charge them with felony murder, a murder committed in the course of another violent felony, applied to the person committing the murder and to any accomplices in the other crime.  Delegate Charlotte Cruchfield introduced the Youth Accountability and Safety Act, which neither holds youth accountable nor keeps them safe.  What it does do is treat adults like children and makes murder easier to get away with in Maryland.

San Francisco supervisor Hillary Ronen begs for more police in her district after voting to defund in 2020.  A San Francisco district supervisor is calling for more policing in the crime-ridden city — despite advocating to defund the police in 2020.  Hillary Ronen, Democrat, represents District 9 on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.  During a Budget and Appropriations Committee meeting on Wednesday, she made an impassioned plea to add more officers to the Mission District, which she represents.  Ronen was attacking San Francisco's police chief for spending a large amount of overtime on an anti-retail theft program instead of prioritizing police presence in her district.

Like it or not, there are some people who must never be released from prison.
Oklahoma man gets early release, commits triple homicide, cuts woman's heart out.  An Oklahoma man has been sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to killing three people, including a woman whose heart was cut from her body, weeks after being released from prison as part of a mass commutation effort.  Lawrence Paul Anderson, 44, pleaded guilty Wednesday in Grady County District Court to three counts of murder and single counts of maiming and assault and battery.  Anderson was sentenced to life without parole as part of a plea deal in which prosecutor Jason Hicks dropped plans to seek the death penalty at the request of the victims' families.

Minnesotans celebrate new law restoring voting rights to felons.  At the Capri Theater in north Minneapolis Saturday, there was a celebration of a new state law.  A law that restores voting rights to Minnesotans who've served time in jail or prison.  "It's long overdue that we've corrected this injustice," declared Antonio Williams, of St. Paul.

Bukele Blueprint: How to Dramatically Reduce Your Nations Murder Rate.  In El Salvador, the government plans to crush crime by opening a new prison that is quite literally the size of a city. [...] If predictions about CECOT holding forty thousand prisoners come to pass, then it will be literally double the size of what is currently the world's most populous prison, Turkey's Marmara Prison.  The new ultra-prison is the climax of perhaps the most dramatic campaign against crime in modern world history.  In the span of little more than a year, one in every fifty Salvadorans has been arrested by the police or the military.

You think crime is out of control in New York City now?  Just wait.  New York City cops are resigning at a "record-breaking pace in 2023, and there is no sign that the bleeding will slow.  [Tweet]  Bad crime policy leads to more crime.  Fewer police to keep the city safe leads to more crime on top of that.  It's not hard to see how this ends.

Why not 30?  Why not 40?  Why not just say, "everyone who is black and under 25 is exempt?"
Maryland Democrat proposes law barring everyone under 25 from felony murder charges.  A Democratic delegate proposed a law in Maryland that would bar anyone under 25 years of age from being charged with felony murder.  Delegate Charlotte Crutchfield, a Democrat, made the proposition through the Youth Accountability and Safety Act, House Bill 1180, local news outlet WBFF reported.  A defendant in Maryland can be charged with felony murder if the person commits a murder during a felony crime, such as robbery.  Crutchfield and supporters of the bill say that the brain is not fully developed before age 25, so issuing so harsh a sentence is unfair.

The Editor says...
If your "brain is not fully developed," you should not vote.

Senate Overwhelmingly Votes to Block DC's Criminal Code Bill That Reduces Penalties For Murders, Carjackings.  The Senate on Wednesday overwhelmingly voted to block the DC council's criminal code bill that would reduce penalties for murders and carjackings.  The Senate voted 81-14, with Georgia Democrat Raphael Warnock voting "present."  [Tweet]  Joe Biden will not veto this resolution.

70% of Senate Dems vote to override DC bill softening penalties for murder and carjacking, and paralyzing the courts.  The Democrats have sent a vivid message to the GOP on their fear of the crime issue, if only the party has the wit to exploit it.  They know that the explosion of crime is enough to scare voters into supporting the GOP, and as a result, 36 of the 51 Senate Democrats (70%) voted to overturn the absurd Washington, DC "criminal justice reform" bill that would make many murders and carjackings into misdemeanors, and overwhelm the court system by allowing jury trials for misdemeanors.  Dems know that appearing soft on crime would alienate a broad swath of voters currently living in fear.

Life Among the Ruins.  In a very brief time, we all but have destroyed the downtowns of our major cities — which will increasingly become vacant in a manner like the 6th-century A.D. Roman forum.  All accept that defunding the police, no-cash bail, Soros-funded district attorneys, and radical changes in jurisprudence have destroyed deterrence.  The only dividend is the unleashing of a criminal class to smash-and-grab, carjack, steal, burglarize, execute, and assault — with de facto immunity.  Instead we are sometimes lectured that looting is not a crime, but lengthy incarceration is criminally immoral. [...] A mere 10 years ago, if an American learned that a man was arrested for clubbing, robbing, or shooting innocents, and yet would be released from custody that day of his crime, he would have thought it an obscenity.  Now he fears that often the criminal will not even be arrested.

Proposed bill would prevent anyone under 25 with being charged with felony murder.  In recent weeks, the issue of age has been a hot topic when it comes to justice reform.  Governor Wes Moore's pick to run the Juvenile Justice Service, Vincent Schiraldi has said no one under the age of 21 should be introduced to the justice system, because the brain is not fully developed.  However, opponents of HB 1180, like Republican Delegate Susan McComas say Democrats are only using mental capacity when it comes to soft on crime policies.  "Proponents of the bill say that the human brain is not fully formed in the frontal lobes until age 25.  But yet, we're doing other things in the general assembly, letting children vote earlier and earlier, letting them get hormone inducing drugs to change their sex," said McComas.

What happens when you don't have the death penalty.  El Salvador is home to the MS-13 and Calle 18 gangs who are closely allied with Mexico's cartels and America's prison gangs, and they're all criminals including killers.  With no fear of the death penalty, or any rule of law for that matter, they've proliferated.  Just one problem, though:  The public got tired of this, and the reaction in that country wasn't vigilantism, but rough justice.  President Nayib Bukele, a loose cannon of a president, built a gargantuan mega-prison to shut the crime down.  It was crude and brutal, with huge sweeps of criminals off the streets, and according to reports, some innocent people were lumped in and swept up with the violent thugs and thrown with them into the can, too.

DC Leaders Fire Back at Congress, Biden Over Crime Bill.  Congress and the president are expected to nullify a Washington, D.C., law for the first time in more than 30 years, and District leaders are expressing frustration over what they say is a major step backwards for statehood.  President Joe Biden said Thursday he won't veto a measure that would block D.C. from enacting a controversial criminal code reform bill if it lands on his desk.  "I support D.C. Statehood and home-rule — but I don't support some of the changes D.C. Council put forward over the Mayor's objections — such as lowering penalties for carjackings," Biden said on Twitter.  "If the Senate votes to overturn what D.C. Council did — I'll sign it."  "This is about Republicans being able to nationalize this for politics and Democrats caving into this.  I mean, this is an absolute travesty for statehood," D.C. Councilmember Charles Allen said Friday on WAMU's The Politics Hour with Kojo Nnamdi and Tom Sherwood.

Cops quit woke Austin in droves, plunging Texas city into crisis.  Texas' woke capital, Austin, is in the midst of a policing crisis with over 300 vacancies and cops quitting because they feel disrespected, multiple sources tell The [New York] Post.  "We're right there with Portland and Seattle and San Francisco as being one of those places where if you're at all conservative or in law enforcement, it's become a hostile place," Lt. Brian Moon, who retired last month, told The Post of the city he protected for 23 years.  Another 77 officers are expected to retire before the end of March — on top of 264 existing vacancies, according to the Austin Police Association.  Austin Police Department's staffing is so bad, 911 calls are being redirected to the 311 non-emergency number because there aren't enough cops to solve crimes.

Democrat House Members Curse and Rage at Joe Biden After His D.C. Betrayal.  As RedState previously reported, Biden told Democrat lawmakers on Thursday that he would not veto a bi-partisan resolution that overrides a new Washington, D.C., crime bill.  The updates to the criminal code stirred controversy because they would lower penalties for violent crimes like carjackings and armed robbery.  It was so bad that even far-left Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser vetoed it, before the even more radical city council overrode her.  Given the out-of-control crime problem that exists in D.C., you'd think this would be an issue where federal Democrats come together to do what's obviously best.  Oh, who am I kidding?  No one would expect that from the party that wants to defund the police.  Instead, 173 House Democrats voted against the common sense resolution to override the criminal code changes, and they are very angry that they were betrayed.

Walmart Closing its Last Two Stores in Portland, Oregon in March.  In late March, Walmart is closing the last two locations it has in Portland, Oregon.  The company's official line about the closings is that it has to do with store performances, customer needs, and other corporate speak.  Does anyone doubt that this probably has a lot to do with theft?  Portland is a hotbed of leftism, and for the last few years, shoplifting has become a norm for the left.

Portland's mayor turns down Nike's request for help with theft, Walmart closing remaining stores in the city.  Earlier this week Jazz wrote about an unusual request made by Nike directly to Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler.  Nike's store in Northeast Portland has been closed for months because of ongoing retail theft and the company wrote to ask if it could either pay to hire additional cops to patrol the area or pay off duty cops to do so.  Today, Mayor Wheeler said no. [...] That's a roundabout way of saying the city still hasn't nearly recovered from it's brush with defunding the police.  An exceptionally stupid idea that the city embraced in 2020, sending experienced officers running for the exits.  But the mayor's letter also suggested that Nike may be part of the problem by refusing to allow [its] own on site security to detain shoplifters.

Black Murders Matter.  In the 1960s, 90% of murders were solved.  That fell to 75% in 1980, and 60% in 2000.  In the year of Black Lives Matter, the homicide clearance rate fell so low that it became a 'coin flip'.  The media reported that only 50% of murders were being solved.  What was less reported was that this mainly reflected a drop in solving black murders.  Homicide clearance rates for white people have actually improved since the 1980s and reached a high during the Obama administration even as black homicide clearance rates dropped catastrophically.  In the 70s, 80% of the murders of black people were solved.  Under Obama, only 60% were.  As the Freedom Center had previously revealed in its investigative reporting, Black Lives Matter, its allied police defunding, decarceration and decriminalization movement helped lead to a nearly 30% surge in murders with 2,244 more black people being murdered.

California attorney suspended for calling a male convicted child-molester... a male.  The attorney who prosecuted a 26-year-old child-molester has been suspended by Los Angeles D.A.  George Gascon.  "Hannah" Tubbs, the convicted child-molester, started calling himself a woman only after DNA evidence linked him to a previous crime, according to law enforcement sources.  Shea Sanna, who had been the lead prosecutor for part of the case, was suspended after being accused of misgendering and "deadnaming" Tubbs, who, speaking of deadnaming, is now also accused of beating Michael Clark to death with a rock in a wooded area in Kern County.  Unbelievable.  At least I wish it were.

Crime and No Punishment in Massachusetts.  The Massachusetts state legislature must have failed to pass a 142-strikes-and-you're-out legislation just days earlier.  The liberal legislature deems such legislation too harsh on misunderstood criminals, who deserve just one more chance.  The criminal in question, Derek M.  Lindsay, was the berserker dad who made national news in May 2007 after he got into a fight with parents and police at a McDonald's playground after telling his kid to push the other kids out of the way to get to Ronald McDonald.  But that was among his least serious offenses.  More recently, he had been charged in March of this year with attempted murder for stabbing someone at a local tattoo parlor.  So naturally, the local judges let this model citizen go free back into society back in March.  Thus, his 143rd arraignment this week.  Throughout Massachusetts, but particularly in the City of Taunton, such events are commonplace.

A Massive Prison Is Now Home For 40,000 Gang Members In El Salvador.  Now, this is how a nation takes care of a violent crime problem.  Rather than coddling violent thugs like Soros-supported prosecutors are in major American cities, El Salvador is throwing all of theirs behind bars.  On Friday, a 40,000 person prison facility, known as the Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT) officially opened, and 2,000 gang members became new residents.  These include members of the most violent gangs in the world, including MS-13.  El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele made the announcement via Twitter, accompanied by a video.

El Salvador unveils new mega-prison for gangs.  Chilling photos show the first hardcore gangbangers moved into a new mega-prison in El Salvador that President Nayib Bukele has boasted is "impossible to escape."  Snaps from inside the Center for the Confinement of Terrorism — built by El Salvadoran officials hellbent on winning their war against violent street gangs — show heavily tattooed, barefoot and stripped-down inmates chained and kneeling shoulder to shoulder as heavily armed guards tower over them, according to the BBC.  The prisoners are forced to crouch down with their hands behind their heads while chained inside the massive facility, which authorities claim is the largest in the Americas.

Leftist prison policies around 'transgenderism' put women at serious risk.  It's amazing how many violent male criminals, especially those in prison for rape, discover that they are, in fact, "transgender women."  Suitably woke jurisdictions then hasten to transfer these same "women" to women's prisons.  That's invariably followed by reports of women finding themselves terrorized in those same prisons.  2023 has offered two stunning headlines about the issue of violent men finding ways to get into women's prisons.  The first headline is that Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland's very powerful, very woke National Party leader and first minister, was forced to resign after eight years in large part because of her stance on putting violent male criminals in women's prisons (she's for it).

Maryland bill would block minors from being charged as adults.  The Maryland state Senate recently introduced SB 93, named the Youth Equity & Safety Act.  This latest attempt at so-called "justice reform" would end the practice of charging juvenile suspects under the age of 18 as adults.  Proponents of the bill claim that younger offenders don't receive the resources they need in an adult prison while going through the juvenile court system makes them "less likely to re-offend."  (They offered no data to back up that assertion.)  This is a stunning proposal to put forward at a time when Baltimore has seen seven straight years with more than 300 murders and a very sizable portion of the offenders (when they manage to identify and arrest a suspect) are minors that are recruited by the gangs, some of whom are barely old enough for middle school.

The Editor says...
Ax yourself this question:  If this idea becomes law, will violent crime increase or decrease?

America Is Becoming a Corrupt Country.  Shoplifting, flash robberies, and rampant crime have dramatically increased since so many jurisdictions have dramatically raised the dollar threshold of felony theft (in some places, stealing something worth $950 is a misdemeanor).  Police won't waste time arresting crooks who prosecutors won't prosecute.  The result is that petty theft on a grand scale has become a way of life for tens of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of people.  Target alone estimates that it lost $600 million last year to theft in the San Francisco Bay region.  Add to this the rises in carjacking, burglary, and mugging.  The rise in crime inherently means more criminals and more acceptance of living on someone else's money.

Biden installed: What could possibly go wrong?  Crime is up all over the nation because the left is pro-criminal.  Criminals are coddled, and turned loose to prey on citizens again.  Los Angeles district attorney is a case in point:  George Gascón never met a violent criminal he didn't want to set free.  Downtown LA is no longer safe to enjoy, nor is it the thriving hub of culture it once was; it has been taken over by the homeless population (as has San Francisco).  The homeless, a population almost entirely mentally ill and/or drug addicted, are often a danger to those who cross their paths.  They need psychiatric care, but in California they get syringes.  They're left to taunt the public, to defecate on the streets, and ruin the cities they inhabit.  Like so many other Democrat-run hellscapes, LA and SF are unlikely to recover without a political shift.

How Many Americans Will Woke Soros Prosecutors Get Killed?  My colleagues and I spend a lot of time writing about the various ways woke people are trying to destroy the United States of America.  At times it seems like we could devote our efforts to just that and still not cover everything.  [Indeed], we could just focus on what the woke plague is doing to our schools and have our hands full.  And it would be a most noble endeavor.  The left, however, tries to overload us on multiple fronts, especially when it comes to the woke wars.  The battle against radical woke ideology isn't just about the supremacy of ideas.  Woke policies put people in physical peril.  Crime is spiking in blue cities and counties that have had woke, progressive prosecutors installed by evil billionaire George Soros.  That's not just a complaint by rightwing nutjobs like me.  Things got so bad, so quickly in San Francisco under Soros DA Chesa Boudin that the far-left loons there recalled him.  Another Soros plant has left a legacy, this time it's a body count.

The Michigan State suspect was previously arrested for illegally carrying a concealed gun but prosecutors dropped the felony charge against him.  [I]f this is a man with a history of mental health issues who had police called to his home multiple times for gun-related reasons — then why did the prosecutors drop the charges against him or fail to bring any new charges (or an extension of his probation at the least!) forward?  You'll never hear it from the prosecutors, of course.  But if if McRae was a white man with a MAGA hat, somehow I think the gavel of justice would have banged a little harder.  I know that's a loaded statement, but if you know anything about the far-left policies of Michigan's capital city and MSU (which comprises most of the eastern portion of the city), you'd suspect that woke justice reform policies might very well have led to this outcome.

Forget 'Defund The Police': There's A New Movement To Handcuff The Cops.  Leaders in multiple states and cities are embracing efforts to bar police from pulling drivers over for certain less-severe traffic violations, a move that some experts believe endangers public safety.  Lawmakers in Washington state are pushing a plan that would forbid police traffic stops conducted to address some lower-level traffic lawbreaking, and Oregon has already established a similar policy, while San Francisco is considering a city-wide plan of this kind after Los Angeles and Minneapolis instituted their own.  Such restrictions could effectively impede enforcement against more serious offenses and put innocent civilians at risk, according to experts who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Why Biden infringes on the right to bear arms.  Advocating that guns are the reason for increasing crime is a distraction from failing crime-control policies.  These policies are the reason crime has steadily risen: 1) a decrease in prosecuting violent crimes,  2) an increase in catch and release bail,  3) defunding cities' and towns' police forces,  4) an increase in early prison release, and  5) an increase in little or no jail time for violent offenders.  Those are the real reasons for increased violent gun related crimes, not law-abiding citizens' gun ownership.  The philosophy that the police and prisons are the reason for high crime is wrong and not the belief of mainstream America.  The Left would love for everyone to believe that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens result in high rates of gun-related crimes.

Thug Loads Up A Giant Bag With Air Jordans In Brooklyn.  This thug in Brooklyn knows the laws are on his side as the employee filming him states.  Thieves in NYC know they can steal at will and no one is allowed to touch them.  Even if they get arrested, they will be let go within a couple of hours.  [Video clip]

A Century of Homicides.  The revolving door crime wave exploded in the 1960s, putting the criminals back on the street before the police could fill out the paperwork.  Over the last year I talked to a thousand people about crime and not one, including criminal justice professionals and elected officials, could tell me how this revolving door started in the 1960s.  Some suggested the Great Society, drugs, or the disintegration of the American family, but these came later.  Crime shot up like a Saturn V rocket because it was deliberate policy to open up the jails and let criminals walk.  Supreme Court justices, other top judges, intellectuals, criminologists, and the U.S. attorney general all proclaimed prison confinement a medieval idea and that behavioral 'scientists' would simply rehabilitate the criminals.  The results were disastrous.  Homicides more than doubled and all other categories of crime quadrupled or more.  Progressives refused to reverse course and fought against sentencing reform for decades.

Dem-Led City Reports Highest Violent Crime Rate In 15 Years After Defunding Police.  Seattle's violent crime rate rose to its highest point in 15 years in 2022, with reported homicides surging by about 24% compared to 2021, according to the Seattle Police Department's (SPD) Year-End Crime Report, more than a year after the city cut its police budget.  Rapes and aggravated assaults increased by about 4% and 5% respectively, contributing to 5,591 total reported violent offenses, a roughly 4% spike, the report shows.  Though arson and burglaries declined, 1,596 more motor vehicle thefts were reported, and Seattle ended up with an around 4% higher overall crime in 2022 despite a fourth-quarter reduction.  Seattle's City Council reduced SPD funding by almost 17% in its 2021 budget following the George Floyd protests of summer 2020.  The city's 2023 budget funds Democratic Mayor Bruce Harrell's officer recruitment and retention plan but eliminates 30 unfilled SPD positions, The Seattle Times reported.

Which city is the murder capital of the country?  There is some debate as to which US metropolis gets the gold medal in this regard.  According to one calculation (annual number of murders per 100,000 population) this is the lineup:
  [#1]   St. Louis, MO (69.4)
  [#2]   Baltimore, MD (51.1)
  [#3]   New Orleans, LA (40.6)
  [#4]   Detroit, MI (39.7)
  [#5]   Cleveland, OH (33.7)
  [#6]   Las Vegas, NV (31.4)
  [#7]   Kansas City, MO (31.2)
  [#8]   Memphis, TN (27.1)
  [#9]   Newark, NJ (25.6)
  [#10]   Chicago, IL (24)
  [#11]   Cincinnati, OH (23.8)
  [#12]   Philadelphia, PA (20.2)
  [#13]   Milwaukee, WI (20.0)
  [#14]   Tulsa, OK (18.6)
  [#15]   Pittsburgh, PA (18.4)
  [#16]   Indianapolis, IN (17.7)
  [#17]   Louisville, KY (17.5)
  [#18]   Oakland, CA (17.1)
  [#19]   Washington D.C. (17.0)
  [#20]   Atlanta, GA (16.7)
According to another study, New Orleans is now number 1.  However you calculate it, there is no debate that the murder rate is high and rising.

The disappearing law-enforcement presence in San Francisco.  Last month a group of business owners in Seattle gathered for a town hall to discuss persistent crime in the city.  All of the owners had experienced break-ins, often several of them in a year.  And the cost to repair broken windows and doors was often more than the value of whatever thieves had stolen.  Several of the owners had been dropped by their insurance because they'd made too many claims.  They wondered why the police never seemed to have time to walk around their neighborhood at night to keep the thieves at bay.  The situation doesn't seem to be much different in San Francisco.  When Joe Vernieri, the owner of the Black Magic Voodoo Lounge, reported his bar had been broken into it took police 15 hours to respond and even then they responded in the middle of the night when no one was around. [...] So as far as Vernieri is concerned there are no police in San Francisco.  None that will help him.

Massachusetts bill would allow prisoners to 'donate' their organs in exchange for freedom.  There is a certain demographic that appears to be on an organized mission to show the rest of us just how immoral and backward its philosophies really are. [...] The scheme sure does scream of ecological dystopian fiction come to life.  It reminds me of a fairly modern literary creation, Cloud Atlas, in which a futuristic government "recycles" human clones into food, or even the iconic Soylent Green.  What's most amazing to me, though, is that despite the overt echoes of nightmarish Orwellian societies, or even communist China, hordes of Americans will still vote for these whack jobs, even at their own peril.

The Editor says...
Almost all prison inmates are incarcerated because of their own bad decisions.  Don't offer them an incentive to make even more regrettable decisions!  If the prisoner is on death row, this scheme might work in reverse:  We were going to execute you tomorrow night, but if you'll give up a kidney, we'll postpone your death for six weeks.  Sign here.

11 US cities — all governed by Democratic mayors — listed among 50 most dangerous in world.  Eleven U.S. cities rank among the 50 most dangerous in the world, according to a recent report published by Numbeo, a global quality of life database.  All 11 are governed by Democratic mayors.  Three U.S. cities — Baltimore, Memphis and Detroit — are ranked among the 20 most dangerous cities on the planet.  The three cities have more in common than just violent crime.  All three are run by Democrats.  Baltimore ranks #15 on the annual dangerous cities list, with Memphis and Detroit close behind at #18 and #19, respectively.  Brandon Scott, just 38 years of age, is the mayor of Baltimore.  Jim Strickland Jr., an attorney and politician, is the 64th and current mayor of Memphis, where the Memphis police department has just announced plans to permanently deactivate the unit that five of the officers involved in the vicious beating of Tyre Nichols belonged to.  Mike Duggan, meanwhile, is currently serving as the mayor of Detroit.

Let Criminal Faces Be Shown.  [Scroll down] Long prison sentences and capital punishment act as deterrents.  To begin with, an offender in prison or executed cannot repeat the offense, as a large majority of released criminals do.  The recidivism rate among criminals is as high as 85%, dependent on how and where it is calculated.  (This is another fact that is difficult to obtain and is certainly not widely reported in the media.) It's also important to understand what recidivism actually means: it means that 85% of those released from prison commit another offense and are caught within a certain period of time (often calculated as being within one year).  Obviously, the actual rate of recidivism is higher than what is officially recorded.  Admittedly, long prison sentences are not a solution; they are a Band-Aid, but they are the only Band-Aid that exists.  Long sentences are not just protective of the public; they are also merciful to offenders, who at least are spared the dangers of a criminal life on the streets.  Prison may be unpleasant, but it is relatively safe compared to the daily violence of gang life and eventual confrontation with armed citizens or the police.

How the Deep State Destroyers Threaten Your Way of Life.  The Destroyers know they have limited time to do their mischief before they're found out.  Once light shines on them, like cockroaches, they'll scurry to the darkest recesses they can find.  These people know that the clock is ticking, and it is getting harder and harder to hide the damage they are doing to us all. [...] Those working to destroy us don't want — they even fear — a strongly ethical country.  We always come back to the obvious:  morality and ethics are essential to keep society on the straight and narrow.  We live in a world where 1 + 1 no longer equals two, and where doing the right thing can make you an object of ridicule or, even worse, see you sued, beaten up, or prosecuted.  Prosecutors aren't even prosecuting theft, hit and run, or assault in some jurisdictions.

Another Day, Another Walgreens Getting Robbed.  No one blinked, they are so used to it because of California's crazy laws that benefit criminals and punish honest business owners.  [Video clip]

Due to crime and vagrancy, Chase Bank announces some ATMs in NYC will close at night.  Mayor Eric Adams didn't hold back Monday when asked about a decision from Chase Bank to close some of their city ATMs during overnight hours, citing crime and vagrancy concerns.  Customers didn't hold back, either.  Using an ATM is exactly what Sunny Ng wanted to do last Tuesday night, but when he tried to enter a Chase ATM vestibule in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the only paper he got was a warning that, for now, the once 24-hour ATMs will close at 10 p.m.  "The advantage of using Chase is that they have so many ATMs, and so for it to close at night is kind of unbelievable," Ng said.

Man Rapes Two Women, 'Transitions,' Then Is Sent To Women's Prison.  Adam Graham, a male, raped two women between 2016 and 2019.  Now, after identifying as Isla Bryson, a transgender female, the suspect is being sent to an all-female prison in Scotland, the Daily Mail reported.  Previously, Graham was a shaved-headed, "muscular" man with face tattoos.  It was during that stage in his life that he raped at least two women, one in 2016 and one in 2019.  Graham claimed the women made the "first move," but the women who were raped obviously disagreed.  One claimed to have repeatedly stated, "No," and the other said Graham raped her when they were planning to watch the movie Mean Girls.  But in 2020, Graham began to identify as a female when he "first appeared to face the rape charges," claiming he'd had "gender issues" since age four.

NYC bodegas padlock laundry detergent as shoplifting scourge hits new low.  Desperate Bronx grocers are cracking down on serial thieves by slipping steel chains through the handles of laundry detergent bottles and securing them with padlocks — a new low in the shoplifting scourge across the Big Apple.  "I put the detergent in jail," lamented Jose Dario Collado, owner of Yankee Food Deli in University Heights, which began locking up $27.99 bottles of Tide and $12.99 containers of Dreft because thieves were cleaning up — to the tune of at least $1,000 a month in detergent alone.

America doesn't have a crime problem: a few zip codes do.  For all the talk about a new crime wave sweeping the country, almost the entire country is safe from homicidal maniacs.  In most neighborhoods in the country — or even in the counties where the murders are concentrated — people are perfectly safe.  Crime is concentrated in remarkably few areas.  Those are the findings of the Crime Prevention Research Center.  And of common sense, if you think about it.  Unless you live in a bad part of town you don't worry about taking a stroll through a neighborhood and are totally shocked if something does happen in otherwise safe areas.

Woke Law Requires Prosecutors to Drop 69% of Criminal Cases In NYC.  New York City is amongst some of the top crime-ridden places in the U.S., thanks to soft-on-crime policies and Democrat-run leaders.  A new law is forcing prosecutors to release suspects, putting them back on the street sans consequences, only making the city's crime problem heighten.  According to a new study obtained by the New York Post, 69 percent of criminal cases were dropped due to justice "reforms."  In 2019, the year new "discovery" rules were adopted by state lawmakers, 44 percent of cases were dismissed, rising to 69 percent by mid-October 2021, according to the Manhattan Institute.  For misdemeanor cases, the rate increased from 49 percent to 82 percent during the same period.

Shocking!  Who could have predicted this?
After Seattle Defunded Its Police, Local Business Owners Say Crime Is Worse Than Ever.  Two years after Seattle slashed its police budget, local business owners say crime has skyrocketed, with police unable to deal with thefts, homelessness and open-air drug use that plague the city.  Seattle and broader King County had more than 13,000 homeless people within its boundaries in 2022, more than every other similar area except Los Angeles County and New York City, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, while the Seattle Police Department (SPD) lost more than 130 officers, KOMO News reported, as homicides, shootings and motor vehicle thefts increased.  Local business owners say law enforcement is failing to effectively deter the rampant drug use and theft disturbing their livelihoods[.]  Rohan Joseph, owner of Elliot Bay Community Fitness in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood, has been posting videos on Twitter for months of people doing drugs, trying to sleep or otherwise causing disturbances outside his business.

Does DC want to be the carjacking capital of the USA?  Washington, D.C.'s city council has just provided incontrovertible proof of the willful incompetence of the gun control movement.  The same people who want to outlaw the possession of firearms by law-abiding people passed legislation to reduce penalties for carjacking, home invasion, and similar violent crimes.  Use of a gun to commit a violent felony in the nation's capital can now be punished by no more than four years in prison.  This makes it clear that the D.C. city council has no real desire to keep firearms away from violent criminals who really shouldn't have them, and the legislation is so dysfunctional that Mayor Muriel Bowser, who is certainly no conservative, intends to veto it.  It also makes Washington, D.C. the ideal place for carjackers, robbers, home invaders, and gun felons to ply their trades because, in contrast to almost every other jurisdiction in the United States, they won't get much prison time.  If you want to stick a gun in somebody's face to demand money, then you should do it in D.C., where you can't get more than four years (unless U.S. attorneys step in, as discussed below).  If you want to force somebody out of a car at gunpoint, then D.C. is the place to do it.  If you do it in Florida, you can get up to life in prison.

First 2023 Murder in Seattle Carried Out by Thug Freed by Bail Fund.  Most people have stopped paying attention to bail funds aside from the time that Kamala Harris tweeted support for the Minnesota Freedom Fund during the BLM race riots.  While MFF's policy of bailing out arrested criminals has proven fatal, it's not the only bail fund with lethal consequences.  The Seattle and Portland bail funds have had their own death toll.  Including the first murder of 2023 in Seattle. [...] There have been a number of cases of bail funds freeing domestic abusers only for it to end in violence and even murder.  And, each time, the bail fund claims that it could never have seen this coming.

Biden's 'Parole' Scheme Makes 'Patsies' of Those Who Abide by Law.  President Joe Biden just announced the addition of Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua to his "successful" Venezuela "parole" program.  As they watch Biden invent a completely new — and likely unconstitutional — "pathway" to facilitate illegal immigration, I wonder how the millions of Americans, their family members, and others patiently waiting in line for visas must feel.  Patsies?  Suckers?  Mugs, marks, or saps, maybe?  As someone who not only immigrated legally, but also worked thousands of visa cases as a consular officer, this administration's arrogant disregard for the law and precedent makes my blood boil.

What if there was a real coup and nobody noticed?  The Democrats were wrong that there was an insurrection on January 6.  However, they are correct that there has been a government takeover in America.  Typically, though, they're pointing in the wrong direction.  The coup came from the left, not the right. [...] Leftists have also corrupted law enforcement and the judiciary, resulting in a two-tier justice system that excessively prosecutes and punishes any who oppose the deep state.  Through leftist activism, law enforcement and the judiciary have consciously and concertedly worked to change the rules so as to deny justice for political reasons while providing leniency to friends of the developing police state.  On a broader perspective, federal law enforcement and the judiciary have adopted a "Diversity Equity and Inclusion" system that coddles violent felons and thieves.  (Democrat-run states have done the same.)  This has caused great harm and demoralized a populace that is now unable to rely on adequate and effective justice or basic levels of safety and security in the streets and homes.

Washington lawmaker with past convictions introduces bill to pay state prisoners minimum wage.  A Washington state lawmaker who is a former convict is aiming to start paying inmates for working prison jobs.  Democratic Rep. Tarra Simmons said in a statement, "This is an evolution of slavery," and is proposing that the convicted felons be paid minimum wage for working in the kitchen or while producing other goods.  Simmons is an attorney and co-founder/director of the Civil Survival Project, an organization that advocates for former convicts.

Our government is failing us.  Retail theft is a huge problem across the country, costing businesses more than $94 billion in 2021.  How does California's legislature address it?  By passing laws that resulted in the "de facto" legalization of shoplifting.  Lawlessness is rampant in the Golden State generally, which now also has the largest homeless population in the country, complete with drug use and dirty needles, urination and piles of human feces in the streets of its major cities, and the infectious diseases that accompany lack of cleanliness.

It's Time to Take Back Our Streets From Criminals.  The streets of America are in chaos.  Amidst the chaos, young people are taking advantage of the situation to loot and destroy stores, with no regard for the safety of others.  Videos of these ruthless thieves have gone viral, showing them ransacking stores and taking whatever they can get their hands on.  The cost of this "smash-and-grab" behavior is staggering, with stores losing billions of dollars.  And who ultimately pays the price?  The consumers, of course, as the cost is passed on to them.  It's a frightening and dangerous situation that shows no signs of stopping.  As the chaos on the streets continues to escalate, the criminals have become bolder than ever.  In broad daylight, they are now stealing with impunity.  Recently, a video went viral of a group of young men stealing tens of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise from an Apple store on Black Friday.  Astonishingly, the patrons and store employees told the thieves to take what they wanted and didn't interfere.  This is the state of our society today:  We are allowing people to steal without any consequences.

The Editor says...
Law and order can be restored overnight, but it won't be pretty.  Shoplifting can be stopped immediately, by shooting thieves on their way out the door.  Arsonists should be shot on sight.  Rioters, too.  And anyone who goes to prison should stay there for the entirety of their sentence.  This will result in much bloodshed, and instantly lower crime rates.  The word on the street will spread quickly.  But all this will never happen.  Today's politicians don't have the backbone to implement such a system, especially on the west coast, after letting conditions deteriorate for so long.

Why Crime Will Explode In 2023.  If you reward criminals with fewer consequences, crime grows exponentially.  So mark January 1st 2024 on the calendar.  Today January 1st 2023, a new law goes into effect.  The law will leave a major impact on the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago.  In some circles it is being touted as "the most dangerous law in America."  All for good reason.  The new law closely mirrors criminal "reforms" that have now been in effect for two years here in New York.  In short it seeks to "right the wrongs" of "unfair" law enforcement and to press its thumb on the side of those previously disenfranchised.  This is mostly just a way to say that the woke left is attempting to bring down effective law enforcement in another big state, create chaos, and further allow that environment of anarchy to bring about their culturally marxist ideals.  We've seen the pattern across the nation.

Illinois Supreme Court Halts Elimination of Cash-Bail.  Just hours before the controversial legal overhaul known as the SAFE-T Act was set to take effect in Illinois, the state's supreme court postponed the bill's abolition of the cash-bail system.  The SAFE-T Act, set to take effect on January 1, would eliminate the cash-bail system through a provision known as the Pretrial Fairness Act.  The provision drew bipartisan criticism, including from many law-enforcement officials who deemed the move unconstitutional and a danger to public safety.  The Illinois supreme court has not set a date to hear appeals in the case, so it's unclear when or whether the provision eliminating cash-bail will take effect.

Illinois Supreme Court puts end of cash bail on hold until further notice.  The Illinois Supreme Court has ordered courts statewide to continue operating on the cash bail system until further notice, according to an order issued by the court Saturday afternoon [12/31/2022].  A provision of the SAFE-T Act criminal justice reform bill scheduled to go into effect on January 1 would have eliminated cash bail across the state.  But a Kankakee County judge found that portion of the law unconstitutional last week.  The Supreme Court's action stems from a filing by DuPage County State's Attorney Robert Berlin and Kane County State's Attorney Jamie Mosser on Friday afternoon that sought guidance from the Supreme Court to clear up confusion about whether the Kankakee County judge's decision affected all 102 counties or only the 60-plus counties that were involved in the lawsuit that challenged the SAFE-T Act.

America's 'most dangerous law' goes into effect.  Illinois law enforcement is preparing new ways to best serve and protect law-abiding citizens as the state's new sweeping criminal justice reform bill takes effect Sunday, a local sheriff said. [...] Illinois' Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today (SAFE-T) Act, which went into effect Jan. 1, overhauled Illinois' justice system with provisions like limiting when defendants can be deemed flight risks and allowing defendants under electronic monitoring to leave home for 48 hours before they can be charged with escape.  It was also supposed to eliminate cash bail, but the state's Supreme Court stayed that portion hours before the law was set to take effect.

Our government 'protectors' are releasing savages onto our streets!  Every time I see a news story about another grisly crime, committed by someone with a long rap sheet, it makes me realize how vulnerable we are to the criminals in our orbit.  Once upon a time, there was something called a "three-time loser," meaning that someone arrested three times for serious crimes would be considered too dangerous to be walking freely among innocent people.  That didn't mean an execution, or a life sentence, unless one of the crimes included murder.  However, it did mean that the recidivist criminal would be put away long enough either to learn that crime doesn't pay or at least to stay off the street.  Not anymore!  The justice system, which we pay billions of dollars for every year, does a pathetic job of serving up justice.

Judge rules Illinois cashless bail law is unconstitutional, handing prosecutors a win.  A state judge ruled late Wednesday that Illinois' SAFE-T act was unconstitutional, handing prosecutors a major win just days before the cashless bail law was set to take effect.  Kankakee County Circuit Court Judge Thomas W. Cunnington concluded the state legislature "improperly attempted to amend the [Illinois] Constitution" by ending cash bail with the Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today Act.  The SAFE-T Act, a sweeping law addressing police regulations, criminal justice issues and how courts handle criminal defendants originally passed in January 2021.  Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the measure last year.

NYC Mayor Declares "Big Brother is Protecting You".  New York City Mayor Eric Adams responded to criticism over increasing the use of facial recognition technology by declaring, "Big Brother is protecting you!"  Adams made the comments in response to elected officials who expressed concerns that using such technology could lead to an all-pervasive surveillance state.  Blaming his predecessor Bill de Blasio, Adams asserted that New Yorkers felt they were living in a "state of lawlessness" and that his priority was to "stabilise" the situation.  Facial recognition technology uses surveillance cameras to flag up individuals who appear on databases of criminal suspects when they enter certain public locations, although the technology is far from perfect.

A Man Who Murdered His Parents Will Serve His Time as a Woman.  Another man who identifies as a woman has apparently been transferred to the women's wing of a prison in Maine.  That such a thing should happen is nothing new in and of itself.  PJ Media and other outlets have reported on similar situations in other states.  But the nature and scope of this crime are startling.  Maine resident Andrew Balcer is a convicted murderer.  Reduxx reports that on Halloween night in 2016, Balcer, then 17, stabbed his mother and father and then killed the family dog. [...] The case was in court for years.  Balcer, who now calls himself Andrea, claimed to have suffered physical and sexual abuse at the hands of his parents, something that his brother vehemently denies.  But he also said that an impetus for his crimes was the fact that his parents were not supportive of his gender transition.

Chinese Waiter's Lawsuit Shuts Down Bail Fund That Freed His Shooter.  The proliferation of pro-crime bail funds that seek to free criminals in states and municipalities that haven't followed New York's footsteps in eliminating bail has led to a lot of misery and suffering.  But then one man did something about it.  He stood up and fought back against the millionaire pro-crime lobby responsible.  And he won a partial victory.  This is a David vs.  Goliath story.  The media would love if it weren't Goliath.  That's one reason this is hardly getting any coverage.

Why a Bail Reform Group Decided to Shut Down.  I'm sure you can guess why a bail reform group had to close its operations in California: the people they were setting free decided to continue their life of crime.  The last straw was this latest person they had sprung from jail who proceeded to shoot a server eleven times.  Shocker — a career criminal, gets his bail posted by these clowns and proceeds to shoot up a restaurant.  Now, who couldn't have seen that coming?

Don't Buy What Democrats Are Selling as Reality.  Under their new pseudo-reality, the Democrats would have us believe there is equal justice under the law, while the truth is that conservative Americans are regularly charged, convicted, and sentenced to maximum penalties.  Conversely, Democrats like the great majority of BLM and Antifa rioters go scot-free after committing felonious crimes.  Democrats like Hunter Biden are not prosecuted at all in the face of overwhelming evidence of significant criminal wrongdoing.  There is no longer equal justice under the law in our country.  It is now an unequal, two-tiered justice system.

DOJ looking to release inmates who have been victims of abuse behind bars on compassionate release program.  Reports indicate that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is looking to expand the use of a current program to give early release to women who have been abused while incarcerated.  [Tweet]  Towards the end of November, Assistant Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco began to urge top officials at the Bureau of Prisons (BOP), a divisions of the DOJ, to create a list of inmates who have been assaulted by prison staff and who may qualify for the department's underutilized Compassionate Release Program.  Data shows that abuse against women who are incarcerated has been happening for several decades, but this new push comes amid revelations about the extent of that abuse and the unwillingness of many prison officials at all levels of the system to address that crisis.

Shoplifting has reportedly become a $94.5B problem for US retailers.  A nationwide shoplifting epidemic is crippling the finances of brick-and-mortar retailers, which warn that they may be forced to raise prices or even shutter stores in order to offset tens of billions of dollars in lost inventory.  The National Retail Foundation is estimating that it lost $94.5 billion last year due to "shrink" — an industry term that means lost inventory — which is being blamed primarily on shoplifting, according to the Wall Street Journal.  Shrink measures losses including theft by employees and product damage, but the greatest portion of shrink — 37% — came from external theft, including products taken during organized shoplifting heists, the trade group said.

Krasner's Philly: Win your freedom after 25 years on Death Row, get executed on the street.  It continually baffles me why these Democratic bastions go for the most mediocre — sometimes outright malevolent — hands down worst choices every single time.  City residents watch their world dissolve around them, solely through the actions of the very individuals they return to office time and time again, yet nothing but nothing will shake them free of their mindless devotion to their own destruction.  New York City's a terrific example of that mindset.  So is Philadelphia. [...] In January, the city is due to reassess whether their new community-based programs to reduce gun violence have produced results.  That will depend on what their definition of "results" is and how lucrative the community found the grants from the programs.

America's Growing Political Impotence.  [Scroll down]  Just as exasperating is the huge increase in shoplifting, much of it going unpunished.  Here we watch security camera footage of shoplifters strolling the isles stuffing their booty into plastic bags while "guards" calmly observe the thievery.  Apathy is apparently the official corporate policy as if smash and grabbers were just regular customers, albeit non-paying ones.  And, in those rare instances where the culprit is apprehended, he almost immediately returns to "work," all to be repeated dozens of times.  Even for those not personally witnessing this unpunished thievery, its existence is conspicuous by the sudden appearance of glass doors in drug stores putting toothpaste and soap under lock and key.  This is an epidemic not of stealing per se, but of thievery that nobody bothers to stop, let alone punishes.

Pedophile rapist transferred to women's prison.  If you were sentenced to prison, ask yourself this: would you rather serve in a women's prison, or a men's prison?  Add in this factor:  you were convicted of sexually abusing a 13 year-old girl multiple times.  How about then?  Brett David Sonia, who also goes by the name Brooke Lyn Sonia, was recently given the choice and unsurprisingly he chose to be jailed with the women.

Chicago's Protections for Felons, Gang Members Ensures Zero Criminal Illegal Aliens are Turned Over to Feds.  The sanctuary city of Chicago is turning zero criminal illegal aliens over to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency for arrest and deportation in part thanks to Mayor Lori Lightfoot's (D) protections for gang members and felons.  In the third quarter of 2022, city records show that none of the three ICE detainers filed with Chicago police — requesting custody of criminal illegal aliens — were honored.  Likely hundreds, potentially thousands, more illegal aliens were arrested in Chicago during the period, but ICE agents have been restricted in issuing detainers by the Biden administration.

The terrible consequences of stolen elections and government corruption.  Homeless Americans, nearly all of them mentally ill and/or drug-addicted, are abandoned onto the streets of Democrat-run cities like detritus but Biden ignores them.  Cities like San Francisco, Baltimore, Detroit, and parts of Chicago have been turned over to these forgotten and abused people, destroying the quality of life for its law-abiding citizens.  The destruction of once-great cities at the direction of Soros-installed DAs and Secretaries of State who have all favored violent criminals over law-abiding citizens continues to escalate.  No consequences?  More crime, of course.  The left craves chaos and knows exactly how to incite it:  encourage it, permit it and fail to punish crime.  What we have now is orchestrated chaos, crime encouraged and permitted.

Democrats Want to Abolish Prisons.  Following the midterm elections, Democrats gained two new members who have already been outspoken in their progressive beliefs.  Rep.-elect Summer Lee (D-PA) has openly advocated for socialist policies.  "Instead of 'thanking' Black women, Black voters, and especially, Black organizers... give us the investments we need and deserve, redistribute wealth, ends police violence, abolish the carceral state, commit to building Black directed political power... and reparations," Lee said.  Last year, Lee introduced a bill that would end cash bail in Pennsylvania.  She has insisted that the majority of those who are arrested don't pose a threat to society, therefore shouldn't have to go to jail just because they can't afford their bail.  In 2016, Lee classified Pennsylvania's system of bail as "a flaw in our system of justice" and "a threat to equal justice under the law."

Where in the world is 'La Barbie'?  It's no secret that Joe Biden's open borders has fattened Mexico's notorious cartels with profits from the human trafficking and "crossing fees" from illegal migrants.  According to an ICE official, cited here, they "earn" between $2 billion and $6 billion a year from border crossing "fees" alone.  More illegal migrants, more fees for the cartels.  And that rolling cash does and will have knock-on effects, starting from the increased violence in Mexico to its spillover effect from Mexico to the states.  But now we're seeing a funny turn in events that raises natural questions about a connection as well as just how well U.S. prisons are run:  ["]A cartel leader and hitman fond of videotaping torture sessions and decapitating likely dozens of enemies has gone missing from a federal prison in Florida, where he was serving a 49-year sentence.  As of November, Edgar Valdez-Villareal, a Mexican American cartel leader, had been mysteriously removed from the federal Bureau of Prisons website.  He is now listed as "not in BOP custody" even though his release date is not until July 27, 2056.["]

California Releases Thousands of Convicted Pedophiles Within a Year of Conviction.  California has released thousands of convicted pedophiles after spending only a few months in prison.  Such pedophiles have been convicted of "a range of horrific acts, including raping kids under 14," according to the study investigation conducted by the U.K. Daily Mail.  More than 7,000 persons convicted of "lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 years of age" have been released in the same year they were convicted.  Convicts who committed even more heinous crimes, such as sodomy and rape of children, also served short sentences.

Now the Truth Can Be Told.  In focusing on America's rising rates of violent crime leading up to the midterm elections, Republicans were routinely accused of playing a dirty trick on voters.  "We don't really have a common definition of what crime means," crime-statistics analyst Jeff Asher asserted in an October interview with NPR.  Apparently, the range of activities that constituted a violation of statute made it difficult to discern what voters meant when they said "crime."  And when "crime" wasn't a nebulous concept that eluded the unsophisticated, it was cast as a problem presided over by Republicans.

The Mentally Ill and Their So-Called Advocates.  The New York Times headline blares: "New York City to Remove Mentally Ill People From Streets Against Their Will." The reality of Mayor Eric Adams's proposal is vastly more complicated.  Citing existing state law and court precedent, Adams revealed on Tuesday that the city's social workers, first responders, and city-run hospitals will be allowed to commit the violently disturbed predicated on a clinical assessment of the danger they pose to themselves and others.  This initiative is coupled with the development of a "tele-consult line" to provide police with instant access to clinicians who can, for example, help distinguish mental illness from the symptoms of drug abuse.

NYC mayor orders NYPD, FDNY to involuntarily commit people with "mental health crisis'.  New York City Mayor Eric Adams says the NYPD, FDNY, and other city agencies will start forcing homeless people who are determined to be suffering a "mental health crisis" off the streets and out of the subway system.  They will be taken to a hospital for evaluation even if they refuse to go on their own.  Adams says, "It is appropriate to use this process when a person refuses voluntary assistance and it appears that they are suffering from mental illness and are a danger to themselves due to an inability to meet their basic needs.  We believe this is the first time that a mayoral administration has given this direction on the 'basic needs' standard in official guidance."  The administration admits that the city is facing a crisis with people experiencing severe mental illnesses on the streets and in the subways.

These prosecutors promised us 'reform' but delivered chaos instead.  Technically these district attorneys are prosecutors, I suppose, but, in reality, they are really "PINOs" — Prosecutors In Name Only.  These PINOs were propelled to victory on a wave of cash from George Soros-related PACs and other left-leaning organizations with seemingly wonderful and altruistic names such as the "Fair and Just Prosecution" and "Partnership for Safety & Justice."  Most if not all of these elected prosecutors ran on a platform of "reform" as if calling something "reform" makes it magically good.  And, after they got into office, the PINOs began to experiment on the American people by unleashing their social justice agendas.  The list of PINOs, although not exhaustive, is well known:  Kim Foxx in Chicago, Alvin Bragg in Manhattan, Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, Chesa Boudin in San Francisco, Marilyn Mosby in Baltimore, George Gascón in LA, Kim Gardner in St. Louis, and many others.  I spent nearly 15 years as a prosecutor in the Cook County State's Attorney's Office in Chicago, working my way up to second in command, and I know first-hand that sensible reform does not have to sacrifice public safety.

NYC bill preventing landlords from performing criminal background checks gains traction.  A new law being seriously considered by lawmakers in New York City could strip landlords of the ability to perform criminal background checks on prospective tenants.  The legislation, known as the "Fair Chance for Housing Act", is set to go before the New York City Council's Committee on Civil Rights on December 8th and is being backed by at least 30 of the council's 51 members, New York Post reported.  In addition to being supported by a significant number of lawmakers, New York City Mayor Eric Adams has suggested he is open to working with lawmakers on the proposal.  "No one should be denied housing because they were once engaged with the criminal justice system, plain and simple," a spokesperson for the mayor's office told Fox Business in a statement.

The Editor says...
Common sense would tell you that prior criminal activity is a likely indicator of future criminal activity.  Naturally, a landlord is entitled to know about a prospective tenant's criminal background.  Unfortunately, the world of common sense is long gone, and the world of constant victimhood has taken its place.

DA says charges dropped against nearly 300 people with no public defenders.  In a sign of mounting frustration, Multnomah County's top prosecutor Monday released a list of the cases of nearly 300 people who have had charges dismissed against them this year because no public defenders were available to represent them.  People accused of car theft, fleeing police and illegally carrying guns were most likely to walk free, according to the list.  But dropped cases also include accusations of lower level assaults, domestic violence, burglary, identity theft, intoxicated driving and hit-and-run driving.  District Attorney Mike Schmidt said in a statement that he wants the public to understand the severity of the public defense crisis and that without a long-term solution the emergency will continue to pose an "urgent threat" to the community's safety.  Schmidt's move to publicize all cases that judges have dismissed — believed to be a first in Oregon — raises public awareness but also clearly is a gambit to put public pressure on the state to find a remedy.

Four California cities [are] among the ten worst in the U.S. for package theft, report finds.  Package theft in the U.S. is rapidly increasing and three in four Americans have had a package stolen from the front of their home, according to a report by SafeWise, a home security website that has been releasing a package theft report yearly.  According to the Package Theft Report published in early November, the theft of packages grew by 23 percent over the previous 12 months.  SafeWise attributes the rise, in part, to a similar rise in online shopping, which became more popular during the pandemic as millions of Americans did more shopping from home.  [...] The 10 metro areas with the most package theft [are] San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, California; Seattle-Tacoma, Washington; Austin, Texas; Hartford-New Haven, Connecticut; Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto, California; Los Angeles, California; Portland, Oregon; Fresno-Visalia, California; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; [and] New Orleans, Louisiana.

The Editor says...
What do all those cities have in common?  They are all run by left-wing "defund the police" Democrats.

Violent crime comes to previously peaceful and safe Martha's Vineyard.  And guess why.  Last Thursday, November 17, minutes after it opened for the day, a small bank in the island town of Vineyard Haven was invaded by three armed masked men.  They threatened, subdued and duct taped the employees and proceeded to make off in a stolen car with an undetermined amount of cash — after brandishing semiautomatic handguns to intimidate the bank personnel.  Nothing like this crime has ever been seen on Martha's Vineyard.  Previously, the crime rate on the small island off the southern coast of Massachusetts was almost non-existent, confined to things like DUIs and the occasional passing of a bad check.  But now, like many other blue communities that have declared themselves to be sanctuaries for illegal immigrants, things are changing. [...] This island-wide welcome mat has resulted in the presence of hundreds if not thousands of migrants who now seem to be close to outnumbering the American citizens — most of them working- or middle-class — who reside year-round on the island.  This radical and sudden demographic shift has been largely ignored by the island's news media.

22 arrested in massive train cargo burglary ring in Los Angeles; $18M in stolen goods recovered.  Officials with the Los Angeles Police Department on Thursday announced that a yearlong investigation of train cargo burglaries netted 22 arrests and $18 million in recovered merchandise.  In January, the Union Pacific Railroad Company reported a 160% nationwide increase in rail thefts, with more than 90 containers compromised every day.  "The Commercial Crimes Division detectives' investigative efforts resulted in not just countless hours of surveillance, 49 search warrants, but also the recovery of more than $18 million worth of merchandise stolen from these cargo containers.  Those containers were on trains headed to all points across the country," LAPD Chief Michel Moore said.

Maybe denial is the driving factor in the 2022 election outcome.  The starkest image emerging from the 2022 midterm elections, in my view, is the electoral map of the gubernatorial race in New York.  The criminal-friendly Democrat incumbent, Kathy Hochul, who succeeded Andrew Cuomo upon his resignation, won election to a full term by 53%.  But if you look at a map of the returns, you'll see that the whole state was swathed in red except for a few blue patches here and there representing populous counties where crime is rampant.  How do you figure that?

Hmmm: Suspect in vehicular assault on law-enforcement recruits released 24 hours later.  Twenty-five recruits for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department got mowed down by a driver on Wednesday.  Police arrested Nicholas Gutierrez for attempted murder almost immediately.  Police investigators insist that they have probable cause and evidence to support those charges.  Late last night, however, Gutierrez walked out of jail — which is more than many of his victims can do, now and in at least one case for a lot longer than that. [...] If the evidence is there, and the LASO has probable cause to charge him, why is Gutierrez walking free?  None of the media outlets covering this mention Gascón by name, but this leaves the impression that the LASO — and likely other LA-area law enforcement agencies — have little trust in Gascón and the DA's office these days.  They seem to want a case so solid that Gascón cannot possibly deal it down without taking enormous political risks.  It's unclear how long it will take to build such a case.  What are the odds that Gutierrez, who is free and not on bail, will be around to arrest when they do?

Suspect Who Plowed Into Police Recruits Released From Jail.  The Gateway Pundit reported on the more than two dozen LA County sheriff recruits that were injured after being struck by a wrong-way vehicle in Los Angeles in what authorities believe was an intentional act.  According to the sheriff's office, at least 25 recruits were injured, five critically, and some of the injured lost limbs.  A 22-year old man was arrested following the horrific incident, but has subsequently been released pending further evidence.

PA House of Representatives Votes to Impeach Soros-Backed Philadelphia District Attorney.  The Pennsylvania House of Representatives has voted to impeach Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner over "misbehavior in office in the nature of dereliction of duty and refusal to enforce the law."  House Resolution 240 lays out dozens of complaints about the Soros-supported DA, including, "exhibiting unethical conduct by lacking candor to the courts" and "committing professional misconduct in violation of rule of professional conduct and engaging in impropriety and appearances of impropriety."  The resolution also accuses Krasner of ignoring the plight of the crime victims he is sworn to represent, and contributing to the sharp rise in crime through negligence and even deliberate actions.

PA House Judiciary Committee Moved to Impeach Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner.  In the final days of a Republican controlled Pennsylvania House, the Judiciary Committee voted along party lines Tuesday to move two impeachment articles against Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner to the full House, which is expected to vote on it Wednesday.  The articles blame Krasner's leadership in the district attorney's office (DAO) as being a direct cause of increasing Philadelphia crime and accuse him of obstructing the impeachment investigation by not sufficiently complying with a subpoena from the Select Committee on Restoring Law and Order.  That select committee released a report of its investigation on Oct. 24 and, although it did not recommend impeachment, it offered a grim look at Philadelphia's crime.

Another Reason Republicans Didn't Do So Well on Tuesday.  In some states, the system set up by Dems makes it almost impossible for a Republican to win statewide office, regardless of the quality of the Republican candidate.  That's what happened in New Mexico. [...] Most places run by Democrats don't do a good job controlling crime, and that's especially true in New Mexico.  Criminals and criminal defense attorneys are still cheering a state constitutional amendment in 2016 that largely eliminated pre-trial bail.  FBI crime stats show that New Mexico is #2 in the country for violent crime per capita and #2 for property crime per capita.  Between Q3 2021 and Q3 2022, among the nation's 50 largest cities, Albuquerque had the sixth highest increase in homicides.

Never-Trump columnist gets pummeled for saying 'other than murder, violent crime is not up'.  Never-Trump columnist Mona Charen faced intense social media backlash after insisting that violent crime, aside from murder, was not rising despite crime being a major midterm election issue.  On Saturday, Charen tweeted a link to a Pew Research Center survey on crime leading up to the midterm election.  The link, she stated, proved that, despite voters' concerns for crime, violent crime "other than murder" was not higher than usual.  "Other than murder, violent crime is not up.  Did you know that?  Violent crime is a key midterm voting issue, but what does the data say?" Charen, who is a policy editor for The Bulwark, tweeted.

As the Murder Rates Rise, The Left Lies And The FBI Denies.  The closer we got to the midterm elections, the more desperate Democrats have been to either downplay the crime wave or blame it all on Republicans. [...] Of the 30 cities with the highest murder rates in the first half of this year, 27 are run by Democrats.  And 13 of those are in red states, the Heritage report shows.  The reason for the smoke and mirrors from the left about crime is obvious.  It is precisely their policies that have led to the resurgence of violent crimes, including homicides.  The left's "defund the police" rhetoric demoralized law enforcement in liberal enclaves.  Budget cutbacks hurt their ability to patrol streets.  Worst of all, as we wrote in these pages in June 2020, cities were suffering the bitter fruit of leftist billionaire George Soros' campaign to get hard-left prosecutors who keep refusing to prosecute crimes elected across the country.  As Heritage points out, most of the areas with the worst crime rates have been infected by Soros' minions.  For Democrats and the press to have the gall to blame Republicans for the resulting crime spree is stunning, but not surprising.  Meanwhile, as Democrats and the media are busy lying about the scale and causes of the crime wave, the hopelessly politicized FBI is making it harder and harder to get accurate data.

Why suburban women are flocking to the GOP: As simple as A,B,C.  To hear Democratic candidates, and the party's media cheerleaders, talk now, nobody ever supported defunding the police.  But, of course, Democrats across the board did just that, and GOP candidates, and honest media, have been replaying the video.  In a spasm of post-George Floyd mass hysteria, the political system, and in particular the governments of Democratic-run cities, made drastic cutbacks in police protection, installed revolving-door, no-bail arraignment systems and encouraged the proliferation of homeless encampments and open-air drug markets in many areas.  Unsurprisingly, the result was surging crime.  Around America, downtown businesses have closed, and people — especially women — have felt unsafe in their own neighborhoods.  Crime is now a major issue with the electorate, and even among black voters, the alleged beneficiaries of police defunding, only 17% support defunding the police, per a recent Grio/Kaiser Family Foundation poll.

The Floyd Effect.  Democratic politicians have been flailing about looking for a way to get off the hook for the historic increase in murder and car crash mayhem ever since our respectable class' leaders declared "the racial reckoning" was at hand following the unfortunate expiration of George Floyd on May 25, 2020.  For example, New York's Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, suddenly finding herself in a tight race with Lee Zeldin largely over the crime surge, kvetched to Zeldin in a debate about crime, "I don't know why that's so important to you." [...] Before getting to the red state vs. blue state issue that everybody wants to talk about, let's look at the national murder trend, which has been jaw-dropping. [...] The argument I find most persuasive for why black-on-black shootings erupted during the anti-cop mania of 2020 is that when our society's leadership told police to not pull over blacks so often, they obeyed.  With reduced fear of being stopped and searched, blacks then started carrying illegal handguns more and driving worse.  Thus, the black car crash death rate also exploded in June 2020:  [Chart]

The Blue City Murder Problem.  Those on the Left know that their soft-on-crime policies have wreaked havoc in the cities where they have implemented those policies.  It is not hard to understand why "reforms" such as ending cash bail, defunding the police, refusing to prosecute entire categories of crimes, letting thousands of convicted felons out of prison early, significantly cutting the prison population, and other "progressive" ideas have led to massive spikes in crime — particularly violent crime, including murder — in the communities where those on the Left have implemented them.  Left-wing politicians and their backers recognize that rising crime rates and the lack of a general sense of safety that follows are a problem for them and their chances for reelection.  In fact, recent polls show that voters care a lot about rising crime — an issue that is second only to rising, rampant inflation and the lackluster economy.  So the Left is engaging in political traditions as old as time: obfuscation, finger pointing, and blame shifting.

Warning! Crime Deniers on the Ballot in All 50 States!  Next Tuesday, voters, please remember that Democrats will never run out of excuses for criminals.  They drone on about "racism," "root causes," "poverty," "drug addiction," "his gun dropped," "mental illness," "learning disabilities," "he made a mistake" and "prison doesn't work"!  It's not the government's job to probe criminals' psyches.  These are predators, monsters, feral beasts attacking civilization, with no regard for your property, bodily integrity or life.  The government's only job is to keep them away from us, not to ensure that they have fulfilling lives.

Democrat John Fetterman: 'I'm Actually Very Proud' to Have Helped Free Convicted Killers from Prison.  Pennsylvania Lt.  Gov. John Fetterman (D), running against Republican Mehmet Oz for the state's open United States Senate seat, says he is "actually very proud" of his record of helping free convicted killers from prison.  During a panel discussion in Erie County, Pennsylvania on Wednesday, Fetterman touted his record on the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons where he oversaw the release of 13 convicted killers from prison and placed members on the board who sought to end mandatory life sentences for convicted first- and second-degree murderers.

The Cart Before the Horse.  We knew from the get go that freedom was the ticket, that government was the enemy, that God was the foundation on which this nation must be built.  A large portion of our citizenry, unfortunately, has forgotten these things, and the latest generations never learned them in the first place.  We've lost track of the paradoxical fact that you can't have freedom without law.  Not only that, but you can't have law without punishment.  We're seeing that right now as defunded police departments and lax district attorneys are allowing criminals to roam our streets with no fear of retribution.  Inner city dwellers are no longer free to leave their homes and run their businesses.

Police unable to track GPS location of juvenile who ended up robbing more than two dozen people while on GPS ankle monitor.  According to Channel 9, an 18-year-old has been accused of robbing more than two dozen people across the city while actively wearing a GPS ankle monitor.  [Tweet]  The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) said that they were unable to use the GPS ankle monitor to track and find the suspect, identified as Kaivon Belton.  Belton was reportedly being monitored by the Department of Juvenile Justice.  On Tuesday, October 25th, CMPD refused to do an interview with Channel 9.  Reporter Dan Matics learned that detectives were trying to work with the Department of Juvenile Justice to track Belton's ankle monitor.  However, they were unsuccessful.  CMPD said they could not access Belton's ankle monitor due to "red tape" and while out on GPS, Belton was allegedly terrorizing Charlotte's Hispanic community by robbing several people at gunpoint.

New Democratic strategy before the midterm elections: Deny crime exists.  As crime abounds in major cities and voters continue to cite violence as a top concern, liberals may have a new strategy:  deny it exists.  Democratic St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones tried this recently after the personal finance website WalletHub declared her city the most dangerous in the United States.  "We know the region as a whole is very safe," Jones said.  She also told the media, "I don't get my news from a place that does credit bureau reporting."  "WalletHub doesn't live here, and isn't here, but if they take random statistics from random newspapers, then of course," Jones said.  "You're only looking at a population of 300,000 people, so those rates are going to seem like it's violent."  But WalletHub did not "take random statistics from random newspapers."  Instead, it relied on data from the FBI, the Census Bureau, and Pew Charitable Trust, among other sources.

Dems to Voters: Why Do You Care About Crime?  In February, Frank Abrokwa, 37, was arrested for the 45th time.  (Thanks, U.S. immigration officials!  Another job well done.)  Among Abrokwa's most recent arrests:
 --  On Jan. 7, he was arrested for hitting a 30-year-old man, a complete stranger, on a subway platform.  Released without bail.
 --  On Feb. 5, he was arrested for punching a 53-year-old man, also a stranger, at the Port Authority Bus Terminal.  Released without bail.
 --  On Feb. 21, he was arrested for smashing his own feces into a woman's face as she sat in a subway station.  Released without bail.
 --  On Feb. 22 — the very next day! — he was arrested for shoplifting at a hardware store and threatening employees with a screwdriver.  Released without bail.
All in all, New York's no-bail law is working great!  The law is called "no bail" but really means "no jail, not ever, no matter how many times you're arrested."  How did such a dangerous policy become law?  It seems that in 2020, Democrats finally gained total control of state government, the first time that's happened since World War II, except for a single year in 1964.  And what was the first item on the Democrats' agenda, literally the moment after they were sworn in?  Crack down on Wall Street?  Fill potholes and creaking bridges?  NO!  They passed a law to ensure that no criminal ever spends a night in jail!  True, a lot more people are getting raped, stabbed, slashed, mugged and shoved onto subway tracks on account of the no-bail law.  But for Democrats, protecting New Yorkers from violent attack is not the goal of law enforcement.  The main objective of the criminal justice system is to ensure that it does not "worsen racial disparities," as explained by The New York Times' Mara Gay.

Violent Crime Is Driving a Red Wave.  Since crime is essentially a local issue, why does it hurt Democrats running for national or statewide office?  Because the Democratic Party has associated itself with the notion that "social justice" and "racial equality" require fundamentally changing policing and incarceration.  The problem, they say, is police, not criminals.  In practice, that means Democrats, especially progressives, favor weaker law enforcement, easier conditions for bail (even for those charged with violent offenses), and less funding for police officers.  That message was encapsulated in the slogans "defund the police" and "reimagine policing," which took hold in 2020 after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis cop.  Not all Democrats embraced this self-defeating fad.  Joe Biden, notably, spoke out against it.  But progressives marched in lock-step, and their policies became the party's dominant message on crime.  Not just dominant, uncontested.

Oregon Voters Say They've Lost Patience With Democrats.  After nearly four decades of Democratic control, voters in Oregon are ready for a change of leadership.  "I don't like the Democratic approach to anything that's happening," said Terri, who lives with her husband outside of Salem and dropped her party affiliation two years ago.  "I used to be a Democrat for 40 years."  Like many voters who spoke with the Washington Free Beacon, Terri is fed up with President Joe Biden and Oregon governor Kate Brown (D.).  She said both have attempted to woo progressives with policies that undermine public safety and contribute to record inflation.  "I want law and order.  I want people who have committed crimes to be prosecuted," she said before gesturing to her liberal friend seated next to her.  "We want help for those who need it — not help for everybody, like this administration is doing, just handing out money willy-nilly."  Her friend agreed.  That dissatisfaction is threatening Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tina Kotek's chances in Oregon, where voters rank crime and the economy as top concerns.

The Media has done everything it can to minimize the economy and crime.  [Scroll down] Crime in Philadelphia is completely out of control.  For example, last year, Philadelphia recorded 562 murders.  That is the highest homicide total since 1960.  That happens to be the year the city started tracking homicide data.  This year in Philadelphia, crimes like robbery with a gun are up 47%.  Now, why is this happening?  It's not an accident.  None of this is an accident.  Crime is rising as a direct result of policies designed to make crime rise and at the same time, any effort by normal people, middle class people, to defend themselves is immediately met with the full ferocity of the state.  This is an attempt, of course, to destroy the American middle class.  Let's just be honest about it.  This is crime with a purpose.  They don't want to have this conversation, the people who did this, and that's why they attack you personally and morally if you bring it up.  In Philadelphia, a lot of these crimes can be traced to one man, Soros-backed D.A. Larry Krasner.  He's decided not to charge many robbers with crimes.  Arrests and charges for retail theft in Philadelphia have dropped by about 70% over the past four years.  In that same period, reports of robberies jumped more than 20%.  You see how this works?  If you stop charging people with certain crimes, they commit more of them.  That seems like an obvious observation and again, it's more evidence this is not an accident.  Larry Krasner is not an idiot.  None of these people are stupid.  They're doing this on purpose.

The Myth of the Nonviolent Drug Offender.  Of the approximately 145,000 people in federal prisons and 1,040,000 people in state prisons, less than 3.5 percent are incarcerated for a conviction related to drug possession.  Even when one expands the scope beyond mere possession to all other types of drug offenses (many of which are associated with violent cartels and gangs), the proportion rises only to 18 percent.  The hard truth for criminal-justice reformers is that violent offenses are far more prevalent among America's prisoners.  At the state level — where nine in ten prisoners are incarcerated — almost 60 percent of inmates committed violent crimes.  Roughly 143,000 people are imprisoned for convictions related to sexual assault and 155,000 for homicide, compared with 146,000 for all drug crimes combined.  The idea that America's "mass" incarceration is a result of drug crimes is absurd.  America's incarceration "problem" relates directly to its violent-crime problem.

America's crime epidemic keeps growing thanks to radical leftist prosecutors and their social experiments.  The United States has a crime epidemic, and it is being further fueled by certain prosecutors who are more interested in radical leftist ideologies than in enforcing the law.  These prosecutors are becoming disturbingly more common in many states and communities, and they have no reservations about sacrificing the safety and security of their residents to perform their deeply misguided and ridiculously dangerous social experiments.  In many jurisdictions around the United States, an increasing number of violent criminals are being released from custody as they await their trials — or given mere slaps on the wrists in plea deals that do nothing to rehabilitate them or to protect the community.  This is a recipe for disaster and anarchy, and cities across the country are paying a catastrophic price as a result.

Now Mired In Crime, The City That Kicked Off The 'Defund The Police' Movement Is Struggling To Recruit New Officers.  Minneapolis is having a tough time restaffing its police force amid a crime wave after officers left en masse following the May 2020 killing of George Floyd, according to The Associated Press.  Then-Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo said the department lost almost 300 officers by October 2021 to causes including retirement, resignation and disability leave for claimed post-traumatic stress disorder following Floyd's death and large-scale protests, according to Newsweek.  The department has reportedly seen applicant numbers drop from 292 in 2019 to 57 this year, with its September graduating recruiting class only featuring six people, according to the AP.  "In Minneapolis, with what we've been through for the last couple years, for you to be here and have an interest in law enforcement ... I'm impressed with every one of you that's here," training officer Matthew Hobbs told attendees at a March recruitment information session, the outlet reported.

This anti-police ice cream shop in Seattle was burglarized ... guess who they immediately called?  A Seattle ice cream store that has been vocally anti-police and insanely woke was burglarized recently and you'll never guess who they called.  It wasn't Ghostbusters.  No, these folks who think all cops are evil and that the police should be defunded and abolished phoned their local police officers when their store was burglarized.

Lying Liars Gonna Lie.  A favorite saying of mine, statistics never lie but liars use statistics. [...] In 2021 blacks committed around 335,000 violent crimes that we know of, and that is almost 7,000 more violent crimes than Whites even though there are 204 million Whites in America as of 2020 and only 41 million blacks.  As I have demonstrated before, it is reasonable to assume that a majority of unknown offenders are also black. [...] While Whites committed 36,716 rapes and blacks "only" 16,008 reported rapes in 2018, looking at the victim side tells us something interesting.  Whites are 60% of known rapists (11% are unknown) but White women are 74% of rape victims, while blacks are 26% of known rapists, double their representation of the population as a whole, but black women are only 18% of rape victims.  To put it another way, 8000 more White women were raped 2018 than White men commited rape and black men commit 5000 more rapes than there are black women raped.  Add in the gap of 3000 unknown rapists and it is quite possible that of the 16,000 rapes committed by black men in 2018, nearly half of them were rapes of White women.  Maybe that is another of those old stereotypes based in facts?  Like most violent crime, interracial rape is almost exclusively black on White, in fact White men raping black women is so rare that it doesn't even really register statistically.

When Was the Last Time That the Democrats Told the Truth About Anything?  [Scroll down] According to Andrew Richwine, "black men are 6 percent of the population but have perpetrated 42 percent of cop killings over the past decade. ... When violent incidents occurred between blacks and whites in 2018, 90 percent of the time the attacker was black and the victim was white."  In sum, the Democrat BLM claim that police and whites generally are anti-black racists is an outright lie totally refuted by all relevant evidence.  False though it was, the Democrat BLM lie has led to the undermining of police financially and morally and of public respect and spawned a horrendous crime wave across the country, but particularly in Democrat-led cities.  Residents of New York and Los Angeles are fleeing to sane, Republican-governed states.  Democrats own this crime wave.

CEO blasts San Francisco as 'city of chaos,' closes store over rampant crime.  The CEO of a popular clothing brand Cotopaxi is closing the company's only San Francisco store due to "organized theft rings" and a lack of safety in the city, he announced this week.  CEO Davis Smith announced the closure in a lengthy post on social media, saying the location faces regular attacks by thieves with virtually no response from law enforcement.  "We are closing the store due to rampant organized theft and lack of safety for our team.  Our store is hit by organized theft rings several times per week.  They brazenly enter the store and grab thousands of dollars of product and walk out," Smith wrote.  "We started keeping the door locked and opening it only for customers, but even then, they'll have a woman go to the door, and then hiding individuals rush into the store as soon as the door opens.  Our team is terrified.  They feel unsafe.  Security guards don't help because these theft rings know that security guards won't/can't stop them," he added.

Eight things that killed the Democrat Party.  [#8] Crime:  Because of the Democrat rule in blue cities, crime is not being prosecuted in the name of some weird kind of reparations.  What the Democrats don't get is that they hurt their own innocent population by allowing criminals a get-out-jail-free card, and by not prosecuting at all.  Their racist policies hurt the very people they claim to want to help.  Why are they doing this?  To deliberately create chaos in the execution of anti-white racism.  The one solution to the rising crime rate, the prosecution and incarceration of criminals, is the one thing blue cities under Democrat rule will not do.  Mayor Lightfoot makes weird and demonic home videos of herself dancing around in what appears to be a drugged stupor.  Rather than be a responsible mayor, she has totally ignored the death-by-violence rate in Chicago.  This is another very clear example of Democrats doing what they do best; destroying things.

Pritzker Democrats and the Safe-T Act, Releasing Violent Criminals Upon the People and Pretending There is No Cost.  Most Americans are workers.  They're not afraid of hard work.  And they believe in being fair.  It was unfair to deny fellow Americans a seat at a lunch counter based on the color of their skin.  The unfairness of such racism compelled Americans to support civil rights.  And now, even those who haven't studied the Constitution or criminal law, there is basic fairness in the idea that all Americans when charged with crime, have the right to bail.  I don't know who doesn't support this.  I support it.  I don't want to live in a country where people are charged and hauled off without a chance for bail.  But what Pritzker and the Democrats have done with their SAFE-T ACT is a perversion of fairness.  They use guilt and the fear of being called a racist to push it down the people's throats.

Liberal columnist freaks out over ad showing actual crime in America.  If you happen to be a baseball fan who has been watching the playoff games recently you may have noticed some intentionally jarring political advertisements popping up between innings.  They depict some of the grisly crimes that have been captured on security cameras around the country recently as the ongoing crime crisis continues to spiral out of control.  The advertisements ask voters to consider why this is happening and to take this critical issue into account when they vote next month.  One person who definitely noticed the advertisements was Will Bunch, the liberal author and columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer.  Having his baseball game interrupted by such "vile right-wing political ads" was clearly more than Mr. Bunch could tolerate, so he took to the pages of his newspaper this weekend to vent his fury at the "shadowy figures" behind the advertising campaign.

The Left's Funny New Lie: It's The 'Red States' With More Crime!  It's a lie told recently by Democrat California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and then repeated twice this week in The Washington Post.  The latest came in a column by Dana Milbank.  "Violent crime is generally worse in Republican-run states," he wrote on Tuesday under the headline, "It's just murder living in a red state."  The source for that claim, the same one made by Newsom, is a report published earlier this year by the leftist outfit Third Way.  The report observed that "murder rates are far higher in Trump-voting red states than Biden-voting blue states.  And sometimes, murder rates are highest in cities with Republican mayors."  To start, the point in correlating crime and Democrat policies has never been that "blue states" are violent hellholes.  It was always that Democrat mayors and district attorneys are demonstrably anti-law enforcement, and more interested in racial "equity" than in prosecuting offenders.

For More Crime, Vote Democrat!  New York Mayor Eric Adams would have been the Democrats' runaway choice for president if only he'd kept his campaign promise and cut crime in the Big Apple.  No mayoral candidate talked about "safety, safety, safety" more than he.  As Adams told MSNBC during the campaign:  "Public safety and justice is the prerequisite to prosperity.  And I think that we have become too symbolic, instead of realistic, on how you keep cities safe.  And it's time for the Democratic Party to understand this.  America wants to be safe.  And we can do it with justice at the same time."  If a black mayor had saved New York City, no one could have beaten him.  Not only that, but Adams has a black deputy mayor for public safety (Phil Banks), a black police commissioner (Keechant L. Sewell) and a black district attorney (Alvin Bragg).  As conservatives never tire of pointing out, murder victims are overwhelmingly black (as are murder perpetrators, but let's not mention that).  In a world that has only recently discovered that "Black Lives Matter," wouldn't an all-black law enforcement team come down like a sledgehammer on crime?

Ex-NYPD Chief Says Left-Wing DAs are Causing the Spike in Crime.  Left-wing district attorneys implementing policies such as bail reform bear significant responsibility for the nationwide spike in crime, former New York City police commissioner Bill Bratton argued Monday.  Many cities' district attorneys sympathetic to "criminal justice reform" are releasing criminals who should be in jail, Bratton told NewsNation's Chris Cuomo in an interview aired Monday.  Such cities have borne the brunt of the crime wave thanks to bail reforms and other criminal justice reforms, he said.  [Video clip]

Seven days of mayhem: Random killings expose lethality of Democrat crime policies.  A college dad shot by two homeless men high on drugs and long sought by police.  An illegal migrant who stabbed eight on the Las Vegas strip.  An abused wife slaughtered after her husband was released without cash bail.  In a single week, the Democrats' permissive approach to law enforcement — insecure borders, cashless bail and exploding homelessness — left a lethal wake of innocent victims that shook communities coast to coast and invigorated a political debate less than 30 days from mid-term elections.  "Policymakers have decided that law-abiding citizens are secondary and that those who commit crimes are afforded protections that embolden more crime," Dutchess County Executive Marcus Molinaro in New York told Fox News earlier this week.  Molinaro was reacting to the tragic shooting death of Paul Kutz, a 53-year-old college dad who was gunned down in a suburban New York hotel while visiting his son during family weekend at Marist College.  The suspects were two homeless men wanted in connection with other crimes who were smoking a PCP-like substance and had bomb-making materials in their room, police have said[.]

Yes, New York's Bail Reform Has Increased Crime.  Pre-trial detention in New York State is not supposed to be conditioned on whether a person is likely to reoffend.  Both before and after bail reform, judges must release offenders on "the least restrictive alternative and condition or conditions that will reasonably assure the principal's return to court" — that is, minimize his risk of failure to appear.  Manhattan Institute scholars have emphasized time and again that New York State is unique in prohibiting judges from giving any consideration to public safety risk in remand decisions.  But even given that reality, a shift toward less-restrictive pretrial detention conditions on average seems to have driven up the risk of rearrest following release.  Perhaps the increase in crime identified above will be offset by a reduction in future offending, given the long-run criminogenic effects of jail.  On the other hand, the most relevant study to New York finds that the incapacitating effect of jail pretrial slightly outweighs its criminogenic effect post-release, at least within the study period.  In any case, those effects are heterogenous.  Some detainees are career criminals, for whom the benefits of keeping them behind bars almost certainly outweigh criminogenic costs; others are not.

The Constitution is Color-Blind.  This week, President Biden suggested that the federal government has engaged in racial discrimination with respect to sentencing people for marijuana possession.  "Sending people to jail for possessing marijuana has upended too many lives.... That's before you address the clear disparities around prosecution and conviction."  Ann Althouse thinks he was spouting blarney for political purposes.  But if he thought this was the case, he shouldn't have selected Kamala Harris as his running mate.  She made her mark as a California attorney general in securing almost 2,000 convictions for marijuana use and possession: [...] Earlier, she claimed that hurricane relief would be prioritized to communities of color, something White House housekeepers quickly tried to sweep away.

14-year-old already arrested 18 times suspected in NYC scooter shootings.  A 14-year-old gang member with 18 busts already under his belt is suspected in three shootings that occurred just days apart in The Bronx, police said Friday.  The kid made off on a scooter each time with an accomplice, police said — till he was finally busted for two of the crimes Wednesday.  The young suspect — whose arrests date back to age 10 or 11 — allegedly opened fire into a Dunkin' Donuts from the back of a scooter Sept. 19 just after 2:30 p.m., said NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig said.

NYC homeless man charged with subway murder was on supervised release for previous attempted murder on the subway.  [Scroll down] Police have surveillance video showing the entire incident and they used that to identify a suspect.  Wednesday, police arrested and charged a homeless man named Alvin Charles for the murder: [...] But today we learned that at the time of the murder last Friday, Alvin Charles was on supervised release from another subway attack last year where he allegedly stabbed someone else multiple times: [...] Charles was initially charged with "assault, attempted assault, menacing and criminal possession of a weapon" in that case but it was later upgraded to attempted murder.  So he attempted one murder on the subway, was give supervised release and them a few months later murdered someone else in nearly the same way.  Luckily, this time he's being held on bail despite the best efforts of his public defender.

Four Leftist, Soros-Backed DAs the Media Are Hiding From You.  As an epidemic of crime ravages cities like Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles, the networks are hiding the people making the situation much worse:  Big city district attorneys who refuse to prosecute crime, partisans who are all backed by extreme leftist billionaire George Soros.  The ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening shows are barely mentioning the men and women who put in place these disastrous policies.  And they're certainly not mentioning any connection to Soros.  NewsBusters analysts looked at the crime coverage in these cities on the networks from January 1, 2022 through September 30th and found few mentions of people like Larry Krasner (Phildephia District Attorney), Chesa Boudin (recalled San Francisco District Attorney), George Gascon (Los Angeles District Attorney) and Kim Foxx (State attorney for Cook County, Illinois).

Alaska, New Mexico and Tennessee top the list of states with the highest rates of murder, rape and other violent crime.  Alaska topped the list with 837.8 violent crimes committed per 100,000 people, according to a breakdown of FBI data from 2020 on rates for murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery and assault across the U.S.  It was followed by New Mexico, with 778.2 violent crimes per 100,000 people, then Tennessee, with 672.7 violent crimes per 100,000 people — all well above the national average of 398.5 crimes for every 100,000 people.

Philly DA Krasner insists his crime policies are 'working' despite 1,000 killings, refuses to resign.  Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner insisted his far-left crime policies are "working" despite the city seeing more than 1,000 homicides in less than two years.  Krasner made the comments during an extensive interview with Fox 29 Philadelphia on Wednesday.  Krasner has come under fire from critics for the city's surging crime, and the Pennsylvania state House voted to hold him in contempt earlier this month.  "Maybe it's not working," Fox 29 reporter Mike Jerrick said of Krasner's policies.  "It is working," Krasner said.

The Thinnest Veneer of Civilization.  [Scroll down] The streets of our cities are anarchical — and by intent.  Defunding the police, emptying the jails, and destroying the criminal justice system unleashed a wave of criminals.  It is now open season on the weak and innocent.  America is racing backwards into the 19th century wild West.  Predators maim, kill, and rob with impunity.  Felons correctly conclude that bankrupt postmodern "critical legal theory" will ensure them exemption from punishment.

Real Estate CEO In Major Democrat City Says He Can't Convince Clients to Buy Due to Unmitigated Crime.  San Francisco was once a crown jewel of California but is now a drug-infested, crime-ridden, tax-plagued example of how not to run a city.  It's a city with its own "poop map," so needed because the homeless in the city defecate in the wide-open wherever they feel like it.  According to Fox Business, the CEO of a real estate company says that he's at a point where convincing potential clients to move to or buy property in San Francisco is becoming very difficult.  So much so that he wrote a letter to the city after he, himself, was robbed in front of his own home in broad daylight at gunpoint.

A mayoral recall is murder-capital New Orleans' last chance.  People who want cities to succeed post-COVID should be heartened by the news out of New Orleans:  a spunky, no-holds-barred movement to boot the second-term mayor, LaToya Cantrell, out of office.  The "No LaToya" recall campaign may be New Orleans' last chance to avoid reaching a tipping point.  It's still missing 15% of its tourist jobs, and crime is rampant: A random attacker stabbed two people Saturday in the French Quarter.  The United States has had a bad time since 2020, but New Orleans has really had a bad time.  This year, 203 people have been murdered, a third above last year and more than double the pre-COVID level.  The killings bring the murder rate to an unheard-of high.  In a city with a population shy of 400,000, the current pace is an annual murder rate of 70 per 100,000, multiple times the national average.  Most of the victims are black men and boys.

Memphis' district attorney will push bail reform despite critics blaming it for crime increases.  Memphis' new district attorney is pushing forward with bail reform to "level out the playing field" despite critics blaming progressive policies for increasing crime.  "This will level the playing field so it's no longer two justice systems," Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy told Fox News.  "People that have money get bailed out; people that don't have money languish behind bars[.]"  Mulroy was sworn in on Aug. 31, making him the first Democrat to hold the position in decades.  He campaigned on a progressive agenda, vowing to prioritize violent crime, fix the "broken bail system," implement restorative justice and expand Juvenile Court jurisdiction to age 25, among other policies.

The Editor says...
So-called "bail reform" is all about preferential treatment for black criminals.  It's nothing more or less than that.

The Current Crime Wave Is Unlike Any Ever Experienced In America.  What America's experiencing today is exponentially worse than the typical crime that America is used to — and the truth is, young Black men and, increasingly, young Black women are perpetuating most, although far from all, of it.  Violence is not only going to a new level in terms of frequency but also its locales. [...] We see large groups of young people blitzing stores, grabbing merchandise off shelves, and running out with smiles on their faces.  We see "shoplifters" methodically clear store shelves of merchandise and simply stroll out the door, unconcerned about getting stopped or arrested and often assaulting employees along the way.  Moreover, an element of violence seems unprecedented in its scale.  Almost daily, we see random innocent people on subways or stairs or in restaurants getting shoved, kicked, or punched.  We see fast food workers attacked as customers come over or around counters and spark mayhem.  We see bus drivers attacked, shop owners beaten, and cops spat upon.  Indeed we see countless instances where robbers beat or shoot victims even after taking whatever they were after.  We also read daily of innocents of all ages killed in the crossfire while sleeping in their beds, standing in a bar, or sitting in their cars.

The Editor says...
There is little evidence of random interracial violent crime committed by anyone other than blacks.  Where is the video footage of white guys jumping black pedestrians or subway passengers?  Where is the surveillance video of young white boys slugging old black men for no reason?  If any such footage existed, it would be front page news.

Soft-on-crime Philly DA fights back against removal efforts.  It's no secret that the violent crime rate in Philadelphia is completely out of control.  The ironically nicknamed City of Brotherly Love is hardly alone in experiencing this plague, but the numbers are grim.  By last month, more than 1,400 people had been shot with more than three hundred of them dying.  This surge has brought even more scrutiny to the city's soft-on-crime District Attorney, Larry Krasner.  His refusal to lock up criminals, including those charged with gun crimes, has led a committee in the state legislature to open an investigation into his job performance with an eye toward potentially impeaching him.  The Pennsylvania House recently voted in an overwhelmingly bipartisan manner to hold Krasner in contempt for failing to answer a subpoena to testify before the committee.  But now, in a "correcting the record" memo, Krasner has fired back, claiming that this is all a political ploy, despite members of his own party joining in the call to remove him.

Equal Justice, They Said.  What tradition of Western jurisprudence allows violent criminals in America's largest cities to be released upon booking?  What law states they are instantly free to commit more crimes without worry of incarceration or punishment, while those accused of illegally parading sit in jail for years awaiting charges?  Is it a greater crime in this republic to walk peacefully through an open door into the Capitol, as at least some who were charged as a result of January 6 did, or to beat to near death an innocent bystander as many do who are released after arrest?  As far as that reprehensible, buffoonish January 6 riot, compare the treatment accorded to those hundreds — many guilty of "illegally parading or "demonstrating in the Capitol" — with some 14,000 who were arrested in 120 days of rioting, looting, arson, assault, and murder during the spring and summer 2020 riots.  Did the FBI spend over a year tracking down the names of those known from videos who torched federal buildings, murdered those in the street, sought to storm the White House grounds, and set up no-go zones in downtowns?

Policing in Democrat cities: Don't say we didn't warn you.  Democrats have defunded their police departments, elected or appointed weak prosecutors, abolished pre-trial confinement for violent criminals, legalized drugs, weakened sentencing laws, and released violent criminals early from prison.  Police unions have become typical left-wing unions that constantly demand more pay and benefits for police instead of advocating for better laws and policies to reduce crime and enhance the effectiveness of law enforcement while preserving constitutional rights.  Many local and national police unions actually support left-wing Democrats, who enact policies that put police officers at risk, enable criminals, and endanger public safety.  Police departments in big cities are adopting an unofficial "react after the crime" policy instead of being proactive and trying to prevent crimes from occurring.  All too frequently now, police officers in many jurisdictions hesitate to enter a situation involving a high risk of injury, death, or use of deadly force to accomplish their mission to uphold and defend the Constitution and protect citizens' lives.

New Orleans overtakes St. Louis to become the Murder Capital of America: Homicide rate up 141% from 2019.  New Orleans overtook St. Louis as the US murder capital in the first half of this year, as the city struggles with its lowest police staffing level in modern history amid a crisis of officer morale.  In the first six months of 2022, New Orleans recorded 41 murders per 100,000 population, a higher homicide rate than any other US city, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from the Major Cities Chiefs Association.  By comparison, the first-half murder rate per 100,000 was 11.5 in Chicago, 4.8 in Los Angeles and 2.4 in New York City.

Democrats espouse diversity but practice racism.  Democrats talk about diversity but their obsession with Critical Race Theory, which is premised on anti-White racism, gives the game away.  What's really happening thanks to their policies is that America's Blacks are falling ever further behind.  Just look at America's inner cities, which are almost entirely Black and Democrat-controlled.  It seems as if depraved indifference is the only thing explaining why 52 Democrat-run cities are more deadly than Ukraine at the height of its war.  Ukraine's civilian death rate was 13.12 per 100,000 people according to the UN. Meanwhile, here are the statistics for the three most deadly cities in America:  St. Louis, Missouri, has a rate of 87 murders per 100,000 residents; Baltimore, Maryland, has a rate of 58.27 murders per 100,000; and New Orleans, has a murder rate of 74.12 per 100,000.  St. Louis's murder rate means that, for every person killed in Ukraine, 6.7 are murdered in St. Louis.  Given that Missouri's average death rate is 12.094 deaths per one hundred thousand for slightly more than 6 million people, living in St. Louis is 719% more deadly than living in the rest of the state.  Another way to understand this is that, for every death in the state at large, seven are murdered inside St. Louis's ghetto.

Some victims are more equal than others.  How many times have you been in this situation:  someone is following you, or walks into your store, or gets into the elevator with you.  You are a woman, and you are alone.  You have a bad feeling about it.  Maybe you're a real racist and have read the government's official FBI crime statistics.  You know what you should do, but you can't, because it will look racist.  You let the elevator doors close, and you pray.  You continue walking to your car in the deserted underground parking lot, and you don't dare reach for your pepper spray, because if someone sees you do that, they will think you are ...oops, too late, we all know what you are.  Racist — and dead.  Unfortunately, the inability to act on raw gut instinct is killing innocent people; especially young white women.  Maybe if 32 year-old mother-of-two Eliza Fletcher had been a little bit more "racist," she would not have been kidnapped, beaten, raped, and murdered in Memphis last week.  A slightly more racist woman might have decided that jogging in darkness through a city with a sky-high murder rate and a woke DA who refuses to keep dangerous predators incarcerated wasn't a good idea.

Los Angeles district attorney's lax crime policies see teenage felons free to roam streets.  The policies of Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon are helping fuel a violent crime surge — as teenage felons roam the streets freely despite having committed crimes that once would've landed them behind bars, according to insiders.  For the few violent offenders who enter the crumbling Los Angeles County juvenile jail system, thousands more are still on the streets without having been charged for crimes that once would have resulted in automatic detention.  Insiders told the Washington Examiner Gascon's anti-jail stance for juvenile offenders plays a significant role in the subsequent crime spike.  "Our prosecutorial approach should be biased towards keeping youth out of the juvenile justice system and when they must become involved, our system must employ the lightest touch necessary in order to provide public safety," Gascon wrote in a special directive to prosecutors on Dec. 7, 2020.  This has created an open season for mayhem by youthful criminals, law enforcement officials said.  "There is no accountability for any of these [serious] crimes.  If you look at juvy crime across the board, it's through the roof," a Probation Department manager said.  "Nothing happens to these kids if we catch them.  You will be lucky if you even get [home] detention.  They are in custody as long as it takes to book them."

Senate Conservatives Call on Biden to Fight Violent Crime Wave by Deploying Federal Resources to Cities.  A group of Senate conservatives is calling on President Joe Biden to fight the nation's violent crime wave by deploying all available resources to American cities across the United States.  In a letter sent on Wednesday, Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Bill Hagerty (R-TN) are asking Biden to deploy as many federal resources as possible to fight a violent crime wave that is gripping cities with skyrocketing homicides and assaults.  "Rampant crime is not inevitable — tough law enforcement can stop it," Blackburn and Hagerty write.  "But that requires a commitment to law enforcement."

Tucker Carlson: Voters Must Make Democrats Pay For Out Of Control Crime.  FNC's Tucker Carlson reviews the record crime levels in Chicago and other inner cities, saying Democrats need to be held responsible for the collapse of law and order on city streets.  "You think [Chicago district attorney] Kim Foxx cares?" Tucker Carlson asked.  "But she is not the only person who did this, the federal government also played a role."  "Over the eight years of Barack Obama administration, the department of justice forced more than a dozen police departments across the country to enter into what is called a consent decree.  The Obama administration began an investigation into the Chicago police department and they got a consent decree.  They pronounced police departments guilty of racism if they disproportionately interact with African-Americans, regardless of whether those interactions were legally justified.  In other words, the law is entirely irrelevant to the consent decree."

IL SAFE-T Act goes into effect 1 Jan: No cash bail and lots of other good stuff.  Chicago's Mayor Lori Lightfoot, while torquing off the suburbs by dumping bused-in illegal migrants on them, might be doing those migrants the biggest favor they've had yet.  She's getting them out of the city before Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker's latest and greatest experiment in equitable justice becomes enforceable, and the city proper [gets bad]. [...] To their credit, Republicans in the statehouse are fighting this tooth and nail, asking law enforcement for input in an effort to force revisions, and outright calling for repeal in one instance.  Mayors around the state are absolutely apoplectic and with good reason.  "No cash bail" after a judge okays your release sounds... well, not great, but reasonable enough.  Until you hear the list of offenses that qualify for "no cash bail" consideration — [indeed], your jaw will hit the floor.  Listen up, as Mayor Keith Pekau of Orland Village elucidates:  [Video clip]

CNN and 'experts' say keeping violent criminals in jail won't make people safer.  CNN has turned to its trusted "experts" to argue that keeping violent criminals in jail would not keep people safe from violent criminals.  This "news" report comes in the aftermath of violent attacks in Memphis, Tennessee.  According to CNN's Emma Tucker, "the suspects in two violent attacks there this month had been released from prison before serving their full sentences for prior convictions."  Naturally, it follows that if they had remained in prison where they belonged, they would not have been on the street to commit the gruesome crimes that they committed.  Ah, but the "experts" see it differently!

Inside LA's out-of-control juvenile jails where violence rules in the Newsom era.  Imagine a jail where inmates rule over guards who fight for survival daily among killers, carjackers, and vicious gang members.  That's life every day inside Los Angeles County Juvenile Hall.  "Our juvenile halls are on the verge of collapse.  I really believe someone is going to get killed at some point," one official told the Washington Examiner.  A series of state and local laws designed to clear California lockups have reached down to juvenile facilities where inmates learn now that they can get away with anything short of murder, officials said.

Illinois [is] eager to join Democrats' pro-crime experiment.  In New York, so-called "bail reform" is having tragic consequences.  More accurately called the "get out of jail no matter what" law, it has helped some of the worst predators throughout the state commit violent crimes over and over again as they repeatedly pass through the jail's revolving door.  The problem is so bad that polls show Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) is in serious jeopardy of losing her election two months from now.  Hochul is in denial, refusing to act to fix the problem and instead blaming her state's problem on guns.  In San Francisco, former District Attorney Chesa Boudin announced shortly after he took office that he would no longer seek to detain criminal suspects.  He went even further in choosing not to prosecute "quality of life" offenses and turning a blind eye to shoplifting and related property crimes.  The violent and property crime situation in his city quickly got so bad that he was overwhelmingly thrown out of office by the voters this summer.

Convicted murderer blames white judge for being in jail.  Milan Loncar was walking his dog in the Brewerytown section of Philadelphia one cold winter night in January 2021. Little did he know it would be his last night alive.  Josephus Davis and another man attacked Loncar and, after a brief tussle, shot him in the chest.  In an instant, Loncar's life was over.  Davis and the other man fled the scene while Loncar was left to die on the street with only his dog nearby.  Davis was later arrested and sentenced last week for his crime.  But rather than admit remorse, Davis blamed his skin color as the reason he was in jail.  Davis appeared in court through Zoom last week for his sentence hearing.  Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara A. McDermott sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.  Yet Davis maintained his innocence and blamed systemic racism as the reason he was in jail, not his murder of Loncar.

Violent youth don't just contribute, they ARE the crime wave.
Carjackings, shootings, murder: Violent youth add to America's crime wave.  Some of the most violent crimes in America are being carried out by its youngest members of society and those who deal with youth offenders say the trend won't reverse anytime soon.  The startling surge of lawlessness began during the pandemic and, in cities large and small that bear the brunt of the crime wave, leaders fret that there are no easy solutions.  In Washington last month, Commanders' running back Brain Robinson Jr. was shot in an attempted carjacking perpetrated by an armed teenager.

16-year-old Chicago male charged with four carjackings in one day.  On August 16th of last year in the city of Chicago, a 29-year-old man was carjacked at gunpoint on West 109th Street.  Not long after, a 21-year-old woman was similarly removed from her vehicle further down the same street.  Later that evening a 28-year-old man was carjacked at gunpoint one block over on 110th Street.  Topping the night off, a 75-year-old man received the same treatment on South Vernon Avenue.  This may not sound like all that unusual of a day in the Windy City because carjacking is sort of the municipal pastime for the gangs in that area.  But all four of these robberies were committed by the same person.  And the suspect, who was eventually apprehended, was sixteen years old. [...] The suspect's attorney managed to have the case handled in Juvenile Court.  Because of Chicago's lax criminal code, that means he will not be doing any serious time behind bars, instead being put into a "rehabilitation" program.  Would it surprise you to learn that this was not his first run-in with the law?

Suspect in Memphis Shooting Rampage Was Released From Prison Early.  According to court records, [Ezekiel] Kelly was charged with first-degree murder, aggravated assault, employment of a firearm with intent to commit a dangerous felony, and reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon for an incident on Feb. 3, 2020.  He pled guilty to an aggravated assault charge and was sentenced to three years in prison.  He was released early, in March of this year, after serving only 11 months.  An arrest warrant had been issued for him earlier on Wednesday on a first-degree murder charge.

'If he'd served his full sentence they would still be alive'.  A crazed gunman flashed a wide grin as he was arrested by cops in Memphis, Tennesee, after reportedly going on a shooting spree which he live streamed on Facebook, after being released early for aggravated assault.  Ezekiel Kelly, 19, launched his alleged rampage just before 1am and terrorized the city for more than 19 hours, killing four people and injuring three others.  The teenager has a violent criminal record, with police linking him to eight different incidents and warned terrified members of the public to stay away from him in a social media post at around 7 pm on Wednesday.

Black Crime: Facing Down the Elephant in the Room.  Blacks are a third of the population in Chicago but commit 80 percent of all shootings, author Heather Mac Donald told Tucker Carlson on a recent show.  In Los Angeles, blacks commit 44 percent of all violent crime but make up 9 percent of the population.  In St. Louis, blacks are less than a third of the population but commit 90 percent of all homicides.  In New York City, blacks commit about three quarters of all shootings although they're 23 percent of the population.  On Monday alone, 16 people were shot and two killed in Chicago, a city led by blacks.  Two teenage black girls killed an Uber Eats driver in D.C. during a foiled carjacking.  A knife-wielding black man, 25, was shot dead after he rammed his car into a barricade at the Capitol, killing one policeman.  A deranged black man who had been released from prison after killing his mother was caught on camera kicking, stomping, and beating a random 65-year-old Asian woman, while others, including a security guard, watched.  With all the talk of structural racism, equity, and white supremacy, violence has not only gotten more brash, but it's becoming institutionalized.

IRS Sent Over $1 Billion in Stimulus Checks to Incarcerated Criminals.  In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, at least 1.1 million incarcerated criminals were given checks for COVID stimulus money as a result of Joe Biden's stimulus bill, with the final total amounting to about $1.3 billion.  According to the Washington Free Beacon, this failure was revealed in new internal data provided by the IRS.  Of the 1.1 million criminals who were given money under the provisions of the "American Rescue Plan," about 163,000 who received stimulus checks are currently serving life sentences without the possibility of parole, meaning they will never even get to retrieve and use such funds in the first place.  Life sentences without parole are most often given to those who are convicted of either murder or rape.  Responding to criticism regarding this particular fact, IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig said that the agency does not yet know how many of these lifelong prisoners are also on Death Row.

Sanctuary cities — for criminals.  New York recently elected a retired cop as mayor.  The lawlessness grew.  Random racist attacks and attacks by mentally ill street people have risen.  Gangs now loot posh stores.  Carjackings are up.  Tom Homan, a former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, "Sanctuary policies only provide sanctuary to criminals, not to immigrant communities.  Immigrant communities don't want criminals in their neighborhoods either.  Victims and witnesses of crime don't want the offender back in their communities to seek revenge.  All communities deserve protection from criminals but sanctuary policies put immigrant communities at greater risk of crime."  The institute ranked the worst cities as 1. New York City, 2. Los Angeles, 3. Chicago, 4. Philadelphia, 5. San Francisco, 6. Minneapolis, 7. Seattle, 8. Wake County (North Carolina), 9. Middlesex County (New Jersey) and 10. Portland, Oregon.

At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep in debt.  Two decades after her release from prison, Teresa Beatty feels she is still being punished.  When her mother died two years ago, the state of Connecticut put a lien on the Stamford home she and her siblings inherited.  It said she owed $83,762 to cover the cost of her 2½ year imprisonment for drug crimes.  Now, she's afraid she'll have to sell her home of 51 years, where she lives with two adult children, a grandchild and her disabled brother.  "I'm about to be homeless," said Beatty, 58, who in March became the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the state law that charges prisoners $249 a day for the cost of their incarceration.

The Editor says...
Obviously this is an 8th Amendment issue.  County and state taxes pay for the jails.  If the inmates can be charged $250 a day, why not make it $500 a day?  Everybody knows the inmates have no money.

Having eliminated all the major crimes, they're down to this level:
It's now illegal for anyone under 21 to buy canned whipped cream in New York.  It is illegal for New Yorkers under age 21 to purchase a can of whipped cream, according to recently-passed state law.  The law, which went into effect in November 2021, is meant to prevent teenagers from using canned whipped cream to inhale nitrous oxide, otherwise known as "whippets."  "Inhalants are invisible, volatile substances found in common household products that produce chemical vapors that are inhaled to induce psychoactive or mind-altering effects," according to a US Drug Enforcement Administration factsheet.

California DA: 'over 70 percent of the people released under mandated $0 bail policies go on to commit additional crime'.  Allowing criminal suspects to be released pending trial with the payment of cash bail has become a fad, allegedly as a reaction to "over-incarceration."  But the public is put at risk by them, as one California district attorney is willing to say out loud.

'Defund the police' advocate Ilhan Omar's city experiences sharp increase in majority of crimes, data shows.  "Defund the police" supporter Rep. Ilhan Omar's city is experiencing a sharp increase in most crimes, data shows.  The spike comes just one year after she backed a failed campaign to dismantle and replace the Minneapolis Police Department.  Omar represents Minnesota's 5th Congressional District, which encompasses the city of Minneapolis.  So far this year, citywide crimes have spiked in nine of 14 categories over the same time period last year, according to a Fox News Digital review of crime statistics.

New York scrubs the word 'inmate' from state laws.  New York has amended several state laws to remove the word "inmate" and replace it with "incarcerated person" to refer to people serving prison time.  The changes, signed into law Monday by Gov. Kathy Hochul, are intended to reduce the stigma of being in jail.  Prison reform advocates have said the term "inmate" has a dehumanizing effect.  Prisoners say it can feel degrading when jail guards refer to them as inmates, especially in front of their families during in-person visits.

Stabbings on rise in NYC during surge in major crime.  Stabbings are on a rise in the Big Apple amid a citywide surge in major crime, according to the latest figures obtained by The [New York] Post.  The statistics, which cover the period through Aug. 7, show that stabbings have risen by 11% compared to the same span last year — from 2,465 to 2,756.  Fatal stabbings have jumped a whopping 43% — from 48 to 69 — during the same period, the data shows.  "People aren't afraid to carry guns, so obviously they are not worried [about carrying] knives," a Manhattan cop told The Post.  "Plus it is a lot easier to get a hold of a knife."  A Staten Island cop blamed the lack of serious consequences for offenders.  "If you get caught carrying a knife — even a machete — you just get a DAT [desk appearance ticket]," the officer told The Post.  "It is a misdemeanor.  No value for human life."

Nearly 2,000 NYPD cops quitting before getting full pensions — a 71% jump from 2021.  The NYPD is still hemorrhaging cops.  Ever-growing exodus figures show 2,465 police officers have filed to leave the department this year — 42% more than the 1,731 who exited at the same time last year, according to the latest pension fund stats obtained by The [New York] Post.  More disturbing is the fact that the number of cops hanging up their holsters early — before reaching 20 years for a full pension — has skyrocketed 71% this year from the year before (1,098 from 641).  NYPD Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch said the so-called "voluntary quits" are driving the "stampede" — and not a big academy class that graduated in 2022, as claimed last month by Chief of Department Kenneth Corey.  "We have had retirement waves caused by large academy classes before — they were nothing like this," said Lynch.

Brazil gave Citizens Free Reign to Defend themselves, this compilation shows the result.  Brazil has found a way to allow citizens to fight back against the rash of criminals destroying the beautiful South American nation.  Brazil leads the world in kidnapping, especially the kidnapping and robbery of tourists.  Now, the people of Brazil are fighting back, here is just a small portion of what people have done to stop these thugs.  [Video clip]

Man charged with killing NY cop [was] released from prison in May.  The suspect in the killing of an upstate New York police officer in July was released from prison two months earlier, and could face a life sentence without parole based on new charges a prosecutor announced Wednesday [8/3/2022].  Kelvin Vickers, 21, is charged in an eight-count indictment with aggravated murder, attempted murder, assault and weapons counts for the July 21 attack that killed Rochester Police Officer Anthony Mazurkiewicz, 54, and wounded Officer Sino Seng as the two sat in an unmarked vehicle.  A funeral for the fallen officer was held Monday.  Investigators said the shooter, unprovoked, approached from behind and fired at least 17 rounds, including one that penetrated a nearby house and injured a 15-year-old girl inside.

10 career criminals racked up nearly 500 arrests since NY bail reform began.  A small group of just 10 career criminals was allowed to run amok across the Big Apple and rack up nearly 500 arrests after New York enacted its controversial bail reform law — and most of them are still out on the streets, The [New York] Post has learned.  Stunning statistics compiled by the NYPD show that the city's alleged "worst of the worst" repeat offenders have been busted a total of 485 times since bail reform went into effect in 2020.  Two of the unidentified defendants are actually accused of embarking on lives of crime in the wake of bail reform, with one busted 33 times since 2020 and the other busted 22 times, all this year, the data shows.

George Soros Is Singlehandedly Destroying American Criminal Justice.  Crime is rapidly rising in major American cities, primarily where liberal District Attorney's (DA) received large sums of money from liberal billionaire George Soros in their election campaigns.  Many of these DAs take it upon themselves to dismiss charges for various reasons — whether it is income, racial, or status based, ignoring the law.  Liberal George Soros DAs, like any other politician, do what their largest donor wants them to do.  In the case of American criminal justice, we see what George Soros wants: criminals who get away with crime and victims who never see justice.

The Creepy Weirdness Of Democrats Is Best Understood When They Talk About Law Enforcement.  Nothing captures just how bizarre and unearthly Democrats have become than when they get to talking about police and law enforcement.  (Their fixation with gender bending is a close second.)  It would honestly do them a lot of good to just stop discussing the issue altogether.  You can see it on their faces how hard it is to articulate simple concepts like, "criminals should be in jail," or, "police deserve respect."  They would rather complicate the issue by talking about the history of slavery, "disadvantaged communities," and — my favorite — systemic oppression.  All the data show that across the board, regardless of race, the overwhelming majority of police and civilian interactions are fine; that minorities call on cops for help at a far higher rate than whites; and that the chance of an unarmed black man being killed by police is next to nonexistent (and when such an incident does occur, it's because he was resisting arrest or attempting to flee in a life-threatening, high-speed chase).  But liberals refuse to leave it alone, instead writhing in pain as they try to find some existential problem with our law enforcement.

Why Incarceration Matters.  Law enforcement and academics agree that three factors are involved in deterring crime: certainty of apprehension, swiftness of apprehension, and severity of sanctions — in other words, how likely you are to get caught, how quickly you get caught, and how long you spend in prison if you get caught.  The two groups disagree, however, about which of these is most important for deterrence.  Modern academics insist that length of prison sentences is not crucial, while law enforcement officials believe that the length of incarceration time actually stops people from committing crimes in the future.  In a recent report, the United States Sentencing Commission put this question through a rigorous statistical testing procedure involving thousands of inmates over multiple decades and came up with a clear result:  length of incarceration matters for recidivism — a lot.

What do police defunders have to say to Brooklyn's 75th Precinct?  Brooklyn's 75th Precinct is rife with fury at the work of police defunders and criminal-justice "reformers."  With 48 shootings and 58 gun victims in 2022 so far, the 75th is the epicenter of the city's surge in gun violence.  Since the start of summer, shootings have doubled over 2021's rate, harkening back to 1993 when The Post dubbed the precinct New York's Killing Ground as it saw a murder every 63 hours.  This year's victims have been young and old; many, innocent bystanders sitting on a park bench or standing on the street.  The shooters are mostly teens and young men, often engaged in running street battles or wild shootouts inside busy bodegas.  Gov. Hochul and state lawmakers who dismissed Mayor Eric Adams' recent call for a special session to address the crime surge ought to visit East New York and Cypress Hills to see what they're refusing to fix.  And to hear the anger on the street.

Recidivism rates for NYC criminals are off the charts.  More than two years ago, the new bail reform law in New York went into effect and the results have been obvious to pretty much everyone who lives in the Big Apple.  The law was ostensibly designed to "combat racism" and focus on "rehabilitation over incarceration."  The law's proponents claimed that most criminals are simply misunderstood and lacking in opportunities.  Given the proper motivation and a chance at a fresh start, most of them would happily take up nine-to-five jobs and turn their backs on gang activity and lives of crime.  But the latest NYPD crime statistics report shows us how that actually worked out.  The law basically alerted criminals that the door to the candy store was unlocked and they were free to ramp up their criminal business model with abandon.  Recidivism rates in Gotham are as much as three times greater for some categories of crime than they were before the law took effect.

He tried to kill a congressman, and New York released him within hours.  A man who attempted to kill a sitting congressman and New York gubernatorial candidate was released shortly after the murder attempt.  On July 21, U.S. representative Lee Zeldin was making a campaign speech at the New York VFW in his bid to win the election for governor of New York in November.  He was speaking to a crowd from a stage "when a man stumbled through the crowd.  He then proceeded to climb on the stage and pull what was initially believed to be a knife," according to RochesterFirst.com.  The weapon was eventually determined to be a black hardened plastic keychain with two sharp points designed for self-defense.

As Crime Skyrockets And Democrats Deny Blame, Remember What They Said About Police.  There is perhaps no better example of gaslighting by today's Democratic Party than when it comes to the issue of "Defund the Police."  In the aftermath of the death of George Floyd in the spring of 2020, the mantra was all the rage in leftwing, Democratic circles.  Their media, their spokespeople, their elected officials — all of them — were singing the same song:  Police are evil, the system is racist, and we need to put our tax dollars to use doing something else.  The movement never made any sense.  Anyone who is old enough to remember the days of high-crime cities or who has watched movies like Taxi Driver and French Connection understand that a lack of law enforcement yields lawlessness.  And lawlessness yields more lawlessness.  Such a strategy will inevitably result in spiraling crime, and much of that crime will likely be of the "violent" variety.  Now, two years later, that highly predictable outcome has indeed come to fruition.  Since 2020 and their verbal attacks against police, Biden Administration officials have repeatedly tried to walk back their undeniable support for decimating our police departments.

New Los Angeles bridge opens, then quickly closes amid chaos.  The newest bridge in Los Angeles, a $588-million architectural marvel with views of the downtown skyline, opened to great fanfare on July 10.  It has already been closed, to great dismay, several times since then amid chaos and collisions.  The 6th Street Viaduct — which soars over the concrete-lined Los Angeles River to connect downtown to the historic Eastside — quickly became a hotspot for street racing, graffiti and illegal takeovers that draw hundreds of spectators to watch drivers perform dangerous stunts in their vehicles.

The Editor says...
This is exactly the behavior one should expect in a state that's all crime and no punishment.

Legislative Pardons Should Correct Unfair DC Trials.  Only 5% of Washington, D.C. voters cast their ballots for Donald Trump in 2020, reflecting how thoroughly anti-Trump the jury pool is there.  It appears impossible for anyone perceived to be a Trump supporter to receive a fair jury trial in D.C.  There is a 100% conviction rate by D.C. jurors of anyone associated with Trump, while there has been a 100% acquittal rate for prominent Democrats.  The jury selection process in the trial of Steve Bannon included startling revelations of how much animosity people in government-funded D.C. have for Trump and his supporters.  In his second term as president Donald Trump would finally dismantle the Deep State, and details are already circulating of his credible plan to replace tens of thousands of federal workers to make this happen.  Some jurors may fear a loss of their government job if Trump returns to power, or sooner retaliation by liberals who might post home addresses of jurors who dared to vote in favor of Trump or his supporters.

Halting the Madness.  While the liberals and the leftists launch a collective and desperate attack against our country and all it stands for, they launch another fierce movement nationwide to defund the police and defend the violent and repeated criminals. [...] Take Chicago as an example.  In 2019, there were 2147 gun shootings and 500 gun deaths; in 2020, 3261 shootings and 772 deaths; in 2021, 3561 shootings and 797 deaths; in 2022, by the end of June, 1255 shootings and 310 deaths.  Yet shootings are not the only crimes criminals commit; they also engage in thousands of carjackings, robberies, shopliftings, lootings, assaults, with few consequences.  According to NBC Chicago, in 2021, one year after hundreds of businesses in Chicago, including those upscale shops on the Magnificent Mile, were looted in 2020, the Cook County State's Attorney's Office only approved 392 looting cases; only 33 cases made it through the courts; only 26 individuals received probation; only seven ended up in jail.

Former Mexican mafia killer, drug dealer and rapist given parole.  Parole officials in California have announced the pending release of former Mexican Mafia gang leader Rene "Boxer" Enriquez.  The release comes after his alleged cooperation with law enforcement officials in other criminal investigations.  Enriquez's criminal career started in his late teens when he was first arrested for several armed robberies.  Enriquez would go on to commit rapes, and drug sales, and be convicted of two murders which left him a sentence of life in prison.  Despite his criminal history, local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies have rushed to his aide requesting that he be paroled for his part in multiple criminal investigations.

Teen charged with killing pastor was on probation at time of arrest.  A 15-year-old charged with first-degree murder in the death of the Rev. Autura Eason-Williams in Whitehaven was on probation at the time of the incident and his arrest.  The teen, who prosecutors said they want to charge as an adult, has previously faced three counts of carjacking and three weapons charges in juvenile court, a Shelby County Juvenile Court spokesman said Friday [7/22/2022].  In November 2021, he was charged with unlawful possession of a weapon as a misdemeanor.  In December 2021, he was charged with three counts of carjacking, and three counts of possession/employment of a firearm during the commission of a felony.

George Gascon Releases Another Violent Felon, This Time a Murderer Serving 50-Year Prison Sentence.  Disgraced Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon has made another destructive decision by releasing a reputed gang member and convicted murderer from prison.  According to court documents, in March of 2015, Andrew Cahcu was 17 years old when he helped murder 41-year-old Louis Amela in Palmdale, California, during a robbery.  Cachu was sentenced to a 50-year prison sentence, beginning in juvenile detention, according to Fox News Digital.  The murderer was released in November 2021 — after serving just six years — following Deputy District Attorney Alissa Blair, a close Gascon ally, declining to present evidence at a hearing to decide whether Cachu should remain in custody after turning 25, since he would be out of the juvenile detention facility where he was being held[.]

The Left Should Be Happy with Biden.  The Left should be ecstatic that Joe Biden has given them everything they wanted. [...] The Left for years has railed about the criminal justice system.  It believes punishment does not really deter crime, which is instead a result of racism and a toxic capitalist system.  Biden agrees.  Federal attorneys mimic the so-called George Soros city and county prosecutors who enforce the law largely according to ideological directives.

Surprise! Drug dealers released without bail don't show up for arraignment.  Last month the California Highway Patrol pulled over two men in Tulare County, which is part of California's Central Valley about midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.  Both men were from Washington state and when police performed a search of their vehicle they found 150,000 fentanyl pills: [...] In addition to the fentanyl, they also had two kilograms of cocaine in the vehicle.  Based on the amount of drugs involved, they were booked into jail with a bail amount of $1 million each.  Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of the story.

California murderer released 6 years into 50-year sentence arrested again on gun, DUI charges after car chase.  A reputed gang member and convicted murderer who got out of prison decades early with help from Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon is facing new felony charges, according to authorities.  Andrew Cachu was released in November after Deputy District Attorney Alisa Blair, a close Gascon ally, declined to present evidence at a hearing to determine whether he should remain in custody after aging out of the juvenile detention facility when he turned 25, Fox News Digital reported at the time.  The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department said Cachu had been involved in a chase Wednesday evening.  Lt. L. Arnold told Fox News Digital that deputies responded to a report of a person passed out in a car blocking driving lanes when they encountered Cachu apparently asleep with a gun in the car.

California alleged drug traffickers in massive fentanyl bust no shows in court after release on cashless bail.  Two accused drug traffickers busted with 150,000 fentanyl pills during a California traffic stop last month failed to show in court Thursday after being released on cashless bail.  Defendants Jose Zendejas, 25, and Benito Madrigal, 19 — released on their own recognizance less than 24 hours after their arrests with the large stash of illicit drugs — were scheduled to appear for their arraignments at the Tulare County Courthouse in central California on Thursday morning, but both men failed to show.  The judge called for Zendejas and Madrigal — both from Washington state — who were not in court, and the warrant for their arrest continues.  The judge withdrew the prior $2 million bond and directed each be held without bond if they pop up.

The Editor says...
Those guys aren't going to "pop up anywhere."  They're probably already back in Mexico.

LAPD warns residents, tourists not to flash jewelry as robberies rise.  An uptick in violent robberies in the Melrose District and other surrounding areas prompted the Los Angeles Police Department to issue the somber warning over the weekend.  On July 14, two masked men attempted to steal an expensive watch from a store on Melrose Avenue, according to NBC News.  The next day, three armed men stole a watch from a couple walking in the usually quiet area of Harper and Rosewood Avenues.  Police are still searching for suspects involved in those two separate incidents.  LAPD issued an alert informing people who frequent Melrose, the Downtown Los Angeles Jewelry District and surrounding areas where assailants are following and violently attacking innocent shoppers.

San Francisco DA Brooke Jenkins fires 15 of Chesa Boudin's staffers.  San Francisco's no-nonsense new district attorney is cleaning house — as she reportedly laid off 15 staffers inherited from her booted, woke predecessor.  The firings Friday by Brooke Jenkins come nearly two weeks after she was appointed district attorney by Mayor London Breed following the recall of her much-maligned predecessor Chesa Boudin, according to SFGATE.com.  "Today, I made difficult, but important changes to my management team and staff that will help advance my vision to restore a sense of safety in San Francisco by holding serious and repeat offenders accountable and implementing smart criminal justice reforms," Jenkins said in a statement.  Jenkins dropped the firing ax on most the 25 staffers who worked for Boudin, days after holding a 20-minute introductory meeting with them that some attendees described as "uncomfortable" and "icy," SFGATE.com also reported.

The Party of Violence.  Democrats are openly the party of violence and death.  Their policies fail so they must advocate violence to get them implemented. [...] They are big on defunding the police which increases the crime rate because criminals roam free to commit more crimes.  This isn't rocket science.  And so the crime rate skyrockets.  Chicago, the deadliest city in the country, kills more people per weekend than were killed in the Parkland shooting.  Democrats running these high-crime cities do not seem the least bit perturbed by violent crimes.  They make no effort to put repeat criminals in jail and in fact, liberal DAs refuse to bring charges against the people who are serially killing other people.  Democrat-run San Francisco and Los Angeles are suffering from huge spikes in the crime rate but the locals seem content to continue electing Democrats who clearly have a soft spot for criminals and crime.

Gascon Kills 'Lifer Unit,' Will No Longer Let Victims Know When Their Assaulters Are up for Parole.  Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon is continuing his one-man assault on the city, and according to our sources, he has now decided that victims and families of victims of violent crimes should no longer be notified when the convict comes up for parole.  They should just read it in the newspaper like everyone else.

7-Eleven stores across L.A. encouraged to close following deadly robberies.  Following multiple robberies, including some that ended in bloodshed, 7-Eleven franchises across Los Angeles were encouraged to close Monday night.  The motivation to close up shop for the evening came from 7-Eleven's corporate leaders and communicated through a statement provided to KTLA.  The statement reads:  "Our hearts are with the victims and their loved ones.  We are gathering information on this terrible tragedy and working with local law enforcement.  Right now, our focus is on Franchisee, associate and customer safety.  With that in mind, we have encouraged stores in the Los Angeles area to close tonight."

Seattle jail closes booking area due to staffing shortage.  The King County Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention (DAJD) in Washington state closed the booking area at their Seattle jail on Sunday night due to a lack of staff.  Two months ago, DAJD decided to close the Regional Justice Center (RJC) booking area due to staffing shortages.  As a result, the booking area at the RJC will remain closed for the remainder of the year.  Due to the closure of the RJC booking, the King County Jail in Seattle is the only operational booking facility for all of the King County Jail system.

Biden Admin Spends $1.5 Million on 'Transgender Programming' for Inmates.  The left is becoming more aggressive at pushing their transgender agenda on society, and it doesn't seem like they're going to stop forcing their woke narrative any time soon.  In fact, prisoners will now have luxurious options when it comes to "transitioning," and all paid for by the American people, of course.  The Department of Justice (DOJ) entered a $1.5 million contract with a private company to develop a "transgender programming curriculum" to be used in prisons across the U.S.

A Ghost Agency Speaks.  The U.S. Sentencing Commission, an independent judicial agency created by the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, promulgates sentencing guidelines in federal criminal cases and aggregates data about federal sentences.  Recently appointed Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's service on the commission garnered much attention during her recent confirmation hearings.  Though the commission is a virtual shell now, with only one out of seven voting positions filled (it requires a quorum of at least four members to take any formal action), its staff continues to provide valuable data about drugs, firearms, and immigration that help explain current crime trends.  The commission's recently issued 2021 annual report, for instance, identifies drug cases as the largest group of federal cases for 2021.  Methamphetamine prosecutions account for almost half of those cases.  Though the threat of opioids and heroin remains high, methamphetamine presents a different kind of menace.  Heroin is a central nervous system depressant; addicts use it and nod off.  Methamphetamine, particularly crystal meth, is an explosive and addictive stimulant.  Users smoke, inject, or snort meth, then act out in violent and unpredictable ways.

Who Are the Real Insurrectionists?  Fueled by leftist billionaires, the Left waged a multiyear effort to elect big-city district attorneys whose agendas were pure nihilism:  to not enforce laws, to release arrested criminals without indictments, to end cash bail, and prematurely to release convicted and hardened lawbreakers.  The guiding principle was the revolutionary theory that the law was a simple construct used against marginalized peoples and the poor, and therefore simply could be ignored or discarded.

Remain At Your Own Risk!  Another Major Business Operator Pulls Out Of Chicago.  The old adage, "Crime doesn't pay" needs an update.  In Democrat-run cities like San Francisco, New York, and Chicago, where soft-on-crime prosecutors and policies have taken hold, tone-deaf political elites drink their wine and eat their brie under the protection of security details at the taxpayer's expense.  Meanwhile, hard-working citizens and business owners are taking it on the chin.  Their families aren't safe to walk the streets, brazen shoplifters help themselves to whatever products they fancy at local supermarkets, and an overwhelming sense of lawlessness pervades everyday life.  If you're a regular citizen or business owner in a blue city, your mindset needs to be adjusted to, "Tolerating crime doesn't pay." [...] But citizens and businesses have had enough, and nowhere is the problem more evident than in Chicago.

West Hollywood votes to defund sheriff's department despite soaring crime.  West Hollywood has voted to slash law enforcement funding, leaving the California city famous for its bustling Sunset Strip nightlife destination with up to five fewer deputies on patrol — despite skyrocketing crime rates in the area.  The council passed the budget with a 3-2 vote Monday, with Mayor Lauren Meister and Councilman John Erickson voting against it, reported WeHoville.com.  Meanwhile, the West Hollywood City Council approved keeping bars open until 4 a.m. and increased funding for a Russian arts festival.  The vote came just three months after the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department reported that crime in West Hollywood jumped a startling 137 percent in February 2022, compared to the same time last year.

Frustrated NYC detectives leaving 'insane' NYPD, have 'had enough'.  More than 100 NYPD detectives have retired in June — and another 75 plan to put their papers in next month — as many become frustrated by revolving door justice and rules that hamstring them in the Big Apple, officials and detectives told The [New York] Post.  "That's going to have a major impact on investigating crimes," Detectives Endowment Association President Paul DiGiacomo said.  "The detective squads are down now as we speak and are investigating more cases.  It's going to have an impact on public safety."  So far this year 250 detectives have retired, leaving the total number at about 5,600, which is nearly 2000 less than two decades ago.  There were 794 detective retirements during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 — and that number dropped down to 395 in 2021.  Sources said that 100 retirements in just one month is a large number for the NYPD.

California duo released from jail days after huge fentanyl pill bust.  Two alleged drug traffickers have been released from a California jail just days after they were busted with 150,000 fentanyl pills, the disgruntled local sheriff said.  Jose Zendejas, 25, and Benito Madrigal, 19, were arrested during a traffic stop in Tulare County last Friday when authorities allegedly discovered the 150,000 pills — worth an estimated $750,000 — stashed inside their vehicle.  The pair was immediately booked into the Tulare County Pre-Trial Facility on charges of possession, transportation and sales of illegal drugs.  But Zendejas and Madrigal were released from custody on their own recognizance just days later after a judge granted them a court order.

'Professional booster' notches 100th shoplifting bust — and is released again.  A "professional booster" with an alleged penchant for shoplifting at Manhattan retailers notched what could be her 100th bust over the weekend — and was released without bail yet again on Sunday [6/26/2022].  Michelle McKelley, 42, was arrested late Saturday for allegedly pocketing $125 worth of goods from a CVS in Lower Manhattan, and then was freed under the state's soft-on-crime criminal justice reforms.  Prosecutors said in Manhattan Criminal Court Sunday that McKelley has failed to appear in court 27 times on her multitude of past arrests — and has five other pending cases.  But the charges do not qualify for bail under the 2019 state reform, which means prosecutors could only ask that she be let go on supervised release while the case is pending.

U.S. Bureau of Prisons provides free cosmetic sex change surgery to a pro-Nazi male bank robber.  This comes in the midst of a poor global economy in which many can barely feed their families, and no relief is in sight.  This case represents yet another absurdity, in a constant stream of similar absurdities.  The woke movement advances daily, testing the waters to gauge if there will be any significant blowback or consequences to its actions.  The far-leftist agenda, no matter how ridiculous, will continue to gain ground in every and any sphere in which it is tolerated.

Hundreds of NYC prosecutors [are] quitting [because of] woke bosses and onerous reforms.  The number of prosecutors fleeing the city's district attorneys offices has spiraled in the wake of criminal justice reforms that have created what one ex-top prosecutor called "insanity."  Sixty five assistant district attorneys, or about 12 percent of the staff, have resigned so far this year from Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg's office, up from about 44 through the end of March.  During all of 2021, 97 ADAs quit.  The situation is nearly the same in the office of Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez, where 67 of some 500 prosecutors, or about 13 percent, have also called it quits as of June 17. Another three resigned on Thursday, according to a source.  That is compared to 84 who left in all of 2020 and 94 last year.  In the Bronx, 59 prosecutors have walked from January through May.  Reps from the Queens and Staten Island DA offices did not respond to requests for data.

Jury lets 'Kill them all' Times Square rampage driver off the hook in fatal attack.  The Navy veteran who plowed his car through a pedestrian-packed, midday Times Square in 2017 — telling a traffic cop afterwards, "I wanted to kill them" — will avoid jail time despite taking the life of an 18-year-old tourist in the rampage that also left 22 others injured.  That was the decision of a Manhattan jury Wednesday [6/22/2022] that deliberated just six hours before buying the insanity defense of Richard Rojas, 31, finding him "not responsible" due to mental illness.  Defense lawyers had maintained Rojas wasn't in control of his actions when he unleashed the May 18, 2017 carnage that took the life of young Alyssa Elsman.  The decision amounts to a rare buy-in on an insanity defense in New York, with jurors determining that his mental defect superseded clear evidence of guilt.

Ken Griffin moving Citadel to Miami from Chicago following crime complaints.  Billionaire Ken Griffin is relocating his big hedge-fund firm Citadel from Chicago to Miami, the third major employer to announce the move of a corporate headquarters from Illinois in the past two months.  In a letter to employees Thursday that was viewed by The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Griffin said he had personally moved to Florida and that his market-making business, Citadel Securities, would also transfer.  He wrote he views Florida as a better corporate environment and though he didn't specifically cite crime as a factor, company officials said it was a consideration.  Mr. Griffin is the wealthiest resident of Illinois, so his departure will hurt state tax collections on both the individual and corporate side.

Mayor Adams, NYPD already retreating from solo patrol plan in transit system after cop's assault in Brooklyn.  The NYPD is already retreating from its plan to conduct solo patrols in the city's mass transit system — after a solitary cop was assaulted in a Brooklyn subway system by a man who repeatedly tried to grab his service weapon, police officials said Tuesday night.  Mayor Adams announced his solo patrol plan earlier Tuesday, over the objections from the city's largest police union.  But by Tuesday night, after a conversation with Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch, he agreed to put two officers on every train patrol, a PBA spokesman said.  Adams spokesman Fabien Levy said solo patrols weren't being abandoned, just modified.

Serial looter freed again after 122nd bust.  People who frequently hang around in the vicinity of the jail in Manhattan were treated to what is probably by now a familiar sight yesterday.  The ritual in question was 34-year-old Lorenzo McLucas walking out of the jail as free as a bird.  The locals certainly should be able to recognize McLucas at this point.  This was the 50th time he had been arrested and immediately released just this year.  In all, he has 122 busts for looting and shoplifting under his belt.  (He probably stole the belt as well.)  In his latest heist, he was caught after clearing off the cosmetics counter at the pricey Duane Reade shop on Lexington Avenue.  Cosmetics sell quickly on the streets at a discount, you see.

Six major cities on pace to pass historic 2021 violent crime totals halfway through 2022.  Violent crimes are on the rise in six of America's major cities and set to outpace the already historic levels of 2021 violent crime.  Baltimore, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Atlanta, and New York City are all on pace to break their 2021 levels of violent crime halfway through this year, with the nation's largest city leading the group, according to crime data reviewed by Fox News.  New York City has seen a 25.8% jump in violent crime at this point in 2022 compared to the same time in 2021, despite seeing a small decrease in the amount of homicides recorded in the city.  Violent crime, which is typically defined as homicide, rape, assault, and robbery, had already been on the rise since 2020.  Homicides have been one of the factors driving up rates of violent crime, rising 30% from 2019 to 2020 and another 5% between 2020 and 2021.

LA District Attorney George Gascon says suspected cop killer William Flores had 'no history of violence'.  Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon said the gunman who shot and killed two El Monte police officers had "no history of violence" as he defended how his office handled a recent weapons case against the cop-killer.  Shooter William Flores was out on probation — though he could have been behind bars — following a 2021 plea deal connected to a drugs and weapons arrest when he shot and killed El Monte Cpl.  Michael Paredes, 42, and Officer Joseph Santana, 31, on June 14.  Gascon, during Tuesday afternoon's press conference, argued that Flores' criminal history "did not contain any evidence of violence," but instead he was someone who was addicted to drugs.

'Hypocritical' defund NYPD advocate moved out of Harlem for 'safety issues'.  A left-wing state lawmaker who has pushed for cutting police funding first moved to the district she is seeking to represent in Congress because "safety issues" near "the projects" in Harlem prompted her to shack up with her tech bro then-fiancé in the Financial District, The [New York] Post has learned.  Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou (D-Lower Manhattan) told a local publication in 2016 — when she was campaigning to initially get elected to her current seat — that she headed to the wealthier Manhattan neighborhood because she witnessed a pair of disturbing crimes and fell victim to one.  "I actually was robbed when I was living in Harlem.  My boyfriend at the time, my fiancé, didn't think I was safe up there, so he told me to move in, and so that's how I moved to the Financial District with him," she explained in an interview with the Lo-Down NY. [...] Four years later, the since-updated issues section for her most recent Assembly campaign read, "She believes that we are long overdue for police reform in this country and that we need to defund millions from the police in order to put critical funding back into our social services, education, and housing."

Four Federal Inmates Escape Virginia Prison.  Four federal inmates on Saturday escaped a minimum security prison in Hopewell, Virginia around 1:48 am.  "Corey Branch, Tavares Lajuane Graham, Lamonte Rashawn Willis and Kareem Allen Shaw were discovered missing from the Federal Correctional Complex Petersburg's satellite camp at approximately 1:45 a.m., according to the bureau." CBS reported.  It is unclear how the four inmates escaped.  It is also not known if the four men escaped together.

The Editor says...
Whenever you read a news article and come across a phrase like, "It is unclear how the four inmates escaped," that is a canard.  The people running the prison know exactly how the inmates escaped.  They probably figured it out within five minutes.  But they can't go on TV and describe the prison's weaknesses.  The news writer say, "it is unclear," when they really mean, "we haven't been told."

Five major cities are on track to surpass their 2021 homicide totals.  Washington, Baltimore, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Milwaukee are on track to surpass their already-soaring homicide rates from last year.  Last year, the FBI warned that homicides in the US rose nearly 30 percent from 2020 and overall violent crime rose for the first time in four years.  The stunning trend in homicides has continued this year.  In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the homicide rate leaped 24.7 percent from the year-to-date compared to the same period last year.

DNA testing proves exonerated convict was guilty all along.  In 1990 a horse groomer named Pamela Albertson was raped and murdered at Pompano Beach racetrack in Florida.  Robert Earl Hayes, who also worked at the track, was arrested and charged with the crime and was convicted and sentence to death in 1991.  One of the key elements in the trial was the then relatively new use of DNA evidence to prove Hayes' guilt.  However that wasn't the end of the story.  In 1997 the results of the 1990 trial were thrown out on the grounds that the DNA evidence was not reliable.  Hayes was tried again without the DNA evidence and this time he was exonerated and became a kind of mini-celebrity.

DOJ refusing to prosecute man for arson of NYPD car during BLM riots, congressman says.  Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) is demanding to know why the Justice Department dropped a charge of arson against a man who attempted to ignite a New York Police Department vehicle on fire during the George Floyd riots in 2020.  In June 2020, Victor Sanchez-Santa, then a 19-year-old resident of Queens, was arrested and charged by the DOJ for one count of arson after allegedly lighting a cloth glove on fire and placing it under an NYPD vehicle before leaving the scene.  According to an NYPD detective's affidavit, the crime was caught on surveillance video.

Gang Member Who Killed El Monte Police Officers Was Released on Probation Prior to Shooting.  Another day, another tragic example of Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón's failures.  On Tuesday night, two El Monte Police officers were gunned down while responding to a possible stabbing at a motel.  On Wednesday, city and county coroner's officials identified the officers as Corporal Michael Domingo Paredes and Officer Joseph Anthony Santana.  Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin gave an update with information on the now-dead suspect.  Justin William Flores was a gang member who was on probation for felony with a firearm.  Thanks to Gascón's soft-on-crime directives, Flores only received a "bare minimum sentence" in a plea deal:  [Tweet]

Left-Wing Prosecutor Soft on Alien Drug Dealers So They Weren't Deported.  As Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are arresting only a quarter of the numbers they did a decade ago (under the Biden administration's guidance), there are over 10,000 deportable aliens with criminal records loose in this country.  Many of these criminals are drug dealers wreaking havoc across our nation.  There were over 100,000 deaths in America from drug overdoses last year, over half attributed to fentanyl and related drugs.  "Mexico and China are the primary source countries for fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked directly into the United States," according to the Drug Enforcement Agency.  These deadly drugs are then shipped to the U.S. through our porous southern border.  For example, on June 5, Customs and Border Protection officers at the Del Rio, Texas, port of entry stopped a shipment of methamphetamine bound for America's streets valued at $1.6 million.

How Many Men in California Prisons Identify as Women[?].  California's prison population includes 1,115 biological males who say they identify as women, according to the state's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.  About 1 in 3 in that population has requested transfers to women's prisons, but only about 1 in 10 of those requests have been approved, the corrections department says.  California's prison agency provided the statistics in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Oversight Project, the government watchdog division of The Heritage Foundation.

Oakland Has so much Crime, The City Council Is Asking The National Guard To Step In.  Neighbors in Oakland's Fruitvale District said they're seeing an uptick in gun violence near the intersection of Foothill Boulevard and 35th Avenue in recent months.  They shared surveillance videos of shootings, including a murder, with KPIX.  Neighbors said there was a non-injury shooting there on April 29, a robbery that turned deadly on May 12 and drive-by shooting on June 5. [...] Councilman Noel Gallo represents the Fruitvale District.  He said police have not arrested anyone in those recent shootings.  Councilman Gallo said the police force is down by roughly 100 officers and allied agencies have staffing issues as well and can't help as much.  [Video clip]

The Editor says...
These are some of the same people who wanted to "defund the police" a couple of years ago.  Let them clean up their own mess.

Just like 1950 — except now it's officially condoned, and pointed in the opposite direction.
Race must be considered in determining legality of police stops and seizures, WA state Supreme Court rules.  The Washington state Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a person's race, and law enforcement's long history of discrimination against people of color, should be taken into account when determining the legality of police seizures.  The court also clarified state law to say police have seized a person if an objective observer would conclude that the person was not free to leave or refuse a request.  But, the court wrote, that "objective observer" must be aware that discrimination and biases "have resulted in disproportionate police contacts, investigative seizures, and uses of force against Black, Indigenous, and other people of color."  "Today, we formally recognize what has always been true:  In interactions with law enforcement, race and ethnicity matter," Justice Mary Yu wrote for the unanimous court.  "Therefore, courts must consider the race and ethnicity of the allegedly seized person as part of the totality of the circumstances when deciding whether there was a seizure."

Local VA Judge Pulls a Move That Most Legal Observers Say Never Happens.  I've been told by legal experts and lawyers, this never happens.  This move made by a local Virginia judge never happens.  The prosecutor's office has [been] removed and disqualified from a burglary case.  Is this the nuclear option in the legal world?  Maybe.  It appears as if a Loudoun County judge had it up to here with the local prosecutor's antics in trying to get a plea deal hashed out for Kevin Enrique Valle, who is facing a slew of charges including two felony burglaries.  The prosecutor's office, which is led by Buta Biberaj, seems to have misled the court, omitting key details about the suspect including past criminal history.  Valle appears to have gone on a burglary spree lasting ten days and spanned over four different Virginia counties.  Yeah, you can't hide that from the court.

Gavin Newsom:  America Has a 'Red State Murder Problem'.  California Governor Gavin Newsom tried to reframe the political narrative on crime Saturday, claiming that America has a "red state murder problem," rather than a problem of homicide in Democrat-controlled cities across the nation.  Newsom was speaking with Elex Michaelson, host of The Issue Is podcast, on the occasion of the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles.  He claimed the media had inflated the broader significance of the recall of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin.  Newsom, a former mayor of the city, said that the recall had been "so predictable," and that he had "enjoyed it," though he argued that nothing about the recall "warranted the attention nationally as some arbiter of something farther-reaching."  Whe he acknowledged that Democrats "absolutely" bear some responsibility for the crime wave in San Francisco, Newsom said that Republicans are more to blame for the nationwide crime wave, and blamed media bias for the focus on California.

The Subordinate Citizen.  We have developed entire classes of American elite citizens who are not subject to the enforcement of the law — at least as it is applied to others either less influential or ideologically incorrect.  Federal prosecutors sought to jail Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn for six months for not telling the truth to federal agents.  They put another Trump subordinate, George Papadopoulos, in jail for two weeks for lying to federal prosecutors.  Recently the FBI stormed into an airport to arrest former Trump adviser Peter Navarro for contempt of a congressional subpoena.  OK, defying federal law has consequences.  Or does it?  Former Obama administration Attorney General Eric Holder brazenly defied congressional subpoenas and was found in contempt — a historic first.  Did the FBI ever arrest Holder, much less as he boarded an airplane?  James Clapper, former director of national intelligence, confessed he flat-out lied under oath to a congressional committee.  So did former Central Intelligence Agency chief John Brennan — twice!  Andrew McCabe repeatedly lied to federal investigators as acting director of the FBI.  Were any of them arrested or tried in the manner of Flynn, Papadopoulos, or Navarro?  If not, what then is left of the foundation of U.S. citizenship — universal equal treatment under the law?

Seattle struggles to keep one deranged, violent man behind bars.  In this particular case, the man's name is Alexander Jay.  In 2020 he was arrested for breaking into the home of an 89-year-old woman while she was home.  Terrified, the woman begged Jay not to hurt her and then called neighbors who ran over to help.  Jay attempted to flee but one of the neighbors held him at gunpoint until police arrived.  He was convicted of residential burglary, criminal trespass and attempted assault.  He had prior convictions for theft and domestic violence and wound up being sentenced to just 22 months.  Jay was released from jail earlier this year and within two weeks he had been arrested again for two violent assaults on two different women.

The Editor says...
The perpetrator is black, and apparently all of his victims are white women.  Oh, but they aren't hate crimes, and if you say they are, you're the racist.

Report: Soros Prosecutors Run Half of America's Largest Jurisdictions.  George Soros spent more than $40 million in the past decade to elect scores of liberal prosecutors in half of America's largest jurisdictions, many of which are now roiled by crime.  The Democratic megadonor has backed 75 so-called justice reform prosecutors through direct contributions, PACs, and other third-party entities, the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund revealed in a June report.  Though many had little prosecutorial experience when elected, they represent 72 million Americans in some of the nation's most populous municipalities.  Ten Soros prosecutors, including Philadelphia district attorney Larry Krasner (D.) and Los Angeles district attorney George Gascon (D.), received $13 million in just the last four years, going on to win races where they had vastly outraised their competition — sometimes by as much as 90 percent.  In each race, Soros was the single greatest donor to the campaign.

How George Soros' billions are remaking America's justice system.  How much exactly does "social justice" cost?  Liberal billionaire George Soros spent at least $40 million over the last decade to answer that question, according to our latest research.  Those millions helped elect scores of progressive prosecutors bent on remaking the criminal justice system to Soros' liking.  It's not to Americans' liking, as San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin's recall Tuesday shows.  Soros didn't fund Boudin directly, but he donated to an anti-recall PAC.  And Boudin is the first face on the "Meet the Movement" page of the Soros-funded Fair and Just Prosecution, whose conferences he's attended.  From 2014 to 2021, Soros' $40 million in campaign spending helped elect so-called social justice prosecutors across the country while dozens more benefited from the billionaire's largesse while in office.  About 75 Soros-linked district attorneys control the jurisdictions of 72 million Americans — one in five — from Manhattan to Portland, Los Angeles to Philadelphia.  And Soros isn't done yet.

A cab driver was beaten to death with a pipe and DA Boudin's office treated it as an accidental death.  Fingers crossed today will be the last day DA Chesa Boudin is in office.  Meanwhile, a writer named Susan Dyer Reynolds has uncovered a remarkable story which Boudin's office is trying to conceal.  It started in September 2019 when a 35-year-old homeless man named James McGee was seen chasing a 62-year-old cab driver named Arif Mohammed Qasim with a metal pipe. [...] The Deputy DA who initially charged the case was one of the people fired by DA Boudin as soon as he took office.  He said of the reduced charges, "Had I still been the managing attorney of the homicide unit, I would have never agreed to the plea."  Another attorney quoted in the story noted that McGee was allowed to plead "no contest" to the charges.  He didn't even have to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter.  When sentencing took place in December 2020, just 15 months after McGee bludgeoned Qasim to death in the street, he was released on time served.

Democrat Prosecutors And Policies Create Our Culture Of Crime.  Since a spate of recent shootings, Democrats led by President Joe Biden have been busy exploiting the tragedies to call for more gun control, go after the "gun lobby" bogeyman, and yell that we must "do something!" about firearm-related crime.  They've been clear that they aren't interested in talking about effective solutions that don't involve gun-grabbing, so they probably also don't want to talk about who's responsible for America's unsettling crime wave: the left.  Meanwhile, as of late Tuesday night, the Associated Press projected that San Francisco voters had handily recalled left-wing District Attorney Chesa Boudin, whose soft-on-crime policies wreaked havoc on the California city.

And the other three are the perpetrators.
7 in 10 New Yorkers concerned about being violent crime victim: poll.  More than 7 in 10 New Yorkers fear they will become a victim of violent crime, a distressing new poll has found — as famously progressive cities nationwide face a public safety reckoning under soft-on-crime Democrat lawmakers and prosecutors.  About 76% of residents are "very concerned," or somewhat concerned, they'll be targeted amid the Big Apple's ongoing crime wave, according to the Spectrum News NY1/Siena College poll released Tuesday [6/7/2022].  When asked "How concerned are you that a shooting in which a gunman targets people based on their race, religion or ethnicity will happen in your neighborhood," almost half (43%) confessed that they are concerned.

Philadelphia DA blames NRA for mass shooting while refusing to prosecute illegal gun crime.  Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner called for more gun control in the City of Brotherly Love after a deadly shooting on Saturday night resulted in three deaths, and 12 injuries.  Krasner's calls for gun control come despite his unwillingness to prosecute laws that are already on the books.  Krasner said on Twitter that the "terrible crimes" on South Street, which came after hours of chaos in the popular nightlife area, "tell our Pennsylvania legislators it's time for real action."  [Tweets]  He told lawmakers to refuse to take donations from the NRA, and to "bring real common-sense gun regulation to Pennsylvania.  Now."  But Krasner hasn't been implementing punishments for gun crimes as DA, including against one of the suspects in the fatal shooting.

The Sovietization of American Life.  Experts become sycophantic.  They mortgage their experience and talent to ideology — to the point where society itself regresses.  The law is no longer blind and disinterested, but adjudicates indictment, prosecution, verdict, and punishment on the ideology of the accused.  Eric Holder is held in contempt of Congress and smiles; Peter Navarro is held in contempt of Congress and is hauled off in cuffs and leg-irons.  James Clapper and John Brennan lied under oath to Congress — and were rewarded with television contracts; Roger Stone did the same and a SWAT team showed up at his home.  Andrew McCabe made false statements to federal investigators and was exempt.  A set-up George Papadopoulos went to prison for a similar charge.  So goes the new American commissariat.

Transgender Pedophile Avoids Prison After Judge Says It Would be Too Difficult to 'Cope' With.  A biological male British pedophile who identifies as a transgender woman has avoided punishment after the judge overseeing his case ruled that sending him to prison would make it too difficult to "cope" with the "anxiety" surrounding his transgenderism.  68-year-old convicted pedophile Peter Selby, of the UK, was found with over 125,000 images and videos of child sex abuse stored on various electronic devices, some depicting children as young as 3-years-old.  Among the child pornography found in the home of transgender pedophile Peter Selby was 2,400 images and videos of children classified by UK authorities as "Category A," meaning they depicted "penetrative sexual activity, bestiality, and/or sexual sadism."  According to local media reports, Selby confessed his guilt to police immediately upon their search of his home for the materials, claiming that his addiction to adult pornography had "morphed" into pedophilia.

Gascon's LA: Teen Who Mowed Down Mother and Baby Gets Only 5 months in 'Probation Camp'.  A Los Angeles teen convicted of plowing a car into a mother and her 8-month-old son in a drug-fueled hit-and-run will spend just five months in a "diversionary program" thanks to soft on crime LA County District Attorney George Gascon.  The teen's record will reportedly be wiped clean when he turns 18.  That's not justice, that's a joke.  The 16-year-old driver was driving down a one-way street in the wrong direction in Venice, California when he appeared to rev his engine and purposely aim the car at the victims in the shocking August, 2021 crime.  He then tried to drive away from the scene but was stopped when a pickup truck purposefully crashed into his car, forcing him into a pole.

'Man of Steal' speaks: thief with 46 arrests exploited city's fears — and jail might save his life.  The serial thief who led the city in shoplifting busts last year with a staggering 46 arrests says he exploited his Queens neighborhood's fears, lax store security and soft-on crime prosecutors, during an exclusive jailhouse interview with The [New York] Post.  Isaac Rodriguez, who made the paper's Oct. 3, 2021 front page as the "Man of Steal," pilfered a Jackson Heights Walgreens at will — at least 37 times last year — loading up on anything he could easily flip for cash, which he then quickly converted to heroin-cocaine speedballs.  Eyewitnesses?  Never a concern.  "Where I come from, people mind their business, and if they don't, bad things happen to them," Sir Isaac Lootin' said in the candid 50-minute video sitdown from Rikers Island.  "I'm from the hood.  "Some employees would try to talk to me, but they would never touch me."

Drivers in Washington State Don't Have To Stop for Cops Anymore.  After Washington State passed a law to constrain police officers, state drivers are refusing to pull over when asked by cops.  Northwest News Network recorded nearly 1,000 failure-to-yield incidents in 2022. Patrol officers have described a sharp rise in motorists fleeing traffic stops, speeding away sometimes in stolen cars, according to one county police chief.  Washington House Bill 1054, which Governor Jay Inslee (D.) signed into law last year, has banned police from pursuing traffic violators in their cruisers, unless the officer is granted permission by a supervisor or the perpetrator is suspected of being under the influence or having committed a violent offense, is causing imminent danger, or must be identified.

Light up a joint anywhere you want — but menthol cigarettes are another matter.
NYC Mayor Adams vows to not be 'heavy-handed' on illicit weed sales: 'Enjoy yourself, light up'.  It's a green new day for weed dealers in the Big Apple.  Mayor Adams promised Friday to not take a "heavy-handed" approach toward those who sell marijuana illicitly in the city and gave New Yorkers his blessing to smoke more pot.  While New York legalized recreational weed use last year, the licensing system that's supposed to regulate cannabis sales isn't expected to kick off until late 2022 — and Adams said Friday afternoon [6/3/2022] that he doesn't see a need for cracking down on anyone caught dealing ganja out of stores or on the street in the interim.

Democrats' safety agenda demonizes gun owners, coddles criminals, and defunds police.  In the past couple of years, liberal prosecutors across the country have started habitually reducing charges and asking for light sentences for even the most hardened, recidivistic, violent career criminals — including those who use guns to commit their crimes.  An obvious local case with tragic consequences was Fairfax County, Virginia, District Attorney Steve Descano's decision to let Gerald Brevard off with reduced charges after he burglarized a home, hid his gun in a police cruiser, and allegedly attempted to rape and abduct a woman.  Because he was free in a matter of months instead of serving years in prison, Brevard allegedly went on to shoot at least five homeless people, killing at least two.  This sort of catch-and-release policy is going on all over the place, fanning the flames of a major crime wave that is especially plaguing cities.  The culprits are not just Descano and other George Soros-funded district attorneys who have been abetting crime waves in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, New York City, and dozens of other major and medium-sized cities — nor is the problem limited to radicals such as Chesa Boudin, who for his irresponsible negligence as a prosecutor is about to be recalled from the district attorney's office in San Francisco this Saturday.

Liberal Prosecutors Say They Won't Enforce Abortion Bans.  Liberal prosecutors in red states have pledged to not enforce abortion bans that could be enacted in the likely event that the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade and allows states to restrict abortions.  Several state and local attorneys general have made public commitments to decline prosecuting individuals who break abortion laws by providing or receiving abortions.  If justices strike down Roe, after a leaked draft opinion revealed May 2 that they likely would, states will have more leeway to restrict abortions throughout pregnancy.  Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Steve Descano of Virginia pledged to never prosecute women for abortions in a May 22 op-ed for The New York Times.

Poverty and Violent Crime Don't Go Hand in Hand.  Many analysts, along with the general public, believe that poverty is a major, if not the major, cause of crime.  But a new study from a Columbia University research group should remind us of something that history has consistently shown:  that the relationship between poverty and crime is far from predictable or consistent.  The Columbia study revealed the startling news that nearly one-quarter (23 percent) of New York City's Asian population was impoverished, a proportion exceeding that of the city's black population (19 percent).  This was surprising, given the widespread perception that Asians are among the nation's more affluent social groups.  But the study contains an even more startling aspect:  in New York City, Asians' relatively high poverty rate is accompanied by exceptionally low crime rates.  This undercuts the common belief that poverty and crime go hand in hand.  Asians had consistently low arrest rates for violent crime — usually lower than their proportion of the population, lower than those of blacks and Hispanics, and in one category (assault), even lower than that of whites, who, as a group, are far less often impoverished.

Cops can't pursue criminals in Washington State, and the criminals know it.  It shouldn't be a surprise that failure to enforce the law, or more precisely, preventing officers from enforcing it, results in higher crime rates.  This is exactly what has happened in King County and surrounding counties due to the flurry of police reforms, passed by the legislature, in 2021.  Since those laws went into effect, there has been a massive surge in crime and gun violence across our state.  Vehicle thefts are up 99% in March 2022 compared with March of the previous year and are up 88% year-to-date, according to data compiled by the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs (WASPC).  Between January and March of 2021, 6,692 cars were stolen in Washington.

Using Tragedy for Racial Propaganda.  [Scroll down]  Biden's recurring suggestions that white hate crimes are America's dominant reality are false.  Whites are not the biggest source of hate crime and interracial violence in the U.S.; blacks are.  From 2016 to 2020, blacks nationally were twice as likely to commit a hate crime as whites, according to FBI data, among hate-crime suspects whose race and ethnicity were known.  Local data tell the same story.  In New York City, from 2010 to 2020, blacks were 2.42 times as likely as whites to commit a hate crime, among hate-crime suspects whose race and ethnicity were known.  Blacks in Los Angeles committed anti-Asian hate crimes at 4.8 times the rate of whites in 2021, according to internal LAPD data.  Blacks in L.A. committed anti-gay hate crimes at seven times the rate of whites, and anti-Semitic hate crimes at 2.4 times the rate of whites, among hate-crime suspects whose race and ethnicity were known.  Blacks committed anti-trans hate crimes at 2.5 times the rate of Hispanics; there were no white suspects in anti-trans hate crimes in L.A. in 2021.

In key Wisconsin battleground, law and order becomes Achilles heel for Democrat incumbents.  While most of the country braces for a pocketbook election driven by runaway inflation, record gas prices and baby formula shortages, the key battleground state of Wisconsin is seething over a crime wave driven by policies that are shaping up to be an Achilles heel for Democrats running the state, like incumbent Gov. Tony Evers and Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm.  Former Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, a leading GOP candidate to challenge Evers in the fall election, gave a preview of the attack lines Wisconsin voters are certain to get plenty of on the TV come November.  In a recent interview with the "Just the News, Not Noise" TV show she gave a statistical tour of the state's more famous blue cities.  "The murder rate in Green Bay is up 60%," Kleefisch said.  "There are more cars stolen in Milwaukee today than there are in Chicago.  If you are a child in Wisconsin right now, you are likelier to die a murder victim in Milwaukee than from COVID-19.  La Crosse, the other side of the state, just had their biggest meth and their biggest fentanyl busts in La Crosse history.  Crime is terrible here."

San Francisco's Liberal DA Fails To Name A Single Case Where He Secured A Fentanyl Dealing Conviction.  The San Francisco district attorney's office disputed reports it did not secure a single conviction for fentanyl dealing in 2021, but could not provide a single example of this when pressed by The Daily Caller News Foundation.  District Attorney Chesa Boudin's office only dealt three convictions for "possession with intent to sell" in 2021, none of which involved fentanyl, according to The San Francisco Standard.  Boudin's office, however, told The Daily Caller News Foundation that the report is "inaccurate."  The city had a total of 477 accidental overdose deaths linked to fentanyl in 2021, and, in April, there were 49, according to preliminary data from the San Francisco Medical Examiner's Office.

Charges dropped against C Blu, teen rapper accused of shooting NYPD officer.  Charges have been dropped against the teenage rapper accused of shooting an NYPD officer during a scuffle in the Bronx earlier this year, officials confirmed.  The gun and assault case against Camrin Williams, a 16-year-old reputed gangbanger and rapper who goes by the stage name C Blu, "cannot be prosecuted," the city Law Department said in a Friday statement, without elaborating.  Williams had been facing the charges after allegedly shooting 27-year-old cop Kaseem Pennant in the leg in January while he was on probation for a prior gun case.

Charges Dropped On Black Man Who Recorded Himself Beating Old White Man In Nursing Home For Fun.  "He shouldn't be in jail," Marty Hayden said of his 22-year-old son Jaden, who has been charged with several counts, including the May 2020 beating of Norman Bledsoe in a nursing home in the West side of Detroit.  The charges against Jaden Hayden were dismissed after declaring him incompetent.  Marty Hayden said that if his son was convicted and sent to prison, it would only worsen his mental health problems.

Porch Pirate Learns The Hard Way Not to Steal When a Marine Riggs His Amazon Package to Serve Him Instant Justice.  Who better to deal out such righteous justice than a United States Marine, who has had more than enough of people stealing his packages from his porch.

NYC auto thieves shift into overdrive as GLAs spike 61%.  New York City car thieves have shifted into high gear, with auto thefts soaring 61% so far this year, according to the latest disturbing statistics.  There have been 4,467 car thefts so far in 2022, as compared to 2,769 in the same time period in 2021. The crime category has jumped a whopping 97 percent compared to 2020, NYPD data show.  The Ford Econoline is the preferred vehicle of the sticky-fingered set, followed by the Honda Accord, Honda CRV, Honda Civic and Toyota Camry, according to the NYPD.

San Diego County Passes Ordinance to Change Definition of 'Woman'.  The San Diego County Board of Supervisors has adopted a new definition of "woman" that would reportedly allow male-to-female transgender residents to demand inclusion as women in jails, homeless shelters, and domestic violence shelters.  The ordinance, passed by a 3-2 vote on April 26, and ratified on May 10 by the same margin, adopts the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), an international treaty adopted in 1979.  The treaty was signed by then-President Jimmy Carter in 1980, but it was never brought to the Senate for ratification.  But the ordinance goes further, expanding the definition of "woman" to include those who simply identify as women: [...]

New San Diego Ordinance Changes the Definition of 'Woman'.  The San Diego County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday [5/10/2022] adopted a new definition of "woman" that would reportedly allow biological males identifying as females to be included as women in jails, homeless shelters, and even domestic violence shelters.  Biological men in domestic violence shelters.  That sounds like a recipe for disaster.  The ordinance was passed on April 26 and officially ratified Tuesday, both by party-line, three to two votes.

Prosecutors agree to slash sentences for pair of NYC lawyers who firebombed NYPD van during 2020 BLM riots.  A top police union boss has blasted the decision to dramatically-shorten the sentences for two lawyers who admitted firebombing an empty NYPD van during the 2020 BLM riots.  Patrick J. Lynch, President of the New York City Police Benevolent Association, hit out as it was revealed Colinford Mattis, 35, and Urooj Rahman, 33, now face just two years in jail.  The pair had originally faced up to life behind bars after torching the van in Brooklyn in May 2020, days after George Floyd's murder at the hands of Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin.

Imagine the Unimaginable.  Americans are now entering uncharted, revolutionary territory.  They may witness things over the next five months that once would have seemed unimaginable. [...] There is no southern border.  Expect over 1 million foreign nationals to swarm this summer into the United States without audit, COVID testing, or vaccination.  None will have any worry of consequences for breaking U.S. immigration law.  Police are underfunded and increasingly defunded.  District attorneys deliberately release violent criminals without charges.  (Literally 10,000 people witnessed a deranged man with a knife attack comedian Dave Chappelle on stage at the Hollywood Bowl last week, and the Los Angeles County D.A. refused to press felony charges.)  Murder and assault are spiraling.  Carjacking and smash-and-grab thefts are now normal big-city events.  Crime is now mostly a political matter.  Ideology, race, and politics determine whether the law is even applied.

NYC could face 'long-term decline' of workers returning to offices over crime: advocate.  An advocate for large New York City employers warned Sunday that the Big Apple could see a "long-term decline" of workers commuting to Manhattan's office buildings if crime isn't reduced.  Under 40% of Manhattan office workers currently go to their desks on an average week day, according to Partnership for New York City, a nonprofit group representing local business leaders.  The head of the group, Kathryn Wylde, in an appearance on WABC aired Sunday, assigned blame for the low office attendance to "the public safety problem" and concerns surrounding homelessness, rather than the city's increasing COVID-19 positivity rates.

Being polite isn't gonna cut it — Eric Adams needs to raise hell to fix crime in NYC.  Crime in New York is still soaring, too many gunslingers are still walking free because of flawed bail laws and Albany pols are still sitting on their hands while Gotham bleeds.  It's time for Mayor Adams to get mad as hell and refuse to take it anymore.  Being polite and reasonable isn't working.  NYPD stats tell the sordid tale.  As of last Sunday, combined reports of the seven major felonies show an increase of 43% over last year, and that includes a welcome 13% reduction in homicides.  Over two years, murder is still up 9% and all major crimes are up 31%.  These are unsustainable trends and they don't capture the severe and continuing erosion in the quality of life.  Organized shoplifting is out of control and the random mayhem on streets and subways creates far more fear than any statistic can capture.

Sledgehammer-wielding robber busts NYC store window, steals $20K worth of jewels in wild video.  A sledgehammer-wielding robber smashed through a Bronx jewelry store's front window, snatching $20,000 in chains and pendants, surveillance video obtained by The [New York] Post Wednesday shows.  Screams can be heard on the video from inside M & NP Jewelers on White Plains Road during the smash and grab around 4 p.m.  Sunday — before a roll-down gate nearly ensnares the culprit.  A witness told the NYPD "three unknown individuals broke the store window with a sledgehammer" and "removed assorted jewelry," police said in a statement.

The Editor says...
In my opinion, the window barricades should close automatically at the first indication of broken glass.  Also, some of the jewelry on display should be booby-trapped.  Here's a hint:  600 volts.  Pepper spray.  Dye.  Flash bang.

Things Are Going Well in the Capital of Police Defunding.  Portland was one of the few places to defund the police by $15 million.  The efforts to lynch police officers over battles against violent rioters and left-wing mobs led to massive resignations and retirements leaving the city with the smallest police force on record in a generation.  Violent crime continues to rise and Portland cops are shorthanded.

The terrible unintended consequences of the Biden presidency (unless they were intended).  [Scroll down]  Add to this dire, fascist docket the reign of criminal-friendly Soros-funded district attorneys around the nation like Chesa Boudin, George Gascon in California, Kim Foxx in Chicago, Kim Gardner in Missouri, et. al., and crime is out of control.  As murder, robbery, drug abuse, sexual abuse, shoplifting, random attacks on innocent civilians and police officers are all on the rise, these pro-criminal DAs turn the perpetrators back onto the streets within hours of their committed crimes where they quite naturally re-offend.

Sen. Klobuchar hosts roundtable to discuss spike in carjacking.  According to reports, Minneapolis experienced a 537% increase in carjacking between 2019 and 2020.  Monday afternoon, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) held a roundtable with six police chiefs from across Minnesota to emphasize the need to address the spike in carjackings and other crimes.  The police chiefs shared their experiences.  Many of them discussed the topic of mental health and the need for more resources to address mental health crisis in the community.

The Editor says...
What if it has nothing to do with mental health problems?  What if the shooters are all completely sane, but also completely reckless, ruthless and recalcitrant?  What if they're all a bunch of godless, fatherless hoodlums who have no regard for other people's lives?  Addressing this as a mental health problem will fail.

Baltimore has been expunging the criminal records of felons and people are dying.  For some time now we have covered the disappointing and dangerous trends in the courts of Baltimore, Maryland that make it harder to convict criminals of anything.  This has resulted in the same "revolving doors" in the jails and courthouses that we see today in so many large cities.  But in Charm City, they've taken this trend another large step further.  In addition to making it harder to lock anyone up, for the smaller number of people who do manage to be apprehended and prosecuted, they've been erasing the criminal records of many of them.  This makes it impossible for the public to research potential problems and removes information that prosecutors may need when the individual is arrested again and they have to determine the charges to be filed.  In an editorial at the Baltimore Sun this week, former Deputy State's Prosecutor Page Croyder describes the damage that these changes have wreaked on the legal system and the impacts they have had on the citizens.

St. Louis prosecutors would rather believe criminals than police.  Prosecutors and police are supposed to be a team working together to stop crime and bring criminals to justice.  Only that's not what is happening in St. Louis.  There, prosecutors would rather go after the police officers than the criminals.  "It's almost expected that (St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner is) going to blame police every time something happens, and say we didn't provide the right evidence, we didn't do the right thing," said Jay Schroeder, president of the St. Louis Police Officers Association.  In the most recent example of this, the St. Louis Circuit Attorney's Office refused to file charges against an armed robbery suspect who tried to steal a marked police car.  In addition, the suspect, 27-year-old Allen Robinson, allegedly pointed a gun at an officer.

Massive increase in Black Americans murdered was result of defund police movement: experts.  Support of Black Lives Matter and calls to defund the police reverberated across America in 2020 following the death of George Floyd, igniting social justice protests and riots at a time when the coronavirus and lockdowns upended society in unprecedented ways.  What was left in 2020's wake was a massive increase in the number of murders, dealing a disproportionate blow to Black Americans.  "Certainly, the protests and riots mid-2020 after the death of George Floyd followed a pattern of spiking violence that we've seen following past viral police incidents, such as the deaths of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray.  This pattern has been termed the 'Ferguson Effect': police pull back while violent crime spikes precipitously," Hannah Meyers, director of the policing and public safety initiative at the Manhattan Institute, told Fox News Digital.

The greatest opportunity for organized crime in the US since Prohibition.  The defund the police movement presents organized crime with perhaps their greatest opportunity for expansion since alcohol prohibition in the 1920s and early 1930s.  The increased crime in general and large-scale, and often organized, retail thefts in particular in large U.S. cities provide this opportunity.  Many have claimed that the profits from prohibition allowed organized crime to gain a foothold and become established in many American cities, and it may be happening again.  The large-scale shoplifting and the do-nothing-about-it prosecutors are creating yet another opening for organized crime.  Despite what some apparently think, people, including store owners, do not sit idly by forever and let their property be stolen, just because legislatures or city councils or police or prosecutors don't act.  People will eventually act privately to protect themselves and their property.  Not everyone can or is in a position to protect his property by arming up himself.

Cori Bush surpasses $300K spent on private security as she continues calls to defund the police.  Rep. Cori Bush poured tens of thousands of dollars more into private security during the first quarter of 2022, pushing her security bills to more than $300,000 as she continues calls to defund the police.  The Missouri Democrat's campaign reported spending $70,489 on security services between Jan. 1 and March 31, Federal Election Commission filings show.  The payments include $50,489 to Peace Security, $15,000 to Cortney Merrits and $5,000 to Nathaniel Davis.  Bush's newest security checks follow the $233,663 her committee spent on the services in 2021, FEC records show.  She has now paid out $304,152 for security this election cycle.

Democrat NYC Mayor Admits Progressive Politics Play a Role in Increased Crime.  Democrat New York City Mayor Eric Adams has admitted that progressive politics are playing a role in rising crime in US cities.  Adams made the admission during an appearance on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday [4/17/2022].  Speaking to Bloomberg Businessweek's podcast on Thursday, former NYPD commissioner William Bratton said that growing crime is a result of the left going too far to protect criminals from facing justice.  "The scales right now are tipped very heavily in favor of the reforms of the progressive left.  Well intended, some needed, but a bit too far, and what we have as a result is this growing fear of crime, this growing actual amount of crime in almost every American city," Bratton said.

Adams, Sewell insist NYC subways are safe after rampage as mayor downplays crime surge.  Mayor Eric Adams on Sunday [4/17/2022] tried to assure the public that the subways are safe after last week's rampage — while arguing other big cities have crime and Gotham isn't nearly as dangerous as it used to be.  Adams and his police commish, Keechant Sewell, appeared on TV touting transit safety just five days after a madman opened fire on a Brooklyn train, wounding 29 people.  Their claims also came as NYPD statistics show major felonies have soared in the city's transit system so far this year, while recent overall crime in the Big Apple continues to increase.  During a morning appearance on MSNBC, Adams called subway safety "crucial" while peddling his previously announced initiatives aimed at reducing crime underground.

The Editor says...
The crime above ground level isn't under control, either.

AOC, other progressives urged MTA not to hire new cops in 2019 letter.  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and several fellow progressives vehemently opposed an MTA plan to hire 500 new cops to patrol the subways.  The 2019 letter from the lefty group has come under new scrutiny after a shooting rampage in a Brooklyn subway left at least 30 injured and caused mass panic.  "In our view desperately needed resources would be better invested in subway, bus, maintenance and service improvements," the letter read.  "We are urging the MTA to divest from this current model of criminalization."  The letter warned of the "historic racial disparities in enforcement" and claimed that "communities of color" would be unfairly targeted by the new officers.

South Carolina mall shooting suspect's bond set at $25,000, can go to work with ankle monitor.  A South Carolina judge set a $25,000 bond for a suspect in a mall shooting on Saturday that left 14 people injured, according to the Columbia Police Department.  Jewayne Price, 22, will be on house arrest but allowed to travel to and from work while wearing an ankle monitor if he posts bond.  He was charged with unlawful carrying of a pistol and could face additional charges after the prosecutor reviews evidence.

Are You Kidding Me?  Bail Conditions for South Carolina Mall Shooting Suspect Are Absolutely Nuts.  New York City isn't the only area that saw a mass shooting.  There was one at a shopping mall in Columbia, South Carolina over the weekend.  Fourteen people were injured in the incident.  Luckily, no one died.  Yet, this story is also about to be buried by the liberal media after a few days.  The suspect that was arrested was black.  We all know the liberal media rules for mass shootings.  Flood the zone with endless coverage if the suspect is a white male, but slowly bury it if the suspect is nonwhite.  The latter is subject to change in certain situations.  When Noah Green attacked the US Capitol in April of 2021, killed a police officer, and was revealed to be a Nation of Islam follower, the media quickly smothered the story.  By the end of the week, watch this story fade into the ether.  What could keep it alive is the ridiculous bail condition that was agreed upon for the South Carolina mall shooting.  The suspect is out on a $25,000 bond and he can still — get this — return to his day job if he wears a monitoring bracelet.

Michigan's AG Refuses to Enforce Laws She Doesn't Like.  In anticipation of a possible U.S. Supreme Court reversal of Roe v.  Wade, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer and the state's radical attorney general, Democrat Dana Nessel, have launched a pre-emptive two-pronged attack on the existing state law that criminalizes most abortions.  Last Thursday, Whitmer filed a lawsuit demanding judicial recognition of abortion as a protected right under the Michigan constitution.  The same day, Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit to block enforcement of the 1931 law, naming Nessel, in her capacity as attorney general, as defendant.  In transparent coordination with Whitmer and Planned Parenthood, Nessel, the same day, announced in an "impromptu" press conference her refusal to defend against Planned Parenthood's lawsuit.  In a move described as "highly unusual," she also said "she will not even set up a conflict wall in her office to defend the case, not unless or until she is ordered by a court."

Woman In Texas Allegedly Steals Another Woman's Food — Places The Stolen Stuff In A New Car With Dealer Tags Still On It.  There are thousands of paper plates on the road that shouldn't be.  A loophole with the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles has allowed fake car dealerships to print and sell temporary plates.  "Texas is the laughingstock of paper plates in the United States," Vidor Police Capt. Edward Martin said.  Capt. Martin, who is also an executive board member of the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, said he's been following this issue for years.  "These people have direct access to the Texas DMV e-licensing system.  It's the same tag.  It's just issued illegally," Capt. Martin.

The Editor says...
Even a casual observer of the cars on Texas streets and highways can easily observe a number of cars every day, displaying dirty or bent license plates, illegally masked plates, expired paper licenses, or no license plates at all.  It is reasonable to infer that improperly displayed license plates are a cover for other illegal activity, especially the evasion of toll collection.

A dozen gangs are targeting California's rich and famous for their designer handbags and watches.  A group of at least 17 gangs targeting Los Angeles' wealthiest are responsible for the city's recent string of 'follow-home' robberies, cops said Tuesday.  'In my 34 years in the LAPD, I have never seen this type of criminal behavior in such large groups coordinating to conduct attacks on unsuspecting citizens to take their property and/or vehicles,' said Capt. Jonathan Tippet of the attacks, which started in September.  In November, Tippet was tabbed to head a division designed to combat the robberies — Follow Home Robbery Task Force — which has seen armed suspects stalk victims leaving ritzy boutiques, hotels, and restaurants before striking.

The Editor says...
NOW the politicians will do something about runaway crime, because the rich and famous are threatened.

Arizona Police Force Reversal of Non-Prosecution Policy by Continuing to Make Arrests.  The top prosecutor of Pima County in Arizona reversed a non-prosecution policy on certain drug possession cases last month after the stance failed to meet the intended goal of reducing the jail population.  The failure was brought about by local law enforcement agencies, many of whom continued to make arrests in the belief that it is their job to enforce the law regardless of prosecution policies.  Last December, Pima County Attorney Laura Conover issued a policy to immediately stop prosecuting simple drug possession, paraphernalia, or other personal use cases.  The policy memo said deputies and police officers should bring people who commit these crimes to drug treatment centers, not the jail.

LA Residents got What They Wanted:  Criminals Who Aren't Afraid.  This is what the people of Los Angeles wanted.  They put their police force on a short leash, blaming the overworked officers for the least amount of violence against criminals while at the same time absolving the criminals of responsibility.  It has led to increasing numbers of officers leaving the force or retiring early.  With fewer officers on the street and those that are being hesitant to act, the criminals are taking advantage of the situation.  The Los Angeles Police Department recently started warning people not to wear expensive jewelry in public, or they might become the target of thieves.  Thieves have become so brazen that they smashed in the front window of Luxury Jewels, a Beverly Hills jewelry store, in broad daylight and fled with merchandise estimated to be worth $3 to $5 million dollars.

Two inmates at all-women's New Jersey prison are pregnant after both had sex with the same transgender inmate after.  Two women at New Jersey's only all-women's prison have both fallen pregnant after having sex with transgender inmates.  The pregnant women, who were not identified, are housed at the embattled Edna Mahan Correctional Facility, in Clinton, which New Jersey Governor announced plans to close last year.  Prison bosses said that in both instances, the sex was consensual.

Who Suffers the Most From America's Crime Wave?  Violent crime, like the price of gas, is rising.  Not everyone is experiencing this crime wave in the same way.  For some, it's a distant issue experienced by other people somewhere else.  For others, it's a daily life-threatening concern.  We parsed the FBI's crime data from 2011 to 2020 (the most recent data available) and found that African Americans bear an increasingly large share of the harm from crime.  African American offenders, meanwhile, are committing an increasingly large share of violent crimes.  For other racial groups, the numbers are either decreasing (in the case of both white victims and offenders), increasing by much smaller amounts, or holding constant.

Crime, not COVID, killed my retail business.  When I first opened my shoe store last year, I thought that small businesses had made it through the worst.  Both in Minnesota and across the nation, COVID-19 cases were starting to drop, and a sense of normalcy was slowly returning.  But a new epidemic destroyed my business in just a few months: retail theft.  Despite investing thousands of dollars into my store in Little Canada — which included state-of-the-art security measures — I became victim to a spree of brazen burglaries that saddled my family with mounting debt.  In just six months, five robberies alone have cost me $30,000 worth of merchandise and caused me to close my store.  Repeatedly, burglars smashed the glass doors of my storefront and ripped sneakers right off my shelves.  Not only did the last incident cost my store $13,000 in stolen goods, but I am now left with devastating costs to fix all the damage to my store.

Speaker Carl Heastie's 'mercy' leaves a teen girl dead at hands of another teen.  Angellyh Yambo had just turned 16 when she got caught in gangsta crossfire outside a Bronx high school, torn from this world far too soon.  Yet her accused killer, Jeremiah Ryan, might have escaped jail pending trial under New York's insane laws, merely because he himself is a teen.  This is justice according to Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and his all-too-many allies in the Legislature.  Ryan even had a perfect score to qualify for release, according the city Criminal Justice Agency, because he has no priors.

'Magnets for crime': How one Seattle politician's views shifted on homeless encampments.  Recently the freshman Seattle City Councilmember Andrew Lewis was listening to a discussion on the extreme rise in gun violence in the city, and some simple questions were raised that he realized he didn't know concrete answers to.  Who's doing the shooting, and where?  So he asked police for some data on shots fired in the city, cross-referenced with other factors the cops knew about each incident.  The answers that came back have him saying some unusual-sounding things in progressive Seattle, that have some fellow council members "looking at me a little funny," he says.  Things like:  "It is blatantly evident that a significant amount of the city's crime and disorder is attributable to conditions in homeless encampments." [...] What Lewis found is that more than 18% of all shots-fired incidents in Seattle last year were associated with homelessness, according to police records.  This means that "the victim, or suspect, are experiencing homelessness, or the [shooting] occurred at/near a homeless encampment or RV," the police said.  These shootings were up 122% in 2021 versus 2020.

The Editor says...
People who live in the street have nothing to lose by moving to the nearest jail.  When incarceration is not a deterrent, crime will skyrocket.

Update: Sacramento Mass Shooting Suspect [is] Already Out On Bail.  Tell me if you've heard this one before:  Violent sociopath sentenced to prison for felony crimes is released early and recommits violent crime, killing again.  Sound familiar?  Newsweek picked up a story from The Sacramento Bee that one of the alleged participants in last weekend's horrific shooting, a third person of interest originally arrested on charge of illegal firearm possession, was already released on bail.

Seattle's crime surge spreads statewide thanks to Democrats' progressive policies.  Thanks to a Democratic legislature that codified the radical defund police proposals into laws, plus light-on-crime judges, the crime surge hitting Seattle is spreading across the state.  And there is no sign that the crime explosion will slow; in fact, it's getting worse.  Seattle has averaged more than one homicide a week so far this year.  Gun violence has nearly doubled, with 95% more shots fired and a 171% increase in gunshot victims compared to last year.  Drug dealing is rampant, homeless shoplifters are destroying local businesses, and random, brutal assaults are all too common.

Understanding the Progressive Mind.  Unfortunately, Republicans, and conservatives generally, are too polite, and therefore ill-equipped to confront the criminal nature of the Democrat Party and its government in Washington.  It's as though Republicans don't want to embarrass thieves caught in the act and hurt their feelings.  The harshest words Republicans will use to describe the Democrats' campaign to free hundreds of thousands of violent criminals and stimulate a national crime wave is that they are "soft on crime."  Democrats — progressives — are not soft on crime, they are pro-crime.  They regard it as "social justice."  Mobs of mainly black predators looting department stores in broad daylight is to them "reparations" — a socialist redistribution of income that provides "equity" to a group allegedly — but never specifically — oppressed.

Sacramento Mass Shooter Was Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison in 2018, Paroled in 2021 Over DA's Objection.  Shortly after a mass shooting occurred in Sacramento, California early Sunday, Joe Biden was busy using the tragedy to beat the drum for more gun control across the country — despite the fact that California arguably has what are the nation's strictest gun control laws, and despite not having any facts about the shooting or the shooters.  Other gun control activists quickly jumped aboard the train.  [Tweets]  The actual story, which most of the mainstream media will likely attempt to erase, has nothing to do with lax gun control laws and everything to do with the "reimagining" of the justice system being perpetrated by people like George Gascon and Gavin Newsom, and enabled by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the Board of Parole Hearings.

Sacramento shooting suspect, 27, was out on parole after being released from prison six years early.  One of the men who opened fire on a crowd of people in Sacramento early Sunday morning, killing six, was a career criminal who was released from prison in February just four years into a 10-year sentence for felony gun and robbery convictions, reports said.  The decision, made by California's Department of Corrections, was even made over the strenuous objections of the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office, which submitted a letter saying that the man 'displayed a pattern of criminal behavior' and posed a 'significant' danger to the community.  Smiley Martin, 27, was arrested on Tuesday morning, and remains in a local hospital where he was recovering after being wounded in the shooting.  He faces charges of possession of a machine gun and possession of a firearm by a prohibited person in relation to the incident.

Sacramento Mass Shooter Was Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison in 2018, Paroled in 2021 Over DA's Objection.  Shortly after a mass shooting occurred in Sacramento, California early Sunday, Joe Biden was busy using the tragedy to beat the drum for more gun control across the country — despite the fact that California arguably has what are the nation's strictest gun control laws, and despite not having any facts about the shooting or the shooters.  Other gun control activists quickly jumped aboard the train.  [Tweets]  The actual story, which most of the mainstream media will likely attempt to erase, has nothing to do with lax gun control laws and everything to do with the "reimagining" of the justice system being perpetrated by people like George Gascon and Gavin Newsom, and enabled by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the Board of Parole Hearings.

At least 20 killed in Ecuador prison riot.  Ecuadorian authorities said Monday they are in "total control" of a prison in the south of the country after a riot broke out the day before, killing at least 20 inmates.  Violence at the Turi prison, near the city of Cuenca, started early Sunday due to a leadership dispute among incarcerated members of a gang known as The Wolves, Gen. Carlos Cabrera, the commander of Ecuador's national police force, told reporters at a press conference.

He Murdered A Two-Year-Old, Then He Faced "Prison Justice" Inside The Walls.  A common trope in popular culture is that if you commit crimes against the weak, particularly children, prison won't be kind to you.  There are many in there who committed all manner of horrific crimes but who, whether because of life experience or their own sense of justice, don't take kindly to those who abuse children.  In fact, "don't take kindly" is quite an understatement.  When it comes to those who, like the ones who many say were given a slap on the wrist by Kentanji Jackson, commit crimes involving child pornography or abusing kids, "prison justice" (or injustice, depending on your take) can be swift and severe.

Democrats in New York Debate How to Hide Their Radical Proposals on Bail and Incarceration.  The debate happening in New York state over Gov. Kathy Hochul's proposals to show how tough Democrats are on crime mirrors the debate happening across the country and in Washington, D.C.  On the radical left, the debate is over:  no bail, light sentences for everything except violent offenses, and don't send too many black people to prison because ... slavery, or something.  But Hochul is running for election in November after taking over when the serial sexual harasser and rapist, Andrew Cuomo, was forced to resign.  She has to run in the real world where there are an awful lot of people scared witless about crime.  Not everyone in New York is a crazy, left-wing nut.  The same holds true elsewhere in the United States.  The facts are that releasing people without bail isn;t leading to more crime and more violent crime.  Democrats like Hochul might recognize that but are still running scared.

Eyes Wide Shut.  [Scroll down]  Start with crime.  Initially dismissed as simply an artifact of the Covid shutdown and as vastly exaggerated by conservative media, the rise in violent crime is clear, and voters are highly concerned about it.  They include black and Hispanic voters, as indicated by polling data and confirmed by Eric Adams's base of support in the New York mayoral contest.  No wonder more Democratic politicians are running as fast as they can away from any hint of "defund the police," the slogan that, beloved of the activist Left, was put on the ballot in Minneapolis ... and soundly defeated, especially by black voters.  According to a recent poll from Pew Research, black and Hispanic Democrats are significantly more likely than white Democrats to favor more police funding in their area.

Leftist Infiltration of the Police Will Lead To Tyranny.  When Joe Biden read from his State of the Union script about the unprecedented crime wave we are now facing (thanks to leftist policies), he stated:  "The answer is to fund the police."  At that, the Democrats in Congress leaped to their feet to applaud, however insincerely.  But after eight years of supporting the lies of Black Lives Matter Marxists and leftist elites — that American policing is systemically racist, cops are routinely hunting unarmed black men, and that the real answer to alleviating crime is to empty the jails and defund the police — their phoniness was palpable.  On crime and policing, most Americans correctly see the Democrats as fakes.  The Democrats are terrified because the poll numbers are coming in, and they are desperate to escape a righteous political reckoning in November.  Still, it would be a big mistake to believe that the radical Left hates the idea of policing altogether.  They have no problem with the police if they can control the mission.  In a way, the police are just another tool of the regime.

Chicago judges keep sending felony suspects home and they keep trying to kill people.  Judge Charles Beach handed down a little wisdom to 20-year-old Keyon Hayes at the end of his November bail hearing on felony gun charges.  Consider it unheeded. [...] Hayes is the 12th person charged with killing or shooting someone, or attempting to, in Chicago this year while awaiting trial on at least one felony charge.  The alleged crimes have involved at least 21 victims, five of whom have died, authorities said.  The saga began in early November, when Chicago police allegedly saw Hayes carrying a black satchel with an extended magazine sticking out of it and arrested him.  So far, so good.  But then bond court Judge Beach ruled Hayes could go home on a 7 p.m.-to-7 a.m. curfew by posting a deposit of $300 on a $3,000 bail, which Hayes could not raise.  Two months later, Judge Peggy Chiampas released Hayes on his own recognizance with a 24-hour curfew, according to court records.

California man who kidnapped bus full of children in 1976 approved for parole.  A 70-year old California man who has spent four decades in prison for kidnapping a bus full of children and burying them alive could be freed if Gov. Gavin Newsom approves his parole.  A panel of two commissioners with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation on Friday recommended parole for Frederick Newhall Woods, one of three men who hijacked a school bus with 26 children aboard in Chowchilla, Calif. on July 15, 1976.  Friday's hearing was Wood's 18th attempt for parole.  Woods and two other gunmen, Richard and James Schoenfeld, stopped bus driver Ed Ray as he was transporting the children back home from Dairyland Elementary School, which is about 150 miles southeast of San Francisco.

NC man convicted of murdering a toddler [is himself] killed in prison assault.  An offender housed at Bertie Correctional Institution in Windsor was assaulted by a group of other offenders and killed Tuesday afternoon.  Semajs Short, 24, was attacked in a housing area at the prison by a number of other offenders at 2:14 p.m. yesterday [3/29/2022].  Prisons first responders performed life-saving measures until local paramedics arrived and also worked to resuscitate him.  Short was pronounced dead by paramedics at approximately 2:37 p.m.  Three other offenders were injured during the group assault and were taken to an outside medical facility for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries.

With violent crime rising, size of Portland police department is still shrinking.  You almost have to feel sorry for the city of Portland.  The city is experiencing record levels of violent crime even as it struggles to maintain the lowest number of police officers it has had since the late 80s/early 90s when the population of of the city was much smaller than it is now.  Beleaguered Mayor Ted Wheeler, who jumped on board the defund the police bandwagon back in 2020, has been trying to address both problem for the past year and so far he has very little to show for it.  When it comes to violent crime, the city set a record for the number of shootings in 2021 and is currently on pace to surpass that record by double digits in 2022.

Nearly 40% of workers in Manhattan want to leave due to violent incidents on the subways and rampant homelessness.  New Yorkers working in Manhattan are so fed up with rampant crime that 40 percent said they want to leave the Empire State — with eight out of 10 people saying the Big Apple has gone to hell, according to a recent poll.  The Morning Consult poll, conducted for Partnership for New York, surveyed 9,386 adults working in New York City from February 17 to March 11, with many voicing their frustration over the soaring crime and homelessness that has gripped the streets and subways.  According to the poll, 74 percent of respondents said that safety has gotten worse in the city since the start of the pandemic lockdowns in March 2020, with 82 percent saying homelessness has also worsened.

The child tax credit is a ruse.  The firebrand congressional Squad leader known on the streets as AOC recently said, "Gee, the child-tax credit just ran out on December 31, and now people are stealing baby formula."  She said this in response to the NYPD announcing the arrest of twelve known shoplifters with a combined 23 outstanding warrants for stealing formula, diapers, and other items they easily resold on the streets.  It's a false flag — the expired child tax credit has nothing to do with shoplifting in New York City.  There was no cash advance child tax credit in 2020, and shoplifting offenses declined 9% from the prior year.  However, in 2021, when parents were paid by the Biden administration for their progeny, shoplifting in New York increased by 6%.  If AOC were intellectually honest and used her student loan-funded elite eastern college degree in economics, she would see there is no correlation or causation between the CTC and shoplifting.

LAPD: You probably shouldn't wear expensive jewelry anymore.  The Los Angeles Police Department has a message for the denizens of Tinseltown and the rest of the City of Angels.  When you go out and about, you should probably avoid wearing any sort of flashy, expensive jewelry or other expensive possessions.  Why would they say that?  Because thieves have continued to become more and more brazen about pulling a weapon on pedestrians or motorists and robbing them of their belongings.  And displays of wealth will just make you more of a target for these types of crimes.  At the same time, gangs are also stepping up attacks on jewelry stores and other outlets selling expensive and easily fenced merchandise, so you might want to avoid those stores as well.  LA is looking more and more like a scene from Escape from New York these days.

Pennsylvania Bill Would Restrict Employers' Examination of Applicants' Criminal Records.  Pennsylvania State Representative Darisha Parker (D-Philadelphia) this week introduced a measure to restrict employers' consideration of job applicants' criminal records.  In a statement on her bill, Parker cited data from the U.S. Department of Justice indicating that nearly a third of Americans have a criminal record, almost as many as having earned college degrees.  She said incurring such a record has proved a major burden for many Pennsylvanians seeking jobs as well as housing and public benefits.  Her legislation would bar employers from asking job seekers about or weighing those applicants' juvenile or summary offenses as well as any cases that resulted in no convictions.  Expunged and pardoned cases would also be off-limits for consideration.

How to Make Crime Vanish.  No sooner do we note here the out-of-control crime in San Francisco (and elsewhere in California) than we find a magical solution appear: stop collecting and reporting crime data!  Yesterday the FBI released its quarterly uniform crime report.  There appears this curious note on the home page:  ["]The Quarterly Uniform Crime Report was made available on March 21, 2022.  For this quarterly release, due to agency participation being under the 60 percent threshold, data trends by region and aggregate population group will not be available.  Data from individual city agencies with populations of 100,000 or greater can be accessed in the Resources section below.["]  In other words, if I read this right not enough law enforcement agencies sent in the data required for the FBI to provide national statistics.  Maybe this is a consequence of cutting police budgets.  That's one way of reducing the crime rate!

Kim Foxx begins early release program for prisoners with a home invader, an aggravated robber, and a burglar, all with lengthy records.  Kim Foxx, the Soros-supported top prosecutor in Cook County, Illinois, is taking advantage of a new law in that state that allows prosecutors to identify prisoners whose further incarceration "no longer advances the interests of justice." Like other Soros prosecutors, she is a critic of "mass incarceration," and has big plans, as Patrick Smith of WBEZ writes:  ["]Three Cook County prosecutors are assigned to work on resentencing motions, but they will only be working on the initiative part time.  Foxx said her goal is to expand the program so there are dedicated staffers assigned and she said she eventually wants to loosen the criteria for eligibility.  She said she did not know how many prisoners might fit the current criteria, but estimated a potential pool of 'thousands' of people.["]  She just announced the first convicts to be freed, and, curiously, they have relatively little time left behind bars, anyway.  But they are also career criminals, as CWB Chicago reports: [...]

Oregon governor's scheme to release convicted murderers halted by judge.  Law Enforcement Today has reported several times on Oregon Gov. Kate Brown's mass release of prisoners ostensibly due to "COVID."  Now, a judge has ordered a pause on Brown's early release of prisoners, as reported in the Epoch Times.  The new order refers to prisoners who committed crimes as juveniles, which grants part of the relief sought in a lawsuit filed against Brown by two district attorneys and four members of homicide victims.  Since March 1, 2020, Brown has granted early release to nearly 1,200 convicted felons, including 10 convicted murderers.  Marion County Circuit Court Judge David Leith ruled earlier this month that Brown unlawfully conferred her clemency powers to the Oregon Parole Board.

Biden's Banana Republic.  In America, we no longer have a single justice system for all people, regardless of race, or of power, or privilege, or the protected victimhood status they may have among the Leftist intelligentsia.  We no longer have a justice system that is indifferent to and independent of political pressure.  The politically and culturally dominant Left is not content with the massive power and influence it wields now; it is determined to silence all opposition, and destroy it utterly.  We have seen the totalitarian impulse of the far-Left play out in revolutionary France, as well as in the Soviet Union, Communist China, Democratic Kampuchea, Fidel Castro's Cuba, and a host of other places.  In every one, the judiciary serves as a tool of the political elites, who wield it in order to prosecute, persecute, and obliterate their opposition.  American schools used to teach that our system had a series of built-in checks and balances that would prevent that kind of tyranny from developing.

Amazon will move 1,800 workers from downtown Seattle offices because of rampant crime.  Amazon will relocate all 1,800 workers from its downtown Seattle office as the area continues to be plagued by crime in the woke Pacific Northwest bastion, where the police budget has been cut by $36 million since 2019 — and now other businesses are starting to do the same.  Citing an increase in violent crime in the downtown Seattle area, Amazon made the announcement Friday that it would temporarily relocate its workers from their office at Third Avenue and Pine Street.  'Given recent incidents near Third and Pine, we're providing employees currently at that location with alternative office space elsewhere,' an Amazon spokesman told DailyMail.com in a statement.  'We are hopeful that conditions will improve and that we will be able to bring employees back to this location when it is safe to do so.'

Democrat Denver D.A. to Drop Murder Charge Against Unlicensed Security Guard Who Killed Trump Supporter.  Matthew Dolloff, the unlicensed security guard for 9News Denver who shot and killed veteran Lee Keltner at a Patriot Rally in 2020, is reportedly going to have his murder charge dropped thanks to Democrat Denver District Attorney Beth McCann.

Safe Streets Require the Political Will to Punish Crime.  "Let's not abandon our streets," Joe Biden lectured in his State of the Union last week.  But his weak overtures to law and order in the speech rang hollow, as his administration — and just about every other career politician in Washington — sinks deeper into the quagmire of so-called "criminal justice reform." This soft-on-crime movement is led by activists who don't care about public safety at all.  After years of crime reduction, American cities have become even more dangerous than they were in the 1980s.  Murders are up, along with carjackings, robberies, shoplifting, public violence, and vandalism.  Some progressives have tried to manipulate statistics and "contextualize" the recent crime surge, but Americans aren't buying it.  We know a policy failure when it's staring us in the face.  Sadly, this failure has been bipartisan.

The 'Hobbes Index' Is Making A Comeback Under Biden.  The murder rate increased by 30% in 2020, dwarfing any previously recorded increase.  The bloodbath continues unabated as city after city reports record homicides.  The deadly riots of 2020 sparked a new era of urban lawlessness as mass theft has forced retailers to close stores in inner-city locations.  But nowhere has lawlessness been more pronounced than on the southern border.  Over two million people from scores of countries entered the country illegally last year.  This humanitarian crisis is the consequence of Biden's unforgivable empowerment of drug and human trafficking cartels through his reversal of the prior administration's immigration and border security policies.

Florida Dunkin' employee who fatally punched customer over racial slur sentenced to house arrest.  A Dunkin' employee in Tampa, Florida, accused of fatally punching a customer who used a racial slur against him last year, was sentenced to two years of house arrest after pleading guilty to felony battery.  Corey Pujols, 27, was ordered by a Tampa judge on Monday [3/7/3033] to complete 200 hours of community service and attend an anger management course.

The Editor says...
A young black man killed an old white man during an argument, and he is sentenced to house arrest.  If the colors were reversed, there would now be rioting in the streets.

Bronx judge rules case of teen rapper and Crips member, 16,'who shot an NYPD cop' should be tried in Family Court because police were 'illegally searching him when his gun accidentally went off'.  A Bronx judge has ruled to move the case of 16-year-old drill rapper Camrin 'C Blu' Williams from an adult criminal court to Family Court, after accusing a police officer of providing 'unreliable' testimony that 'had no value' about the night the teen allegedly shot a cop during a scuffle.  Williams, who is a suspected gang member, has been out on bond since late January.  He faces charges of criminal possession of a weapon, second-degree assault and other weapons charges stemming from a January 18 incident, during which police said he shot Officer Kaseem Pennant as he was being searched.

High Gas Prices Cause New Problem for Car Owners:  Gasoline Theft.  Gustavo Galvéz, owner of Galvéz Auto Clinic, can testify to the new problem Southern California drivers are facing:  gas thieves.  A few days ago, a landscaper asked him for help with his vehicle, and they discovered a new modus operandi for criminals.  "He went to start the car to go to work, and it didn't start," Galvéz said.  "Well, he brought it here to see what the problem was and the gas tank had a hole in it."  Apparently, Galvéz said, someone used the hole to take the gasoline from the car.

Transsexual, 83, on lifetime parole for killing two people decades ago is arrested in connection with the murder of a third NYC woman.  An 83-year-transsexual on lifetime parole for killing two women — one in 1963 and another reportedly shortly after she got out prison in 1984 — has been charged in connection with the killing of a 68-year-old woman whose body was found dismembered in a Brooklyn neighborhood, law enforcement sources tell DailyMail.com.  Harvey Marcelin, a transgender woman, was arrested late last week on a charge of concealing a body and could soon face upgraded charges after she was allegedly caught on surveillance cameras dumping a body near her Cypress Hills apartment.  Sources identified the victim as Susan Leyden, formerly of Teaneck, New Jersey, and said Marcelin knew her.

There's a small group of known criminals who are driving crime — and it's not law-abiding gun owners.  A new study from the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform revealed who is driving the vast majority of criminal firearm misuse in the Nation's Capital.  Go figure it's a small number of lawbreakers and not law-abiding gun owners.  Stating that gun crimes in Washington, D.C., are shown to be committed by a "very tightly concentrated" group of individuals, the study's author said, "This very small number of high risk individuals are identifiable.  Their violence is predictable and therefore it is preventable."  The data demonstrate the irony of Democratic-run big cities with strict Second Amendment restrictions and national gun control groups' continued drive to force more gun control despite Americans believing in it less and lawfully buying their own firearms at record numbers.

Shoplifter struts behind [the] counter of [a] San Francisco Walgreens as staff watch helplessly, fills huge bag with stolen goods.  A San Francisco shoplifter was filmed filling a bag with stolen goods behind the counter of a Walgreens store as staff stood helplessly and watched.  The heist took place on Tuesday at a Walgreens in the Richmond area of the city, and saw the brazen shoplifter hurl bananas and cookies at one man who confronted him.  It is the latest in a long line of shocking shoplifting outrages to hit the famously-liberal Bay Area.

The hidden agenda behind Joe Biden's 'black female' Supreme Court pledge.  Ketanji Brown Jackson was raised in the orbit of government: her father was chief attorney for a school district; her mother was a school principal. [...] Throughout her career, there is one common thread:  a personal crusade to reduce the ability of the criminal justice system to impose real sentences on people convicted of crimes.  Our system requires both defense attorneys and prosecuting attorneys; it is fundamental to our system that the defendant is assumed innocent until proven guilty.  But once that guilt is proven, the American people need to be able to count on our system to remove the criminal from society, to keep him off the streets until he is no longer a threat.  In a nation in which the vast majority of crimes are committed by recidivists, there is no other issue more central to criminal justice than the ability to impose long sentences on those who are finally proven to be a threat to their communities.  Ketanji Brown Jackson is intended to be the pro-criminal, anti-LEO lobby's camel under the tent, to infect the Supreme Court itself with this malevolent attitude.

Downtown Seattle business continues remote work because of crime, not COVID.  A downtown Seattle tech company won't bring workers back to the office until they feel it's safe, not because of COVID-19, but crime.  Businesses continue to speak out about the ongoing violence in the downtown core, specifically in the area of Third Avenue and Pike Street.  Martin Fagan with Qumulo is a former police officer, now a facilities director for the cloud computing company based at Fourth Avenue and Pike.  He told his employees they don't have to return to the office until the situation in downtown "stabilizes."

The NYC poop attacker exemplifies Democrat criminal justice failures.  Lately, Americans have been made aware of the problems with the revolving door criminal justice system that operates wherever Democrats have had a hand in drafting the laws.  For example, the man who drove through a Christmas parade in Waukesha, killing six and injuring scores of others, had a lengthy rap sheet and almost no comparable prison time.  The man who smeared a woman with his feces in the New York City subway is the same type of criminal.  What makes him interesting is how he behaved in court for his arraignment and the result of that conduct.

Poop attack perp released without bail.  The sicko who allegedly smashed his own feces in a Bronx straphanger's face joked with cops [...] before sneering to a Bronx judge, "[...]"  Frank Abrokwa, 37, was busted Monday at his homeless shelter in connection to the revolting Feb. 21 attack, according to cops and police sources.  Upon arrest, he made light of the attack, quipping to cops, "[...]," Bronx Assistant District Attorney Grace Phillips said during Abrokwa's arraignment late Tuesday.  Abrokwa — apparently impatient because Brooklyn detectives showed up to arrest him for an unrelated hate crime from September — also made a scene in Bronx Criminal Court.

Carjackings in cities like NYC, Philadelphia jump over 200% — often with kids behind the wheel, officials say.  Carjackings have skyrocketed 200% — or more — in multiple big cities across the county in past years, as law enforcement officials and crime experts pleaded with lawmakers on Tuesday for help addressing the rampant issue, with one official warning:  "Anyone in a car is a potential victim."  Law enforcement executives and officials from crime monitoring agencies from across the country convened on Capitol Hill on Tuesday morning to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a hearing to address the startling trends related to carjackings.  During his time at the microphone, National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) president and CEO David Glawe revealed some cities saw carjacking upticks as high as more than 280% between 2019 and 2021.

7 Major Failures of the Biden Presidency.  [#5] Crime Surge:  American cities have experienced an explosion of violent crime since the summer of 2020.  It's a trend that shows no sign of abating.  In December, ABC News reported that a dozen U.S. cities had set homicide records in 2021.  This trend coincided with — and almost certainly was exacerbated by — the "defund the police" movement.  In fact, many Democrat-run cities made good on this slogan by defunding their police departments and stemming the use of proactive policing.  No surprise that cities that defunded police agencies often make the list of places with the largest increases in violent crime.  Now, some of these city leaders are changing their tune and restoring police funding after much of the damage has been done.  This hasn't stopped reckless left-wing district attorneys, such as Chesa Boudin in San Francisco and Alvin Bragg in New York City, from selectively deciding not to prosecute crimes.

Looters Smash And Grab Another Walgreens In San Francisco.  And again, it seems like Walgreens is the victim as a bunch of trash robs the place blind in broad daylight without any resistance or fear of arrest since the first 900 dollars worth of stolen booty is on the house, thanks to California law.  Just this week, the pharmacy chain Walgreens announced that it will close five of its stores in San Francisco, citing theft and retail crime as the main motivator behind its decision.  [Video clip]

A Decade of Deceit and Division:  What Trayvon Wrought.  [Scroll down]  Outraged by the [George Zimmerman] verdict, three Marxists "of color" promptly formed a group called Black Lives Matter.  Working their combined magic in Ferguson a year after George's acquittal, BLM and the media helped reverse an eight-year downward trend in homicides.  As a result of the so-called "Ferguson effect," 3,000 more Americans were murdered in 2016 than in 2014.  BLM was just warming up.  The multi-city mania BLM helped generate in 2020 — Minneapolis, Louisville, Kenosha — triggered a nationwide 30-percent-plus increase in homicides over 2019, the greatest annual spike ever recorded.  Had the media paid any attention to Los Angeles filmmaker Joel Gilbert's brilliantly researched book and film, The Trayvon Hoax:  Unmasking the Witness Fraud that Divided America, released in the fall of 2019, much of the death and destruction could have been avoided.

Seattle parents angry and upset as graffiti makes their city seem like 'a war zone'.  Like gray skies and rainfall, graffiti in the city of Seattle, Washington, is ubiquitous today.  Defaced public and private property can be seen everywhere — storefronts, apartment buildings, commercial vehicles, highways, bridges, street signs and recycling bins all bear the urban scrawl.  Nothing is spared.  Everything appears to be fair game, including magazine display racks, utility poles — even historic sites.  Taggers, apparently, do not discriminate.  Now, concerned parents and other residents are speaking out about the graffiti overgrowth.  "Graffiti is not some dude writing 'Jim was here,'" Ari Hoffman, a Seattle resident and parent of three children, told Fox News Digital.  "Graffiti is about marking territory, by gangs or dealers, or even by people living on the streets, who are being used for criminal activity," Hoffman added.

Gascon's Progressive Policies Implode in Real Time, While Victims Continue to be Denied Justice.  Fox News' Bill Melugin continues to do fabulous investigative work.  After exposing all the lies, malfeasance, and coverup of Joe Biden's Border crisis, he has refocused his sights back to Los Angeles, and boy is it ever needed.  RedState has reported on Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón and his radical policies on criminal justice reform, as well as the victims and voters attempts to recall him.  The chicken of one of those policies, refusing to try juveniles who commit violent crimes as adults, has come home to roost.

Transgender child molester tried as juvenile laughs about light punishment.  A biological man turned transgender woman who was convicted for sexually assaulting a child in California was heard laughing about the light sentencing in a recording.  "They're gonna stick me on probation, and it's gonna be dropped, it's gonna be done, I won't have to register, won't have to do nothing," 26-year-old Hannah Tubbs said in a phone conversation after announcing the plan to plead guilty.  The molester then laughed while telling Tubbs's father the justice system would do "nothing."  "You won't have to register?" Tubbs is asked.  "I won't have to do none of that," Tubbs responded.  According to a report, Tubbs was also recorded making comments about the victim that are "unfit to print."

Los Angeles prosecutor admits 2-year sentence for child molester may be too lenient.  Los Angeles' embattled progressive DA has admitted that the two-year prison sentence he ensured for a transgender woman who sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl may not have been enough.  Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón — who faces an ongoing recall effort over his controversial lenient policies — said Sunday [2/20/2022] that he would have handled convicted molester Hannah Tubbs' case differently had he known about her "disregard for the harm" that she caused her young victim.  "While for most people several years of jail time is adequate, it may not be for Ms. Tubbs," the prosecutor said in a statement.  "After her sentencing in our case, I became aware of extremely troubling statements she made about her case, the resolution of it and the young girl that she harmed," he added.

3 weeks after settling an attempted murder case, he was allegedly found with 2 more guns.  On Friday afternoon [2/11/2022], Orland Park police arrested Nickolas Burch after they allegedly found him carrying a gun in a Louis Vuitton bag strapped over his chest at the Orland Square mall.  It happened just 18 days after Burch pleaded guilty to a reduced charge in a case that had him facing multiple counts of attempted murder, robbery, and other felonies stemming from a 2016 shooting in Lakeview.  That was the second time he faced and beat attempted murder charges as an adult.  Prosecutors on Saturday charged Burch, 32, with two counts of Class X armed habitual criminal, one of the most serious criminal charges in the state short of murder, and misdemeanor resisting.  But they didn't ask his bond court judge to hold Burch without bail.  Nor did they tell her that he had just settled an attempted murder case to lesser charges 18 days earlier.  Nor did they tell her that he was on federal electronic monitoring for a gun conviction.  Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) records show that Burch is on parole for the Lakeview case.  Prosecutors didn't tell the judge about that, either.

"Bail reform": Man bonds out after being accused of shooting in four separate incidents of road rage.  An Orange County, Florida man is free after posting bond after having been arrested for allegedly shooting into four separate vehicles in the Orlando area.  The defendant, identified as Emanuel Dandre Bullard, is accused of firing several rounds in four separate incidents at motor vehicles allegedly during fits of road rage.  Thankfully, none of the shots allegedly fired by him struck anyone but did hit several vehicles through his streak of violence.  The Orange County Sheriff's Office alleges that Bullard has been the trigger man in a violent series of incidents dating back to December of 2021.

A scam run from a California prison highlights government inefficiency.  One of the benefits to society from imprisoning criminals is that, while they're imprisoned, they cease committing crimes.  However, when it comes to the government's failure to take good care of taxpayer money, two men's stints in California's prisons gave them the time to engage in a massive fraud netting them $5 million in both state and federal unemployment funds.  Think about that:  our governments are so inefficient that they hand out COVID unemployment funds to nonexistent people created by prisoners.

Serial thief with 167 busts nabbed for shoplifting at UES Rite Aid.  A Queens man with 167 arrests on his record was busted yet again this week for shoplifting from a Rite Aid on the Upper East Side, The [New York] Post has learned.  Jamel Pringle, 39, was nabbed around 8:15 a.m. Monday for stealing 48 items worth close to $430 from the drug store on Second Avenue near East 96th Street, police and Manhattan prosecutors said Tuesday [2/15/2022].  As with most of his prior arrests, he was charged with petit larceny — a misdemeanor that is not bail-eligible under the state's new criminal justice reform law.  Police sources joked that the serial thief "gets frequent flier miles" cycling through the system each time he's freed on supervised release, thanks to the controversial bail reform laws.

Joe Biden, Alchemist?  Unlike Joe Biden, even a child knows that too much demand and liquidity and too few available goods and services cause prices to rise.  The rate of inflation is increasing at an annualized rate not seen in 40 years.  And the jump already follows a prior 2021 annual rate of 6.8 percent.  The prices of gas, food, and houses — the stuff of life — are collectively rising far higher than just 7.5 percent. [...] Biden is hunting for the same magic excuses to fabricate a golden spin on crime.  After demagoguing the police, contextualizing the 2020 riots, and supporting openly or quietly the Soros district attorney revolution, crime has exploded.  Carjackings, smash-and-grab robberies, and violent assaults come to American screens each morning on social media and the news despite the denials of the Biden filters.  Rather than address the crime wave, the FBI prefers to harrass after parents at school board meetings, to fixate on mythical "white supremacist" conspiracies, or to retrieve lost property of the wayward Biden offspring.  Murder is at all-time highs in 12 major cities.

Florida Walmart is securing $20 ribeyes with mesh wiring and electronic security tag to prevent theft.  Walmart has started securing high-priced steaks inside locked metal cages amid rising crime rates across the U.S., a new viral video has revealed.  Michael Fromhold, from Florida, was stunned when he noticed that the meat at his local Walmart had been locked up in what appears to be a rather dramatic attempt to prevent people from stealing it.  Michael took a video of it and shared it to TikTok where it quickly went viral — gaining more than four million views in a matter of days — and the clip lead some viewers to lament the fact that such measures have become necessary.

The Editor says...
Security tags and alarm bells won't stop someone who can reasonably expect to avoid jail time if he or she is caught.  In Florida, the thief might actually go to jail; but on the west coast, no cop is going to waste his time on a stolen steak.

Crime [is] up in nearly every NYC precinct: latest stats.  Nearly every single city police precinct has seen spikes in crime so far this year — including five in which the rate has doubled, according to the latest troubling NYPD statistics.  "No neighborhood is safe," one Brooklyn cop warned Tuesday [2/8/2022].  "At this rate, we will lose the city by St. Patrick's Day."  The only precinct in Manhattan to not see its crime rate jump was the 22nd Precinct, the one covering Central Park.  "Only the squirrels are safe," another cop added wryly.  "Tourists will never come back."

The Editor says...
Exactly right:  The tourism industry in New York City is finished, until crime is brought under control.  And that won't happen as long as the police are afraid to arrest perpetrators with dark skin, and as long as the district attorney takes it easy on those same people — also because of their skin color.  In other words, crime can be brought under control again someday, but that process will be ugly.

Convicted rapist spent decades hiding, 22 years for ID theft.  A convicted rapist who hid in Florida for more than 40 years after skipping out on his Connecticut prison sentence has been sentenced to 22 years in federal prison for assuming a stolen identity.  Douglas Bennett, 77, was sentenced Friday in Tampa federal court.  He pleaded guilty in September to passport fraud and aggravated identity theft and possessing firearms as a convicted felon, according to court records.  Bennett also was ordered to pay a $200,000 fine.  After serving his federal sentence, Bennett is to be transported to Connecticut to serve a state sentence.

Serial NYC purse snatcher has 59 busts — and still avoids jail.  The system is working — in this alleged crook's favor.  A robbery suspect with 59 busts under her belt has been through a revolving door of arrests — and avoided jail again this week for yet another mugging, cops say.  Serial purse snatcher, Nicole Green, 46, who was picked up on a robbery charge Monday was freed by a Manhattan judge that day, after DA Alvin Bragg's office asked for supervised release, the [New York] Post has learned.  The latest charges come just days after she managed to dodge a stay in jail last Thursday for violating terms of her release in another robbery case by missing a court-mandated hearing.

How Dallas Police Department's smart tactics bucked national crime wave.  Two-thirds of America's largest cities have seen even more homicides in 2021 than in 2020, with killings rising in New York from 468 to 485, in Chicago from 771 to 797, and in Houston from 400 to 467.  More than 13 big cities — including Philadelphia, Austin, and Portland — set all-time records for homicides in 2021.  But one big city — Dallas — has bucked the national trend.  From 2020 to 2021, homicides in the Lone Star metropolis have dropped from 254 to 220, and violent crime has nosedived by 12 percent since May last year.  How did Dallas do it?  In early 2021, Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson recruited Eddie Garcia as his new police chief.  Garcia, who had spent four years as the police chief of San Jose, Calif., quickly created a plan with University of Texas criminologists, implemented it, and saw crime rates drop almost immediately.  Officer morale, as a result, has improved, Johnson told The [New York] Post.

Child Molester Called RTK, "Rape, Torture, Kill", Released From CA Mental Hospital, Calls Victim's Mother!.  How is possible that a monster, a man who claimed that he has killed three boys and molested more than 200 others, was released with no parole monitoring system and is not required to register as a sex offender which means he is free to move around.  The man, Cary Jay Smith, 61, was convicted of a misdemeanor sexual offense involving a child and had to register as a sex offender in 1985, however that requirement expired and he was removed from the sex offender registry by the state of California in 2005.  Smith has repeatedly testified to having fantasies about raping and killing young boys and said he likes to be referred to as "RTK" which stands for "rape, torture, kill."

Faced with a crime wave, a weak Joe Biden tries to change the subject.  How do you know President Joe Biden is worried about his rock-bottom approval ratings?  He has finally been forced to address the massive rise in crime rates that is occurring on his watch.  The long-belated renunciation of his party's "defund the police" message came just after a police funeral at which Manhattan's soft-on-crime Democratic prosecutor was excoriated by the widow.  Better late than never, perhaps — but Biden's attempts at political deflection will not actually stop crime.  The message he chose — the same cynical, disingenuous message on crime that Democrats adopted the last time it was a major concern in the early 1990s — demonstrates that the current crime wave will continue until a whole lot of Democrats are thrown out of office.

LA Train Robbers Are Latter-Day Jesse and Frank James.  [Scroll down]  What's the danger for today's robbers and victims?  No guns or horses are involved.  Today's train robbers just wait for the train to stop, usually a short distance from the UPS distribution center in East Los Angeles.  They stroll up to containers on the rail cars, and cut the locks with bolt cutters.  Then, they help themselves to packages from Amazon, UPS, and the post office.  They stand there, tearing the packages open, looking for Apple watches, Xboxes, and Nike gear they can sell for pennies on the dollar.  They litter the tracks with packages they think are worthless, load the good stuff into their pickups and vans, and drive off into the sunset, only to come back the next day.  The Union Pacific railroad reports that an average of 90 containers are broken into every day.  The average thefts are huge.  Union Pacific didn't release specific data on the value of what was lost, but said the increase in crime cost it at least $5 million last year, not counting \ losses to all its victimized customers.

America's crime spike goes much deeper than policing or the lack of it.  There's a spike in crime right now in the United States and the only thing that surprises me about that is that nobody expected it.  The right says there's not enough support for law enforcement.  The left claims it's because of systematic racism.  Tucker Carlson says it's due to left-wing policies in Democrat-run cities.  I agree with almost everything Tucker says, but not this one.  Every news anchor or newspaper journalist has a different reason for the rise in crime, but I haven't heard one that makes sense yet.  This won't be solved by throwing more money at or defunding the police.  Systematic racism isn't why crime is getting worse. [...] Crime is spiking because the American people are becoming as morally bankrupt as the politicians in our government.  Harsher sentences won't help stop crime because the jails and prisons are already packed full.  More police won't solve anything for the same reason.  If you want to fix the problem with crime, you need to start by clearing out the swamp in Washington.

Critical race theory is about to segregate America like an open-air prison yard.  When new inmates arrive in California state prisons, they pass through the gauntlet of other men and must make a quick decision:  With whom do they stand?  They have four options:  the whites, the blacks, the Latinos and the others.  For most of the "fish," or fresh convicts, it's not much of a choice — they are chosen.  The prisons are divided into strictly separated racial gangs, which have their own leadership structure, lunch tables, yard space and black markets.  New inmates typically fall in with their racial brothers: whites with whites, blacks with blacks, Latinos with Latinos.  The only exceptions are those who join the others: a collection of smaller ethnic groups, sexual minorities and whites who refuse to join with the Aryan Brotherhood. [...] Inmates are subsumed into their racial group; enmity between the races is the assumed condition; racial violence, retaliation and revenge always loom.  There are no individuals, only identity-based expressions of power.

How far will the left go?  The overwhelming majority of interracial crime, daily murders, rapes, armed robberies, carjackings, and generalized mayhem are committed in our bluest cities by people of which political persuasion, governed by people from which political party?  Democrat voters, government bureaucrats, and Democrat politicians dance together in perfectly choreographed harmony to perpetuate the squalor, crime, amorality, nihilism, and indolence that ravages large American cities and shreds America's social cohesion.

Crime Soars as Harris County Sheriff Focuses on Preferred Pronouns for Transgender Staff.  Cities throughout the nation broke their record homicide rates last year, and Houston saw a 71 percent increase in homicides from 2019 to 2021.  As crime soars, law enforcement in the Houston area had a deadly stretch last week with three officers killed, another three shot, and a K9 stabbed.  Amid these tragedies, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez released a memo to all Harris County sheriff's office staff on Monday, asking that they "always be respectful of employee's [sic] pronouns and gender identity."

Biden Lies About Guns — Again — During Visit to NYC to Address Crime Surge.  Joe Biden made a series of bogus claims about guns during a visit to New York City on Thursday [2/3/2022] to address skyrocketing crime rates in the city.  His visit came one one day after the massive funeral for the second of two NYPD cops who were gunned down last month.  A group of protesters carrying the anti-Biden message "Let's Go Brandon" and chanting "no vaccine mandate!" greeted Biden as he arrived at One Police Plaza just after 1 p.m., the New York Post reported.  [Tweet]  Biden delivered a speech touting his plan to crack down on firearms trafficking alongside fellow Democrats Mayor Eric Adams, Gov. Kathy Hochul, and Attorney General Merrick Garland.  He said it was important to make sure that "people who aren't allowed to have a gun don't get one in the first place" — unlike his son Hunter Biden, who obtained a gun license after lying on the registration form, and was never prosecuted.

Manhattan DA Bragg's office delayed 'no-knock' warrant for dangerous ex-con: sources.  The NYPD was forced to pump the brakes on the arrest of a dangerous ex-con wanted in a Harlem stick-up — the same week that two police officers were killed — after the Manhattan District Attorney's Office initially balked at cops' request for a "no-knock" warrant, multiple law enforcement sources told The [New York] Post.  Detectives were looking to nab Jaime Brown, who allegedly held up a bodega on Lenox Avenue with two handguns on Dec. 5 — whipping out one of the pistols when he decided the store clerk was taking too long to fork over the cash, according to the sources.  A senior law enforcement source familiar with Brown's arrest said this was a "textbook case for a no-knock warrant" because of the suspect's violent past — notably that he was convicted in a 2018 shooting when he threatened to kill a cop.

Biden and his pro-criminal Democrats.  For two years, we have endured what the media has described as efforts to defund, reform or otherwise neuter the police, executed initially by rioters and riff-raff in the streets and later by local prosecutors funded by people (George Soros) who are actively hostile to the United States.  But that anti-policing frame of reference is not quite right.  Most of those engaged on these issues from the left are not primarily anti-police.  They are pro-criminal.  "Prosecutors" who are the tip of the spear of this pro-criminal movement include district attorneys in San Francisco (Chesa Boudin, the son of not one but two cop killers), New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Boston.  They have different names and backgrounds, but their pro-criminal approach is uniformly the same.  They stopped asking for cash bail or, in some cases, any bail at all.  Pre-trial detention is out entirely.  Felonies are treated as misdemeanors, and many are not prosecuted at all.

Downtown Seattle Association hires private security guards amid police staffing issues.  In response to rising crime and other safety issues, a downtown Seattle group has hired private security guards to do the work police officers aren't able to do amid SPD's staffing crisis.  Those guards will help protect Third Avenue between Stewart and Union streets, according to the Downtown Seattle Association.  Businesses and locals are claiming this extra security is needed along that stretch of downtown that's overrun by the homeless and drugs. [...] "These people are going into the businesses and stealing from them and police hardly ever come around," Teri Marble from Seattle told KOMO News as she walked near 3rd Ave and Pine St.

Homeless parolee busted for torching NYPD patrol car with Molotov cocktail.  A homeless parolee has been busted for torching an NYPD patrol car with a Molotov cocktail to get back at cops who kicked him out of a Bronx subway station, police said Tuesday [2/1/2022].  Anthony Phillips was nabbed in Midtown Friday by cops who saw him panhandling and recognized him from a wanted poster, police said.  On Jan. 6, Phillips, 51, allegedly set fire to the patrol car outside the Pelham Bay Park subway station shortly after cops booted him out of the station for acting up.  When the cops returned to their car they found it engulfed in flames.  No one was hurt and the cops put the fire out in a few minutes but the front end of the car was destroyed.

Federal Prison System Placed on Lockdown Nationwide After Deadly Incident.  The U.S. federal prison system was placed on lockdown nationwide following a deadly incident at a Texas prison, officials said Monday [1/31/2022].  "Multiple inmates were observed fighting at the United States Penitentiary Beaumont" in Texas, said the Federal Bureau of Prisons in a news release.  Prison staff then "immediately secured the area" but found inmate Guillermo Riojas and inmate Andrew Pineda with life-threatening injuries, prison officials said.  They were transported to a nearby hospital, where they were both pronounced dead, the bureau said.  Meanwhile, it added, "Two additional inmates were transported to a local hospital for further medical assessment and treatment."  Due to the incident, which was not described in detail by the Bureau of Prisons, the entire federal prison system was placed on temporary lockdown.

The Truth Behind Racist Attacks On Asian-Americans.  Recently the incidences of racist attacks on Asians in the U.S. have noticeably increased.  Why has this happened?  Who is responsible? [...] According to a Pew Research Center poll, only 14 percent of respondents connect the coronavirus to racial incidents in the U.S. [...] What then, may we ask, are the real or not-often-cited causes of racial assaults against Asian Americans?  One reason is jealousy.  Asian-Americans have higher levels of education and better incomes than other Americans, both by significant margins.  They also register higher numbers on the lists of "people of attainments" in the sciences, business, and elsewhere.  A significant number have become founders, presidents, and chief executive officers of major companies.  Many are millionaires.  Republicans, who believe in hard work and meritocracy, support them.  Democrats fancy egalitarianism.

Laughing Psaki mocks Americans' concern over 'soft-on-crime' policies.  The nation's largest police union called out White House press secretary Jen Psaki for 'belittling Americans' concerns' after she said media outlets who run segments on 'soft-on-crime policies' are living in an 'alternate universe.[']  'I think it's wrong — very wrong — for Ms. Psaki to suggest that violent crime in our country is of no concern or to just laugh it off,' National Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) President Patrick Yoes said in a statement.  Psaki was speaking about a Fox News segment during an appearance on the Pod Save America podcast last week when she questioned what 'soft-on-crime consequence' even means and insisted Americans care 'more about what's happening in their lives than what's necessarily happening in every cable news chyron'.

Is this why Psaki laughed off concerns about being soft on crime policies?  Jen Psaki quipped that those who are worried about 'soft-on-crime policies' are living 'in an alternate universe,' but it's little wonder why the White House press secretary is seemingly unfazed by the nation's crime wave: she lives in one of the safest, most expensive counties in America.  In the tree-lined suburb of Arlington, where many lobbyists, government officials and choose to raise their children, the average price of a single-family, detached home was $1,258,648 as of December.  And in 2020, Arlington County, Virginia was deemed the safest city in the U.S., according to national data compiled by Money Geek.

Justice Department Continues to Go Easy on 2020 Rioters.  No matter how much the Biden regime and news media want Americans to forget what happened during the "social justice" protests of 2020, the public remembers.  A poll taken last summer shows overwhelming support for investigations into the nationwide looting and rioting following the death of George Floyd, which caused an estimated $2 billion in damages and cost dozens of lives.  According to an analysis by a coalition of police chiefs, at least "8,700 protests occurred across 68 major cities ... and 574 involved acts of violence," in just a two-month span of 2020.  There is absolutely no comparison between the violence that terrorized the country throughout 2020 and the four-hour disturbance at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021; any Democrat or Republican who equates the two events should be tossed out of office.

Psaki Mocks Violent Crime Concerns as 'An Alternative Universe'.  During a podcast interview over the weekend, While House Press Secretary Jen Psaki mocked people concerned about increasing violent crime as being in "an alternative universe."  "'Soft on crime policies.'  What does that even mean?  There's an alternate universe on some coverage.  What's scary about it is lots of people watch that," Psaki said. [...] "What does that even mean?"  It means an expontial [sic] increase in the murder rate thanks to prosecutors who want violent criminals out on the streets.

After Sitting In Jail For 20 Years, Man Is Released After His Twin Finally Confesses To Crime.  A Chicago man was released from prison on bond Tuesday after serving nearly 20 years due to his twin brother confessing to the crime.  Kevin Dugar walked out of Cook County Jail a free man at around 9:30 p.m., his lawyer told ABC News.  Dugar's brother, Karl Smith, confessed he was the one to pull the trigger in a 2003 shooting on Chicago's North Side, according to Chicago ABC station WLS.  Dugar was convicted of the crime in 2005 and was serving a 54-year sentence.  [Video clip]

Cops say they saw a 10-time felon trying to steal a catalytic converter.  Prosecutors refuse to charge him with a felony.  Chicago police officers who responded to a 911 call say they saw a 10-time felon trying to steal a catalytic converter from a car after he successfully stole one from another vehicle nearby.  But prosecutors refused to charge the man with a felony, according to CPD records.  Officers went to the 2100 block of West Roscoe in Roscoe Village around 2:05 a.m. on January 12 after a witness reported seeing someone using a green saw to cut a catalytic converter from a black 2014 Prius, according to a CPD report.  When the cops got there, they saw Dexter Williams, 35, trying to steal a catalytic converter from a different Prius, the report said.  Williams ran into an alley, and officers said they found him hiding next to a garage.  The cops seized a green power saw and a car jack that was hoisting the second Prius into the air, according to CPD records.

NYC Cop Is Shot With an Illegal Weapon and the Shooter Walks.  [Scroll down]  To summarize the story, we have a kid who has been arrested twice with illegal handguns and shot a cop, and he's free on bond.  Unfortunately, the "C Blu" story is not a unique event.  Springing felons who go on to re-offend seems to be a hobby, if not an obsession, of the judge, in this case, a guy named Denis Boyle. [...] I'm sure Boyle is not alone.  I would bet good money that if one went looking, one would find dozens, at least, of judges who are much more interested in playing "white savior" to the underclasses than they are in protecting law-abiding New Yorkers from armed sociopaths who have developed a taste for blood.  Mayor Adams doesn't have a gun problem.  He has a sanity problem.  Nothing he does to "get guns off the street" will work if he doesn't take steps to ensure the people caught carrying those guns do hard time.  Guns don't just "get on the street," they require a partner, known in most big-city police forces as "a criminal," to carry them about and use them in "crimes."  Adams may not have the political authority to remove judges like Boyle and prosecutors like Alvin Bragg.  Still, he has the media profile and the political capital to name-and-shame them so they can't happily go about their hobby without anyone noticing.

Soros-Funded DA George Gascón Rationalizes Crime-Wave Epidemic.  Like other cities run by Democrats, Los Angeles is going through an epidemic of violent crime.  Its Soros-funded DA George Gascón has a lot of blood on his hands for increasing the mayhem.  When he was sworn in, he said his office would not prosecute a host of misdemeanor crimes, or seek the death penalty for even the most heinous murders.  No surprise that, as Broken Windows policing confirmed nearly two decades ago, tolerating "non-violent" crimes has increased violent ones.  "The data," as City Journal's Soledad Ursúa, reports on LA, "show staggering surges of homicides, gun violence, and sexual assaults, and one can see with one's own eyes the open-air drug scenes, rampant homelessness, streets lined with human excrement and needles, prostitution, filth, and squalor.  Last year saw 52 percent more homicides than in 2019; shooting incidents were up 59 percent over the same period, according to the LAPD."  Much of this violence has come at the hands of street-bums and addicts.

Chesa Boudin accused by San Francisco police chief of concealing evidence to frame a cop.  It's one thing for a leftist district attorney of Chesa Boudin's stripe to fail to do his job prosecuting violent crime and focus only on prosecuting cops for malfeasance.  We know about that part.  It's quite another to frame those cops because you can't find any truly bad ones, in a bid to achieve the grand Sorosian narrative of bad cop, good criminal.  That's what the San Francisco police chief is accusing Boudin of pulling.

Biden's DOJ Say Arsonist Who Killed A Man Should Get Reduced Sentence Because He Was Rioting For BLM.  A BLM rioter who set fire to a pawn shop and killed a man is facing a shorter sentence than normal because, according to US Attorney W. Anders Folk, he was "caught up in the fury" of the Black Lives Matter riots.  On June 5, 2020, in Minnesota, BLM riots were breaking out and becoming violent.  Hundreds of people took to the streets and began looting local businesses, vandalizing private property, and recklessly setting fire to buildings.  Montez Terriel Lee Jr. was one of these violent actors. [...] Over two months after Lee burned down the shop, a 30-year-old man, Oscar Lee Stewart, was found dead among the debris.

NYC teen rapper charged with shooting NYPD cop walking free on bond.  A 16-year-old, up-and-coming rapper charged with shooting an NYPD cop in the Bronx walked free on bond Thursday — and cops are fuming over it.  Camrin Williams, who is also known by the rap name C Blu, posted his $250,000 bond after being locked up at a Brooklyn juvenile facility on gun and assault charges in the shooting of a 27-year-old cop in Belmont.  "If anybody wants to know why we have a crisis of violence in this city, or why we're about to bury two hero police officers, look no further than this disgraceful bail release," NYPD Police Benevolent Association president Patrick Lynch said in a statement.  "This individual chose to carry illegal guns twice," Lynch said.  "He chose to fight with and shoot a New York City police officer.  There's no reason to believe he won't do the exact same thing when he's out on the street tonight.

California Trans Child Molester, 26, Gets 2 Years In Juvenile Facility Thanks To Progressive DA Gascon.  A Los Angeles County judge on Thursday ordered Hannah Tubbs, a transgender California woman, to serve two years in a juvenile facility after she pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl in 2014.  Before doing so, the judge criticized far-left District Attorney George Gascon, whose office declined to prosecute the repeat offender as an adult.  Tubbs, 26, recently pleaded guilty to molesting the girl in a women's bathroom eight years ago when Tubbs was two weeks away from turning 18.  At the time of the crime, she identified as male and went by James Tubbs.  She did not identify as female until after she was taken into custody, according to prosecutors.

Crimes Are Crimes, No Matter How Petty.  There's nothing petty about petty crime.  Tolerate it, and society descends into disorder.  You're standing in line at Starbucks and watch a freeloader go to the front, pick out a sandwich and walk out without paying.  No one says a word.  Or you pay your bills, then find out thieves have robbed the blue USPS box to abscond with your checking information and empty your account.  That happened to me last week.  The thieves fish mail out of the box or use stolen USPS keys sold on the internet.  This crime is surging, but the police and banks shrug their shoulders and advise going directly to the post office or using electronic banking.  Walk into a drug store to buy deodorant and toothpaste.  They're locked up behind glass.  A distraught Duane Reade employee explained why.  Shoplifters waltz in, fill bags with merchandise and walk out.  Management prohibits employees from stopping them.  Banks and retailers are forced to accept these crimes as a cost of doing business.  Law enforcement officials are downgrading the penalties for many petty crimes.  But the public is rattled and rightly so.

Democrats Rushed to 'Reimagine' Policing in Washington State.  Now It's Unsafe.  Democrats in Washington state rode the wave of anti-police sentiment after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.  Their goal was to "reimagine policing," and it's exactly what they did.  Consequently, Washington experienced a surge of violent crime.  Now Republicans, and even some Democrats, are rushing to fix as much as possible.  With total control of the state Legislature, Democrats used the 2021 legislative session to rush through sweeping "reforms" that dramatically changed policing in the state.  These passed bills clamped down on police use of force and detainment, banned departments from deploying large-caliber weapons, and even prohibited most high-speed chases.

Michael Rapaport films brazen thief sauntering out of Upper East Side Rite Aid with bags full of stolen goods while security guard does nothing.  Michael Rapaport filmed the moment a bold thief sauntered out of a Rite Aid on the Upper East side of New York City with two shopping bags full of stolen goods, calling it 'pathetic' that brazen crime continues to spiral in the Big Apple because of soft-on-crime policies.  The actor and comedian, who posted footage of the incident on Instagram, told DailyMail.com that he was 'disgusted' and 'surprised' when he saw the thief stocking up on items from three different sections of the pharmacy before deciding he was satisfied.  'These criminals know there are no ramifications.  We have to put more of these [malefactors] in jail,' he said.

New Manhattan DA walks back decriminalization memo.  As soon as new Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was sworn into office, he sent out a memo to all of his prosecutors instructing them to stop seeking jail time for all but the most serious of crimes.  He also provided a list of offenses that his office would not be prosecuting, including resisting arrest, even in cases where police officers might be physically attacked in the process.  This announcement was met with a firestorm of criticism coming from almost everyone except the new mayor, who has thus far stuck by him.  But the level of pushback against these far-left, progressive policies must have finally gotten to Bragg.  On Thursday, he showed up on Fox News and appeared to walk back some of his initial decrees, but he did so in a way that seemed to shift the blame completely away from himself and place it on those who "misunderstood" his instructions and may have been "confused" by them.

LASD stats show 94% jump in homicides in LA County over 2-year span, Sheriff Villanueva says.  Homicides and auto thefts jumped significantly during a two-year period in areas patrolled by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, according to Sheriff Alex Villanueva.  Villanueva said Wednesday during a news conference that from 2019 to 2021, homicides increased about 94% and grand theft auto increased 59%.  "I say those are the two glaring numbers because obviously they're definitely going in the wrong direction," Villanueva said.  The sheriff says part of the dramatic increase in crime stems from the pandemic.

Carjackings soar by up to 510% in major US cities:  Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and New Orleans.  Major cities across the US have observed carjackings spike by up to 510 percent in a 'disturbing' trend some are attributing to lax punishment and a shift in driving habits.  In line with an overall rise in violent crime across the nation, cities such as Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and New Orleans are experiencing a jump in violent vehicle takeovers as critics slam criminal reform systems.  Others say changes that have come about during the pandemic — including curbside pickup and an increased demand for delivery service — are contributing to the jump.

Biden Administration Drops Charges for Dozens of ANTIFA Rioters Who Laid Waste to Portland.  The federal Department of Justice (DOJ) has dismissed cases for 31 ANTIFA thugs who were charged with crimes related to rioting in Portland, Ore.  Four defendants who were charged with felony assault of a federal officer had those charges dropped.  More than half of the charges were "dropped with prejudice," meaning that those cases cannot under any circumstances be brought up again in court.

The Repeat Offenders of Criminal Stupidity.  A number of stories this week caught my eye as exemplifying the spirit of our age.  First, in Los Angeles, we have all seen the footage of the rail yards covered with debris and boxes from mass looting of rail cars.  This is an extreme example of the "broken windows" problem.  Such lawlessness fuels disrespect and disregard for society as a whole.  It invites crime with the following message:  if we can't stop this, we probably can't stop you.  Such scenes are repeated nationwide in smaller ways.  Second, the killer of a young Columbia University co-ed received the statutory minimum of 14 years.  Unlike Officer Derek Chauvin, who was sentenced to 22 years, this incident was not the product of negligence in the line of duty, but a stabbing that took place in connection with a robbery.  Such paltry sentencing is a nationwide scandal, but increasingly common under the combined weight of left-leaning judges, leftist prosecutors, and legislative changes in the name of decarceration.  Then we heard of a young retail clerk in Los Angeles murdered by a homeless man with a long criminal record and the physical appearance of a lunatic.  People appealed on Twitter not to publicize the man's race lest they encourage stereotyping and racist comments.

Woke LA DA George Gascon blames Union Pacific for thefts from trains.  Progressive Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón is firing back at a railroad company that has taken shots at him for not doing more to stop train burglaries in the area, despite the company's pleas for his office's assistance.  This comes after Governor Gavin Newsom was disgusted by a ravaged rail depot — full of visible cardboard and other debris due to the thefts — in the Lincoln Heights area of the city that he visited and helped cleaned up.  In December, rail company Union Pacific — which holds jurisdiction over crime on the rails — sent a letter to DA Gascón asking for more aggressive prosecutions for cargo thieves and an end to the no-bail policy for some defendants that Gascon wants to reduce overcrowding at jails during the pandemic.

The Soros Dozen:  Big City Prosecutors Backed by George Soros.  Left-wing billionaire and Democrat donor George Soros has turned his attention in recent years to local races for prosecutor, using his money to elect "progressives" who push "criminal justice reform" and support the Black Lives Matter movement.  The rise of these Soros-backed prosecutors has coincided with a massive surge in murder and crime in many Democrat-run cities, including many where these prosecutors have implemented radical policies toward policing and incarceration.  Most recently, for example, Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón has faced criticism for his radical reforms in the year since he took office, while murders soared.  "The city last year experienced 397 murders, up 11.8 percent from the 355 the previous year, and a 53.9 percent increase from the 258 in the pre-pandemic year of 2019," Los Angeles magazine noted.

New Manhattan DA Walks Back Memo Claiming Decriminalization 'Will Make Us Safer'.  Manhattan's new liberal district attorney on Thursday walked back a memo he sent to staff earlier this month calling for the "decriminalization/non prosecution" of crimes including marijuana possession, turnstile jumping, trespassing, resisting arrest, interfering with an arrest and prostitution.  "I understand why those who read my memo of January 3rd have been left with the wrong impression about how I will enforce New York's laws," DA Alvin Bragg said, according to Fox News's Jacqui Heinrich.  "I take full accountability for that confusion caused."

On Crime, You Must Ask The Right Questions To Get Good Answers.  The major murder centers are all Democrat-run cities that have been Democrat-run for decades.  They are so woke that criminals are somehow victims.  DAs will happily prosecute the men in blue for using any form of physical force to make an arrest but ignore violent career criminals.  This is all done in the name of "social justice," a term that makes a mockery of real justice.  Rudy Giuliani proved that "broken windows policing" works.  When you vigorously prosecute small crimes, those criminals don't do bigger crimes.  Under his leadership, New York became a safe city.  But when Comrade de Blasio did the opposite, he got a predictable 39.2% increase in murders in 2020.

17-year-old accused of shooting girlfriend 22 times released from jail on bond.  The 17-year-old accused of shooting his girlfriend 22 times as she walked her dog was released from jail on bond on Wednesday [1/19/2022], court records show.  A judge set bail at $250,000 in the case of Frank DeLeon.  He's due back in court later Wednesday.  According to police, Diamond Alvarez and DeLeon were in a romantic relationship, but Alvarez had recently learned that DeLeon was romantically involved with someone else.  The two met at a park near Alvarez's home on Jan. 11.  That's when DeLeon shot Alvarez 22 times, mostly in the back, according to prosecutors.  DeLeon was taken into custody Monday.

Can Los Angeles Be Saved?  On Monday, off-duty LAPD officer Fernando Arroyos and his girlfriend were out in South L.A. looking at houses, in anticipation of getting married and settling down there.  Sure, it was after dark, and most Angelenos do not venture out at night these days, but Fernando was LAPD, highly trained in police work and educated at U.C. Berkeley, and thought he had it all down.  Then four gangbangers from the local crime organization (too highly advanced to be called a gang), Florencia 13, saw the silver chains around his neck and decided to rob him.  Arroyos told his girlfriend to run.  Shots rang out, at least one hit Arroyos, and he died on the way to the hospital. [...] Usually, when a cop is murdered, the city's mayor and D.A. come out and angrily vow to catch and prosecute the killers to the fullest extent, and they file charges.  After all, they are the apex of the law enforcement pyramid.  If they don't care, the people are in deep trouble.  This is the response from D.A. Gascon's office, though: a condolence tweet for the "death of an off-duty police officer" without even saying his name, without even admitting it was a murder.

Soft-on-crime Los Angeles DA ripped after child molester faces little or no time.  Los Angeles' top prosecutor is under fire for allowing a transgender woman who sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl as a minor to face a no-jail wrist-slap sentence.  Hannah Tubbs, now 26, pleaded guilty to attacking the girl in a women's bathroom at a Denny's restaurant in 2014, two weeks before she turned 18, the Los Angeles Times reported.  LA District Attorney George Gascón filed charges against Tubbs in early 2020, not long after taking office.  But the progressive DA has refused to try juveniles as adults, citing studies that show adolescent brains aren't fully developed until age 25 and claiming that young offenders can be rehabilitated in juvenile facilities.

New Virginia AG Fires 30 Members of the Civil Rights Division, [and will] Start Prosecution [of] Cases Dropped by Soft on Crime DAs.  Citizens of the Old Dominion are learning that elections have consequences.  Specifically, in this case, they're learning that electing Republicans means returning to pro-American and pro-law and order policies.  First, they saw Youngkin launch an anti-Covid jab mandate blitz that was paired with a series of executive orders that struck back at the mask mandates and CRT lessons pushed onto Virginia's schools by the agents of the former, leftist governor.  Now, they're getting a reminder of what it's like to have a real attorney general rather than a social justice warrior that crazy leftists like George Soros want in the AG's office so criminals can be freed and law-abiding conservatives punished.

Virginia's New AG Fires Civil Rights Division, Will Start Prosecuting Cases Dropped By 'Social Justice' DAs.  Within hours of taking office, Virginia's newly sworn-in Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) cleaned house — firing dozens of lawyers, including those in the Civil Rights division — and announcing investigations into the Virginia Parole Board and Loudon County Public Schools.  "I've been told incoming AG @JasonMiyaresVA just FIRED the entire civil rights division in the Attorney General's office," tweeted VA State Senator Louise Lucas.  [Tweet]  According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Miyares notified around 30 staff members they're being let go — including 17 attorneys and 13 staff members.  The attorneys include the solicitor general, Herring's deputies, and reportedly Helen Hardiman — an assistant AG who worked on housing discrimination.  Miyares, who will take over Democratic AG Mark Herring, campaigned on a promise to pursue legislation that would enable state AGs to circumvent "social justice" attorneys who refuse to vigorously prosecute crimes.

That scene at the Union Pacific rail depot is all about wokesterism, not the weird things the press is cooking up.  Sometimes, a picture is worth a thousand words.  Sometimes, it's worth a million or more views.  This brings us to the pictures rolling out from Los Angeles of the wholesale theft of Union Pacific's railroad containers, leaving thousands of broken packages strewn around tracks in photos redolent of places like Calcutta, India.  [Tweet with video clip]  That's wokesterism in action.  What it's not is all the idiotic things the press has been trying to blame for it, and I'm looking at you, Los Angeles Times.  Union Pacific is ready to throw in the towel on Los Angeles because these thefts are out of control — something like one out of six containers now gets broken into — and very few thieves are ever prosecuted.

Soft-on-crime Los Angeles DA ripped after child molester faces little or no time.  Los Angeles' top prosecutor is under fire for allowing a transgender woman who sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl as a minor to face a no-jail wrist-slap sentence.  Hannah Tubbs, now 26, pleaded guilty to attacking the girl in a women's bathroom at a Denny's restaurant in 2014, two weeks before she turned 18, the Los Angeles Times reported.  LA District Attorney George Gascón filed charges against Tubbs in early 2020, not long after taking office.  But the progressive DA has refused to try juveniles as adults, citing studies that show adolescent brains aren't fully developed until age 25 and claiming that young offenders can be rehabilitated in juvenile facilities.  At a hearing on December 14, the victim provided a written statement to the judge and was read out loud in court.  She asked the judge to impose a sentence that Tubbs "deserved."

A dystopian and real 48 hours to commit crimes in Chicago.  [Scroll down]  In Chicago and suburban Cook County we have a different kind of 48 Hours.  "When someone goes missing with home-monitoring — when they leave the house unauthorized," state Sen. John Curran (R-Downers Grove) said on this weekend's Flannery Fired Up on Fox Chicago, "they have to be gone for 48 hours before they can be charged now."  "We've had stories, several stories," Curran told the host Mike Flannery, "about people on home-monitoring committing additional acts of violent crime when they go missing."  "And any violation [of electronic-monitoring] should bring an immediate charge — not a 48-hour window," Curran added.  What type of people are on home-monitoring in Cook County?  "Seventy-five to 80 percent of my people on home monitoring are charged with a violent offense," Cook County sheriff Tom Dart revealed in an online discussion last week.  "I have about 100 people on home-monitoring who are charged with murder."

Gang Members Accused Of Murdering LAPD Officer Charged Federally Due To DA's Refusal To Charge Enhancements.  The four suspects charged in connection with the murder of Los Angeles Police Officer Fernando Arroyos are all affiliated with the Florencia 13 (F13) Latino street gang, police revealed Thursday.  Officer Arroyos, 27, was fatally shot during an armed robbery as he was house-hunting with his girlfriend on Jan. 10.  Police said the suspects targeted him because of the two silver necklaces he was wearing, KABC reported.  Two women and three men were detained by Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD) detectives for questioning in connection with Officer Arroyos' death, LASD Homicide Bureau Captain Joe Mendoza revealed Tuesday, according to the Los Angeles Times. [...] Investigators said the three male suspects are all F13 gang members.

Incredibly, Democrats Want to Go Softer On Crime.  Across America, citizens are up in arms about rising violent crime.  In my own state of Minnesota, polls show that crime is voters' number one concern.  And when they say they want the governor to focus on violent crime, they don't mean that they want him to encourage more of it.  But liberals are untroubled by factors like public opinion, not to mention constitutional duty.  Minnesota has a Sentencing Guidelines Commission that sets presumptive sentences for all crimes.  Left-wing governor Tim Walz has stacked the commission with 8 of its 11 members, mostly liberal activists.  One member of the commission, for example, is herself an ex-con and has argued that criminals should not be imprisoned lest they be "re-traumatized."  While no one was watching, leftists on the Sentencing Guidelines Commission came up with a proposal to make Minnesota's already-lenient sentencing guidelines even worse.

2021 was a record year for homicides in Portland.  In 2021 Portland, Oregon, recorded 90 homicides amid a surge in gun violence, shattering the city's previous high of 66 set more than three decades ago.  The number of homicides in Portland surpassed more populous cities including San Francisco and Boston — and were more than double the number of slayings last year in its larger Pacific Northwest neighbor Seattle.

As if there weren't enough Joe Biden calamities, now it's pirate attacks?  [Scroll down]  What we have here is an unprecedented attack that's literally the work of pirates our supply chain, land pirates, who by this definition are the same thing. [...] More recently, the U.S. also acted swiftly with NATO forces to get the Somali pirates under control, ensuring that by 2013, there were no pirate attacks at all on Western cargo ships near the Red Sea.  The attacks on our supply chain are the same kind of pirate attack, done on land and likely by local organized criminals and Mexican cartels, neither of which has any fear of the law.

Democrats 'New America': Here's the Aftermath of a Train Robbery in Los Angeles, Millions in Goods Lay on the Ground.  According to Los Angeles Police trains are being frequently robbed and their goods are thrown all over the ground exactly like can be seen in this video.  This is happening more and more frequently as Democrat cities across America are refusing to arrest people who are caught stealing.  Now, thieves have realized where they can easily get massive amounts of merchandise without any fear of being recorded, just rob the source — trains and trucks!  [Video clip]

Crimefighter exodus:  Manhattan prosecutors flee DA office after Bragg takes helm.  Prosecutors in soft-on-crime Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office are flooding the exits amid his "radical shift in policy," The Post has learned.  Bragg's controversial "Day One" memo issued on Jan. 3 told assistant district attorneys to not seek prison sentences for many criminals and to downgrade some felonies to misdemeanors.  His leadership has already created a firestorm that has led to an online petition calling for him to be removed.  "I know one [ADA] who was with the office over 20 years who left without a job," said a law enforcement source.  "They didn't want to work in this kind of office.  They wanted to continue prosecuting the law."  Over the past two weeks, at least a dozen lawyers have quit.

Who kills the police?  Put "race of people shooting police" into Google and your will get page after page of the opposite results, the race or ethnicity of people shot by police.  This is obviously no accident.  The media narrative is that police shoot people, mostly minorities, without justification.  The question of who shoots the police is one that the larger society is generally afraid to ask.  To ask that question might shed a different light on who the police shoot because it would put the question into a larger context about criminality.  For the defund the police crowd and the progressive minions of distributive and restorative justice, it would undermine an empowering narrative that has enabled them to shackle the police while letting criminals run free without bail and being rewarded with pleas to lower offenses.  For as long as the police and the "system" can be viewed as victimizing minorities, these minorities can be viewed as victims and not criminals.

Sen. Tom Cotton Introduces Bill To Keep Men Out Of Women's Prisons.  Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., is trying to shut down President Joe Biden's male-to-female prison pipeline before it starts.  As The Federalist recently reported, the president plans to house federal prisoners according to their "gender identity" rather than by their biological sex.  Now, the Arkansas Republican has introduced a bill that would require prisoners to be housed according to biological sex, rather than subjective claims of "gender identity."

Not even criminals deserve this level of abuse.  We all know that the Biden Administration hasn't yet met a law, rule, regulation, policy, procedure, or court ruling it is unwilling to blow up in the name of its ever-expanding wokeism. [...] Part of the planned renovations to the justice system include changes that would allow the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to house incarcerated individuals in accordance with their gender identity.  There are 157,472 federal prisoners, of which 10,965 (7%) are women.  Of the remaining 93%, according to National Review, about 1,200 identify as transgender (male to female).  Were they to be added to the female population they would constitute fully 10% of all those housed in federal women's prisons.

Seattle-area prosecutor defends light-on-crime approach for teens wielding guns at school: 'Get used to this'.  A Seattle-area prosecutor was slammed over a recent presentation to law enforcement officials in which he insisted police should "get used to" the district attorney's office allowing juvenile suspects — even those accused of bringing a gun to school — to avoid jail time.  Ben Carr, senior deputy prosecuting attorney for King County, made a recent Zoom presentation on "considerations for juvenile suspects."  "Even for serious offenses the primary focus will be on rehabilitation," Carr wrote, adding in parentheses, "get used to this concept."

Rob a bank with a gun in NYC and get just one year in jail!  George Soros-backed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was greeted with growing backlash over his shockingly soft stance on crime that the progressive prosecutor revealed on Monday, less than 48 hours after new Mayor Eric Adams took office.  Bragg, the newly minted prosecutor of the Big Apple's main borough, sent a memo to his staff announcing he 'will not seek carceral' sentences for criminals, unless they were guilty of murder or a handful of other crimes he deemed serious enough to warrant prison.  His sweeping changes call on prosecutors to ditch felony armed robbery charges and instead charge suspects with petty larceny — a misdemeanor which carries a maximum of one year in prison — even when a weapon is involved if the firearm did not 'create a genuine risk of physical harm.'

Leaked Biden Plan Would House Violent Men In Women's Prison Cells.  President Joe Biden is preparing to give every rapist and molester in federal prison a get-out-of-jail-free card.  Specifically, Biden is offering to transfer any and all male criminals to women's prisons.  All the men will have to do is say that they feel like a woman, and the Biden administration will take them at their word.  This policy may be the worst part of a proposed executive order on law enforcement, a draft of which was obtained by The Federalist.  Most of the proposal is devoted to, if not defunding the police, at least disarming and disabling them.  But buried toward the end of the extensive planned action to get soft on crime is a small paragraph of anodyne bureaucratic language that orders the U.S. attorney general to "within 30 days of the date of this order, begin the process of identifying any necessary changes to the [Bureau of Prisons] Transgender Offender Manual ... to enable BOP to designate individuals to facilities in accordance with their gender identity."

Far-Left District Attorneys Have Unleashed Murder In Cities Like Philadelphia.  We still debate the reasons that crime fell in the 1990s.  Better policing?  Longer jail sentences?  An aging population?  Removal of lead from the atmosphere?  They all may have played a role, along with other factors we are probably missing.  That debate is now academic.  Crime has been rising for several years now.  The new concern is why, and how we can get it to stop.  Again, there are many factors, but the rise of leftist prosecutors who are soft on crime must be at the head of the list.  In my hometown of Philadelphia, crime as a general matter has been getting worse for years, and there are statistics to prove it.  Philadelphia, like many big American cities, is experiencing more violent crime than at any point in its history.

In Chicago, one man gives a whole meaning to revolving door justice.  I believe that an ordered, prosperous society protects people's private property.  Without that promise of protection, people either stop working to acquire property, which drags down the economy, or vigilante "justice" becomes the norm.  Vigilantes will freely kill those they believe committed property crimes.  The rule of law, after all, protects not only honest citizens but criminals as well.  However, I strongly agree with the American tradition that does not impose the death penalty for property crimes.  Prison time should be a sufficient deterrent.  But what happens when even imprisonment isn't brought to bear against someone guilty of property crimes?  In that case, you end up with 56-year-old Andre Burnett: [...] It's true that Burnett apparently has never committed a violent crime against a person or property.  He steals things.  However, in the aggregate, he is damaging society.  He makes products more expensive, he reduces trust between citizens, and he burns up criminal justice resources.  For a functional society, there should be a penalty for that.

Manhattan's 'progressive' new DA Alvin Bragg just gave a green light for anarchy.  Old:  If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.  New:  If you can't do the time, Alvin Bragg will be there for you.  That much just became clear, as the newly minted Manhattan DA issued marching orders to his hundreds of assistants and support staff. [...] Specifically, Bragg says his office "will not seek a carceral sentence" for anything short of murder or deadly assault ("carceral" being progressive double-speak for prison).  Also, he says minor crime won't be prosecuted at all.  In other words, jail is to be reserved for ax murderers and their ilk; armed robbers and heavyweight drug dealers are to be minimally inconvenienced — and just forget about the quality-of-life law enforcement that was the beating heart of the Giuliani-era rescue of New York City decades ago.

Manhattan DA to stop seeking prison sentences in [a] slew of criminal cases.  Who needs soft-on-crime judges when the district attorney doesn't even want to lock up the bad guys?  Manhattan's new DA has ordered his prosecutors to stop seeking prison sentences for hordes of criminals and to downgrade felony charges in cases including armed robberies and drug dealing, according to a set of progressive policies made public Tuesday [1/4/2022].  In his first memo to staff on Monday, Alvin Bragg said his office "will not seek a carceral sentence" except with homicides and a handful of other cases, including domestic violence felonies, some sex crimes and public corruption.

Defunding the Police Has Been a Massive Failure.  It is absolutely stunning that some people thought this would be a good idea and actively pushed it.  Look at where we are now.

How Defund the Police backfired.  Over the last two decades, progressives have established a new consensus on crime.  Nonviolent felonies like shoplifting and drug possession should be reclassified as misdemeanours.  Cities should defund the police and spend the money on nurses, psychologists and social workers instead.  Offenders should have minimal involvement with the justice system — and be kept out of jail wherever possible.  But now, rising crime is rapidly undermining the progressive consensus.  Homicides rose 30% in 2020, and over two-thirds of America's largest cities will have had even more homicides in 2021 than in 2020.  At least 13 big cities will set all-time records for homicides, including Philadelphia, Austin, and Portland.  Meanwhile property crimes in California's four largest cities rose 7% between 2020 and 2021.  Car break-ins in San Francisco declined temporarily in 2020, because Covid emptied the city of tourists, but they have since skyrocketed, reaching 3,000 in November.  Many residents have stopped bothering to report crime.

Transgender Antifa rioter has federal case for assaulting Portland cops dropped after [completing] just 30 hours community service.  The federal case against an Antifa rioter from Portland accused of assaulting police officers was dropped after she completed just 30 hours of community service.  Eva Warner, who is transgender and was formerly named Joshua, was charged with felony civil disorder in September 2020 after she was arrested three times during Antifa riots in August.  Warner, 26, would have faced a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison if convicted.

Washington State Democrats Want Decreased Penalties for Drive-By Shooters.  In July, 17-year-old Tay'Zauhn Burns-Miller's life was snuffed out by a drive-by murderer.  Just days before, Seattle was riven by a swarm of shootings in which six people were mowed down by shooters in one night.  Four died.  In October, a man escaped being killed by another drive-by shooter.  And days ago, a man was critically wounded when a drive-by shooter picked him off as he sat in his car.  Seattle, Washington's most populous city, had a record number of drive-by shootings in 2021.  By July, the city's drive-by shootings had doubled over the year before.  It's a problem.  So why are Washington Democrats offering up a bill in the state legislature to lower the penalties for drive-by shootings?  Well, there's woke and then there's just plain stupid.  Washington state Democrats are vying to become the best stupid they can be, bless 'em.

Washington state lawmakers introduce bill that would reduce penalties for drive-by shootings.  Washington state lawmakers introduced a bill this month that would reduce penalties for drive-by shootings with the aim of "promoting racial equity."  The bill, introduced by Democratic Representatives Tarra Simmons and David Hackney ahead of the state's 2022 legislative session, would eliminate drive-by shootings as the basis for elevating a first-degree murder charge to aggravated murder in the first degree, which carries a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment.  Drive-by shootings were added to the list of aggravating factors for murder charges in 1995.  Other aggravating factors include the murder of law enforcement officers, murders committed by inmates while they are behind bars, and murder-for-hire schemes.

Six Political Predictions For 2022.  [Scroll down]  As of early-December there were twelve major U.S. cities — all run by Democrats — which had already set annual records for homicides, at which time there were still over three weeks left in the year.  It's also worth noting that five of those twelve cities "topped records that were set or tied just last year."  The situation is bad, but it's going to get worse.  And Democrats only have themselves to blame.  The left has demonized police by falsely accusing them of wrongdoing; please consider the shootings of Michael Brown and Jacob Blake as examples.  They've promoted the idiotic notion of "defund the police," and in cities like St.  Paul they've accomplished that goal only to end up on the aforementioned list of the dozen cities.  They've implemented bail "reform," which simply puts violent criminals back on the street.  They've decriminalized crimes (federal crimes) such as sex work and dealing drugs.  And, of course, they embraced last year's BLM riots that killed 25 Americans.  Put these actions all together, and we have a total disregard for the rule of law... and we have a recipe for disaster.

These Stores Are Closing Due To Looting And Lost Profits.  As looting continues and lockdowns return, many retail companies have announced recently that they are shuttering some locations that have become simply too expensive to maintain. [...] Some of the country's major pharmacy chains have said that they plan to close a number of stores.  In November, CVS announced that it will close around 900 retail locations over the next three years, which amounts to about 9% of its 10,000 stores.  CVS locations across the country have been affected by looting over the past year and a half, but the company cited more customers shopping online in its decision to close stores.  Rite Aid said just this week that it is closing 63 stores in order to reduce costs and boost profitability.  In October, Walgreens announced that they would close five locations in San Francisco, citing rampant shoplifting across the city.

The Left denies there's a shoplifting boom.  The Daily Mail reported, "A woman, armed with a pickaxe, was shoplifting at a Los Angeles Rite Aid.  "Shoppers videotaped the bizarre scene on Thursday as the woman walked up and down the aisles with the weapon in hand.  "She reportedly threatened employees and customers and warned that she would come back as she walked out with a basket full of merchandise.  "It comes as LA and cities throughout California continue to be plagued by robberies amid the state's zero bail policies."  There's your democracy.  Californians voted to decriminalize shoplifting.  Californians elected pro-criminal DAs.  Shoplifting and the outright looting of stores are rampant in California.  But just as the media called massive riots by Democrats in city after city mostly peaceful protests in 2020, the media is denying the theft.  In the epicenter of the new lawlessness, the San Francisco Chronicle is the bulwark for thieves.

Democrats' U-turn on policing — too little, too late.  In an astonishing reversal, San Francisco's mayor, London Breed, launched emergency police intervention in the city's crime-wrecked Tenderloin district.  This is the woman who cut police and sheriff budgets by $120 million to pander to 2020's Black Lives Matter rioters.  The decision brought a rain of ruin down on her metropolis, and now even its left-liberal residents have had enough.  Breed's rhetoric has, if anything, changed even more dramatically than her policies. [...] Can other Democrats do the same and salvage the next election?  Not likely.  Even if a Democratic mayor here or there can perform such a volte-face, that option is not available to the party on a national level.

California's Zero-Bail Policies Have Been A Deadly Failure.  California's state lawmakers recently failed to pass bail reform legislation, creating a case study in how fundamentally poor public policy will self-destruct if it's exposed for what it is.  On the face of it, there is a logic to the continuing argument that cash-based bail is unfair to people who have little or no money.  But that simplistic premise is deeply flawed and has led to a huge increase in violent crime in California, as well as in other places that implemented the policy.  Unfortunately, the grim repercussions are not just statistical.  There is a human face to criminal justice reform gone bad — and ultimately it tripped up the legislators behind the latest attempt at force-feeding bail reform to the Golden State's citizens.

Special Prosecutor:  Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx Lied To The Public in Smollett Case.  Cook County special prosecutor Dan Webb has issued his report on the Jussie Smollett scandal with scathing findings of misconduct by the Cook County State's Attorney's Office.  The findings include a determination that Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx lied to the public about her communications and role in the scandal.  Despite the highly improper handling of the case (including the dropping of the original charges against Smollett), Chicago voters still reelected Foxx who has an appalling record in office.  For a native Chicagoan, it is an all-too-familiar pattern of corrupt or incompetent elected officials continuing in office.  The question, however, is whether Foxx will face any bar action for allegedly lying to the public about the handling of the case.

Obama/Soros Puppet, Illinois State Attorney Kim Foxx, gets Exposed by Local Media.  It looks like the house of cards Democrats have built over the last few years continue to fall apart.  Now even the Jussie Smollett case is expanding to target those who tried to stop him from facing any criminal charges for flat out lying to the police.  This case could also include CNN[']s Don Lemon who was helping Jussie get away with his crime, as well as Michelle Obama who was said to be very active in helping Jussie get away with the crime.  [Video clip]

I suspect this happens far more than the news media knows, or wants to know:
Jury Foreperson Says 3 Jurors Wouldn't Convict Murderer Soley Because He Is Black.  The foreperson of the jury in the murder trial of Dayonte Resiles said three jurors were unwilling to convict Resiles based on his race.  The foreperson discussed on Friday the most recent twist in the trial that ended Wednesday with the hung jury.  "[The three jurors] said, 'I don't want to send a young Black male to jail for the rest of their life or have him get the death sentence,'" said the foreperson.  Resiles faces life in prison and possibly the death penalty for the murder of Jill Su, a 59-year-old Davie woman who was killed in her home back in September of 2014.  [Video clip]

California's Zero-Bail Policies Have Been A Deadly Failure.  In 2020, as an emergency measure during the COVID-19 pandemic, the California Judicial Council, hoping to prevent COVID's spread, had implemented zero-bail schedules to reduce jail populations.  Senate Bill 262 was later introduced in another of a series of attempts to eliminate most monetary bail.  For reasons having nothing to do with protecting health and safety, Senate Bill 262 would have made the schedules permanent.  In effect, if defendants could not afford bail, they would simply be released.  The grim reality of zero-bail policies became increasingly apparent as late summer turned to fall.  Dramatic expansions in crime.  Rampant retail theft.  Law enforcement and prosecutors unified in their complaint that the zero-bail schedule was a problem.  A big problem.  In fact, the Judicial Council had terminated the zero-bail schedule order even before its emergency authority expired, presumably because these policies failed.

'Bail reform' costs 25 Chicagoans their lives, so far this year.  Another day, another dead person, another beneficiary of the George Soros chaos masterplan of "bail reform." [...] The woman killed was one of 25 murder victims who can't speak up about this "bail reform." She's also one of 93 victims who've been victims of such attacks, the non-dead ones likely recovering in hospitals for gunshot wounds or still taking the flashbacks of terror at what might have happened.  Sixty-one of these thugs have been "beneficiaries" of bail reform, which means no or low cash bail, meaning that they were permitted to await their trial dates in complete freedom, giving them the time to even the score with their hate targets ahead of their date with the judge and jury.  This fiend was one of them.  Bail reform has been a plague for years now, enabling violent criminals to walk free ahead of their trials.  The Soros left and its allies have been calling it a matter of economic justice, given that many thugs don't have the same kind of money as people with productive jobs[.]

Why LA Must Show the Gascon the Door.  If Los Angeles district attorney George Gascon has his way, the City of Angels will have sex offenders and violent criminals in their teens roaming free, under the pretext that they are juveniles.  Never mind that they may be repeat offenders.  Never mind that such leniency will encourage gangs to get their work done by those who should be in school or on the playground.  Thankfully, there is growing outrage against Gascon's abominable ideas and a campaign to have him recalled is gathering steam.  It must succeed so that Los Angeles is spared the fate of San Francisco, which Gascon (as DA in 2011-19) left in shambles and, in the words of former San Francisco deputy DA Nancy Tung, with the reputation of a city "where you can commit a crime and get away with it."

U.S. Justice Dept says inmates sent home due to COVID-19 will not be returned to prison.  The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday announced it would not force federal inmates who were sent home due to the coronavirus pandemic to return to prison once the emergency is lifted.  The decision represents a major reversal for the department's Office of Legal Counsel, which previously had issued an opinion that said the Bureau of Prisons had no legal authority to keep inmates at home once the pandemic emergency had subsided.  It also marks a victory for criminal justice advocacy groups who have fiercely lobbied the department and the White House to take steps to ensure that law-abiding, low-level inmates would not be forced back into prison.

He Thought He Was Going To Walk Out With Free Stuff, She And Her Firearm Had Another Idea.  Google "Shoplifting in San Francisco" and you will find more than 100,000 hits.  And you will find lots of YouTube videos, where you can watch a single thief, or an entire gang, walk into an SF Walgreens or CVS and empty the shelves.  Most walk in, go about their pilfering, and then walk out, though at least one thief rode their bike into the store and departed the same way, carefully navigating their two-wheeler down a narrow aisle.  We probably shouldn't call it shoplifting anymore, since that term connotes the idea of a person trying to conceal their crime.  In San Francisco, there is no attempt to conceal theft, and there is almost never any effort by store employees, including security personnel, to confront the thieves.  The most they do is record the thefts with their cell phones.  Why is shoplifting so rampant?  Because state law holds that stealing merchandise worth $950 or less is just a misdemeanor, which means that law enforcement probably won't bother to investigate, and if they do, prosecutors will let it go.

The Takers Are Taking Over.  In metropolitan areas, we are seeing well organized mobs storming high-end stores, grabbing merchandise, fleeing, and openly selling their stolen goods.  In Washington and state capitols, the progressive takers are demanding more and more free services and subsidies.  All of this while the earners try to survive in the face recurring lockdowns, oppressive mandates, and their inability to find willing workers.  Far too many struggle just to keep their businesses afloat.  Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, in response to the rash of smash and grab crimes asked, "Pray tell, where is this attitude of lawlessness coming from?"  The minority leader Kevin McCarthy shared the obvious answer:  "Speaker Pelosi should look in the mirror to see what caused the 'attitude of lawlessness' spreading across the country.  Democrat politicians defunded police, raised money for rioters, and pushed policies that are soft on crime.  They own this crime wave."

Coddling Crime Is Nuts.  What Kudzu is to plant life, crime is to civil society.  When crime is allowed to flourish, civility dies.  You can't have both.  Crime is flourishing in America today because the people we hired to contain it, feeds it, then punishes the people trying to stop it.  The same people are forced to acknowledge that crime is a serious problem because it's now so obviously out of control.  But they're pretending not to know how that happened.  Jen Psaki attributes it to COVID and "a range of reasons."  Oprah says we need more "love."  Chicago's mayor, Lori Lightfoot, blames storeowners.  Even Nancy Pelosi, the Queen of Hearts of the anthropomorphic political creatures inside the Woke Washington Wonderland, said she's baffled over why crime is anchoring its nodes in cities across America.  "It's absolutely outrageous," said the woman who splurged the country's energy on a fathom Russian collusion, sham impeachments, and the Jan. 6 commission.

Recall, Remove & Replace Every Last Soros Prosecutor.  Last year, our nation experienced the largest increase in murder in American history and the largest number of drug overdose deaths ever recorded.  This carnage continues today and is not distributed equally.  Instead, it is concentrated in cities and localities where radical, left-wing, George Soros progressives have captured state and district attorney offices.  These legal arsonists condemn our rule of law as "systemically racist" and have not simply abused prosecutorial discretion, they have embraced prosecutorial nullification.  As a result, a contagion of crime has infected virtually every neighborhood under their charge.  Soros prosecutors refuse to enforce laws against shoplifting, drug trafficking, and entire categories of felonies and misdemeanors.  In Chicago, Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx allows theft under $1,000 to go unpunished.  In Manhattan, District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. refuses to enforce laws against prostitution.  In Baltimore, State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby has unilaterally declared the war on drugs "over" and is refusing to criminally charge drug dealers in the middle of the worst drug crisis in American history.  For a time, Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon even stopped enforcing laws against disturbing the peace, resisting arrest, and making criminal threats.

Roses are Red, Crime is Blue.  Rising crime in American cities is often ignored by the media, instead focusing on the Omicron variant and fully vaccinated universities and sport teams shutting down over new COVID cases, flying in the face of common sense and everything we have been told about vaccinations.  ABC News dipped it's [sic] toe into crime reporting recently with this headline, "It's just crazy:  12 major cities hit all-time homicide records."  While COVID cases might be spiking, so is crime, some cities breaking decades old homicide records. [...] It's interesting that the media and law enforcement have trouble finding motives or explanations when those might be politically incorrect. [...] What is the common denominator regarding the homicide spike in 12 major American cities?  While ABC News is befuddled as to what these 12 cities have in common, Fox News, practicing journalism by asking basic questions of who, what, where, and why, easily found the common denominator.  All 12 cities are led by Democrat mayors.

Our political divide is no longer between Democrats and Republicans.  I noticed the uptick in the crime in New York in January 2020 when the "Bail Reform" law went into effect.  Slowly on the local news, you heard about someone coming up the steps from the subway and getting cold-cocked in the face, elderly people getting thrown down and beaten, and other violent street crimes.  It grew from there and, after George Floyd's death in Minneapolis, the kerosene was thrown on the previously slow-burning fuse.  The Marxists tried telling us the crime wave was due to the pandemic but I knew — and believe others did too — that it started weeks before the first case of COVID was reported in the United States.  Like a cancer, the effects of these policies took a while to spread and then accelerated quickly.  The same pattern was repeated across America as other cities implemented "Bail Reform" and defunded their police departments.  All the while, George Soros and other Marxist billionaires hell-bent on destroying this country helped install District Attorneys who refuse to prosecute criminals and judges who put repeat violent offenders back on the streets.  Add in governors emptying prisons in the name of Covid and — voila! — instant anarchy.

San Francisco Mayor Declares 'State of Emergency' in Tenderloin District.  San Francisco Mayor London Breed declared a "state of emergency" Friday in the Tenderloin district, a notoriously crime-ridden area near Market Street, the broad thoroughfare that cuts through the heart of the downtown area.  Mayor Breed was among the first mayors in the U.S. to commit to "defund the police" in 2020 in response to Black Lives Matter protests, pledging to redistribute $120 million from the law enforcement budget to organizations in the black community.  But the city was hit by a crime wave, particularly in the retail sector.  Shoplifting, rarely prosecuted since the passage of Proposition 47 in 2014, making theft of less than $950 a misdemeanor, prompted several large retail chains to leave the city.  And in the week before November, mass looting of high-end stores in Union Square prompted nationwide shock and outrage.

At least 16 cities see record homicides in 2021.  At least 16 U.S. cities have set new homicide records in 2021, according to local police departments.  It's a trend police departments have noted from East Coast to West, even as other violent crimes such as aggravated assault and non-violent crimes such as burglary decline in the same areas.  "It's definitely worse this year, for us at least," Rochester Police Department Public Information Officer Carlos Alvarado told Fox News Digital of the upstate New York city's homicide numbers for 2021.

Here Are the Facts About Spikes in Crime That Sen. Dick Durbin Didn't Want Me to Share.  It's no secret that Chicago, like many major U.S. cities, has suffered from an unprecedented spike in homicides and non-fatal shootings over the last two years.  Despite seeing record low homicide rates between 2004 and 2015, Chicago residents are now experiencing violent crime at levels unseen in decades — including truly horrific surges in gun violence during 2020 and 2021.  One important factor driving this violence is the failed leadership of Chicago's mayor and city council, particularly their general lack of support for the Chicago Police Department.  Chicago's progressive prosecutors have exacerbated this problem by routinely allowing violent offenders to run amok without any meaningful consequences.  And yet, when I attempted to diagnose this problem at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence in Chicago held earlier this week, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., twice interrupted my testimony.

As homicides surge in Minneapolis, Ilhan Omar denies her district has a crime problem.  The only strategy that supporters of defunding the police have amid the surge in crimes and homicides is to ignore reality.  Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar is committed to this.  Her constituents are living through one of the most violent years they have seen, and she has to pretend none of it is real.  Omar responded to a Twitter user who said her district is "being overrun with violent crime" by definitively asserting that it is not.  But that would be news to residents of Minneapolis, who sit in Omar's district and have witnessed a staggering number of homicides over the last two years.

How George Soros funded progressive 'legal arsonist' DAs behind US crime surge.  For the last several years, billionaire philanthropist George Soros has been quietly financing a revolution in criminal justice reform, doling out tens of millions of dollars to progressive candidates in district attorney races throughout the country amid movements to abolish bail and defund the police.  Working with an activist attorney, Soros, 91, mainly funnels cash through a complicated web of federal and state political action committees as well as non-profits from coast to coast, public records show.  Last year, the Foundation to Promote Open Society, a nonprofit in Soros' orbit, gave $3 million to the Community Resource Hub for Safety and Accountability, according to a recent report.  The group provides resources to "local advocates and organizations working to address the harm of policing in the US."

Here's the Perfect Example of What a Failure 'Defund the Police' Is.  Democrats pushed to defund the police over much of the past year and a half.  You even had people like Kamala Harris applauding the defunding — cutting millions — from the Los Angeles police.  But when some cities caved and started cutting back on the police, it didn't end well.  One of those cities was Burlington, Vermont — not a city that people necessarily think of as a high crime area.  But residents and business owners ended up not feeling safe at night because the police department took such a hit from the defunding movement.

America's Unamerican Smash-And-Grab.  [Scroll down]  Within the first section of Proposition 47 lies the primary driver of "smash and grabs."  Shoplifting is defined as "entering a commercial establishment with the intent to commit larceny while that establishment is open during regular business hours" where the value of the property does not exceed $950."  That is, according to the California penal code, if someone enters the store when employees are present (putting them at risk) and loots $950 worth of items (if not more, as seen in many of the smash-and-grab cases), they should be allowed to walk free without punishment.  This reclassification only allows criminals to get away with crimes instead of reducing crime itself.  For instance, on November 19th, 20 to 40 people organized a burglary at a San Francisco Louis Vuitton store.  It was not an act of opportunity but a raid organized to some extent through social media and messaging apps.  With only five officially arrested in the above case, criminals are growing bolder, leading to more smash and grab events, such as when 90 people raided a Nordstrom Rack at the Walnut Creek shopping facility on November 20th.  An estimated $100,000 worth of goods were stolen there.

What do migrant surges and smash-and-grab lootings have in common?  The sudden appearance of smash-and-grab mass lootings has left a lot of people perplexed.  After all, who [...] would do that sort of thing? [...] The people who engage in organized smash-and-grab lootings have an entirely unrecognizable mentality.  Sure, they're likely fatherless.  And sure, they're likely religion-less, with zero exposure to morality.  It's natural to wonder if these people were raised by wolves and kept in some sort of den to come out like vampires now that Chesa Boudin is running the district attorney's shop in San Francisco.  The phenomenon doesn't add up.  Actually, between basic absence of morality brought on by social chaos, and the knowledge that one will never be punished for one's crime, there's an intermediary cause, an activator of this phenomenon.  According to The Hill, citing the Wall Street Journal:  ["]Police say that some of the smash-and-grab robberies that recently took place in California and Minnesota were organized on social media and were carried out by people who did not know each other.["] [...] And yes indeed, these people are out there and they are activated by social media — Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, and others — openly slavering to be included in these loot fests, all made possible by social media.

The Editor says...
[#1] The social media platforms are enabling, abetting, and facilitating these crimes, and should be held accountable for their part in them.  [#2] Most Americans have an insatiable appetite for cell phone usage.  I take the opposite view:  In my opinion, this country would be far better off if an EMP attack wiped out all the cell phone systems.  Kids might have to read books, use encyclopedias, and talk to adults.  Adults might watch where they're driving, make plans well in advance of their daily activities, and act like civilized people in restaurants.  Criminals would have one less way to plan their deeds, and would no longer be able to run their criminal enterprises from the county jail.  But is that what you're rooting for?  No, you're pushing for 5G service, cheaper phones, and a separate phone number for every child and each of the grandkids.  If you're younger than 18, on the day that I'm sworn in as President, your phone will stop working.

Famous LA shopping center adds barbed-wire-like fence to deter smash and grabs.  As a recent wave of mob-led store robberies has put retailers, mall operators and communities on edge, one popular shopping center is keeping an unusual security measure in place through the holiday season.  The Grove, a famous open-air shopping complex in Los Angeles, has added a high coil fence barrier that resembles barbed wire at the property's entrances and exits.

Crime does cause poverty.  Think about the current spate of smash-and-grab large-scale retail thefts.  Two of those happened at the mall in my town.  In the most recent orchestrated assault, some eighty young people, mostly males, pulled up in about a dozen vehicles and ran into Nordstrom swinging crowbars, breaking display cases, and stealing 200 thousand dollars' worth of goods.  They injured five employees.  The scene was repeated not only throughout California, but in several major cities.  Some of my neighbors used to go to the mall during Christmastime to shop, to dine, and to look at the Christmas displays.  But not this year.  Fear permeates the community, especially among the elderly.  A friend in Chicago used to go to the Magnificent Mile, also the recent scene of violent theft, with his family every Christmas season, but not this year and maybe never again.  Violent thefts create fear, and where there is fear, there is avoidance.  Fewer shoppers means less spending on goods and services.

The grabbing granny behind San Francisco's looting spree.  Smiling happily at a baby shower:  this is the mom-and-daughter crime duo busted for looting a San Francisco Louis Vuitton store in the run-up to Thanksgiving — one of a series of smash and grab raids that has turned the city's posh Union Square into a boarded-up fortress.  Grabbing grandmother Francill White, 53, and daughter Kimberly Cherry, 28, were two of five looters nabbed by police over the November 19 incident that saw thieves make off with more than $1million-worth of designer goods.  Along with co-accused Tameko Miller, 23, and Ivan Speed, 34, the pair have been charged with four felony counts of looting during a state of emergency, second degree commercial burglary, grand theft and receiving stolen property.

Black Lives Clearly Don't Matter to BLM or to Soros-Backed Rogue Prosecutors.  Grim news confronts Americans in the closing days of 2021:  as they prepare to gather with loved ones around the Christmas tree, their fellow citizens are being gunned down in the inner city in ever increasing numbers.  And the news is likely to get worse.  That is because America's leaders and talking heads refuse to deal directly with the ongoing effort to gut law enforcement and the entire criminal justice system.  Nor are they willing to address the political violence that has led to the precipitous rise in homicides since the fateful year of 2020.  And the silence continues even though — just as news outlets were reporting record rises in murders in 12 cities — Black Lives Matter, the organization that led the political violence, released right on cue a new statement doubling down on its call for "the abolition" not just of police, but also prisons and the court system.

Democratic mayors under fire as crime, violence plagues Chicago, New York, Philadelphia.  Democratic mayors are raising eyebrows with their responses to the rising crime plaguing major cities like New York City, Chicago and Philadelphia.  The U.S. murder rate rose 30% between 2019 and 2020, according to FBI data — the largest annual increase on record, with Chicago topping the list.  At least 12 major cities, including New York, have already set historical murder records in 2021.  Robberies and assaults are also on the rise, and retailers in major cities across the country are reporting an uptick in organized smash-and-grab crimes during the busy holiday shopping season.  Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot faced criticism last week after she responded to the recent flood of robberies in her city by blaming retailers for not better protecting their merchandise.

New data reveals that 129 criminals have joined the ranks of 'double-lifers' in just 10 years.  Dozens of killers, rapists and paedophiles released from prison have been given second life sentences for further offences.  Over the past decade 129 criminals who were jailed for life have been handed the same sentence again.  The figures will reignite the row over the role of the Parole Board following controversies over Black Cab rapist John Worboys and child-killer Colin Pitchfork.

What Black Lives Matter has accomplished.  [Scroll down]  In line with its radical "Defund the police" slogan, police budgets have been slashed in major cities across the country, including Seattle, Portland, Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, and New York City.  Without the necessary resources to police communities, the number of arrests plunged by 24% between 2019 and 2020, the years for which data are most recently available.  The number of people in prison has also dropped dramatically, with the Democratic-controlled states of California and New York seeing the biggest reduction in the number of criminals behind bars.  This is also a consequence of liberal prosecutors in big cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Philadelphia deliberately seeking fewer convictions for those actually arrested by police, often withdrawing charges in winnable cases even against violent repeat offenders.  This has had predictable results.  Asked why homicides were rising nationwide, former New York Police Department Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce told ABC News, "Nobody's getting arrested anymore.  People are getting picked up for gun possession, and they're just let out over and over again."

Brazen crime, open drug use and trashed streets have some residents of tolerant San Francisco say they've had enough.  San Francisco's brazen crime, open drug use and trashed streets have made even the most progressive of the city's famed liberal residents demand a return to law and order as they seek to recall the woke district attorney.  News of attacks on Asian American seniors, burglarized restaurants, and boarded-up storefronts in the city's once-vibrant downtown greet the citizens of the City by the Bay on a near-daily basis.  And that was before a series of headline-grabbing crime stories in which mobs of looters smashed windows and grabbed luxury purses in the downtown Union Square shopping district.

The California Crime Wave.  Many people in the multi-troubled state of California are living in fear.  It is bad enough that for almost two years the Democrats in charge of the state government have used the war on COVID as an excuse to expand their powers and abuse us with strict lockdowns, school closings and mandates.  But seven years ago the state's so-called progressives brought us Proposition 47, a sentencing "reform" measure that among other things essentially decriminalized retail theft by making stealing anything with a value of less than $950 a mere misdemeanor.  If you combine that dumb idea — which the Los Angeles Times points out "was co-authored by then-San Francisco — now Los Angeles — Dist.  Atty.  George Gascón and strongly supported by then-Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom" — with the even dumber idea of defunding the police, you will understand why California is in the midst of a crime wave.

After more than 30 busts, alleged pickpocket nabbed again at Rockefeller Center — and released.  A serial pickpocket with more than 30 busts under his belt was pinched again last week while targeting unsuspecting tourists at the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, only to be dumped back on the street the next day, law enforcement sources and authorities told The [New York] Post.  Gary Teasley, 65 — who has been known to wear snazzy outfits, including a long dark fur coat and fashionable hat, during his alleged crimes — is so familiar to cops that they're on a first-name basis, a source said.  Teasley is such an illicit pro that he also used to keep a storage locker with stolen wallets and other goods — and a detailed record of the heists, broken down by location and category, sources said.  But the ex-con didn't even get slapped with a supervised-release restriction, much less a bail, after his latest arrest.

Where Dems Rule and Police Are Defunded, Blood Coats the Streets.  Philadelphia, the nation's sixth largest city, recorded 523 murders as of Dec. 7, surpassing its formal grim milestone of 500 murders, which was set in 1990, police data showed. [...] Besides the total control of the cities by Democrats for decades, what could possibly be the other factor in these cities that accounts for such high murder rates?

San Francisco Sees 3,000 Car Break-Ins in 1 Month; 'It's Out of Control'.  A recent video of an auto-burglary on a busy San Francisco street shows just how commonplace it is and how residents have become inured to the situation.  Tourist hot spots are popular places for car burglars.  A recent smash-and-grab on Grant Avenue near Jackson Street in Chinatown took place within feet of bystanders.  A driver gets into his car across the street, as the thief peers into the victim's car.  Security video shows a pedestrian walking down the sidewalk and a woman trying to get inside a building, as the burglar looks around.  The thief smashes the back window, steals two bags and then goes back for more — all while people nearby carry on.

Beverly Hills residents arming themselves with guns in wake of violence.  "I've always been anti-gun," said Debbie Mizrahie of Beverly Hills.  "But I am right now in the process of getting myself shooting lessons because I now understand that there may be a need for me to know how to defend myself and my family.  We're living in fear."  During Black Lives Matter protests last year, Mizrahie told The Post, her neighbor's home was firebombed with Molotov cocktails.  "My kids were outside and they saw a huge explosion," she said.  "[The neighbor's] backyard went up in smoke.  Trees burned down ... But it's only gotten worse.  Beverly Hills has been targeted."  Mizrahie, a 40-something mother of two teenagers, isn't alone.  Ever since the protests last year descended into riots and lootings, a growing number of Beverly Hills residents have been buying weapons.

LAPD Head Tells Tourists Not To Come To Los Angeles, Cops Can't Guarantee Their Safety, It's Like The Purge Movie.  With many people feeling Southern California is experiencing a violent crime wave, even prompting the head of the Los Angeles Police Department's union to warn tourists away, LAPD Chief Michel Moore tried to assure people that crime is not out of control in the city.  "My message to anyone thinking about coming to Los Angeles, especially during the holiday season, is don't," Jamie McBride, the head of the LA Police Protective League, the union representing LAPD officers, said in a television interview.  The message from McBride comes as what many residents and business owners view as a wave of crime slamming the city and surrounding areas.  "We can't guarantee your safety.  It is really, really out of control.  I said it to people before, it's like that movie 'Purge,' you know, instead of 24 hours to commit your crime, these people have 365 days days to commit whatever they want," McBride said.  [Video clip]

San Francisco is so Lawless Stores Have Turned into Prisons to Keep People From Stealing.  California is quickly becoming a third world nation as Democrat Governor, Gavin Newsom, does his best to bring about the nations richest state's demise.  After a law was passed that would allow people in the state to steal up to $950 worth of merchandise in what appears to be an attempt by the elites to destroy small businesses so everyone is reliant on the government, millions of dollars were stolen from businesses large and small.  Wealthy corporations like Safeway have the funds available to turn their stores into prison-like buildings in order to stop the theft, while smaller mom and pop stores are robbed into bankruptcy.  [Video clip]

Chaos and the Threat to Democracy.  [Scroll down]  No revolution takes place without elites.  The men and women running through the streets with guns are only instruments.  Somewhere an out elite provided the ideological justification and weapons for revolt, and before that they sowed chaos in various ways.  And this, oddly enough, brings us to a shootout in broad daylight in Chicago between two gangs.  When the shooting stopped, one person was dead and two were wounded.  Five gang members allegedly involved in the shootout were arrested.  Yet Chicago's controversial states attorney, Kim Foxx, refused to prosecute them.  "Mutual combatants was cited as the reason for the rejection," according to a Chicago Police Department report.  As long as both sides willingly participated in combat on Chicago's streets, no crime was committed, was the CPD's interpretation of Foxx's decision.

L.A. Police Union Head On Tourists:  Stay Away, [the cops] Can[']t Guarantee [your] Safety.  The head of the Los Angeles Police Department's union issued a dire warning to visitors.  In an interview Wednesday, Jamie McBride of the Police Protective League warned tourists against visiting the city amid a surge in violent crime.  He emphasized they simply cannot "guarantee your safety" as things have gotten out of control. [...] Furthermore, the police chief emphasized almost all 14 criminals who were arrested after a recent smash-and-grab robbery have since been released due to California's zero bail policy, which he stressed needs to be modified.  "Eleven were released on zero bail and we need the criminal justice system to look at those offenses and recognize how to keep the most dangerous individuals off the street," said Moore.

Heather Mac Donald: 'Savage' Crimes No Longer Have Consequences — Civilization 'Breaking Down' in 'Slow-Motion'.  Heather Mac Donald, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and among the nation's foremost statisticians of crime, blasted current criminal justice reform policies which signal to criminals that even "appalling, savage" crimes have no consequences, calling the narrative of minorities under threat from police in America a "completely false" one perpetuated by the Biden administration and the media, while warning that "civilization is breaking down" as the country undergoes a "slow-motion riot."

Rise of Violent Crime:  Democrats Have a Woke Rogue Prosecutor Problem.  The story gripping America is violent crime.  It is the most important story out there now, and nurtured by woke rogue prosecutors in big cities across the country, many of them supported by leftist billionaire George Soros and other wealthy political donors like him.  From murders to mob action, to those videos of looters and smash-and-grabs in high-end retail outlets right before Christmas, from innocents, including bus drivers beaten to a pulp by street mobs, to politicians blaming the victims and the citizens avoiding the downtowns out of fear.  It's all of a piece.  The increase of violent crime is the number one issue in America.  People might not talk about it publicly at work, lest they be accused of some social sin.  But they do talk about it when they're alone, in their cars, in their homes, at dinner with their families.

Anti-Soros D.A. in San Diego throws the book at antifa.  In California's second-biggest city, San Diego, they've got a district attorney who thinks it's her job to prosecute criminals. [...] She's leveling jailtime charges against 10 antifa thugs after an unprovoked assault on Trump supporters who, videos show, were just standing there and not even fighting back last January.  The thugs, who must have thought they were in Portland, were filmed openly engaging in brutal attacks on clearly peaceful people, waving their red and black flags, which included a hideous beatdown of a cowering defenseless woman laying in the street as the police stood by and did nothing.

A dozen US cities set annual murder records with three weeks left in 2021.  At least 12 major US cities have already set historical murder records in 2021, even as three weeks remain in the year.  Philadelphia, the nation's sixth largest city, recorded 523 murders as of Dec. 7, surpassing its formal grim milestone of 500 murders, which was set in 1990, police data showed.  The City of Brotherly Love had recorded significantly more murders in 2021 than New York City's 443, despite having approximately six times fewer residents.  "It's terrible to every morning get up and have to go look at the numbers and then look at the news and see the stories.  It's just crazy.  It's just crazy and this needs to stop," Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, a Democrat, reportedly said after his city broke its own infamous benchmark.

A Dozen US Cities Blow Away Their Annual Murder Records — With One Glaring Thing in Common.  While Los Angeles, New York City, and Chicago — which leads the country with at least 739 murders this year — remain below their respective record annual homicide rates of the 1990s, at least 12 large cities across America have already broken their annual records.  These cities have one thing in common:  They're all run by Democrats.  [Tweet]  Many of the same Democrat cities, incidentally, whose city councils have supported the Defund movement in one fashion or another since the early days of the "peaceful protests" in the aftermath of George Floyd's death, cashless bail, and treating violent criminals' cell doors like revolving doors.  Go figure.  All Democrat-controlled city governments.  Every one of them.

A dozen major US cities smash annual homicide records (and they are all Democrat).  Philadelphia has shattered its 30-year-old record for annual murders, surpassing the much larger cities of New York and Los Angeles as a dozen major cities post all-time records for homicides — all of them with Democratic mayors.  As of December 6, Philadelphia had recorded 521 homicides for the year, surpassing New York's 443 and Los Angeles at 352.  This is despite the fact that with a population of 1.5 million, the City of Brotherly Love is less than half the size of Los Angeles and one-fifth of New York.

Chicago Mayor blatantly lies about crime in her city.  Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot held a press conference yesterday in the Windy City.  Setting the stage for the current topic of discussion, she announced that Chicago Police Officers should expect to have some of their days off canceled in the coming days and weeks.  One reporter asked her to comment on the fact that the number of murders in Chicago is about to pass 800, a level not seen in a generation.  And there are still more than three weeks left to go in 2021.  The Mayor's response left a lot of people rolling their eyes.  After initially admitting that the city was facing "challenging times," she went on to claim that the rates of all other crimes (presumably besides murder) are "at 25-year lows."  As CWB Chicago was quick to point out, that statement is indisputably not true.

Black Crime: 'Slavery and Jim Crow Ain't Got Nothin' to Do Wit' 'Dis'.  [Scroll down]  Tips helped police track down my cousin's killer.  He was arrested, then released on lesser charges with a court date.  Not enough evidence to hold him, they say.  Possible, but I couldn't help but think about all the garbage theories driving the push to "address racism in the criminal justice system" these days.  Bail reform.  Reducing incarceration.  Jury nullification.  Defunding police.  None of it's working.  And given the fixed inclinations of basic human nature, it will never work.  Human nature was never factored into the left's Utopian theories.  These policies clearly and predictably erode the systems we've designed to punish, control, and discourage crime.

California Needs To Stop Its Crime Spree Before It Goes National.  Californians have only themselves to blame.  They passed Proposition 47 in 2014 by a 60%-40% margin.  Among the measure's provisions is a sort of decriminalization of some thefts.  Members of the criminal class are well aware that Prop 47 allows them to steal as much as $950 worth of goods without being charged for a felony.  That's why some have been seen adding up their "takes" on calculators to be sure they don't exceed the threshold, and will be busted for only a misdemeanor if arrested at all.  The bandits have also been emboldened by prosecutors who are reluctant to prosecute — Chesa Boudin in San Francisco, George Gascon in Los Angeles — and a statewide no-cash-bail policy for suspects who can't afford the going rate.  While in many cases the policy supports our system's presumed-innocent principle, it also acts as a get-out-of-jail-free card, allowing repeat offenders to steal again.  Inspired by criminals' success in California, thieves have hit stores in Chicago and Minneapolis.  How long before every big city in the country is overwhelmed by similar crimes?

Why Violent Crime Is Rising.  [S]hootings and homicides are rising sharply in Los Angeles.  At least 1,800 people have been shot in Los Angeles in 2021, up from 1,530 in 2020.  Homicides in L.A. rose nearly 50 percent, from 161 to 236, between January and October of 2020 and 2021.  In L.A. county as a whole, 773 people have been killed so far in in 2021.  The suspect in Avant's murder, Aariel Maynor, fled the scene but then accidentally shot himself in the foot after, apparently, robbing another house a few blocks away.  Maynor was released on parole on September 1 of this year, after having served two four-year terms for robbery and inflicting severe bodily injury.  Over the last two years, L.A.'s progressive District Attorney George Gascón reduced the jail population by at over one-third.  "It's [bad] over here," said a L.A. police detective.  "Bad guys are released quicker than we can finish the paper work, and that's just the tip of the iceberg."  Incarceration rates in the United States are at a thirty-year low.  In 2019, the state and federal imprisonment rate of 419 prisoners per 100,000 US residents was the lowest it had been since 1995, and was a 17 percent decrease from 2009.

Guaranteed Murder.  Some progressives want to abolish cash bail at the same time as abolishing jails and the police.  Others want bail applied only in the case of felonies or some other cohort of violent crimes.  Still others want bail always to be set at amounts that a defendant can make.  A new proposal from a few law professors even suggests that the government should set bail and then subsidize the bail payments.  In New York, Democrats rammed through a bail-reform bill that stripped judges' ability to require cash bail for certain offenses.  Violent crime has risen, particularly in New York City, and many observers point to the reform as a factor.  Police and citizens are starting to rethink the wisdom of this movement.  New York governor Kathy Hochul is considering scaling back the progressive bail reforms, concerned about the impact of violent crime on the very communities that the measure was supposed to help.

Report: 60 Police Officers [have been] Shot [and] Killed This Year as Ambush Attacks Skyrocket.  A total of 60 United States police officers have been shot and killed in the line of duty since the beginning of the year, new data reveals, following anti-law enforcement riots and the start of the "Defund the Police" movement in 2020.  According to records from the National Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) and the Officer Down Memorial Page (ODMP), 60 police officers across 45 U.S. states and territories have been killed in gunfire from January 1 to December 3 — a nearly 28 percent increase in fatal shootings of officers compared to all of 2020 when 47 officers were shot and killed.

Nothing is Anybody's Fault.  [Scroll down]  San Francisco has been the worst-hit of many Democrat-run cities by organized retail theft rings stealing for profit millions of dollars in merchandise. [...] It's of a piece with Soros-funded D.A. Chesa Boudin's policy of releasing people from jail unless they threaten public safety.  His nonaccountability policies for crime this week forced the release of a woman who stole $40,000 worth of merchandise.  You could also hold accountable California voters who in 2014 approved Prop 47, a ballot measure that put the threshold for felony theft at $951 — a figure that's not cumulative.  You can rob $950 worth of stuff every day and walk out free as a bird.  Maybe smart merchants will just label everything in the shop $951.  Maybe Californians who can't find any available shops will rethink Prop 47 — along with the folks they elect to carry out the law.  Maybe shops in California cities will shutter and close; commercial property tax revenues will sink; and Californians will drive to Nevada to buy their necessities and use drone deliveries from fortified warehouses in state.

Chicago is what happens when a culture loses its moral grounding.  Chicago's Loop encompasses the city's central business district, which is also the second-largest commercial business district in America (or so Wikipedia tells me), filled with restaurants, offices, retail stores, hotels, and historic attractions.  It lies at the heart of Cook County, the same county that elected Kim Foxx, the Soros-designated district attorney who doesn't believe in prosecuting crime.  When you couple Foxx's aversion to enforcing the law with generations of people who have grown up without any moral grounding, you get a weekend in the loop complete with beatings, a shooting, and general misbehavior.

Looters steal $5 million of products from 15 cannabis shops in the San Francisco Bay Area in a single month:  One business.  Cannabis shops across the San Francisco Bay Area have been thrown into dire straits as gangs of thieves broke into more than 15 shops throughout November during the series of 'smash-and-grab' robberies that are plaguing California.  Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong told reporters that 'hundreds' of vehicles targeted marijuana stores in Oakland last month, firing 175 shots and stealing about $5 million worth of products.  Alphonso 'Tucky' Blunt, owner of Blunts and Moore, told MJBizDaily that his store lost about $25,000 during a November 22 raid, where more than a dozen burglars ransacked the store.

L.A. Arrests 14 for 'Mass Looting,' but Lets All of Them Go.  Officials in Los Angeles announced Thursday with great fanfare that they had made 14 arrests in connection with recent "mass looting" events in the city — but all fourteen have since been released from jail, either with or without posting bail. [...] "Progressive" policies to reduce or eliminate bail have come under the spotlight recently, after a number of high-profile crimes allegedly committed by those released, including a mass murder in a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin.  California has a particular problem:  not only is cash bail being removed, but the state is governed by Proposition 47 of 2014, which makes retail thefts of up to $950 misdemeanors instead of felonies, meaning that fewer are ever fully prosecuted.  Both Los Angeles and San Francisco have seen mass looting events in the past several weeks.

Wall Street execs beg JPMorgan to cancel 20,000-strong conference in San Francisco because of out-of-control 'smash-and-grab' crime.  Multi-millionaire Wall Street executives have begged the world's biggest bank to cancel its in-person conference in lawless San Francisco next year because they fear for their safety with the city's out-of-control smash-and-grab crime.  A number of unidentified high-ranking financiers have complained about having to make the trip to attend JPMorgan's 40th Annual Healthcare Conference in the crime-ridden Bay Area in January.  'I'm scared, the amount of lawlessness now is astounding,' one senior Wall Street executive told the New York Post.  'Violence is a huge topic of discussion at our bank.'

Third Worldizing America.  In a recent online exchange, the YouTuber Casey Neistat posted his fury after his car was broken into and the contents stolen.  Los Angeles, he railed, was turning into a "3rd-world s—hole of a city."  The multimillionaire actor Seth Rogen chastised Neistat for his anger.  Rogen claimed that a car's contents were minor things to lose.  He added that while living in West Hollywood he had his own car broken into 15 times — but thought little of it.  Online bloggers ridiculed Rogen.  No wonder — the actor lives in multimillion-dollar homes in the Los Angeles area, guarded by sophisticated security systems and fencing.  Yet both Neistat and Rogen accurately defined Third Worldization:  the utter breakdown of the law and the ability of the rich within such a feudal society to find ways to avoid the violent chaos.

Willie Horton and the Democratic Party's Greatest Fear.  Republicans call for high bail levels for proven violent repeat offenders and bail-jumpers; Democrats call for an end to bail, and for the virtual elimination of holding even dangerous prisoners until trial.  Republicans call for stiff and certain sentences for convicted violent criminals; today's Democrats call for never-ending second chances, and even for the elimination of prisons themselves, as in the meantime, impatient Democrat governors and judges routinely throw open the prison gates on the slightest whim. [...] Republicans warn against the cultural decline that has children more likely to be raised in a single-parent household than in a nuclear family unit; Democrats go so far as to champion single motherhood as an objective good, campaigning for ever more welfare programs to encourage such generational dependence.  Is it any wonder that our nation is suffering a massive crime wave?  Is it any wonder that overwhelmed and unsupported police are resigning and retiring in disgust and despair?

Death by Politics.  The defunding of our cities' police forces and the tragic mayhem it caused have resulted in disorder nationwide and uncountable deaths.  Since the demise of George Floyd, Democrat mayors of our largest cities such as Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, and New York have left these communities open to the most violent elements of our society.  Leftist prosecutors are also to blame.  They purposely refused to properly process dangerous criminals, allowing even murderers to go free.  Thousands of Americans have died in our streets, while Democrats yell that guns are the problem.  These deaths are the direct result of the Democratic actions.  Travel to any of our largest cities, and you are taking your life into your hands.  Mayors and local officials who participated in movements to defund the police should be charged with malfeasance in office, as these cockeyed actions surely led to Death by Politics in the thousands.

Bank of America execs warn junior staffers to 'dress down' as NYC crime surges.  Amid a surge in some New York City violent crime, Wall Street bigwigs continue to encourage younger staffers to come into the office — but to do so with caution.  At Bank of America, senior executives have quietly encouraged younger employees to "dress down" to attract less attention as they make their way to B of A's tower at 1 Bryant Park.  These execs have told their staffers that dressing up, or wearing anything with a Bank of America logo, could make them a target.  One bank employee told On The Money he is on high alert after he spotted someone with a knife near the office during a recent trek to the Manhattan office.  Of course, it's not just Bank of America where worries over crime pervade.  The city reported a 15 percent increase in felony assaults over the past 28 days, as of Nov. 28, when compared to the same period a year ago, according to NYPD statistics.  (Murder rates have surged 42 percent over the past two years, but remained largely flat over the past year.)

America's smash-and-grab crime wave baffles congressional Democrats.  Democrats on Capitol Hill are flummoxed by the waves of smash-and-grab retail thefts in their states, with some denying it's happening and others saying they are not ready to make major shoplifting a felony.  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Democrat, said retailers could be fabricating the rash of smash-and-grab burglaries and "flash mob" shoplifting sprees.  "We have to talk about specifics because, for example, we're actually seeing a lot of these allegations of organized retail theft are not actually panning out," she told The Washington Times. [...] Organized crime theft slammed big-box retail stores including Apple, Nordstrom and Home Depot in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis and other cities, according to police reports.

The Looting Will Stop When Store Owners Can Shoot On Sight.  In the upside-down morality of the left, it is perfectly acceptable for criminal gangs to target high-end stores free of consequences.  At once ascribing poverty, immoral historical legacies, and contemporary systemic racism, we are supposed to believe that what is happening is actually a form of justice.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  There is no moral or humanitarian justification for the now-daily shoplifting and burglary sprees witnessed time and again in various California cities and across the country.  Are the black youths hungry?  Are they robbing a grocery store?  Are they impoverished, thereby stealing the jewelry to sell?  Or, are they simply products of a failed culture that are protected and encouraged by malicious political actors?  It should be as simple as saying that stealing is wrong.  If it is not yours, don't take it.  If you want something, earn it.  It is a crime in and of itself that the criminal justice system allows this perverse form of social engagement to continue.

Thieves Raid Shipping Containers on Union Pacific.  Thieves continue to target shipping containers loaded onto Union Pacific trains in the Los Angeles region, leaving open boxes strewn across the ground around the tracks.  "We are aware of the problem and we're working to resolve the issue and we're working with local law enforcement in that county," Union Pacific spokeswoman Robynn Tysver told The Epoch Times.  Cargo theft reports along the West Coast of the United States have increased 42 percent year-over-year, according to CargoNet, an industry organization dedicated to the prevention of cargo theft.  "This comes as no surprise, as California continues to struggle with frequent thefts of high-end computer electronics shipments," CargoNet reported.  A law enforcement task force made up of representatives from the Los Angeles Police Department, the California Highway Patrol, and the Union Pacific Railroad Police, was working on the problem, according to the LA County Sheriff's Department.

Litany of Examples that Democrats are Siding with Criminals — Encouraging Criminality.  Are Democrats encouraging criminality in order to say the current system doesn't work and therefor it should be replaced by a new one that allows them to crack down with much harsher penalities?  It appears as if Democrats are following the same techniques used by dictators throughout history in order to destroy a current system of government, encourage the criminals to scare people into new laws to give away their own freedom.  [Video clip]

28 Photos Show Just How Horrible Christmas Is in San Francisco This Year.  Thanksgiving has come and gone, and we have now moved into the time of year when Christmas shopping is in full swing for many Americans.  However, holiday-lovers in San Francisco will face a disturbing picture when they set out to buy their Christmas gifts this year.  On Monday [11/29/2021], San Francisco resident and Life School founder Michelle Tandler posted a thread of images on Twitter showing downtown businesses boarding up their glass windows to protect from the rampant crime in the city.

NYC man predicts he'll dodge bail after 3 busts in 36 hours — and he's right.  A Brooklyn homeless man was busted three times in just 36 hours last week, boasting to NYPD cops that he would dodge bail at each turn because he "didn't have a record."  He proved to be right.  Agustin Garcia, 63, was charged with robbing two Manhattan straphangers — wielding a knife against one of them — and stealing a beer from a Bronx bodega in rapid succession, prosecutors and law-enforcement sources told The [New York] Post.  Manhattan prosecutors twice asked that Garcia be held on bail amid his alleged crime spree, only to be denied by judges.  It wasn't until the suspect was busted a third time that he was sent to Bellevue Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, although still without any bail to keep him locked up.

Why Crime Is Out Of Control in San Francisco.  When Chesa Boudin ran for San Francisco district attorney in 2019, he said crime was caused by poverty, wealth inequality and inadequate government spending on social programs.  He called prostitution, open drug use and drug dealing "victimless crimes" and promised not to prosecute them.  The result has been an increase in crime so sharp that San Francisco's liberal residents are now paying for private security guards, taking self-defense classes, and supporting a recall of Mr. Boudin, with a vote set for June 2022.  Retailers like Walgreens and Target are closing stores in the city, citing rampant shoplifting.  Last week, a shockingly organized mob of looters ransacked a downtown Louis Vuitton store.  Mr. Boudin and his defenders say crime in San Francisco has actually declined under his watch.  The store closings had little to do with shoplifting, they insist; Walgreens announced in 2019 it would close stores as a cost-saving measure.

Losing Confidence in the Pillars of Our Civilization.  The American criminal justice system also used to earn the respect of conservatives.  Prosecuting attorneys, police chiefs, and big-city mayors were seen as custodians of the public order.  They were entrusted to keep the peace, to prevent and investigate crime, and to arrest and prosecute criminals.  Again, not so much now.  After 120 days of mostly unchecked riot, arson, looting, and violent protests in summer 2020, the public lost confidence in their public safety agencies.  District attorneys in several major cities — Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and St. Louis — have often predicated prosecuting crimes on the basis of ideology, race, and careerism.  In the current crime wave, brazen lawbreakers enjoy de facto immunity.  Mass looting goes unpunished.  Indictments are often aimed as much against those who defend themselves as against criminals who attack the innocent.

In police-defunded Minnesota, thousands of people are now just flat out refusing to pull over for cops.  According to reports, thousands of drivers are refusing to stop when police attempt to pull them over, with data showing that it happened more than 3,100 times in 2020.  New research looks into what is behind the uptick in people not following the law.  [Tweet]  "Super speeding" is way up in Minnesota, with the Minnesota State Patrol regularly clocking speeds of more than 100 miles per hour.  Fatalities are up too and there is something else that is making the roads even more risky.  Col. Matt Langer said in a statement:  "People are fleeing from police at a rate we've never seen before.  This is a huge, huge problem nationwide; it's just not a Minnesota-specific problem."

San Francisco's Mayor Has a 'Genius' Idea to Stop Looting Over the Holiday.  Some people still don't believe this, but Prop 47 is a law — deceptively titled 'Safe Schools and Neighborhoods Act' — that reduces many felonies to misdemeanors and provides for the early release of certain violent offenders and sex offenders.  One of the most unbelievable provisions of Prop 47 is one that makes it just a ticketable offense to steal up to $949 worth of goods from any given retailer on any given visit.  That's right — visit.  You can clean out the deodorant section at Walgreens, go back to your drug den, then come back an hour later and hit the diapers and feminine products if that's your jam.  You've seen the videos.  People do this.  They take what they want and casually walk away.  They know the law.  They know law enforcement has no ability to stop any of it.  It's not just San Francisco that is seeing this nonsense growing; it has pretty much permeated every part of the state by this point.  What's worse — the broken windows theory has most definitely applied to the chaos in California.  Criminals have become emboldened by the tacit permission to loot stores at will.  Now they are becoming organized and hitting larger targets.

Organized shoplifting exploits 'woke' undermining of law enforcement.  Retail stores already under siege from pandemic restrictions and supply chain hiccups are increasingly facing another threat to their bottom lines:  organized theft.  The problem was on vivid display over the weekend when dozens of looters stormed into a Nordstrom department store outside San Francisco wearing masks and wielding crowbars.  As many as 80 suspects snatched armloads of products and sped away in more than 20 waiting cars on Saturday.  Police have so far arrested just three suspects in connection with the raid.  Thieves smashed the windows and looted the high-end goods of a San Francisco Louis Vuitton store over the weekend as well, creating chaos in a popular area of the city.

Best Buy Crashes As Margins Slide Due To "Organized Retail Theft".  Liberal socialist utopias such as California are a blessing for deadbeat klepto hobos from around the world thanks to the state's lack of prosecution of shoplifting, but the same policies are becoming a major headache for nationwide retailers such as Best Buy which this morning reported that despite beating on the top and bottom line (revenues of $11.9 billion vs expectations of $11.7BN, EPS of $2.08, beating est of $1.96), its margins missed, echoing the same margin crunch theme that emerged recently with big box retailers such as Walmart.  Gross margin fell 0.1% to 23.5%, Best Buy said, missing the 23.6% average of analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg, while the decline in the core U.S. operation was steeper.  The company also reported a 10% drop in domestic online revenue as more shoppers returned to stores.

Dozens Of Looters Storm Nordstroms In Commiefornia — Where Else.  Dozens of looters swarmed into the Nordstrom store in downtown Walnut Creek Saturday night [11/20/2021], terrorizing shoppers, ripping off bag loads of merchandise and ransacking shelves before fleeing in a several vehicles waiting for them on the street.  Walnut Creek Lt. Ryan Hibbs told KPIX 5 that police began receiving calls about the looting at around 9 p.m.  He said there were approximately 80 individuals who ran into the store and began looting and smashing shelves.  Video shot at the scene shows the masked looters streaming out of the store, carrying bags and boxes, jumping into the cars.  Dozens of police vehicles also responded to the scene.  [Video clip]

"Trans" inmate rapes mentally disabled female prisoner at Washington prison.  Caroline Downey at National Review brings us yet another horror story delivered by the progressive policymakers in Washington state.  While still not codified in official policy, Washington previously began allowing male prisoners to request transfers to the state's only exclusively women's prison (the Washington Corrections Center for Women) if they claimed that they were transgender.  This resulted in at least six recent cases of transfers, including defendants who had been convicted of sex crimes against female victims.  With that information as a backdrop it's difficult to see how this horrible headline was anything but inevitable.  Present and former guards from the prison have told the media that these transferred prisoners have raped female inmates, including one inmate who had been convicted of sexually assaulting a minor female.  That prisoner was found to have repeatedly sexually abused a developmentally disabled female prisoner for at least a week before being discovered.

The worst kind of domestic terrorism.  Darrell Brooks' rap sheet includes — in addition to past convictions — multiple open cases.  His 22-year-long published criminal record includes numerous weapons charges, battery and assault charges, all kinds of drug charges from meth to cocaine, vehicle theft, receiving stolen property, obstructing officers, domestic abuse, recklessly endangering safety, strangulation and suffocation... the list goes on and on.  Again and again, Darrell Brooks — the alleged driver in the Waukesha parade killings — was caught, processed, and intentionally released.  Despite a history that demonstrates his ongoing threat to the community, charges were repeatedly dropped or pled down, sentences were reduced to time served (such as, in one case, just nineteen days), and he was always given work-release, probation, and bail, despite a record of continuing to perpetrate violations whenever he was set free.  If bail protocols were rational, he would be in jail awaiting the trials for the cases he already had pending, including felony assault just two days before the parade, after which he was, once again, arrested and released on bail.  He was free today to kill people in Waukesha only because he was set free, knowingly, by Milwaukee and Manitowoc and Wood and who knows how many other counties over the past twenty years.

Looting Comes to the Suburbs.  Cities like Portland, Minneapolis and San Francisco have been devastated by rioting and looting.  But smug suburban liberals haven't seemed to mind much, as long as crime was confined to urban centers like Minneapolis and San Francisco, where, on Friday night, Union Square was looted.  But what will they think when disorder strikes closer to home?  Last night [11/20/2021], an organized gang of looters struck the Nordstrom store in Walnut Creek, California.  Walnut Creek is a prosperous community of around 64,000, 85% white and Asian.  The raid was well-coordinated, as 25 cars blocked the street in front of the store while dozens of looters ran inside, stole merchandise, and left in the waiting vehicles.  Apparently only three of the looters were arrested.

Survey says more than half NYPD wishes they never joined the force.  More than half of NYPD cops wish they never joined the force in the first place, according to [an] internal department survey of 6,000 uniformed officers obtained by The [New York] Post.  The survey is a sobering snapshot of how the Finest feel in an era of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter riots, the Defund the Police movement, bail-reform laws that keep violent offenders out of jail, and legislative measures that put the burden of liability on officers while emboldening criminals.  "My retirement date is next month," said one 20-year veteran who took the survey.  "I can't wait to run out of here."  The officer, who would only provide his first name, Dan, said the job has hit "rock bottom" — and he's even steered his own son away from a calling that was once proudly passed down from generation to generation.

Shoplifting Saule Omarova and the War on Retail.  The National Association for Shoplifting Prevention reports that about $50 billion per year is stolen from America's retailers.  Retailers spend a mint on loss prevention efforts, from high-tech anti-theft devices to cameras and burglar alarms, from employing security guards to paying the legal fees for prosecuting those few they are able to catch.  Only about one in 48 shoplifting occurrences results in a capture, and even fewer result in prosecution, making ever more vigilance — and ever more retailer spending on loss prevention strategies — necessary.  Add those costs together — all the shoplifting itself plus all the costly additional spending in trying to combat it — and you see that this one issue is the greatest single impediment to retail success.

Woman, 41, stole $40k from same Target store in 120 incidents in 12 months.  San Francisco's 'woke' District Attorney Chesa Boudin has finally charged a 'prolific' female shoplifter, 41, who stole $40,000 in merchandise from the same Target in 120 incidents over a one-year period.  Aziza Graves was arrested Tuesday for her alleged shoplifting spree about two weeks after voters forced Boudin into a recall election, with a petition yielding 83,000 signatures — far above the 51,000 required by the city.  The push to hold Graves responsible only came after Target demanded that Boudin launch an investigation, which revealed that the store, at the Stonestown Galleria shopping mall, was hit by the same person more than 100 times between October 2020 and November 2021.

In Some Parts Of America, Looting Has Become A Way Of Life.  The level of lawlessness that we are now witnessing in the United States of America is absolutely breathtaking.  On average, thieves are stealing more than 100 million dollars worth of merchandise from our retailers every single day.  Just think about that.  I have written extensively about the shoplifting epidemic that is plaguing this country, but even I didn't know that things had gotten that bad.  Sadly, much of the thievery is being committed by highly organized gangs of looters.  Last week, I posted absolutely stunning video of one of those gangs stealing vast quantities of laundry detergent from a retail store in Connecticut.  [Video clip]

The number one cause of death for pregnant women may surprise you.  All through the pandemic, we've heard repeated reports of potential complications for pregnant women who receive COVID vaccinations.  At the same time, we've long known that complications that arise during pregnancy can tragically result in the death of not only the baby but the mother as well, particularly in areas with insufficient medical facilities.  Additionally, heightened suicide rates have been recorded among women who experience clinical depression during pregnancy.  But according to a recent report in the journal Nature, none of those are the leading cause of death among expectant mothers or during the post-partum period (42 days after giving birth).  Shockingly, the number one cause of death for pregnant women is homicide.  And the killer is most frequently found to be the mother's husband or partner.

Ex-con who once tried to kill NYPD cop is freed without bail after another alleged attack on officer.  An ex-con who once tried to kill a Queens cop was arrested this week for randomly attacking another NYPD officer — only to be freed without bail, authorities and police sources said Monday [11/15/2021].  Accused repeat cop-attacker Isus Thompson, 38, could have been forced to cough up bail before being released from custody after his latest alleged assault on an officer.  But a judge instead cut him loose after Bronx prosecutors failed to seek bail in the case — prompting an angry response from NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea in a tweet Monday.  "Do we have to wait for [Thompson] to kill someone before this is taken seriously?" the disgusted top cop seethed.  The Bronx District Attorney's Office did not respond to The [New York] Post when asked why its prosecutors sought only supervised release, a condition that means the suspect is just required to periodically check in with the court.

This Democrat Criminal Prosecution System is Deeply Immoral.  Rachel Rollins is Biden's nominee to be the next U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts. while serving as District Attorney for Suffolk County, where she declined to prosecute certain dangerous crimes and pushed for 'reallocating' police funding. [...] We have all seen endless videos of looters barging into stores and walking out with bags full of free stuff.  This will no longer constitute a criminal activity.  It is amazing to see that you can enter a store in America and the cost of every item is zero.  This isn't good for store owners but what does this tell you about a society in which others take off shelves for free and that person is protected by your law officials while you feel like a sucker for paying for them?  What does that tell you about a society gone wrong?  Under Rachel Rollins, larceny is not a crime.  Neither is disorderly conduct, and disturbing the police.  Receiving stolen goods will not be a crime in Massachusetts under Rollins.  So the person who walks into a store, or a home, and walks out with all sorts of stuff and gives them to his fence to sell, all this is not illegal and not punishable because those we consider criminal will not be arrested, charged, or brought to court.  What world are they creating in America?  It is one that favors the criminal and leave the citizen defenseless.

Twin Cities area sees surge in carjackings, putting drivers on edge.  Last Monday, a 17-year-old had guns pointed at his chest and head in a carjacking at 6:30 p.m. in front of his house in south Minneapolis.  The assailant ditched his car several blocks away.  Then on Friday, an armed hit-and-run suspect tried to carjack a woman in north Minneapolis as she was heading to the kickoff of the Twin Cities Salvation Army's annual Red Kettle Campaign, capping a week of more than 50 attempted or successful carjackings in the city.  Residents in Minneapolis, St.  Paul and increasingly some suburban communities are experiencing a record surge in armed carjackings, crimes that are terrorizing victims, baffling police and putting motorists on edge.

In So Many Ways, America Under Joe Biden Just Seems Awfully Upside Down.  Like many parts of the country, some Los Angeles areas are experiencing serious increases in crime, especially assaults and robberies.  In these "follow-home crimes," the perps stake out fancy restaurants, nightclubs, expensive stores, and jewelry shops.  They then select certain patrons, especially females, say, wearing jewelry and expensive-looking clothing.  They follow them to parking lots or their homes, wait until victims appear alone and unguarded, and proceed to threaten and rob them.  Naturally, the L.A. Police Department took action.  Not staking out areas to spot waiting stalkers.  Not pouring highly-visible extra units into targeted areas.  Not dispatching well-prepared decoy officers.  No, the robbery problem has grown so serious that the LAPD put out a public memo, yes, a "cooperate and comply" message to law-abiding citizens.  It advised, among other crime-fighting tips:  ["]If you are being robbed, do not resist the robbery suspects; cooperate and comply with their demands.["]

San Francisco tourists are being warned not to rent cars.  People who have opted to go to San Francisco for vacation are being told not to rent vehicles.  Why?  Because of the extreme increase in vehicle burglaries in the city.  The reason behind the advice that is being given to tourists is easy — there are too many vehicle burglaries that are occurring in the city.  Criminals are going through town and breaking into different vehicles looking for quick items they can take off with and later sell or trade.

No supply chain blockage here:
The Same Couple Caught On Video Stealing Tons Of Detergent Are Now Caught Stealing Several Large Screen TVs.  The same couple that was caught on video stealing shopping carts full of laundry detergent and several hundreds of dollars of items from a Connecticut supermarket has now been recorded rolling several large screen TVs out of another store.  Police said they have identified at least two of the suspects and linked them to similar crimes across Connecticut and outside the state.  Cops are withholding publicly identifying the two suspects because investigations are still ongoing, FOX 61 News reported.  [Video clip]

A Deeper Divide.  Don't let anyone tell you the Bagel is worse off than Kabul, where three people were recently shot dead by Islamic gunmen for playing music at a wedding.  No sirree, people over here are shot every day and night, but not for playing music at a wedding.  Give New York credit where it's due.  The city is a bloody horror if you're living way uptown, way downtown, or in the Bronx, while the rest of Gotham is experiencing a new story of street savagery not seen in decades.  The rich continue to leave, taking their tax revenue with them down south; the huddled masses arrive with outstretched palms expecting social justice.  Street crime is rampant, Times Square is no longer a tourist trap because one can get killed there, yet the media continue to write and report on the evils of... Donald Trump.  The perpetually offended, however, blame all this on racism by whites, ignoring that black-on-black crime is responsible for 95 percent and more of murders.

Crime-ravaged Seattle is now so dangerous it can no longer protect its own workers.  Seattle has become so dangerous that the city can no longer protect its own employees, with security guards now escorting them after they finish work.  King County's new 'walking bus' will debut on November 15, and see council workers based in Downtown Seattle and nearby Pioneer Square escorted to a nearby train station and ferry terminal each evening before being left to continue their commute home.  An announcement on King County's official website says: 'King County is launching a 'Walking Bus' pilot program where county employees can join their colleagues and a Facilities Management Division (FMD) Security Escort each evening walking to the King Street Station and the Coleman Dock from the downtown campus.'

LAPD Advises City Residents to 'Cooperate and Comply' with Robbers.  The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) tweeted a release Tuesday [11/9/2021] advising city residents to "cooperate and comply" when being robbed. [...] LAPD then uses the release to outline seven points conveying the department's advice for what city residents ought to do in response to the robberies.  Point five on the release says, "If you are being robbed, do not resist the robbery suspects; cooperate and comply with their demands.  Be a good witness."

The Nationwide Pandemic Of Shoplifting Strikes Conn, Thugs Fill Cars With Carriages Of Stolen Goods.  State police say four people are suspected of stealing $1,600 in goods, and the public is reminded to call 911 when they see a crime in progress.  The Oxford Residents Trooper's officer responded to Market 32 in the Quarry Walk Plaza on Oxford Road around 6:45 a.m. Tuesday for reports that a group of individuals had just committed a larceny at the store and fled the area.  A short time earlier, store personnel saw several people filling multiple shopping carts.  Their behavior raised alarm to the employees, police said.  [Video clip]

Lowlife Loads His Shopping Cart With Beer And Walks Out Of High End Grocery Store Without Paying In Seattle.  A man loads up a cart of beer in a grocery store in Seattle and walks right out the front door as the staff is powerless to stop him.  (BTW this is a high-end grocery store, QFC Grocery.)  According to the video is a regular occurrence.  This is happening in every neighborhood.  [Video clip]

Los Angeles railroad lined with homeless encampments sees rash of cargo container burglaries.  The backlog of cargo containers making their way from the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach saw widespread burglaries as they were carried on trains through an area of tracks lined by homeless encampments.  Thousands of boxes were seen laying near the train tracks "as far as the eye could see" in Los Angeles' Lincoln Park, NBC4 reported.  A FedEx container and several others had their doors wide open and boxes tipping over.  The area is lined by homeless encampments on either side of the tracks.  The outlet also spotted two men jumping off of a moving train and carrying what appeared to be bolt cutters.

Brazen Shoplifter Steals Racks Of Cigarettes In A Chicago Walgreens, 5th Store Hit.  A team of Chicago police officers have arrested a Belmont Cragin man for questioning in connection with recent thefts of cigarettes from Walgreens stores across the North Side and downtown, according to a source.  For nearly two months, Walgreens stores across the city have lost tens of thousands of dollars worth of cigarettes to two men who've conducted similar thefts.  The man, identified as 33-year-old Kendrick Archibald, has not yet been charged with any wrongdoing.  He is, however, on bail while awaiting trial for burglary charges for allegedly stealing cigarettes from behind the counter of a Walgreens in Grundy County.  Grundy County records show Archibald and another man, Lance Harris, face felony burglary charges for allegedly loading cigarettes into black trash bags during a daytime raid at a Morris, Illinois, Walgreens in July 2020.  [Video clip]

Meet the new Chicago bail court judge that frees perps on recognizance and restrains victims.  In the race among blue cities toward dystopia, Chicago is a contender for the lead.  Its streets are dangerous, and when accused street crime perps are arrested, they often get out of jail on recognizance, with no cash bail.  CWB Chicago, the invaluable chronicler of Chicago's descent, profiles a new bail court judge who goes beyond freeing very sketchy accused perps on recognizance.

San Francisco grocery store closing earlier due to shoplifting.  A 24-hour San Francisco grocery store will now be closing early due to excessive thefts at night, joining other retailers that have been forced to alter their hours due to rampant stealing.  The Safeway grocery in the Castro neighborhood of San Francisco has moved from operating 24 hours a day to closing from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., KPIX reported.  The news station reported that customers were surprised by this decision. [...] This decision by the Castro Safeway comes less than a month after pharmacy retail giant Walgreens announced it would be closing some locations in San Francisco due to organized retail theft.  One San Francisco Walgreens that was closed last year was reportedly losing $1,000 to theft a day.

Jury awards more than $25 million to man wrongfully convicted in 1994 South Side double murder.  A federal jury on Friday [10/29/2021] awarded more than $25 million to a man who sued the city of Chicago and two police detectives after being wrongfully convicted of murder and spending nearly 23 years in jail.  Eddie Bolden was freed from prison in 2016, two years after an appellate court found his trial attorney was ineffective.  The Cook County State's Attorney's office dropped the case rather than put Bolden on trial again and he was granted a certificate of innocence, allowing him to receive state payment for his time in prison.  But attorneys for the city and detectives argued during the federal trial that Bolden's criminal trial was fair and that he's guilty of the 1994 murders.

Los Angeles County sheriff blasts vaccine mandate causing 'mass exodus'.  The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is warning of an "imminent threat to public safety" and a "pandemic of chaos" because of staffing shortages caused by the city's vaccine mandate.  Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who has said he won't enforce the county's order that took effect Oct. 1, said Thursday that up to 30 percent of the department's 18,000 employees are "no longer available" to provide service following the Board of Supervisors mandate for all 110,000 employees.  "We are experiencing an increase in unscheduled retirements, worker compensation claims, employees quitting, and a reduction in qualified applicants," Villanueva said in a statement obtained by The [New York] Post.  "As a result, homicide rates will continue to rise, response times will increase, solve rates will diminish, arrests will decline, patrol services will significantly decline, and patrol stations will close."

Parents sue medical examiner over suicide ruling for woman who died of 20 stab wounds.  The parents of a Pennsylvania woman who died of 20 stab wounds are taking the medical examiner's office to court for declaring her death a suicide.  Ellen Greenberg's parents have been granted a non-jury trial in their lawsuit against the coroner's office over her January 2011 death in her Philadelphia apartment, CBS Philly reported.  "We look forward to the trial in hopes of obtaining justice for Ellen," Sandra Greenberg, Ellen's mother, told the outlet.  On the day of her death, Ellen, 27, had returned home to her apartment early from her first-grade teaching job on account of a snowstorm.  She was later discovered dead on the kitchen floor by her fiance, Sam Goldberg, when he returned home from the gym.

Anarchy Reigns in Portland.  Anarchy reigns in the City of Roses.  Over the weekend, police were called to 19 shootings.  One of which is likely to be ruled a double homicide, bringing the total number of murders in Portland this year to 71, surpassing the 1987 record of 70.  Homicides are only part of a larger problem in Portland.  Earlier in October, a mob of around 100 anarchists tore up the downtown part of the city while police looked on.  They went on a rampage, spraying slogans like "kill cops" on the buildings they vandalized, and did at least $500,000 worth of damage, according to Fox Business.  The Portland Police Bureau said that no arrests were made because of the destruction.  But that wasn't the fault of the police.  Instead, the problem is the politicians who govern the state and local officials, who have intentionally tied the hands of law enforcement.  They are the reason why it is impossible to stop criminals and mobs from doing what they wish to the city.

Brazen Thugs Just Walk Out Of Nike Store With Boxes Of Expensive Sneakers In California.  This is what happens when an entire state decides $950 or less is now a misdemeanor instead of a felony.  Watch as these thugs just casually walk out of a Nike store in California with expensive sneakers, knowing the worst that will happen to them is a slap on the wrist.  [Video clip]

Ilhan Omar blames 'dysfunctional' police for Minneapolis violent crime spike.  Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., blamed police for the recent rise in crime in Minneapolis, accusing the city's officers of not fulfilling their oath of office.  "What we must also recognize is that the reduction in policing currently in our city and the lawlessness that is happening is due to two things," Omar said during a town hall event Saturday in Minneapolis.  One of them, she said, is that "the police have chosen to not fulfill their oath of office and to provide the public safety they are owed to the citizens they serve."  The lawmaker's comments come as violent crime has surged in Minnesota over the last year, rising 17% in total while setting records for murders.  Omar's approach to crime includes backing a Nov. 2 ballot measure to replace the entire Minneapolis police department with a "Department of Public Safety."  The measure would remove the requirement that the city have a minimum number of officers based on the city's population.

Illinois Sheriffs Say They Will Not Help Cover Chicago Police Shortage Due to Vaccine Mandate.  Sheriff's offices surrounding the metropolitan area of Chicago are stating they will not send their officers to cover the shortfall in city police officers as an outcome of the vaccine mandate.  Keep in mind the elected county sheriff is the highest constitutional officer inside each region.  Chicago Mayor Lightfoot has released all the city officers who refused the vaccine mandate.  Factually it makes no sense according to DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick, who points out that his office does not have mandatory vaccines and as a result could only be providing assistance with officers who may or may not be vaccinated.  "It doesn't make sense to say, 'I only want my residents touching vaccinated people, but I'm going to send all these potentially unvaccinated people from other municipalities to replace them,'" Mendrick said.

Chicago's Magnificent Mile is dying from an increasingly familiar cause.  The "Magnificent Mile" in downtown Chicago has long been a popular tourist destination and a prime source of revenue for the city, featuring nearly all of the major chain outlets as well as exclusive boutiques.  Or at least it used to be, anyway.  By the time the BLM protests/riots were finished, the places that weren't burned down and/or looted were boarded up.  The problem is that the famed shopping district still hasn't made a comeback more than a year later.  As CBS Chicago reports this week, many of the biggest, high-profile stores like Disney and Macy's have left permanently and no new employers have attempted to move in and replace them.  The reason is the same that we've seen in other cities since the riots began.  Decriminalization of "smaller" crimes like theft, lax enforcement, and bail reform laws have led to an endless series of organized shoplifting and robbery sprees.

Biden Touts Police Reform While Mobs Run Wild in Portland.  Joe Biden commemorated police officers who had lost their lives in the line of duty in 2019 and 2020 in a speech at the Capitol building on Saturday.  "There's too much pain.  There's too much loss.  There's too much at stake for your safety and the safety of those you serve," Biden said at the National Peace Officers' annual memorial service.  There's also too much interference by politicians for the police to do an effective job.  And there's too little support by Democratic politicians of the police forces that keep their cities from blowing up.  There's a clear disconnect between what Biden was saying about the heroism of police and the fact that he and other politicians have abandoned them.

Portland police don't stop chaos.  A crowd of 100 people wreaked havoc in downtown Portland, Oregon, this week — smashing storefront windows, lighting dumpsters on fire and causing at least $500,000 in damage — but police officers didn't stop them.  Portland Police Bureau officials say that's because of legislation passed by Oregon lawmakers this year, which restricts the tools they can use to confront people vandalizing buildings and causing mayhem.  "The reason that we did not intervene goes back to what we talked about last month with House Bill 2928 and the restrictions placed on us in a crowd control environment," KOIN reports that Portland Police Lt. Jake Jensen said in a neighborhood meeting Thursday.  Residents frustrated by the latest round of destructive demonstrations Tuesday questioned whether that meant anything goes now in Portland.

George Soros Drops $1M To Stop City of Austin Hiring Police to Combat Rising Crime.  America-hating billionaire George Soros is stepping up his efforts to personally increase the violent crime rate in America's cities.  Not content to just sponsor pro-crime DA's who release and/or fail to prosecute criminals, Soros is now pouring money into defund the police efforts.  As cities, some of them on the down low, have been refunding police they previously defunded or are increasing hiring due to police forces being decimated by low morale fueled by lack of local support, ridiculous pro-crime policies, and various WuFlu-related mandates, Soros is busily shelling out money to keep crime up, criminals on the streets, and fewer police to keep communities safe.

Philly becomes first major US city to end pulling drivers over for minor traffic offenses — a tactic which opponents say disproportionately affects black people.  Philadelphia became the first major city to ban police traffic stops of low-level motor vehicle offenses, a tactic which critics claim disproportionately affects black people.  The Philadelphia City Council passed two Driving Equity bills on Thursday that Mayor James Kenney is is expected to sign into law this week.  The law creates an open searchable database recording traffic stops and prohibits police officers from stopping drivers for minor offenses by reclassifying several offenses as secondary violations.

NYPD orders cops to stand down, allow junkies to shoot up in streets after decriminalization measure passes.  NYPD officials have ordered patrol and beat officers to stop rolling up suspects who are seen shooting drugs on the streets after legislation in the state legislature passed decriminalizing the purchase and sale of hypodermic needles commonly used to inject heroin and other hard drugs.  "Effective immediately, members of the service should not take any enforcement action against any individual who possesses a hypodermic needle, even when it contains residue of a controlled substance," says a directive to New York Police Department commanders issued last Friday and obtained by the New York Post.  The order to NYPD officers referenced Senate Bill 2523 which outlines the decriminalization.

Gov. Hochul's drug-war surrender will be the death of NY neighborhoods.  Oct. 7, 2021, will go down in history as the day that New York surrendered in the war on drugs.  Not a shot was fired, except for the heroin or meth shot into the vein of a drug addict on the streets of Midtown, the South Bronx or Harlem.  Gov. Hochul last week signed into law a bill pushed by state Sen. Gustavo Rivera (D-Bronx) and backed overwhelmingly by the city's Democratic delegation to the Legislature.  It decriminalizes the possession or sale of hypodermic needles and syringes by addicts to inject drugs.  Touted as a move to reduce overdose deaths, it will instead be the death of downtowns and residential neighborhoods across the Empire State.

Chicago cops' union resisting vax mandate in a city on the brink of domination by armed criminals.  Civil order already is crumbling in Chicago, with its horrendous toll of murders, carjackings, and looting of stores spreading into downtown and affluent neighborhoods from, the ghetto strongholds where lawlessness has been rampant for years.  The one thing Chicago cannot afford to do is lose a substantial number of cops, yet the actions of Mayor Lori Lightfoot threaten to do that, pushing ahead with a vaccine mandate, whose deadline for reporting vax status has just expired at midnight Friday night [10/15/2021].

Theft-plagued Walgreens shuts down five more stores in San Francisco:  At least 17 have already closed due to 'legalized shoplifting'.  Walgreens is shuttering another five of its stores in crime-ridden San Francisco because of rampant shoplifting by thieves who waltz past security guards and sell the items outside the drugstore chain's doors.  The national chain has closed 17 of its 70 San Francisco locations in the past two years because of the shelf raiders, who have swiped everything not behind lock and key.  Thefts in the chain's 53 remaining stores are five times the average for their stores elsewhere in the country, according to company officials.

Walgreens closing 5 more San Francisco stores due to theft.  Walgreens said Tuesday that it will be closing another five San Francisco locations, citing the ongoing rampant theft plaguing the city.  "Due to ongoing organized retail crime, we have made the difficult decision to close five stores across San Francisco," a Walgreens spokesperson told FOX Business in a statement.  "Each store will transfer prescriptions to a nearby Walgreens location within a mile radius and we expect to place the stores' team members in other nearby locations."

Outrage after [black] man who stabbed [a white] high school sophomore to death, watched him die then hid murder weapon gets acquitted.  In what can only be described as a shocking conclusion, a Hartford (CT) Superior Court jury on Friday found Shyhiem "Trey" Adams not guilty on both counts in connection with the 2018 murder of a 16-year-old Enfield High School sophomore, Justin Brady.  Adams had been charged with first-degree manslaughter and evidence tampering in connection with Brady's death, according to the Manchester Journal Inquirer.  The verdict left Brady's father, Thomas shocked.

'It Looks Like The Third World': New York City Drug Stores Ravaged By Shop Lifters.  An unprecedented spike in shoplifting has emptied out the shelves of drug stores across New York City, the New York Post reported Saturday [10/9/2021].  "It looks like the Third World," a Manhattan resident complained after inspecting the ravaged aisles of a local CVS, according to the New York Post.  "They've all been stolen," an employee of the CVS said of missing toothpaste, hand sanitizer and face wash, The Post reported.  As of early September, 26,385 complaints of retail theft were filed, which is the highest number ever recorded.  Compared to last year, 2021 witnessed a 32% surge in the number of complaints, according to The Post.

At least 9 Rikers inmates recently freed by Gov. Hochul have been rearrested.  At least nine Rikers Island inmates recently given a Get Out of Jail Free card by Gov. Hochul have been arrested again, The [New York] Post has learned.  Among those who fumbled the Sept. 17 free pass is a reputed gangbanger from Queens who not only was charged with possessing a loaded gun, but trying to bribe his way out of a return trip to the infamous jail, NYPD and law enforcement sources said.  Stepfane "Stephon" Gilliam, 26, is a member of the Queensbridge Houses crew called Team No Lackin', and has multiple aliases and 43 prior arrests, including 23 felonies, sources said.  After just two weeks of freedom, Gilliam was pulled over by cops Sept. 29 at 9:45 p.m. at the corner of 31st Avenue and 21st Street in Queens, for alleged speeding and having too much tint on his 2004 BMW's windows, authorities said.  Responding cops found a warrant out for his arrest on a traffic violation, sources said.  Cops then searched the BMW and recovered a .32 Colt revolver from the back seat.

Life in Seattle is about to get very interesting (and that's not good).  Seattle, more than many American cities, vigorously embraced the "Defund the Police" movement.  Last year, the Seattle City Council began the process of defunding the police and it's been continuing ever since, relentlessly slicing away at the city's police budget.  Crime has risen accordingly and people are making noises about getting the police back.  However, the radicals have a new arrow in their quiver to reduce the number of police in their city.  An October 18 deadline is looming to fire those police who have refused the vaccination and, with only a week to go, roughly 40% of the police force is still unvaccinated.  Since George Floyd's diseased heart gave out thanks to overdosing on meds and fighting the police, Seattle has been one of those cities that has most enthusiastically sought to rid itself of its police force.  Even the fact that the little autonomous zone known as CHAZ instantly turned into warlord hell didn't deter the council from its mission.

'Third World' NYC drug store shelves empty amid shoplifting surge.  Thanks to a citywide shoplifting tsunami, bare necessities are now rare luxuries on drug-store shelves across New York City.  "It looks like the Third World," bemoaned one Manhattan resident, after eyeing the aisles of a CVS on Sixth Avenue in Soho desperately low of toothpaste, face wash and hand sanitizer, among a long list of other items.  "They've all been stolen," a CVS employee told The [New York] Post.  State bail reform laws make shoplifting a promising career option for some New York City crooks.  One man, Isaac Rodriguez, 22, of Queens, was arrested for shoplifting 46 times this year alone, The Post exclusively reported last week.  The blame goes straight to the halls of power in Albany, said New York City top cop Dermot Shea.

Seattle police department prepares to fire up to 40% of its cops if they fail to get vaccinated.  Seattle's police department is preparing to fire up to 400 officers who have not yet had their Covid shot in line with the city's strict vaccine mandate — despite already suffering staff shortages, rising crime rates and high 911 response times.  The Seattle Police Department has an October 18 deadline for all sworn personnel to turn in proof of COVID-19 vaccinations or risk losing their jobs.  As of Friday, 292 officers have yet to turn in proof of vaccination — or 27 percent of the department's 1,080 deployable police officers.

Bail for a school shooter?  While Jan. 6 defendants languish in prison as danger to the republic?  Times have changed.  A school shooter with a raging grudge is now bailable.  It's likely part of the Sorosian criminal justice trend of letting absolutely everybody out.  Sure, it starts with pot smokers and shoplifters.  But it doesn't take long for it to include child molestors and school shooters.  This one got bail.  Meanwhile, little old ladies, assorted members of the public, and a goofus in a shaman suit complete with a horned hat remain imprisoned, some in solitary, eight months after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, as a mortal danger to the republic.  Yes, some should be punished, but this is disproportionate and the time for that has come and gone.  A school shooter gets let out on bail, while the Capitol rioters, charged with "parading" continue to languish in prison?  What's wrong with this picture?

US records highest increase in nation's homicide rate in modern history, CDC says.  The United States has just recorded its highest increase in rates of homicide in modern history, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  Provisional data from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, released early Wednesday, suggest the homicide rate for the United States rose 30% between 2019 and 2020.  It is the highest increase recorded in modern history — and confirms through public health data a rise in homicides that so far had been identified only through crime statistics.

The Editor says...
Homicide is not a disease.  Why is the CDC involved in this?

George Soros contributes $500,000 to defeat police funding initiative in Austin.  For the second time in recent months, billionaire socialist George Soros contributed money to influence Austin politics.  He is contributing big bucks to defeat Proposition A which, among other things, will fund the hiring of more police officers in the city.  Proposition A would establish a minimum staffing level for the Austin Police Department of 2 officers per 1,000.  Austin is experiencing an increase in attrition in police ranks which is now 15 to 20 departures per month this year.  Austin is the state capitol and a university town, too, so a fully staffed police department is a necessity for the safety and protection of those living and visiting the city.

Man Facing 45 Charges of Child Sex Crimes Beaten by Fellow Inmates.  A Texas man on trial for alleged sex crimes against three children was reportedly assaulted upon his return to jail after the trial's recess last week, according to KFDX.  "Michael Corey is on trial by jury for 45 charges, including sexual assault, continuous sex abuse and inducing sexual performance by a child," the outlet said Friday [10/1/2021].

Blue cities forge ahead with their own police reforms.  As police reform stalls at the federal level, some blue states are forging ahead with their own law enforcement overhauls.  State-level police reforms went into effect on Friday in Maryland.  One day earlier, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law a raft of reforms that will change the rules for police conduct across the state.  Both sets of reforms were aimed primarily at increasing scrutiny of incidents involving officers in the field, adding layers of bureaucracy to misconduct allegations.

Democrats see political peril in replacing Minneapolis PD.  As activists mobilized this summer to ask Minneapolis voters to replace their police department, one of the first prominent Democrats to slam the plan was a moderate congresswoman who doesn't even live in the city.  Angie Craig declared it "shortsighted, misguided and likely to harm the very communities that it seeks to protect."  She warned that it could push out the city's popular Black police chief.

This 'Man of Steal' leads NYC's record-shattering shoplifting surge with 46 arrests.  During just one illicit shopping spree, on July 7 at the Jackson Heights Walgreens, Rodriguez took "10 units of Ensure, 12 Walgreens wipes, 15 units of Sensodyne toothpaste and 8 units of Cetaphil lotion," court papers state.  "This guy comes here every day stealing, every single day.  He comes and he steals," fumed the store manager.  "We call 911 and make a report, and that's it.  Our company policy is if anyone comes, because of a safety issue, we cannot stop him.  We cannot do anything."  "They steal and they sell," the manager groused.  The manager said the Queens Klepto has been targeting his Jackson Heights store for "at least a year, at least every single day. ... Whenever he goes to jail he stops.  Sometimes he comes three, four times [a day] to get all of a [certain] merchandise."

Defunding Disaster:  Austin Police no longer to responding to 'non-life threatening' 911 calls.  Starting Friday [10/1/2021], Austin's sworn police officers will no longer be responding in person to non-emergency calls because of severe staffing shortages, APD announced.  The announcement comes after the Harris County Sheriff's Deputies Organization in Houston warned residents that if they were "robbed, raped or shot" to "hold their breath and pray" because they might not have the personnel to respond.  The Austin no-response announcement includes vehicle collisions with no injuries and burglaries no longer in progress or where the suspect has fled the scene.  Instead of calling 911, residents are being told to call 311 to file a non-emergency police report.

Man Films A Vanload Of People Looting Thousands Of Dollars Worth Of Items From A Target In Portland.  This was the moment a concerned citizen filmed a group of shoplifters, giving zero F's while they unloaded shopping cart after shopping cart of stolen items from a Target in Jantzen Beach on Hayden Island in Portland.  The man actually talks his way through while he films several people load racks of clothing into a van while they seem to pay him no mind at all.  The man even films their license plate just before they drove off.  Portland law basically lets people off scot-free if they steal under 500 dollars worth of items so technically, this group can claim under 500 dollars each and get away with a tiny slap on the wrist at best.  [Video clip]

Austin City Council member sounds alarm on 'disastrous consequences' of defunding police.  The Austin Police Department announced it will no longer respond to calls for "non-emergencies" after a cut to the police budget in 2020 led to staffing shortages.  Mackenzie Kelly, an Austin City Council member, said the decision to defund the police has led to "disastrous consequences" in the city.  The Austin City Council voted in August 2020 to cut up to $150 million — roughly 34% — from the police budget.  By the end of July, Austin reported that the number of homicides in 2021 had already matched the total homicides in all of 2020.  "A lot of what we're seeing happening starting today is coming home to roost from that decision," Kelly said.  "And it's disastrous."

More Evidence That Defunding Police Wasn't a Good Idea.  The surge in violent crime over the past year — murders in particular — has been astounding and historic.  The numbers back this up and paint a grim picture.  Property crime is generally down, but violent crime is way, way up.  The murder rate rose by nearly 30% in 2020, more than any other time in the last half-century.  This is according to recently released statistics compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in its annual report on crime.  The report shows that there were 4,901 more murders committed in 2020 than in 2019.  It's the largest single-year increase — by a wide margin — in murder rate since the FBI began compiling these statistics in 1960.

Shoplifters casually rob California Marshalls as people watch, employees do not report crime.  Multiple shoplifters in California were seen brazenly stealing from a Marshalls location as the crime continues in the state.  "People shopping there were just kind of standing there watching.  The only thing I figured I could do was get their identities and their license plates and give them to somebody who will do something with them," witness Lindsey Rodriguez, a resident of Hemet who recorded the suspects, told NBC4.  Rodriguez said she saw one man stroll out of the store with his arms full of clothing on Saturday evening [9/25/2021] in Hemet, and said one woman used wire cutters to sever security tags on expensive purses.

Brazen Shoplifters Rob Chicago Department Store In Broad Daylight.  This is the new trend in all progressive cities now.  Cities that have decriminalized most 'soft' crimes such as shoplifting.  Watch as these two shoplifters fill bags with expensive perfumes in broad daylight and leave while people film.  This was at the Ulta in Norridge at 4115 N Harlem near the 16th district in Chicago.  [Video clip]

Muslim inmate challenges strip-search by transgender guard.  A Muslim inmate who was strip-searched by a transgender guard at a Wisconsin men's prison has filed a federal lawsuit saying the search violated his faith and freedom of religion.  The case was heard Sept. 22 by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit based in Chicago.  A ruling is pending.  Several experts on prisoners' rights and LGBTQ rights told The Washington Times the case could be influential in constitutional and prison law.

Report: California Put Coronavirus-Infected Inmates, Including Illegal Aliens, into Communities.  A San Francisco newspaper published a sympathetic feature about an illegal alien from Cambodia who had coronavirus when he was released from California's San Quentin State Prison last July. [...] San Quentin had 2,258 cases during the pandemic, and 43 of those people were released after testing positive, according to the [San Francisco] Chronicle.

Civilization requires deterrence.  The current crime wave of murder and violent assault in our major cities is the wage of loud efforts to defund the police and contextualize crimes as somehow society's rather than the criminal's fault.  As a result, lawbreakers now believe there is a good chance that robbing people or hurting or killing them might result in monetary gain or at least bloody satisfaction.  They no longer fear a likely sentence of 30 years in prison.  So, they see little risk in hurting people.  And innocents suffer.

Police [are] fighting back as Chicago crime spills into Indiana.  Chicago criminals are targeting Indiana and police there say they are fighting back.  "We've seen a lot of vehicles being stolen in Illinois or Chicago, crossing into the Indiana state line, committing other crimes, drive-by shootings, homicides, burglaries," said Lake County Indiana Sheriff Oscar Martinez, Jr.  From fast cars to new technology, his department is using every means possible to catch up to criminals.  "They think if they get to the Illinois state line or Chicago that the Lake County Sheriff's Department will not chase them.  Well, that's incorrect," Sheriff Martinez said.  To keep up with criminals, the department purchased nine high-performance vehicles.

Jump in U.S. murder rate [is the] biggest in 60 years.  FBI data is expected to show murders in the U.S. increased by nearly 30% in 2020 — the highest annual spike in at least 60 years, according to news reports.  The agency's Uniform Crime Report is set to be released Monday, but preliminary data temporarily uploaded to the FBI website showed murders last year went up nearly 29% compared to 2019, The New York Times reported on Wednesday [9/22/2021].  If the data remains unchanged, it will reportedly be the largest single-year increase since the 12.7% change in 1968.

I Fear Leftist Solutions Much More Than Actual Problems.  America's founding fathers named three essential rights to which all men were entitled:  Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  It's as profound as it is simple.  At this very moment, though, all three of these fundamental, God-given rights are under a full assault by the left. [...] Another obvious example came out of the Black Lives Matter movement as they called to defund the police.  Despite an overwhelming majority of black residents — in some of the hardest-hit urban communities, no less — demanding a strong police presence, the cure for a few rogue officers was to eliminate them all.  How is this working out?  Crime rates in these locations, especially murder rates, have returned to all-time highs.  A few bad cops might have killed one or two thugs by accident, but the alternative is now scores of bullet-ridden black bodies.  The cure (less police) is far worse and deadlier than the disease (moral decay in urban communities).

The Left's Attempt to Hide Its Part in the 2020 Violent Crime Surge Collapses With One Study.  Earlier this month, NBC News pushed the idea that crime had fallen overall last year, citing a "center-left" group called "Third Way" for their info.  It was supposed to be a study meant to disprove Republicans who were pointing out that the crime waves hitting blue states was thanks to various Democrat Party-backed causes. [...] According to Fox News, crime statistic experts pointed out that Third Way's statistic tracking was "misleading at best" since their report combined seven types of violent crime and merged them together, then applied this to 22 states.  NBC News took this info and reported this statistic. [...] The truth is that murders and assaults spiked after the media got ahold of the death of George Floyd and began pushing it on America relentlessly during the 2020 elections.

AOC calls for release of all Rikers inmates amid 'inhumane' jail conditions.  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and three other House Democrats from New York called on Mayor de Blasio and Gov. Hochul Tuesday to release all inmates held on Rikers Island, citing a long-running pattern of "human right violations" at the jail.  Ocasio-Cortez made the extraordinary demand in a letter to de Blasio and Hochul issued jointly with Reps.  Jamaal Bowman, Nydia Velazquez and Jerrold Nadler, who chairs the powerful House Judiciary Committee.  In addition to freeing the roughly 6,000 inmates on the island, the four lawmakers wrote that the jail itself should be "immediately" shuttered and federal funding for its operations seized.

Nearly 200 People To Be Released From Rikers Friday After Gov. Hochul Signs 'Less Is More Act,' Calls.  Gov. Kathy Hochul acted to immediately free several hundred parolees from Rikers Island and made arrangements to move several hundred more from the notorious jail complex to state lockups to ease the unsafe conditions at the troubled facility.  But the correction officers union is questioning the effectiveness of the actions in ending the crisis.

After battle over the ballot, early voting begins in Minneapolis.  After a battle over the ballot, early voting begins Friday in Minneapolis.  Residents will get to vote on the ballot question on whether to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a new department of public safety.  The Minnesota Supreme Court reversed a decision blocking the city from counting votes on the question.  The question on the ballot, to which voters respond "yes" or "no," is as follows:  ["]Shall the Minneapolis City Charter be amended to remove the Police Department and replace it with a Department of Public Safety that employs a comprehensive public health approach [...] ["]

Crime soars in Minneapolis as cops fear being unfairly targeted in woke viral videos.  Proactive policing in Minneapolis plunged dramatically following the murder of George Floyd last year, even as violent crime soared, a new analysis reveals as the city prepares to vote on a ballot initiative to abolish the police department.  In the year following Floyd's death, traffic stops in Minneapolis plunged 74 percent, patrols of known problem areas were down 76 percent, and stops of suspicious people plunged 75 percent, according to a Reuters investigation.  Confidential police sources said that part of the slowdown was due to a staffing shortage amid an exodus from the department, but that much of the reduction in policing was due to a fear of being caught up in an incident that could go viral in a climate of anti-cop sentiment.

New Texas Law Requires Cash Bail for Suspects Accused of Violent Crimes.  Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill into law on Sept. 13 that requires cash bail for suspects who have allegedly committed violent crimes.  The measure, Senate Bill 6, was approved in the Texas House and Senate in August, following a delay that was triggered by dozens of House Democrats fleeing the state to deny Republicans a quorum over a Republican-backed election overhaul bill.  Known as the Damon Allen Act, the legislation was named after a Texas state trooper who was killed in 2017 during a traffic stop by a suspect who was free on $15,500 bond.  The law now mandates that people accused of committing violent offenses can't be released on personal bonds, which don't require a defendant to pay money, but require other measures such as monitoring.  Suspects believed to be involved in violent crimes will now have to post cash bail set by a court, the text of the legislation reads.  They can also pay a percentage to a bail bonds company to be released.

No kidding.
Violent Criminals With Harsher Sentences Less Likely to Be Rearrested, Study Shows.  Violent criminals in the United States were less likely to be rearrested if they spent more time in prison before release, a large, long-term study has shown.  Nearly 77 percent of people imprisoned for a violent crime were arrested again within 10 years of release.  The rate was lower, though, for those who served harsher sentences than for those who served lighter ones, according to the study conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BLS [sic]).  Of those who spent less than the median time in prison prior to release, 78.3 percent got rearrested.  For those who served more than the median time, 66.4 percent were rearrested.  Among those with the harshest sentences of more than 80 months, 57.5 percent were rearrested, according to the recently released report on the study.  The study followed a sample of 76,000 state prisoners selected from more than 400,000 released in 24 states in 2008.

Crime Data Feared Lost From Dallas Police Computer Network.  A massive amount of information on criminal cases dating to July 2020 has been lost from the Dallas Police Department computer database, authorities revealed on Wednesday [9/8/2021].  In a statement, the Dallas County District Attorney's Office said the loss occurred in early April as the Dallas Police Department performed a data migration from a computer network drive.  About 14 terabytes of the 22 terabytes lost were recovered, but the remaining eight terabytes are believed lost forever, according to the statement, and would have to be restored by new investigative work.  Most up-to-date personal computers have hard-drive memory capacities ranging from a half-terabyte to two terabytes.

An ENTIRE police department in Missouri just resigned.  The Hill reports the entire police department of Kimberling, Missouri, has resigned "without immediate authority" to replace them.  Police Chief Craig Alexander resigned on Aug. 23.  After that, the floodgates opened.  The rest of the officers started resigning until there were none left.

Shoplifters Walk Out Of Lowe's With 2k Dollars Of Merchandise In Broad Daylight.  Video of shoplifters stealing thousands of dollars worth of electrical wires from a Lowe's store in Oregon has angered local residents.  "It was so blatant, that's what riled me up," Keizer, Ore., resident Andrew Sullivan, who filmed the incident, told the Keizer Times.  "They were just strolling through the parking lot, just riding the carts.  [Video clip]

Joe Biden Is a Total Failure.  Biden's answer to the surge in violent crime rates across urban America is pious lectures about guns, which incites both the anti-gun Left and the huge number of Americans (who consider their guns security against what otherwise would be a riptide of crime) to believe that guns are about to be confiscated unconstitutionally.  The answer to crime rates is not in the suppression of access to guns for responsible citizens, as criminals always have guns; the answer is in greater numbers of better-trained police personnel and longer sentences for violent criminals.

3 Chicago 'Anti-Violence Activists' Facing Felony Gun Charges While Out On Bail for Other Felony Gun Charges.  The criminal justice system in the city of Chicago might as well be called the "criminal's" justice system.  With prosecutors who don't prosecute and judges who don't hold violent criminal predators accountable, it's no wonder the city's moniker is Murder City, USA.  How bad is it in the Windy City?  It's bad.  It's so bad that three of Mayor Lori Lightfoot's "anti-violence workers" were arrested in a single week on fresh felony gun charges, while out on bail for other felony gun arrests.  Including one so-called anti-violence worker who allegedly shot at two people and then recently, allegedly on video, threatened to shoot another.

Minneapolis man, 29, who opened fire on cops after they shot him with a rubber bullet is acquitted of attempted murder.  A Minneapolis man charged with attempted murder after firing at police officers during the George Floyd protest was acquitted of all charges after claiming he shot back in self defense.  Jaleel Stallings, 29, was acquitted on Wednesday of multiple charges stemming from a shooting last summer where he shot at the Minneapolis Police Department after they opened fire on him with rubber bullets.  The US Army veteran argued the shooting was in self-defense.  He testified that he fired three shots at an unmarked white van after he was struck in the chest with what turned out to be a nonlethal rubber bullet fired by the MPD, the Associated Press reported.

Minnesota Man Who Shot At Cops During George Floyd Protests 'Acquitted' After Claiming It Was 'Self Defense'.  There is no justice system in the United States and certainly not in Minneapolis.  A Minnesota man who shot at police is acquitted because it was self-defense. [...] When I was young, we were taught to respect police.  In the mad world Obama/Biden built, you can shoot at police and get off claiming self-defense.  Police in Minnesota will soon be a thing of the past.  No one will want to be one.

Kamala Harris has blood on her hands.  Not in connection with Afghanistan — I doubt that she has had any influence on events there — but as a result of her support for violent crime in Minnesota.  In the wake of the George Floyd riots, Harris contributed to the Minnesota Freedom Fund and encouraged others to do so as well.  She did so on the pretext that the Freedom Fund was bailing out "demonstrators" arrested in Minnesota, but of course no one was arrested for demonstrating.  Those bailed out were arsonists, aggravated assaulters and other serious criminals.  Moreover, the Minnesota Freedom Fund didn't restrict itself to bailing out those arrested in the summer of 2020.  Rather, its efforts to inflict violent crime on Minnesotans have continued to the present day.  Last Sunday, an innocent man was murdered by a criminal who had been charged with domestic assault but was sprung by Kamala Harris's Minnesota Freedom Fund just days earlier.

It's a reverse shakedown.  It's also unsustainable.
San Fran to start paying known criminals monthly stipend to stop killing, eligible for bonuses.  One of America's "wokest" cities, San Francisco, intends to start paying high-risk criminals to not shoot each other.  Starting in October, 10 known criminals will receive a $300 stipend every month that they abstain from busting some caps.  The chosen criminals will also be eligible for a $200/month bonus if they meet certain milestones like obtaining a job.  "The idea is to provide the small number of San Franciscans who authorities believe are most at risk of shooting someone — or being shot — with an incentive to get help and stay out of trouble," according to the San Francisco Examiner.  "The initiative will pair participants with newly hired life coaches from the Street Violence Intervention Program, known as SVIP, who will help them make the right choices and access services.  The theory is that the up to $500 stipend will serve as an incentive to participate — and stay engaged," the paper notes.

Woke NYC Democrat wants to make crime victims help their attackers.  Amid an increase in violent crimes and shootings in New York City, a candidate for public office wants victimized New Yorkers to bear the burden of the crimes against them.  The radical "public safety" plan put forward by socialist candidate Tiffany Cabán — a shoo-in to earn a spot on the City Council representing western Queens after November's election — would allow for victims of violent crimes to help their attackers in the name of "restorative justice."  The Democrat's woke, 48-page manifesto would strip cops and courts of some of their most basic law enforcement roles — like sending violent perps to prison.  "Communities will be empowered to develop individualized strategies to help heal wounds of violence rather than being forced to rely on policing and prisons as the only recourse," reads the policy from the Democratic Socialists of America-backed candidate in the non-competitive race.

Panicked Democrats switch from 'defund' to 'refund' the police.  The Democratic Party's quest to defund police forces, an act in which it kowtowed to its hard-left-wing base, has come to a very bitter end.  The resulting surge in violent crime has produced a massive public backlash that threatens the careers of elected Democrats throughout the nation.  Naturally, the endangered species is trying to distance itself swiftly from the wreckage that "defund the police" has left behind.  The mayors of Portland and Seattle, who respectively slashed police funding by $15 million and $7.5 million last year, are now moving to restore those budgets amid spikes in violent crime made worse because police officers are choosing to retire rather than stay where their work is scorned by their employers.  Something similar is happening in Chicago, where last year, Mayor Lori Lightfoot demanded that the police force leave vacant positions unfilled as part of a broader drive to cut police budgets.  Lightfoot now faces a 60% increase in murders since 2019, and suddenly, she sees the light — the police are not expendable, and the thin blue line between chaos and order cannot be allowed to get any thinner.

Wisconsin Sheriff Will No Longer Call Prisoners Inmates But Rather 'Residents' To Humanize Rapists And Murderers.  The Dane County Sheriff's Office is eliminating the term "inmate" from its official vocabulary.  Sheriff Kalvin Barrett announced the move Monday [8/16/2021], explaining the change is designed to "maintain the dignity and respect for all who are involved in our criminal justice system," WMTV-TV reported.  [Video clip]

Homicides outpace COVID-19 deaths in Washington, other major cities.  Homicides are outpacing COVID deaths in the District and in other major cities, prompting former law enforcement officials to sound the alarm on the nationwide effort on the part of some activists and politicians to defund police departments.  In the nation's capital, there were eight deaths from COVID-19 in July.  But the District recorded 20 homicides last month, bringing the year's total to 114, already surpassing last year's homicides total of 109 with five more months to go.  "We are all concerned about the pandemic.  We have a pandemic of violence that is sweeping this nation and we have an opportunity to stop it but it is going to take leadership not just from law enforcement but from all levels," said Sgt. Betsy Brantner Smith, a spokesperson for the National Police Association.

The Drossy Touch of Joe Biden.  Almost everything Joe Biden has touched since entering office has turned to dross. [...] After Biden entered office, violent crimes ignited from the embers of the 120 days of mostly unpunished looting, arson, and organized violence in the streets of America's major cities during summer 2020.  Under Biden, jails were emptied.  Federal attorneys and emulative local DAs exempted offenders.  Police were defamed and defunded.  Punishing crime was considered a racist construct.  The result is that Americans now avoid the Dodge City downtowns of most of America's crime-ridden blue cities.  They accept that any urban pedestrian, any driver after hours, any commuter on a bus or subway can be assaulted, robbed, beaten, raped, or shot — without any assurance that the media will fairly report the crime, or that the criminal justice system will punish the perpetrators.  In Biden's America looters prance into drug stores and walk out with shopping bags of stuff, under the terrified gaze of security guards who guesstimate at least they did not steal more than $950 of loot.

Over a dozen New York gang members arrested after allegedly plotting crimes on social media.  Over a dozen members of the East Harlem, New York, "Chico Gang" were indicted in a joint investigation between police and prosecutors Wednesday, according to a press release from the Manhattan District Attorney's office.  Officials indicted 13 members of the gang on charges of conspiracy, attempted murder, including 21 alleged shootings that resulted in 12 victims, attempted assault and weapons possession, according to the press release.  The street gang has been present among two public housing projects since 2018.

Are We in a Revolution and Don't Even Know It?  Two years ago, it would have been considered absurd that youth would ride bikes into drug stores and steal with impunity as security guards watched, or thieves could enter into Neiman-Marcus department stores and skip out with thousands of dollars of rich people's favorites.  Over $2 billion in "stuff" was destroyed in 2020. And almost none of the violence was ever properly investigated, the perpetrators arrested, charged, tried, convicted, sentenced, or incarcerated.  In such revolutionary times, no one knows any more what is and is not a crime.  Illegally storming the border when positive for COVID-19? Destroying a public statue of George Washington or Thomas Jefferson?  Looting a corporate chain store?  Knocking out an Asian-American septuagenarian?  Or turning over the tables of Jewish-Americans as they eat?  Taking over municipal blocks and declaring the confiscation an autonomous zone?  Not crimes.  "Illegal parading" inside the U.S. Capitol building?  Crime.

Cuomo uses final days as gov to commute [or] pardon 10 felons, including 3 tied to killings.  Days after giving two weeks' notice that he would resign his office amid a serial sexual harassment scandal, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is using the unprecedented lame-duck period to grant clemency and pardons to 10 felons — including three convicts tied to killings. [...] Cuomo commuted the sentence of Nehru Gumbs, 36, who was convicted of first-degree manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon and assault in 2005 — crimes committed when he was 18.  Gumbs was fingered for the brutal shooting death of an innocent bystander heading to his Canarsie home from a midnight church service on New Year's Eve 2004.  Gumbs has served 17½ years of a 25-year sentence.  He has served as the youth counselor at Sing Sing prison and earned an associate's degree from Mercy College and is pursuing a job as a plumber.

Hayden Island residents frustrated over increasing crime.  People who live on Hayden Island say the homeless crisis and crime seem to be getting out of hand.  They feel crime is rampant and, according to statistics, they're right.  Portland Police Bureau data show crime on Hayden Island is the worst it's been in the last five years.  Property crimes like theft, burglary and larceny make up the vast majority. [...] Interstate 5 running through the island makes it a prime target; people coming from the south in Oregon or the north in Washington are able to quickly hop on and off the island to commit crimes there or escape being caught.  Residents see cars without license plates all over the neighborhood and believe they're stolen and brought to the area to be stripped.

The Editor says...
Interstate 5 is not the culprit.  Private automobiles are not the issue.  Soft-on-crime Democrat politicians and activist judges are the problem.  The solution is to build more prisons and eliminate early releases of violent criminals.  The word will get around, and crime will drop quickly.

My scooter was stolen last week. Unknown to the thief, I hid two Airtags inside it.  [Thread reader]  I was able to use the Apple Find My network and UWB direction finding to recover the scooter today. [...] Here are a few lessons learned if you're using Airtags for theft recovery:
  [#1]   Use an Airtag adhesive that blends in and muffles noise.  It's clear my thief was looking for them.
  [#2]   Do not turn on Lost Mode.  It immediately alerts the thief they're being tracked.
  [#3]   Act quickly, before the anti-stalking feature kicks in.  Damage done to my handlebars was likely in response to the regular noises from the Airtag.
  [#4]   Limit your in-person interactions and always involve the police.  Don't try to retrieve your stolen goods until you have backup.

The Bad Path of Relativizing the Rule of Law.  Progressive leaders have tacitly permitted criminals to run life off the tracks and ruin it by relativizing the rule of law and behaving as if it applies to everyone else but them.  Conceptually, enforcing the law is the solution, but progressives don't see it that way.  America's cities are testaments to the abject failures of these policies because violent crime has escalated, especially murder.  Yet progressive district attorneys adamantly refuse to prosecute them.  Moreover, the movement to eliminate cash bail steadily gained traction as it has in New York, which attenuates accountability.  It is incumbent upon district attorneys to prosecute all those who commit violent crimes.  But district attorneys Larry Krasner in Philadelphia and Cyrus Vance, Jr. in New York don't see it that way.  According to Niall McCarthy, a data journalist for Statista, the world's leading statistical database, murder rates have risen 52% and 32%, respectively, in those jurisdictions during the first half of 2020 when compared to the same period in 2019.

When Confidence in Our Institutions Collapses.  Sometimes, stories that appear unrelated share common foundations and have cumulative effects, far more serious than any one does individually.  Highlighting these common features tells us something profound about our society and its troubles.  That's the case with four stories over the past few days.  The first two involve police.  One concerns a New York City gang member who attacked multiple officers and shot one of them.  The suspect had more than 25 prior arrests for guns, drug offenses, and other crimes.  He was known to be part of a gang affiliated with the "Bloods."  Yet Jerome Roman was roaming the streets, gun in hand, out on bail.  It is a story repeated dozens of times each week across the country.  The second story involves the inability of Portland, Ore., to recruit police to fight the city's stunning murder epidemic.  For some reason, Portland just can't find people willing to join the special unit designed to stop the killings.

New reforms cause 'confusion and uncertainty,' WA police say.  Several new police reform laws took effect in Washington last week, requiring de-escalation by police and restricting their use of force.  The new laws are proving to be controversial among law enforcement agencies, with police chiefs pointing to confusion over how they should be implemented.  But supporters say the new laws reflect the public will, and should be given time to work.  The state's new "use of force" law raises the bar for when police can detain someone who is running away.  Within days of the law taking effect, the Pierce County Sheriff's office said those new restrictions prevented deputies from pursuing a murder suspect in Puyallup.

Electronic monitoring for violent criminals in Chicago and Cook County is a failure.  The far-left has taken over many elected prosecutor's offices, including Chesa Boudin in San Francisco, George Gascon in Los Angeles County, Marilyn Mosby in Baltimore, and Kim Foxx in Cook County, where Chicago is the county seat.  As I sadly live in Crook County I'm going focus on Foxx, Cook County's state's attorney and Jussie Smollett's protector, who among other things, refuses to prosecute shoplifters with a felony unless they are accused of stealing merchandise worth more than $1,000.  Foxx is also a huge supporter of electronic monitoring of criminal suspects.  Small-time crooks often move on to bigger crimes.  The "broken-windows" practice of policing that Rudy Giuliani put into place during his eight years as mayor of New York — his cops aggressively cracked down on petty criminals — led to a major decrease in violent crime. [...] The soft-on-crime approach of Foxx has been a disaster for Cook County residents, particular minorities who Foxx claims to champion.

You've made your bed, now lie in it.
Portland wants to walk back defunding the police but officers don't want the jobs.  Last June Portland's Mayor Ted Wheeler, who is also the police commissioner, decided to put an end to the Gun Violence Reduction Team (GVRT) as part of an effort to reimagine policing.  The $6 million that would have gone to the team was redirected " toward communities of color."  Even at the time the assistant chief of police warned their could be serious consequences. [...][ Daryl Turner, the head of Portland's Police Union issued a similar warning.  "That is going to cripple us in our ability to be able to stop violence in the streets of the city of Portland," he said.  After the GVRT was cut, the number of shootings and murders in Portland skyrocketed.  Last September there were 110 shootings in Portland, a 243% jump compared to a year earlier.  At the end of the year, Portland had more than 900 shootings, double the previous year.  The spike in violence continued into 2021.

Chesa Boudin stands up for shoplifters and drug dealers.  San Francisco's broad-daylight retail heists have shocked the nation in their brazenness.  They've triggered the closings of stores, such as Walgreens, and the shortening of hours from retail giants such as Target.  Forty-four percent of city is planning to move out, with 80% citing out-of-control crime.  But the shoplifters have got a defender, too — in San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin.  So do the drug dealers.  The only problems out that Chesa sees are the victims.  Which tells us a lot about the state of moral bankruptcy of the wokester movement, and what the New Yorker dismisses as the "backlash."

Do We Have to Watch Their Wretched Movie All Over Again?  Calendar year 2020 saw a 25% increase in homicides, the highest since 1960 and higher than in any single year in the 1965-75 decade when the number of violent crimes almost tripled.  They seem to be rising by similar rates this year.  Many people don't like to admit it, but this is obviously a result of the de-policing movement urged by Black Lives Matter and cheered on by liberal editorial writers, corporate moguls and Silicon Valley monopolists.  They applauded and declared exempt from COVID-19 restrictions the "mostly peaceful" demonstrations against supposed systemic police misconduct.  Few, if any, deplored the nearly 600 violent riots that caused some $2 billion in damage.  If the experience of the 1960s is a guide, this will severely damage modest-income neighborhoods for decades after.

Denver Police Chief Attributes Rise In Violent Crime To Felons Released On Low Or No Bonds.  Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen has had it.  He says his officers are arresting a record number of armed felons, but the Denver County Court and Denver District Attorney's Office are releasing them with low or no bonds.  In a desperate attempt to address the issue, he's forming a partnership with federal agents so the cases will be heard in federal court instead, where prosecutors and judges show less leniency toward violent offenders.  Pazen says a DPD officer and federal agent will respond together to active shooting scenes and review cases involving felons who are accused of illegally having a weapon.

Irony, Absurdity, and Dishonesty — The Democrat Party's Playbook.  Amid the turmoil and trauma in the aftermath of George Floyd dying in police custody (for which Officer Derrick Chauvin was convicted and sentenced for murder), the outpouring of emotion and outrage became a call to "Defund the Police." [...] Nature abhors a vacuum, and human nature is just the same.  It is a sad fact that we live in a fallen world and when lawful authority exits or is diminished, criminals will enter and increase.  It was entirely predictable and has happened as predicted.  There is a crime wave sweeping the nation in those cities and municipalities run by liberal, "woke" Democrat politicians.  Minorities and the poor have suffered the most.  This has not helped but has added immeasurable suffering, misery, and devastation.  Do these elected Democrats display any sense of accountability or responsibility for such a poorly conceived policy?  NO!  They trot out talking points and try to blame Republicans for the mess they made.

Chicago's top cop blames current wave of deadly gun violence on courts letting out violent offenders from jail too quickly.  Chicago's top officer once again took aim at the city's court system by saying judges released violent offenders into the street amid a wave of gun violence in the city during a press conference on Monday [7/26/2021].  Police Superintendent David Brown said the city could not risk having violent criminals in the streets after last week's mayhem, which left at least 12 people dead and 70 injured across the Windy City.  'What we can do different is challenge the courts to render Chicago safe,' Brown said in the televised conference.  'Holding offenders in jail longer, not releasing murderers back into our community.  That's what we can do different.'

Birth control for California female prisons as 'trans women' move in.  A reader emails:  Wow.  CA is just packed with genius.  Here's another brilliant idea.  Let male prisoners who "identify as female" to be housed with women in prison. [...] Thomas Lifson adds:  How many rapes will there be?  Given the level of violence in men's prisons, which these biological males understandably want to escape, my guess is that there will be a lot.  Crickets from NOW and the media feminists.

Democratic mayors in 20 cities that have slashed police budgets also use millions of taxpayers' dollars to fund their own personal security.  At least 20 mayors from cities that have called to defund the police enjoy the perks of private security at a cost to taxpayers of millions of dollars a year.  In February, San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced plans to redirect $120 million from the police department to a combination of new and existing programs.  Meanwhile, the city spent $2.6 million to protect her in 2020, a number that will likely increase this year.

Why Democrats Don't Care About Crime.  American cities are reeling from increased crime ranging from burglary and arson to murder.  Americans, rightly, are concerned — except for Democrat officials.  San Francisco, a bastion of progressive stupidity, is among the hardest hit cities — yet the San Francisco lunatics who run the city claim anyone concerned with rising crime is a white supremacist.  This is common from among the Democrat intelligentsia and leadership.  To understand why Democrats don't care about crime, we must turn to two prophets of the new anti-American ideology.  Antonio Gramsci and Michel Foucault are essential to understand to enter the deluded mind of the modern progressive and why they are happy to let American cities burn rather than confront crime and stop the desecration of America's once iconic cities.

Keywords:  Flip-flop, lesson learned the hard way, oops, about face.
After deadly weekend, Seattle's mayor says it's time to rebuild police force that has lost 250 officers.  There were four people killed in Seattle early Sunday, plus at least six more injured in unconnected shootings.  That was in addition to another deadly shooting that happened Friday night bringing the weekend total to five deaths. [...] Today Mayor Jenny Durkan gave a press conference about the weekend violence in which she pointed out that lack of police staffing was part of the problem.  "Over the past 17 months the Seattle Police Department has lost 250 police officers," Durkan said.  She continued, "We're on path to losing 300 officers.  We are creating meaningful alternatives but as I said last year the city has an obligation to still continue constitutional policing and respond to 911 calls.

Breaking the Crime Wave.  A contagion of crime and a growing epidemic of drug abuse afflicted the nation as well and infected almost every community and neighborhood in America.  The Big Apple has gone from one of the safest metropolitan areas in America to a city terrorized by a nearly 100 percent increase in shootings and a stunning 44 percent rise in murder last year.  In April, police in Brooklyn stopped a man named Takim Newson for suspicion of driving under the influence.  When Newson admitted that he was high, the officer asked him to step out of the car.  Instead, Newson sped away, dragging the officer several yards.  Newson then tried to rob a 66-year-old woman in her home and stole a car.  After a manhunt, he was apprehended and put in jail.  But what's remarkable is that he should have been behind bars to begin with:  he had been charged with attempted murder two months before but had been released without bail, against the advice of even his own defense attorney.  This story of weak-on-crime policies resulting in pain and suffering for innocent Americans and selfless police is not unique.  It has played out in countless communities across the country.

California Is Experiencing a Crime 'Tsunami': Sacramento DA.  According to a Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) released in 2021, four major cities in the state have encountered an increase in homicide and car thefts.  Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego, and San Francisco are experiencing such heightened crime, following a drop in violent crime in March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic began.  Data provided by PPIC shows that in 2020, Los Angeles reported a 40 percent homicide increase from 2019; Oakland reported a 36 percent increase.  San Francisco and San Diego both reported increases from 41 to 48 percent and 50 percent to 55 percent, respectively.  In January and February 2021, violent crime fell 12 percent compared to the first few months of 2020.  PPIC attributed the decrease to fewer robberies and aggravated assaults.  Out of the four cities, Oakland was the only one that recorded an increase in aggravated assaults, of about 10 percent.

The Editor says...
Crime statistics are meaningless if whole categories of crime are ignored; for example, thefts under $950.  Ignoring felonies doesn't reduce crime, it only reduces crime statistics.

D.C. Police Chief Unloads on Lax Court System after Shooting: 'You Cannot Coddle Violent Criminals'.  Washington, D.C., police chief Robert J. Contee III slammed what he described as a malfunctioning justice system on Friday morning following a shooting in the crowded 14th street commercial district Thursday night.  [Tweet]  Gunmen shot two people on the city's upscale 14th Street, in an incident captured on video.  Police have recorded 105 homicides in the city so far this year, while 2020 saw a 16-year high of 198 homicides.

'Their Hands Are Tied': San Francisco Locals Demand Change To Stop Brazen Crime.  San Francisco local businesses and employees are calling for change as they describe increasingly brazen shoplifting and car break-ins.  Many residents told Fox News they believe changing California law Proposition 47 is the solution.  "The police are actually wonderful, their hands are tied, that's what's going on out here."  Gianni, a local who works in Fisherman's Wharf, told Fox News.  San Francisco Police Department's Public Information Officer, Robert Rueca explained "There's a threshold of 950 dollars that needs to be met in order for a misdemeanor to turn into a felony when it comes to theft."

DC leaders struggle with rising crime after cutting police.  Crime in Washington, D.C., is on the rise as city leaders grapple with fixes to public safety problems that are, in part, of their own creation.  A pair of headline-grabbing shootings dragged the district into the spotlight over the weekend, renewing focus over the city's decision to cut millions of dollars from its police budget in response to pressure from activists.  On Friday [7/16/2021], 6-year-old Nyiah Courtney was killed while riding her scooter during a drive-by shooting that left five adults injured.  A day later, gunfire outside Nationals Park stadium sent baseball fans scrambling for cover in the ensuing chaos that led league officials to postpone the game.

License to shoplift:  Two thieves brazenly stroll out of TJ Maxx with armfuls of clothes.  Two men casually walked out of a Los Angeles area TJ Maxx with their arms full of what appears to be stolen goods as brazen shoplifters continue to rampage through California retail stores.  Viral video posted earlier this week shows two men carrying armfuls of jeans, jackets and other apparel as they casually saunter out of a TJ Maxx in the Granada Hills section of the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles.  'That looks great,' one man is heard saying in the video as the two men head toward the door with the stolen loot, making no haste as they leave.

George Soros Funnels $1M To Defund the Police as Violent Crime Surges.  George Soros is funneling money to support defunding the police, a cause that cost Democrats politically in the 2020 election as violent crime spiked across the country.  Soros gave $1 million to Color Of Change PAC on May 14, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission.  It is the progressive billionaire's largest political contribution of the 2021 election cycle and his first to the political action committee since 2016.  The contribution from one of the Democratic establishment's biggest donors could further undercut the party's efforts to downplay allegations that it backs defunding police departments.  Republicans have hammered Democrats over their position on policing as violent crime has skyrocketed nationwide.  As part of the effort to beat back the allegations, the White House has accused Republicans of supporting the defund movement — a claim the liberal Washington Post gave "three Pinocchios" earlier this month.

This Is What's Become Of California Since They Decriminalized Shoplifting.  This is what is happening daily in California these days now that legislators voted in Prop 47, where thefts under $950 will not be prosecuted, so cops will not bother showing up.  The account shared a shocking video Tuesday of what they call an "organized shoplifting crew" hitting a TJ Maxx store in La Canada Flintridge, an L.A. environ.  The video shows two black men casually strolling out of the store with their arms full of merchandise still on their hangers.  One of the men carries a large, oversized duffle bag on his back, clearly filled with more items.

Pausing a minute to consider the damage leftism does to America.  In California, robberies of items worth less than $950 are misdemeanors, not felonies.  Moreover, in both San Francisco and Los Angeles, the prosecutors whom George Soros placed in office will not prosecute crimes.  They exist to protect criminals, not law-abiding citizens.  And that is how you end up with this video:  [Video clip]

This Shocking Video Shows Just How Brazen Crime In California Has Become.  California's slide into chaos has not been an accident.  A huge reason for the striking rise in homelessness and both petty and violent crime is Prop 47, a bill deceptively titled the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act.  The actual bill couldn't be further from the title.  It reduces the penalties for felony crimes, allows for early release of violent criminals, changes some violent felonies to misdemeanors, and allows criminals to steal up to $950 dollars per day in property without prosecution.  As a result, police officers are less and less likely to respond to calls reporting petty theft, as there isn't much they can do with a suspect.

Illegal vendors overrun the Bronx after police responsibilities canceled.  New York City put a new law into effect this year that "relieved" the police of the responsibility of managing illegal street vending operations and sidewalk gambling activities.  This was part of the movement to defund or abolish the police.  Instead of having cops maintain the situation, that responsibility was handed over to a group of civilian "intervention" specialists.  The theory behind this law was that confrontations with the police over so-called "quality of life" crimes could lead to more instances where the police would need to use force to clear the streets and gain compliance.  The problem is that the new agency tasked with these responsibilities was given no authority to confiscate goods or take anyone into custody.  They aren't even allowed to demand to see the identification of the people they "intervene" with.  Would anyone care to take a guess as to what happened next?

The American Descent into Madness.  [Scroll down]  Crime is another current absurdity.  There exists a mini-industry of internet videos depicting young people, disproportionately African American males, stealing luxury goods from Nieman-Marcus in San Francisco, clearing a shelf from a Walgreens with impunity, or assaulting Asian Americans.  These iconic moments may be unrepresentative of reality, but given the mass transfers and retirements of police, and the frightening statistics of large increases in violent crime in certain cities, the popular conception is now entrenched that it is dangerous to walk in our major metropolises, either by day or at night.  Chicago has turned into Tombstone or Dodge City in the popular imagination.  Scarier still is the realization that if one is robbed, assaulted, or finds one's car vandalized, it is near certain the miscreant will never be held to account.  Either the police have pulled back and find arrests of criminals a lose-lose situation, or radical big-city district attorneys see the law as a critical legal theory construct, and thus will not enforce it.  Or the criminal will be arrested and released within hours.  So a subculture has developed among Americans, of passing information about where in the country it is safe, where it is not, and where one can go, where one cannot.  This is clearly not America, but something bizarre out of Sao Paulo, Durban, or Caracas.

California is releasing 76K inmates early, including violent felons.  With little notice, California on Saturday is increasing early release credits for 76,000 inmates, including violent and repeat felons, as it further trims the population of what once was the nation's largest state correctional system.  More than 63,000 inmates convicted of violent crimes will be eligible for good behavior credits that shorten their sentences by one-third instead of the one-fifth that had been in place since 2017.  That includes nearly 20,000 inmates who are serving life sentences with the possibility of parole.

Kimberly Gardner's St Louis Prosecutors Don't Show Up To Court, Known Felon Accused of First Degree Murder Released.  This is just incredible.  Jaw dropping.  Circuit Attorney Kimberly M Gardner is the same prosecutor filing charges against the McCloskeys for defending their home in Saint Louis.  Incredibly her office was charging a previously convicted felon with first-degree murder, and the prosecutor assigned to the case took maternity leave leaving no one to show up in court.  After three missed court hearings by prosecutors, the judge was forced to drop a murder case because no one other than the defense, a public defender, was showing up in court.  This is a jaw-dropping example of a prosecutors office is a state of horrible mismanagement.  Compounding the issue Ms. Gardner doesn't even attempt to justify the collapse of the justice system; she just says whoopsie.

Radical Travis County DA Garza Drops Indictment Against Cop, Claims 'New Evidence'.  There may be a movie's worth of drama going on inside the Travis County (Texas) District Attorney's Office.  Jose Garza won that office on a platform of, basically, letting criminals go free and indicting cops.  Voters should pay more attention to what local office-seekers are saying.  Sometimes they actually mean it, and Garza did.  If Austin had a dashboard, all the lights would be blinking red.  Austin, the capital of Texas and the heart and seat of Travis County, has suffered at least 47 homicides in 2021.  Violent crime is spiking.  Police officers are leaving in droves, leaving the streets much less defended from crime than before.  That wasn't Garza's doing, Austin Mayor Steve Adler led the defunding of APD in August 2020 (and has proceeded to gaslight the city that he didn't), but that together with Garza's pro-release priorities are putting convicted felons back on the streets, where they are emboldened, while police officers face hostility from the Austin government, forced critical race theory indoctrination (more on that in due time), and the demoralizing prospect of facing an indictment from Garza, even if their cases have already been adjudicated.

Chesa Boudin's free pass for shoplifters drives San Francisco store owners to lock all goods behind glass cases.  San Francisco is famous for its tech trend-setting, but here's a different kind of trend-setting now that it's got a leftist prosecutor who won't do his job:  Shopping from behind locked glass-case barriers.  Not just some goods, but now, all the goods.  Here's what appears to be a citizen video, from someone trying to get the attention of the local press, of the Safeway supermarket at Church and Market in an area between the Mission district and the Castro district.  [Tweet]  Obviously, this is an attempt to thwart shoplifters, given the retail theft free-for-all going on in that city.  The problem didn't just crop up out of nowhere, it's the result of city policy.  Radical left-wing District Attorney Chesa Boudin, raised by Bill Ayers, and formerly Hugo Chavez's advisor, has declared shoplifting effectively legal if the value of the stolen goods is under $950.

Progressive Policies Won't Stop the Crime Wave.  With last year's devastating homicide spike continuing, some proponents of "progressive" criminal-justice reforms are more convinced than ever that they have the right approach.  Eric Levitz, writing at New York's Intelligencer blog, views 2020's 30 percent year-over-year increase in murder not as a political liability but as yet another reason to support a progressive reform agenda — one that reduces the footprints of incarceration and policing. [...] Levitz offers the usual battery of non-policing approaches: investing in preschool, summer jobs, and violence-interruption programs; increasing the minimum wage; expanding health insurance; and erecting barriers to firearm acquisition.  The available evidence lends some support to the idea that these tactics can reduce crime.  But they don't — on their own or together — offer the same reliability and extensibility that the traditional methods of policing and incarceration do.

Leftists can't connect the dots.  It is understandable that some people believe that Democrat mayors, like Bill de Blasio of N.Y. and Lori Lightfoot of Chicago, are bringing their cities down on purpose.  How else can one explain such cluelessness and inability to envision the dreadful outcomes of their reckless policies?  Blue cities release criminals from jail, refuse to prosecute serious crimes, and cut police budgets.  Much of the population, including the most vulnerable, are able to make a connection to soaring crime, but they are made to survive the consequences of corruption, lack of vision, and failed leadership.  The left cannot or will not connect the dots because leftists play by their own rules and don't seem to care about the results.

NYC sex workers rampant in open-air prostitution market amid lax enforcement.  [Scroll down]  When the police ride through — in both marked and unmarked cars — business mostly carries on without interruption.  While cruising down the block one night, a cop flashed the lights of their unmarked car in an apparent attempt at deterrence but took no other action.  Current and former vice cops told The [New York] Post that there's little incentive to make arrests, with the office of Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez moving away from prosecuting prostitution cases, a shift that began in mid-2019.  In January, Gonzalez's office moved to vacate some 262 warrants stemming from prostitution cases dating back to 2012.

LAPD to stop charging criminals for many offenses.  Law enforcement and the incarceration of known criminals is such a 20th-century concept, right?  That seems to be the message once again coming out of Los Angeles now that ultra-liberal George Gascon is in charge of the county District Attorney's office.  The latest announcement coming from the LAPD is that more suspects who are arrested for a variety of non-violent crimes, including some felonies, will not be taken to court, prosecuted, or put in jail.  Instead, they will be "diverted" to community support programs and social services.  Rather than incarceration, the suspects will be provided with "care and treatment" without facing the stigma of being treated like a criminal.  And just as a reminder, this new policy is being put in place at the same time that the city is facing a historic surge in crimes of all types.

After San Francisco shoplifting video goes viral, officials argue thefts aren't rampant.  A flurry of shoplifters in masks and hooded jackets sprinted from a downtown Neiman Marcus last week and into getaway cars with armfuls of designer handbags — a scene captured on video and raising fears that rings of thieves were hitting retail businesses.  The incident, which remains under investigation, was only the latest to give an impression of lawlessness running rampant in San Francisco's stores, where people have been caught on recordings openly swiping products seemingly without repercussion.  But city leaders are pushing back at that image after the release Monday [7/12/2021] of a midyear public safety report.  Police data shows overall thefts are down 9 percent in the first six months of the year compared to the same period in 2020, when the city was on lockdown and many businesses closed during the onset of the pandemic.

Mental health clinicians will start answering some 911 calls in Chicago — instead of cops.  For the first time in Chicago, some 911 calls for mental health emergencies won't be answered by police officers but by mental health professionals paired with paramedics.  In one pilot program starting this fall, a paramedic will be dispatched with a mental health clinician for "behavioral health calls."  In another, a paramedic will work with a "recovery specialist" on calls involving substance abuse.  Mental health clinicians will be on hand at the 911 center to monitor situations, but questions remain how well these new responders will be able to de-escalate violence that can erupt during such calls.  The "alternative response" programs are being launched amid continuing debate over the role of police after the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer last spring.

New York inmates offered food, conjugal visits, more to get COVID vaccine.  State prison officials are so desperate to get inmates vaccinated against COVID-19 that they're dangling care packages, barbecue parties and even conjugal visits, according to a memo issued this week to the nearly 34,000 jailbirds.  A mere 45 percent of New York's incarcerated felons have been inoculated, compared to more than 70 percent of the law-abiding population, Acting Corrections and Community Supervision Commissioner Anthony Annucci wrote.  Meanwhile, "many other state prison populations have much higher vaccination rates," Annucci lamented.  "To encourage you to do your part in this fight, the Department will implement an incentive program," he wrote Wednesday.

Sharp increase in police resignations after Black Lives Matter protests in 2020: study.  A new study by several academic researchers indicates a rising trend in U.S. police resignations over the past year, one that appears to have been exacerbated by the Black Lives Matter-led riots and protests that swept the country last year and generated a massive wave of anti-police criticism.  The study, written by University of Nebraska Distinguished Associate Professor of Criminology Justin Nix and University of Utah PhD candidates Scott Mourtgos and Ian Adams, found that within "a large police department in the western US" voluntary police resignations "increased by 279%" following last year's protests against the killing of Minneapolis resident George Floyd[.]  Noting their model "predicts that resignations will continue at an elevated level," the researchers urge officials to "be prepared to confront workforce decline and increased voluntary turnover."  The team undertook the study "because we'd seen all the headlines about cops quitting at higher rates, but hadn't seen any rigorous analyses," Nix told Just the News via email.

The Editor says...
It is not necessary to conduct a study to verify the obvious.  Anyone with the ability to make a logical deduction and a reasonable inference can see that the 2020 race riots were more than most cops bargained for when they signed up for their law enforcement jobs — especially since the rioters almost completely escaped punishment.  A rigorous analysis of the problem isn't necessary.  Solutions are more valuable.

'Career criminal' who shot random couple at Houston aquarium before killing himself was released from jail on bond in April.  The gunman in a murder-suicide at the Houston aquarium was a career criminal who suffered from mental illness and was out on bond at the time of the shooting.  Danny Cazares, 39, fatally shot Gabriel Moriones Vargas, 28, and injured his wife before tuning the gun on himself in a seemingly random act of violence on Thursday night.  Houston police said in a statement that Cazares had a history of mental illness and was arrested three times in the last year.  All three times, he was released from jail on bond.

In Many Cities In America, The Criminals Are Starting To Gain Firm Control Of The Streets.  Every week the horrendous crime wave that is sweeping across America seems to get even worse.  In some of our largest cities, looting, murder and violence are becoming a way of life, and authorities seem powerless to do anything about it.  Is this what we can expect life in the United States to look like moving forward?  All over the globe, people are watching us, and they are stunned by what they have been witnessing.  Criminals are wildly out of control, and many of our largest cities are being transformed into extremely violent war zones.

Murderer released on $15,000 bond as Jan. 6 protesters held indefinitely without bail.  Behold the breadth of brazenness in our two-tiered justice system.  In one America, we have career violent criminals released on low bail after murder and attempted murder, when the victim is terrified the criminal will attack again if not jailed.  In the other America, we have Trump supporters arrested for nonviolent acts of "trespassing" upon public property when Capitol Police held the doors to the building open — yet they are kept in jail for months without bail, despite no criminal record. [...] Earlier this week, WMC-TV news in Memphis reported on Lachrisa Oliver, a Memphis woman who survived a shooting in March who must now deal with the release of the alleged perpetrators into her neighborhood headed into the trial.  Tajuana and Teuana Ayers, along with an unnamed juvenile suspect, were arrested for a March 3 shooting that left Lachrisa in critical condition and her nephew dead on her doorstep.  Shockingly, Tajuana and Teuana, despite the murder and attempted murder charges, were released on just $15,000 and $25,000 bonds respectively.

🎶 You seize 16 tons, and what do you get? 🎶
$1.19 billion worth of marijuana seized in massive drug bust in California.  Authorities in Southern California have seized more than 16 tons of marijuana worth an estimated $1.19 billion, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department officials said Wednesday.  The 10-day sting is the largest eradication of illegal marijuana cultivations in the history of the department.  The operation, which began on June 8, resulted in 22 felony arrests, 109 misdemeanor arrests, and 19 arrests from water theft enforcement teams, officials said.  More than 200 locations were served with search warrants.  Nearly 375,000 marijuana plants and 33,480 pounds of harvested marijuana were seized, along with 65 vehicles, 180 animals and $28,000.

The 'Minneapolis Effect' Caused Last Year's Spike in Violent Crime.  The spike in violent crime last year was a serious departure from recent crime patterns over the last several decades.  In fact, 2020 was likely the deadliest year for gun-related homicides since 1999.  According to the Gun Violence Archive, more than 19,000 people died of gun violence in 2020.  This spike was particularly acute in major cities across the country.  For example, Minneapolis saw a 95% year-over-year increase in homicides between May and Aug. 1.  In Chicago, homicides more than doubled in July 2020, compared to 2019.  And New York experienced a 50% increase in homicides and a 112% increase in shootings.  Sadly, that is only the tip of the iceberg of cities that experienced this surge.  What caused that sudden spike?  Paul Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah and a former federal judge, persuasively answers that question in a recent law review article.

The Unlivable City.  People are fleeing California in general, and San Francisco in particular, in droves.  As to San Francisco, the fundamental problem is lawlessness.  Which means not just violent crime, which the city has in abundance, but a breakdown in the fundamental norms of civilization that make urban living possible.  The main problem is that San Francisco's far-left city administration has decided not to prosecute theft.  The result, naturally, is an epidemic of theft.  Thus Target, for example, is now closing its San Francisco stores at 6 p.m. [...] How low has San Francisco sunk?  Check out this video of thieves openly stealing handbags and similar products from a Neiman Marcus store:  [Video clip]

What's happening in San Francisco goes far beyond 'shoplifting'.  We're hearing a lot about the overwhelming number of murders and attempted murders in Chicago and New York.  San Francisco, however, has gone in a different direction.  It seems to have become the "shoplifting" capital of America.  This honor goes along with its long having been the capital of America for car break-ins.  It's so bad that I know suburbanites who refuse to drive in the City.  The latest "shoplifting" video is an impressive one, showing a whole gang of thieves racing out of San Francisco's Neiman Marcus store on Union Square, clutching what appears to be thousands of dollars in handbags.

Furious shopper posts video of horde of shoplifters fleeing Neiman Marcus.  A video posted to Instagram captures yet another brazen act of shoplifting in San Francisco, this time at the luxury department store Neiman Marcus where at least ten people stole armfuls of designer goods and then fled without anyone trying to stop them.  The footage reveals the shoplifters leaving the Union Square store, each carrying bags of stolen items with the security tags still dangling off of them.  The perpetrators then ran in different directions, with a few speeding away from the scene in a white sedan.  One person watching says, 'They can't do anything,' perhaps referring to security at Neiman Marcus.

The Genesis of Our American Collective Meltdown.  [Scroll down]  The Left says it has not defunded the police because there are still police to be seen.  But progressives have done something far more insidious:  America has destroyed police deterrence by a year of anti-police venom, by prosecutors selectively and asymmetrically exempting the arrested, and by prompting police retirements, resignations or simple slowdowns.  There is now in the minds of all big-city cops a constant cost-to-benefit calculation: going into the inner city has become a lose/lose/lose/lose/lose proposition in which a 911 call from the danger zone can get an officer killed, injured, fired, suspended, imprisoned, or rendered a fool, as the successfully arrested are summarily let go.

Target, Walgreens make drastic changes due to increase in San Francisco thefts.  According to the California Retailer's Association three cities in our state are among the top 10 in the country when it comes to organized retail crime — Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento.  Already we are seeing the negative impact it is having in San Francisco with stores permanently shutting down or closing early.  It has become one of the most pressing issues in our city today.  Target has now acknowledged that San Francisco is the only city in America where they have decided to close some stores early because of the escalating retail crime.

Biden polls horribly on his handling of rising crime.  Americans are giving President Biden dismal ratings on his handling of rising crime, a new poll found.  The ABC News/Washington Post poll released Friday morning revealed that just 38 percent of Americans approve of the 46th commander-in-chief's response to recent crime spikes nationwide.  On the other side, 48 percent said they disapproved.  As crime rates have continued to surge, lawmakers have been quick to point fingers to avoid their party taking blame.  Republicans have largely argued that Democrats' efforts to defund the police, remove qualified immunity for police officers and introduce cashless bail have all contributed to the budding crisis.

Judge Orders Minneapolis to Hire More Police Officers Amid Crime Surge.  A judge on July 1 ruled in favor of a group that filed a lawsuit demanding more police officers be brought into the city, after city council members and activist groups advocated to replace the police department following the death of George Floyd.  Hennepin County District Judge Jamie Anderson issued a writ of mandamus ordering the city to hire more police officers, specifically that Minneapolis should have at least 730 officers or .0017 of the 2020 census population, whichever is higher, by the end of June 2022.  An unprecedented number of officers quit or went on extended medical leave after Floyd's death and the unrest that followed, which included the burning of a police precinct.  With new recruit classes, the city anticipates it will have 674 officers available at the end of the year, with another 28 in the hiring process, the Star Tribune reported.

What Was California Thinking?  Back in 2014, the political leadership of California became alarmed at the rapidly rising prison population in the state.  The state was also under court order to reduce the overcrowding in state prisons. [...] The first thing they did was pass Proposition 47 — the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act.  That sounds like something everyone would want.  58% of Californians voted in favor of the measure. [...] Nothing in Prop 47 was designed to actually reduce crime.  It redefined drug use and theft of property valued at under $950 as misdemeanors rather than felonies.  Punishment would no longer be imprisonment, but a fine of $1,000.  The objective of prison population reduction was achieved by not incarcerating criminals, rather than by eliminating criminal behavior. [...] Prop 47 also allows those imprisoned under previous guidelines to petition for early release.  If a convict is in prison for stealing less than $950, he is now eligible for early release.  As many as 10,000 state prisoners have been released.

Amid Surging Crime Rates And Murders, Oakland City Council Votes To Defund Police.  Despite recently receiving $190 million from the Biden Administration, the City Council of Oakland, California voted Thursday to defund their police department by almost $18 million.  The city's crime rates have skyrocketed, seeing a 90 percent increase in murders, 88 percent increase in carjackings, and 70 percent increase in shootings all in the last year.  Sixty-five lives have been lost, and 1,300 robberies have been recorded, yet, the city redirected police funds toward the Department of Violence Prevention, "with the intention of improving public safety" via alternate means.  On Monday [6/28/2021], the Department of Violence Prevention's chief was interrupted during an on-camera interview by an attempted armed robbery.  The department's chief was being interviewed on the steps of Oakland City Hall, when they were attacked.  The suspects remain outstanding.

Cotton: Biden's Crime Policy Is 'I Hope You Don't Get Shot'.  Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) slammed President Joe Biden's recent remarks on rising violent crime, claiming that the president's crime policy could be summed up as "I hope you don't get shot" on "Life, Liberty, and Levin" Sunday evening.  "He said that crime goes up in the summertime, so we should expect crime to continue to rise over the next three months, as if he's trying to apologize in advance for what he knows is going to be a dangerous summer," Cotton told host Mark Levin.  "I guess Joe Biden's crime policy is 'well, I hope you don't get shot when you go out to a restaurant with your husband or wife this summer.'"

Homicides Have Skyrocketed in These 6 Democratic Cities.  Black People Are Disproportionately the Victims, Data Shows.  The Daily Caller News Foundation collected homicide data from Chicago, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and Indianapolis, some of the only cities in which such data is readily available.  Most major cities have limited statistics tracking 2021 murders and homicide victims.  The percentage of murder victims in Chicago that were black increased from 70% in 2020 to 81% in 2021 while that figure increased from 60% to 90% year-over-year in Milwaukee, the data showed.  In one of the cities analyzed, the percentage of black victims decreased, but the raw number of black victims still increased.  Democratic leaders of most of the cities examined voted to greatly reduce police funding amid widespread Black Lives Matter protests last year.  In the wake of the death of George Floyd, who died after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck in May 2020, thousands of protests and riots took place across the country.

Critics demand answers as to why accused Bronx gang shooter was on the streets.  The gangbanger accused of opening fire on a Bronx street inches away from two terrified children was inexplicably set free after a knifepoint robbery — and critics on Saturday demanded answers about why he was sprung in the first place.  Michael Lopez was charged in the Manhattan robbery in January 2020, a crime he allegedly committed while on parole for other offenses.  "Somebody has to answer for this guy," said Joseph Giacalone, an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former NYPD sergeant.  Lopez, 27, was arrested Friday on attempted murder and other charges in the shocking June 17 sidewalk shooting, which was captured on video seen around the world.

Cops Quit in Droves as Crime Skyrockets and 'Defund' Movement Grows.  Police retirements and resignations rose significantly over the course of the last year amid widespread riots and coinciding calls to defund the police, according to a survey of about 200 police departments nationwide.  The survey of roughly 200 police departments revealed that retirements were "up 45 percent and resignations rose by 18 percent in the year from April 2020 to April 2021 when compared with the previous 12 months, according to the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington policy institute," as reported by the New York Times.

Democrats Trying to Rewrite History on 'Defund the Police'.  The Democrats must have internal polling on 'defund the police' that's truly awful, because some of them are already trying to rewrite the history of the issue.  With violent crime on the rise in many American cities and a midterm election around the corner, Democrats suddenly don't want to be associated with this at all.  They also think you're dumb enough to believe they never advocated this position.

Oklahoma Drug Dealer Accidentally Released From Prison, Turns Himself Back In.  A man convicted of several charges was released from the Oklahoma County jail in April instead of being transferred to a state prison.  A jail spokesperson said the inmate was accidentally released two months ago after pleading guilty to several charges including drug trafficking.  [Video clip]

Convicted Drug Dealer Accidentally Released From Oklahoma County Jail.  Officials at the Oklahoma County jail are trying to figure out why a convicted drug dealer was accidentally freed in April.  On April 12, Reimundo Cuevas was sentenced to 25 years in prison after pleading guilty to six counts of trafficking meth and other charges.  Days later, Cuevas was allowed to walk freely out of the Oklahoma County jail, where he was waiting to be transported to prison.

Portland Police Limit Traffic Stops, Searches in [Pursuit] of "Racial Equity".  Police in Portland, Oregon's largest city, are being advised to no longer pursue low-level traffic infractions — including expired plates and broken headlights — unless related to an immediate safety threat, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and Police Chief Chuck Lovell announced Tuesday [6/22/2021].  According to the changes to the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) protocols, officers will no longer prioritize making traffic stops for the enforcement of low-level traffic infractions, such as expired tags or minor equipment issues, that aren't immediate public safety threats.  Also, officers will follow new consent search protocols that will "help ensure residents are aware of their Fourth Amendment rights."  If police do stop a driver, they must receive recorded consent before searching the vehicle and clearly inform the person they have the right to refuse.  Police Chief Lovell has instructed his officers to not pull citizens over for "less serious, non-moving violations" and instead focus on those who are making the road unsafe for others, including anyone driving under the influence and reckless drivers.

Austin's Homicide Number Passes 40 As Defunding the Police Takes Its Toll.  Austin Mayor Steve Adler and Council Member Greg Casar defunded the city's police in the name of racial justice and equity.  Did they anticipate that their decision would result in a skyrocketing murder rate that disproportionately impacts the city's minorities?  That's what's happening.  Austin suffered 47 homicides in all of 2020, which was the worst year for homicides in a decade. 2021, the year in which defunding the police kicked in, will surely surpass 2020's total.  Two fatal shootings in Givens Park on the city's east side this week push the 2021 homicide total to 41 so far.

Texas forced to empty out prison to accommodate illegal immigrants they're being forced to arrest.  As the Biden administration continues to abdicate its obligation to defend the southern border, states such as Texas have decided to take matters into their own hands.  Unfortunately, the law of unintended consequences will force the Lonestar State to empty out a prison located in south Texas in order to make room for an expected influx of inmates arrested for illegally crossing the border, the Epoch Times reports.  A spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), Jeremy Desel said that officials will be transferring inmates from the Dolph Briscoe Unit prison in Dilley, Texas, to other prisons in order to accommodate the expected surge.

Why won't the national media cover the story Americans care about most?  It's a very basic concept of journalism:  Cover the stories that impact your viewers and readers most, the stories they most care about.  But for one very big story, there's been relative silence from our national media, just passing mentions.  It is the skyrocketing violent crime that is paralyzing many major American cities while prompting record numbers of police officers either resigning or retiring.  Here's a look around the country at what many cities are dealing with: [...]

San Francisco Walgreens shoplifter seen filling bag with stolen goods arrested while 'clearing shelves': cops.  The man allegedly seen in viral video stealing a garbage bag full of items as he rode a bike through a San Francisco Walgreens location was nabbed over the weekend — while he was "clearing shelves" at a different drug store, officials have announced.  Jean Lugo-Romero was arrested around 8:30 a.m.  Saturday after officers spotted him entering a store on Haight Street, San Francisco Police Department said in a recent press release.  At the time, police officers who recognized him followed Lugo-Romero, 40, into the drug store "to find him clearing shelves of cosmetics and placing the merchandise into a duffel bag," SFPD said.  After arresting him, officers determined the stolen goods were collectively worth approximately $978, police said.

The Degeneration of Public Administration.  In 1829, Sir Robert Peel, then home secretary (and later to be prime minister), established the Metropolitan Police Force in London, often considered the world's first modern police department.  He did so according to nine famous principles, then without precedent and thought to have been written by the two joint commissioners of the force being established. [...] The more ineffectual the police become, it seems, the more menacing the manner they adopt toward the public and the more militarized they look.  They are no longer the bobbies of old but more and more like the security detail of some vile authoritarian movement.  They frighten everyone except the criminals, and the description of them by the journalist Peter Hitchens (brother of the late Christopher) seems ever more apposite:  "paramilitary social workers, jingling with clubs, Tasers, pepper sprays and often guns, schooled in political dogmas and vigilant for political correctness."

Fury as New York prosecutors DROP looting charges against hundreds arrested during riots last summer, with Manhattan DA 'too busy building his case against Trump'.  Business owners and residents in New York City are expressing fury at the revelation that prosecutors have dropped looing and rioting charges against hundreds arrested during chaos that swept the city last summer.  After 603 were arrested in Manhattan and the Bronx during the most intense days of looting last June, 295 of the cases have been dropped completely, according to NYPD data reported by WNBC-TV on Friday [6/18/2021].  Now Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr and Bronx DA Darcel D. Clark are facing tough questions about why hundreds walked free after the looting rampage caused an estimated tens of millions in damages.

Charges [have been] dropped for hundreds of alleged looters in New York City.  In late May and early June 2020, looters smashed storefronts in the Bronx and Manhattan boroughs of New York City.  Many were caught on tape, some with their faces visible.  Others even posted their own videos of their actions those nights on social media.  Hundreds were arrested.  But a review of NYPD data by the investigative team at WNBC, the NBC owned station in New York, shows that a large percentage of the cases — particularly in the Bronx — were dismissed, and that many convictions were for counts like trespassing that carry no jail time.

DC Elects Incarcerated Murderer To Office In Nation's Capital.  An inmate at the DC Jail on Tuesday [6/15/2021] became the first incarcerated person ever elected to office in the nation's capital.  Joel Caston was elected on Jun 15 to be the advisory neighborhood commissioner for District 7F07, which includes the correctional facility, a women's shelter, and a recently-opened luxury apartment building, NBC News reported.  Caston, 44, has been incarcerated for 26 years.

The Editor says...
It has been shown in the last 12 months that a lot of people can work from home.  Give him a chance!

Portland's police riot team resigns after officer indicted over alleged assault on photographer.  All 50 of Portland police's highly trained rapid response unit voted unanimously to resign on Wednesday [6/16/2021] during a union meeting in response to the recent indictment of Officer Corey Budworth for allegedly assaulting a photographer with his baton during as an overnight riot broke out last August.  "Unfortunately, this decorated public servant has been caught in the crossfire of agenda-driven city leaders and a politicized criminal justice system," the Portland Police Association said in an initial statement Tuesday after a Multnomah County grand jury indicted Budworth on one count of fourth-degree assault related to an incident that occurred on Aug. 18, 2020.  That night, according to the police union, a group of about 200 demonstrators — many equipped with tactical helmets, faces covered, and armed with a variety of weapons — descended on the Multnomah Building in southeast Portland.  Multiple dumpsters were set on fire, buildings were defaced, and windows were broken.  A riot soon was declared at the planned event after someone from the crowd launched a Molotov cocktail into the Multnomah Building, setting it ablaze.

San Francisco cops say viral Walgreens shoplifting incident is par for the course.  San Francisco has become a shoplifter's paradise — with thieves like the one caught on video looting a Walgreens emboldened by relaxed punishment for the crime as businesses shutter, cops say.  The Walgreens heist, which happened right in front of a security guard, renewed the debate over a controversial city law called Proposition 47.  "What happened in that Walgreens has been going on in that city for quite a while," San Francisco police Lt. Tracy McCray said on Fox News' "America's Newsroom" Wednesday.  "I'm used to it," McCray continued.  "I mean, we can have a greatest hits compilation of people just walking in and cleaning out the store shelves and security guards, the people who work there, just standing by helplessly because they can't do anything."

Some people are okay with shoplifters looting convenience stores in San Francisco.  Granted, it's not like progressive sympathy for looting is a new thing.  Still, I thought the video from that San Fran Walgreens that I posted this morning would draw more uniform condemnation on social media.  Normally when liberals defend theft it's in the context of a riot following an incident of alleged police brutality, when America's racist history can be cited as provocation.  There's no provocation in the Walgreens video.  Either it's a junkie looking for something he can sell to get a fix or someone who's part of an organized shoplifting ring looking to fence the goods or maybe just someone who, somewhat understandably, has concluded that if goods in San Francisco are now effectively free then he might as well help himself.

The Grim Trade-Off Of BLM?  Why have murder rates spiked so badly over the last 12 months? [...] Well, surely the timing of the surge in murders counts.  And it can be timed quite precisely, in fact:  to the very end of May, before which there was little change and even some decline.  The National Commission on Covid19 and Criminal Justice report shows what University of Utah researcher Paul Cassell calls a "structural break" in the data timed exactly to the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent wave of mostly peaceful protests and subsequent looting, rioting and violence that raged across many cities.  Before Floyd, no big increase in homicides, aggravated assaults, and shootings.  After, a huge spike.  Of course, that is not causation.  But it's [quite] a correlation — and no other event seems relevant.  It's as if the Floyd murder, and the subsequent urban chaos, sent a signal:  the cops are on the defensive.  Which means murderers can go on the offensive.  And once lawlessness establishes itself, it tends to compound.  A few gang murders can soon morph into tit-for-tat urban warfare.

How a lenient NYC judge left a reputed gangbanger free to allegedly kill an innocent dad.  A reputed teenage gang member with three gun busts in four months had his bail reduced by a Bronx judge — allowing him to get out of jail and allegedly fire a random shot that killed an innocent father of two, The [New York] Post has learned.  Alberto Ramirez, 16, was arrested Monday in the slaying of Eric Velasquez, 34, who was struck by a stray bullet that the teen allegedly shot blindly into a crowd while on a rival gang's turf, law enforcement sources said.  He has pleaded not guilty.  Ramirez was locked up on $75,000 bail when acting Supreme Court Justice Denis Boyle lowered the amount to $10,000 cash or $25,000 bond over prosecution objections on March 2, the Bronx District Attorney's Office said Wednesday [6/9/2021].  His family bailed him out a few weeks later, a spokeswoman for DA Darcel Clark said — putting him back on the streets.

North Carolina police force says it WON'T respond in-person to 911 calls about theft, fraud, or trespassing after 84 cops left the force since January 2020.  The police department in one of America's fastest-growing cities is facing staff shortages so severe that it will not respond to certain 911 calls, including complaints of burglaries, theft, property damage, identity theft, or trespassing.  The Asheville, North Carolina Police Department said that it has lost 84 officers since January 1, 2020.  APD Police Chief David Zack says the attrition rate, which has accelerated since protests against law enforcement became widespread in the wake of George Floyd's death in May of last year, has reached crisis proportions.

L.A. County Sheriff:  Homicides Up 95% over 2020; Will Issue More Conceal Carry Permits.  Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva revealed Wednesday that homicides were up 95% this year over the same period in 2020, and said his department would issue more concealed carry permits to let citizens to defend themselves.  In an Instagram Live post, Villanueva revealed the grim numbers, as the region joined America's ongoing crime wave:  [Video clip]

As predicted, so-called 'transgender women' prisoners endanger women.  In 2021, if you are a pessimist and a cynic, you will invariably be proven right.  I mention this because in April I wrote that California's new law placing so-called "transgender women" in women's prisons put women at risk.  Abigail Shrier, who has written about transgender pressure on girls, reports that women in California's prisons who have had to share space with so-called "transgender" women have indeed felt at risk.  This matters to everyone because, if the Democrats do away with the filibuster, they will pass the Equality Act which, in turn, will place all women in America at risk, whether in prisons, in locker rooms, and in restrooms.  Preliminarily, something needs to be done about those men whose gender dysphoria genuinely seems them believing they are women.  Placing these men in a men's prison is so cruel it violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishment," for these men's fellow inmates subject them to horrific sexual assaults.  However, placing men who claim to be "transgender" in the women's prison population is not a solution.

Shoplifting Skyrockets In San Francisco, Forcing Retailers To Close Stores.  Shoplifting has become so rampant in San Francisco that retailers are closing stores.  The San Francisco Chronicle reported earlier this month that stores like Walgreens and CVS are closing locations in the city due to "out of control" shoplifting. [...] The increase in shoplifting has caused Walgreens to close 17 locations in San Francisco over the past five years.  It still has 53 locations. [...] CVS has faced a similar problem in the Bay Area, with 42% of its losses in the area coming from 12 stores, which accounted for just 8% of the market share.  Brendan Dugan, director of organized retail crime and corporate investigations, said security guards hired by CVS and Walgreens have been assaulted.  He added that the majority of shoplifting incidents at CVS came from opportunists but that professional crime accounted for 85% of dollar losses.

The Editor says...
Fake News Alert:  The article above includes an illustration (from Getty Images, which is why it's not shown here) depicting a white woman in the act of shoplifting.  The reality of this story is that approximately 100 percent of the shoplifting in San Francisco is perpetrated by blacks, often in uncontrollable mobs.

Woke in the City that Never Sleeps.  The Big Bagel is getting so bad, even the baddies are demanding the fuzz do something.  As the body count rises, it is obvious that the victims of violence are predominantly poor and minority. [...] One hears and reads about the daily gunplay, and compares the statistics to those of forty years ago.  Robbery is up close to 30%, grand larceny 66%, and shootings 166.1%.  Murder is up 32% from 2019.  One wonders when the useless mayor will declare an emergency as the place is starting to resemble a war zone, and after the Covid crisis more and more New Yorkers believe the city is ungovernable and unlivable.  Still, two of the numerous candidates running for mayor rant in their speeches about defunding the police.  Violent criminals no longer have any fears, according to Pat Lynch, president of the Police Benevolent Association, and having done away with bail laws, criminals get booked and walk, free to continue shooting and robbing people.  Cuomo and de Blasio, architects of these new laws, shamelessly go about their business, which is appearing on television and patting themselves on the back.

The Rise of 'Blow Off Steam' Policing.  Authorities frequently met last summer's riots with a diffident response.  National Guard troops remained in their barracks, and police often stood by as looting, arson, and property destruction took place in cities ranging from New York and Chicago to Seattle and Minneapolis. [...] Such responses by police and authorities are rooted in the fear that a heavy-handed response will cause more violence.  This might be called the "blow off steam" approach to controlling civil disturbances.  Under this theory, a heavy-handed police response to community violence — with armored vehicles, riot shields, tear gas, and the like — makes matters worse, playing into the larger narrative of police brutality.  This approach is also rooted in the idea that the rioters have legitimate grievances, that ordinary free speech is inadequate for their concerns, and that riots are an expression of understandable anger and emotion.  In other words, if you let protesters cathartically break a few things and burn down a few stores, their passions will burn out and things will return to normal.

Sen. Tim Scott Rips Defund Police Movement.  Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., told "The Faulkner Focus" on Thursday [5/27/2021] that the surge in violent crime is "devastating" and that it's "expected" when there are growing calls to defund the police.  "You cannot make police officers the antagonist in the story.  No one wants that," Scott told Fox News host Harris Faulkner.  Scott made the comments after Attorney General Merrick Garland unveiled a plan to give federal help to cities around the nation in an effort to reduce violent crime.  The announcement comes one year after the murder of George Floyd, which sparked new riots and violent protests.  "I think the Democrats, literally led by the liberal elite, have made a bad calculation and it's costing lives," Scott said.  "We're seeing that in Los Angeles.  We're seeing in Minneapolis, we're seeing that in Detroit.  We're seeing in the D.C. Baltimore, violent crime is significantly higher and murders, Harris, murders are through the roof."

Cynthia Nixon is slammed for suggesting CVS should let people steal from store shelves rather than locking up goods.  Cynthia Nixon has been slammed for suggesting CVS should let people steal from stores rather than locking up goods like laundry detergent, claiming 'desperate people shouldn't be prosecuted'.  The former actress and failed New York gubernatorial candidate tweeted on Thursday that she had noticed her local CVS in SoHo had 'started' locking up 'basic items like clothing detergent.'  'As so many families can't make ends meet right now, I can't imagine thinking that the way to solve the problem of people stealing basic necessities out of desperation is to prosecute them,' Nixon tweeted.

California prison guards doing rounds 'didn't realize prisoner had decapitated and dissected his cellmate' in grisly March 2019 torture death.  New reports are raising questions about how prison guards missed the hours-long sadistic torture and beheading of a convicted killer allegedly at the hands of his cellmate.  State Inspector General's Office reports on California lockups raised new questions about the heinous attack at Corcoran State Prison in March 2019.  The murder of Luis Romero, 44, has prompted separate investigations and a lawsuit by the family of the victim, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday [5/26/2021].  Sometime in the early hours of March 9, 2019, Jaime Osuna methodically tortured and killed Romero, authorities said.

CNN panelist likens defunding police to uprooting weeds from a yard.  A CNN panelist compared policing in the United States to "weeds" in a yard that must be uprooted in order to change the "most violent country in the world."  "What we're seeing now is we're continuously — every two days, there's another video that comes out where there's an abuse of power with state-sanctioned violence," Black Votes Matter co-founder LaTosha Brown told host John King on Tuesday night [5/25/2021].  "And so I think if we want to take this opportunity — yes, there are small steps that have been made, but we are not uprooting," she said.  "It's kind of like having weeds in the yard.  You can cut the weeds down, you know, when you're mowing the grass, but until you uproot or kill the weeds, it will still take over your yard."

Chesa Boudin blames lazy, racist cops for San Francisco's crime surge and his own unpopularity.  Apparently, all would be paradise in crime-pit San Francisco if it weren't for all those lazy, racist cops who are persecuting poor, heroic Chesa Boudin, the city's leftist do-nothing district attorney.  That's the word from young Chesa, stepson of Bill Ayers, son of a terrorist convicted of killing a black cop, and former Hugo Chávez adviser, who's suddenly found himself unpopular in the city and facing a voter recall.

Post-pandemic New York City is laid bare as homelessness, mental illness and crime escalate.  'New Yorkers don't feel safe and they don't feel safe because the crime rate is up.  It's not that they are being neurotic or overly sensitive — they are right,' Governor Andrew Cuomo declared on Wednesday [5/26/2021].  'We have a major crime problem in New York City.  Everything we just talked about, with the economy coming back, you know what the first step is?  People have to feel safe.'

Poll: 73 Percent of Americans Believe Crime Is Higher Under Joe Biden than Donald Trump.  Seventy-three percent of Americans believe crime is higher now under President Joe Biden than under former President Trump in 2020.  "Majorities think crime is increasing both nationally (73 percent say there is "more" crime), as well as in their local communities (54 percent)," according to a Fox News poll released Wednesday [5/26/2021].  Fifty-four percent of polled respondents also said their local area has more crime now than it did this time last year.  Only 28 percent said their local area had less crime.

The Editor says...
[#1] Crime statistics are not based on polls or public perceptions.  [#2] Violent crime has very little to do with the President.  Violent crime is plentiful in areas where swift enforcement and jail time is unlikely.  Riots don't materialize in places where rubber bullets and tear gas and big dogs are ready (and allowed) to go.  The 2020 riots were instigated by leftists, as are the 2021 riots.  The rioters don't care who is the president.  Similarly, black-on-black gang wars are not affected by national politics.

Democrat Mayor Dooms St. Louis with Pledge to Defund Police as Murders Soar.  I feel zero sympathy for the people of St. Louis.  None.  Just last month, amid a soaring murder rate, the highest murder rate in 50 years, as well as the highest in the country, the idiots of St. Louis still voted to elect a Democrat as mayor, a lunatic named Tishaura Jones who made no secret of her desire to make things worse, much worse.

Why 260 Cops Have Fled Seattle.  There hasn't been a police department more brutalized in recent memory.  In Seattle, cops have been pummeled by a psycho city council.  It's not shocking.  Seattle is left-wing.  The residents are left-wing.  They're all nuts.  The mayor allowed armed leftists to seize portions of the city.  The 'summer of love' came crashing down when — shocker — people started to get shot and killed inside the autonomous zone.  They have hamstrung the police and spit in their faces.  After a summer of riots and not being allowed to restore order, along with an overall anti-police atmosphere, are we shocked that scores of cops have fled Seattle?  Around 20 percent of the police force has left.

Refund The Police?  Major Cities Are Backtracking On Police Cuts After Explosion Of Violent Crime.  A year after the death of George Floyd, elected officials of major cities are walking back commitments to cut police funding amid spiking crime rates.  Elected leaders in places such a Minneapolis, New York City, and Los Angeles are now pushing to increase funding to police departments after months of budget cuts and low morale have gutted law enforcement ranks.  At the same time, major cities across the U.S. are suffering spikes in violent crime.  "The violence needs to stop, it[']s unacceptable.  People deserve to feel safe in their neighborhood, they deserve to be able to send their kids out to the sidewalk to play and to recreate without bullets flying by.  That's unacceptable.  We should be holding these perpetrators accountable," Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, said at a May 7 news conference addressing a spate of violence that ripped through the city.

Feet-of-Clay Icons.  Finally, in 2021 it was not so much that Americans lost respect for the law as they were bewildered by it.  Or rather they wondered whether it still even existed.  Is it illegal to enter the United States without permission?  Or does unlawful entry warrant instant state subsidy and federal legal help to further violate the law?  Is everyone or just a few anointed allowed to carve out an entire urban no-go zone that even the police dare not enter?  Is there a crime such as arson or looting?  Are there even criminals such as arsonists and looters anymore — or just those naïve enough to try torching buildings or stealing from pharmacies in small numbers and without ideological pretenses?  Does attacking Jews and Asian Americans constitute "hate crimes" — or does it depend on the race, ideology, or ethnicity of the attacker?  Is defacing a monument or tearing down a public statue a crime or just woke exuberance?  Are there good riots and good looting and good arson that are not indictable, and then again bad riots and bad looting and bad arson that are?

'The Wheels Are Coming Off.' Deeper Cuts to Austin Police Are on the Way in Mayor Adler's 'Reimagining'.  The Austin Police Department is in a state of crisis.  More cuts to specialized APD units are coming this year, thanks to the "reimagining" of police led by Mayor Steve Adler and Councilmember Greg Casar.  Travis County, meanwhile, steps up targeting police officers for prosecution.  According to an internal document provided to PJ Media, several units face deep cuts or outright elimination by summer's end.  The Sex Offender Apprehension and Registration (SOAR) unit is losing its officer positions, according to the APD document.  Local Fox 7 TV has previously reported some of the cuts.  PJ Media's source, who wishes to remain off the record, said:  "As more units are cut, work conditions for those who stay will continue to deteriorate, causing more folks to leave, causing more units to be cut, and so on.  It is basically a death spiral."

Convicted Chicago child killer paroled:  Ray Larsen among rising number of aged convicts to be released.  A 76-year-old man convicted of killing a teenager in a Northwest Side forest preserve in 1972 has been paroled.  Ray Larsen is the latest inmate serving an indefinite prison term — a so-called "C-number" inmate — the Illinois Prisoner Review Board has ordered released, a list that also includes a double ax-murderer.  Larsen had been serving a sentence of 100 to 300 years in prison after confessing he killed 16-year-old Frank Casolari in the Schiller Woods Forest Preserve near O'Hare Airport on May 17, 1972.

An aspiring congressional candidate unveils novel campaign slogan: 'Make crime illegal again'.  Washington state congressional candidate Matt Larkin is running on a tough-on-crime platform based on supporting law enforcement in an effort to "make crime illegal again" amid skyrocketing crime and failed liberal leadership in Seattle.  Larkin, a Republican who lost his bid for Washington state attorney general to the incumbent Democrat in 2020, plans to challenge sitting Democratic Rep. Kim Schrier for the seat representing the 8th District of Washington.  In an exclusive interview with Fox News, Larkin said that skyrocketing violent crime, rising homelessness and the growing number of assaults on police officers motivated him to jump into the race.

New York Attorney General James unveils bill to limit cops' use of force to standard of 'absolute last resort'.  New York Attorney General Letitia James introduced a measure Friday [5/21/2021] that would tighten the rules governing the use of force by law enforcement.  It would lower what her office calls the "exceedingly high standard for prosecuting police officers" who wrongly take excessive or lethal actions.  The centerpiece of the legislation would change the use-of-force law "from one of simple necessity to one of absolute last resort, mandating that police officers only use force after all other alternatives have been exhausted," James' office said in a press release.  James at a press conference Friday afternoon invoked the memories of George Floyd and other unarmed men and women of color who have died in altercations with police, directly tying those high-profile deaths to her push for police reform.

California Democratic lawmakers look to remove penalty for possessing firearm during crime.  Reform-minded activists in California vow to move forward after a bill that would have dramatically reduced, and in some cases eliminated, enhanced sentences for crimes committed while using a gun failed to advance through the legislature Thursday [5/20/2021].  "AB 1509 was held in the Appropriations committee and will not move forward this year," Greg Fidell, policy manager of Initiate Justice, wrote on Twitter.  "This is very painful — but we will be back stronger next year."  The state lawmakers who backed the Anti-Racism Sentencing Reform Act claim the existing law, which allows prosecutors to seek additional time behind bars, is racist — 89% of the roughly 40,000 inmates serving gun enhancement sentences in California are people of color, according to figures from Restore Justice.

Walgreens Closes 17 San Francisco Stores Due To "Out Of Control" Shoplifting.  The effects of allowing chaos to prevail in Democrat-controlled cities across America might not be evident to liberals and social justice warriors now, but when businesses close up, it's going to be very transparent then.  According to the San Francisco Chronicle, 17 Walgreens Pharmacy locations have shuttered their doors in San Francisco during the past five years.  At least ten of the stores in the city have closed since 2019. [...]  [Video clip]  The cost of business and shoplifting is staggering for Walgreens.  Despite closing 17 stores, the company still has 53 open in the metro area but could close more by the end of the year.  Thefts at Walgreens' in the city are four times the average for other stores across the country.  The pharmacy chain spends 35 times more on security guards in the city than elsewhere, said Jason Cunningham, regional vice president for pharmacy and retail operations in California and Hawaii.

Biden Unwisely Rescinds One of Trump's Criminal Justice Reforms.  President Joe Biden has been moving at breakneck speed to undo every policy of his predecessor that he can, but he seems not to be giving any thought to whether the underlying policy is good.  If former President Donald Trump made it, Biden will unmake it — even if he later has to remake it, as in the case of recently resumed border wall construction.  Among the orders worth retaining that Biden nonetheless axed is Executive Order 13980.  That order required agencies that issue regulations with criminal penalties to "be explicit about what conduct is subject to criminal penalties and the 'mens rea' standard applicable to those offenses."

Andrew Brown Jr. was charged with 100 crimes over three decades, did EIGHT stints in jail, and had a history of violent confrontations with police.  Andrew Brown Jr. had a decades-long history of violent confrontations with police, including a 2016 incident during which he fought officers and was tasered, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.  The black dad-of-seven — who was shot dead last month when sheriff's deputies surrounded his car in Elizabeth City, North Carolina — had a rap sheet dating back to his teens and spent at least eight stints behind bars.  Court documents seen by DailyMail.com reveal he faced more than 100 charges over three decades, ranging from misdemeanors for breaking and entering, making threats and assault with a deadly weapon, to six felony drug convictions.

The Left's Long Love Affair with Criminals.  Before the left came to power, criminals were helpful to the Bolsheviks in creating chaos (read: "prerequisites for revolution").  After the left came to power, it became clear that criminals, as a rule, never intended to overthrow the existing government.  As a result of this cooperation, in Russia in the 20th century, the leftists created political banditry — i.e., using criminals against "class enemies" and "politically unreliable" ones — and the American left successfully adopted the idea of using malefactors.  In addition, the prevailing theory of "social Darwinism" among the left provided a simple answer to the question of where, in fact, criminals come from.  It turns out that criminals arise from "unfavorable conditions."  It's known that few of the Antifa and BLM mayhem participants were imprisoned — and those who were, for the most part, were released.  The fact is that, according to social Darwinism, one should not punish the criminal, not put him in prison, but simply place him in other, more favorable conditions.  And then — lo and behold! — the criminal will be corrected, "re-educated."

Baltimore's experiment with de-policing has been disastrous — and deadly.  A decade ago, Baltimoreans became lab rats in a fateful experiment:  their elected officials decided to treat the city's long-running crime problem with many fewer cops.  In effect, Baltimore began to defund its police and engage in de-policing long before those terms gained popular currency.  This experiment has been an abject failure.  Since 2011, nearly 3,000 Baltimoreans have been murdered — one of every 200 city residents over that period.  The annual homicide rate has climbed from 31 per 100,000 residents to 56 — ten times the national rate.  And 93 percent of the homicide victims of known race over this period were black.  Remarkably, Baltimore is reinforcing its de-policing strategy.  State's Attorney for Baltimore Marilyn Mosby no longer intends to prosecute various "low-level" crimes.  Newly elected mayor Brandon Scott promises a five-year plan to cut the police budget.  Both justify their policies by asserting that the bloodbath on city streets proves that policing itself "hasn't worked"; they sell their acceleration of de-policing as a "fresh approach" and "re-imagining" of law enforcement.

Andrew Yang Lays Into 'Defund The Police' After Times Square Shooting.  Saturday's [5/8/2021] Times Square shooting shows that the city can't afford to "defund the police," mayoral hopeful Andrew Yang said during a Sunday morning appearance at the Crossroads of the World.  "The truth is that New York City cannot afford to defund the police," Yang said near the site of Saturday's wild shooting, which injured three innocent bystanders including a 4-year-old girl in the hot spot to shop for toys.  "When I talk to New Yorkers I get a very different message every single day," he said.  "New Yorkers are concerned about rising rates of violent crime, petty crime, street homelessness.  This is what we are seeing, and we need our city's leaders to step up right now."

Philadelphia's Fall:  A Microcosm of Democrat Devastation.  [Scroll down]  In addition to the degrading of police and the withdrawal of funding, Philadelphia also has one of the most leftwing District Attorneys in the country, Larry Krasner.  In Philly, the D.A. is an elected position, and Philadelphians got what they voted for.  Krasner is a regular Santa Claus when it comes to dealing with criminals, and those policies have no doubt played a large role in the crime spike.  Krasner is up for reelection this year and is being challenged by fellow Democrat Carlos Vega who in any other year would be considered a leftist; but not when running against Krasner.  The police union local FOP has endorsed Vega and conducted a publicity stunt handing out free "Mr. Softee" ice cream cones to kick off their endorsement and apply the label of "soft" on Krasner.

Philadelphia's George Soros-backed DA, to face voters fed up with crime, homicides.  Heading into the May 18 primary that will likely decide Philadelphia's municipal elections, George Soros-backed District Attorney Larry Krasner is facing voters who are deeply concerned about soaring crime and homicide rates, a new poll finds.  The poll of likely Democratic voters in the overwhelmingly Democratic city found nearly half — 48% — named public safety and the homicide rate as an unprompted answer to Philadelphia's most pressing concern.  "That's a really big deal," said Jim Lee of Susquehanna Polling and Research, which conducted the survey.  "We're talking about a race for DA, and one-in-two voters say crime is the biggest problem in an unprompted answer?  Obviously, they're not happy with the incumbent."

'Alarming rate': Demoralized cops flee police departments in record numbers.  Police officers nationwide are turning in their badges at record rates amid budget cuts, policy changes and anti-brutality protests.  An estimated 5,300 officers quit or retired from the New York Police Department last year, 200 or more cops have left the Seattle force, and in the nation's capital, the union reports that the 3,700-strong Metropolitan Police Department is down 300 badges since the D.C. Council enacted sweeping police reforms last summer.  "Officers are leaving at an alarming rate, and crime is spiking in a lot of different areas," police union chairman Gregg Pemberton told The Washington Times on Tuesday [5/4/2021].

Minneapolis cops blocked from entering 'George Floyd' 'autonomous zone', have to make battered woman come to them.  A recently revealed radio transmission between a Minneapolis Police officer and dispatch betrayed an unsettling matter that might be ongoing with MPD officers: officers apparently do not want to enter the "George Floyd zone" within the city.  The uncovered radio transmission audio is reportedly related to an April 29th domestic incident in Minneapolis that occurs at approximately 2:00 a.m. at a residence located at the corner of 38th and Elliot.  According to a report from CrimeWatch Minneapolis, a woman was reportedly shoved out of a window and suffered numerous lacerations all over her body.

Keeping the dangerous criminals out of prison isn't a winning plan.  All decent people want our prisons to be safe places.  One could, potentially, make prisons safer by removing the dangerous criminals from the prisons and releasing them onto the streets.  Yes, the logic is there.  The sense, the morality, and the justice, on the other hand, are totally absent.  Sadly, California is part of a growing trend of states that believe they are choosing freedom over punishment.  Instead, they are diminishing society's freedom by abandoning justice and safety.  Of course, offering second chances to those who earn them is a good thing.  Failing to penalize offenders adequately or deter them in the first place, though, is an invitation to cultural rot and mayhem.

Prolific mail thief in West Seattle arrested seven times, released from jail each time.  There's a suspected mail thief operating in West Seattle.  The victims know his name.  So do the police, the post office and prosecutors.  He's been arrested seven times since Jan. 7 and each time, he was released from jail, sometimes within 48 hours after his arrest.  His name is Jason Turner and his case is another example of a suspected repeat offender falling through the cracks of the criminal justice system, leaving everyone who touches his case frustrated.

West Seattle Crime Watch:  Police alert about mail-theft suspect.  Southwest Precinct police have sent an alert about a mail-theft suspect who they say is active in North Delridge, 37-year-old Jason A. Turner: [...] ["]Turner has 3 arrests for mail theft since 2020.  Turner's most-recent arrest was Feb. 3.  He was released the following day and returned to the area, where additional mail was stolen.  Residents are fed up with his actions.  Turner has been witnessed following USPS and UPS drivers and stealing mail and packages that were just delivered.  He does this in broad daylight, often in the morning hours before noon, showing no concern for being witnessed.["]

Our Quasi-Soviet States of America.  The federal Department of Justice and state-level law enforcement in jurisdictions taken over by the left are lenient with common criminals but savagely oppressive against political protesters when an excuse can be found, or manufactured, to charge them with a crime.  That fate fell on many allies of Trump.  Rudy Giuliani was visited by a gang of FBI agents at 6 A.M. equipped with dubious search warrants.  Vote-stealing activities during the last election were ignored and not even investigated because they helped the left.  In San Francisco, thefts of less than $950 are not prosecuted, giving criminals a free pass to terrorize small businesses and respectable people. [...] Abolishing or neutering the police allows the dregs of society to form political enforcement gangs to terrorize individuals considered political enemies.  These gangs are instruments of the regime but officially are low-level criminals not under the control of the regime.

Most Portland rioters have charges dismissed by US Attorney: 58 suspects of the 97 arrested have cases scrapped, while 32 more are left pending.  The majority of the people facing federal charges over last summer's protests in Portland, Oregon will not be prosecuted or spend any time at all behind bars, it haas been revealed.  Although 97 people were arrested and had charges filed against them in connection to protests that took place between May and October of last year, 58 cases have either been dismissed completely or will be scrapped under deferred resolution agreements.  A further 32 cases are also pending with many also likely to be dismissed, Fox News reports.

Dem Cori Bush praises 'historic' vote to defund St. Louis police as the city is named 7th most violent in the entire world.  The city of St. Louis is moving toward axing nearly 100 police officer positions and cutting millions from the police department's budget.  The movement to defund the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department was lauded by Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), who called the decision "historic," despite the city being one of the most violent per capita in the world.  A proposal to eliminate 98 vacant officer positions and reallocate $4 million of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department's $171 million budget passed a vote last week.  The proposition was passed by the Board of Estimate and Apportionment by a 2-1 vote, with St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones (D) and Comptroller Darlene Green supporting the plan and Board of Aldermen President Lewis Reed opposing the proposal.  Fox News reported that the plan "now goes to the Board of Alderman, the legislative body of the city, for hearings and possible amendments, before it's set to take effect July 1."

Bronx judge releases man, 29, who 'smashed windows of four synagogues' hours after another judge defied NYC's bail reform laws to keep him behind bars.  A New York judge has released a man suspected of vandalizing synagogues across the Bronx, just hours after another judge defied the state's bail reform laws and ordered him locked up.  Jordan Burnette, 29, faces 42 charges over a string of attacks on Jewish places of worship.  He appeared in court Sunday [5/2/2021], and was expected to be freed because New York State's bail reform laws say a suspect with his charges cannot be held on bail.

Portland Fights 1000% Increase in Murders With Unarmed Park Rangers.  Shootings have more than doubled in Portland from 111 last year to 275 so far this year.  Murders are also up from 2 to 25.  That's an increase of over 1000% for the prog utopia.  Portland hit a quarter-century high last year with 55 murders.  It's on track for 100 in 2021.  Things are so bad that Mayor Wheeler, who narrowly won reelection over the Antifa candidate after having his apartment building firebombed, pleaded with the City Council to pay for more cops.  But the City Council had a better idea:  unarmed park rangers with pepper spray.

Activists deliver 30 boxes of signatures for petition to replace Minneapolis Police Department.  Community activists delivered stacks of boxes Friday [4/30/2021] to the Minneapolis city clerk's office to file a petition to amend the city charter in order to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a public safety department.  Following the death of George Floyd, there's been a community push to defund or disband the Minneapolis Police Department.  Activists say the petition is a step toward changing public safety and policing in the city.  The 30 boxes now standing in the city clerk's office mark the first step of the process for a petition to amend the city charter.  According to the clerk, Yes 4 Minneapolis wants to put the amendment on the ballot at the general election on Nov. 2.

California Granting Early Release to 76K Inmates — Including Some Pretty Nasty Dudes.  This just in from the no-longer-Golden State:  California is giving 76,000 inmates, including violent and repeat felons, the opportunity to leave prison earlier as the state aims to further trim the population of what once was the nation's largest state correctional system.  Shocked?  Me neither.  As reported by AP, more than 63,000 of the 76,000 inmates, who were convicted of violent crimes, will be eligible for "good behavior credits" that shorten their sentences by one-third instead of the one-fifth that had been in place since 2017.  That includes nearly 20,000 inmates who are serving life sentences with the possibility of parole.

76,000 California Violent, Repeat Felons Get Earlier Releases.  California is giving 76,000 inmates, including violent and repeat felons, the opportunity to leave prison earlier as the state aims to further trim the population of what once was the nation's largest state correctional system.  More than 63,000 inmates convicted of violent crimes will be eligible for good behavior credits that shorten their sentences by one-third instead of the one-fifth that had been in place since 2017.  That includes nearly 20,000 inmates who are serving life sentences with the possibility of parole.  The new rules take effect Saturday but it will be months or years before any inmates go free earlier.  Corrections officials say the goal is to reward inmates who better themselves while critics said the move will endanger the public.

76,000 California Inmates [are] Now Eligible for Earlier Releases.  California is giving 76,000 inmates, including violent and repeat felons, the opportunity to leave prison earlier as the state aims to further trim the population of what once was the nation's largest state correctional system.  More than 63,000 inmates convicted of violent crimes will be eligible for good behavior credits that shorten their sentences by one-third instead of the one-fifth that had been in place since 2017.

Violent crime has surged in Minneapolis in the year since George Floyd's death, with the second highest number of homicides EVER.  Violent crime is surging in Minneapolis with homicides last year spiking to the second highest levels ever as the COVID-19 pandemic and protests in the wake of George Floyd's death devastated the city.  Of the 5,426 violent crimes recorded in Minneapolis last year, 83 of them were homicides, according to the city's police crime statistic data.  It is only the second highest number of homicides since 1995 when a record 97 homicides were recorded.

Don't Confuse an Accident with a Crime.  For those who think now-former Brooklyn Center police officer Kim Potter should be charged with a crime — let alone murder — I have a simple question: if a surgeon accidentally nicks an artery and kills a patient when she mistakes the scalpel in her hand for a prober, should she be charged with murder, or even manslaughter?  Answer: no.  After all, the surgeon did this thing we all do:  she made a mistake.  She had no ill intent, let alone malice.  Despite the best intentions and protocols, it sadly happens on occasion, and especially in the heat of the moment during a pressure filled situation like surgery.  The question is, what should happen when it does?

More than 200 Seattle police officers quit over the last year, many citing anti-police climate.  More than 200 Seattle police officers quit their jobs in the last year amid months of frequent anti-law enforcement, racial injustice protests and riots in the city.  Many of the officers cited an anti-police climate in the city — including in the City Council — and disagreements with police management in their reasons for moving on, leaving the department with what Police Chief Adrian Diaz called a "staffing crisis" on Tuesday [4/27/2021].  He said 180 police officers quit last year and another 66 officers so far this year.

Louisville Police Department struggles to recruit as murders rise by 75 percent and shootings rocket 84 percent.  More than 230 cops have either retired or resigned from the Louisville Metro Police Department in the last 16 months as a spokesperson for its union says that staffing shortages have left the agency in 'dire straits' while violent crime rises.  The Kentucky city's police department has been in turmoil since the March 2020 police-involved shooting of Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old black EMT who was fatally shot in her home by officers executing a no-knock search warrant.  According to statistics provided by the LMPD on Tuesday, the department has seen about 190 officers leave last year and 43 depart so far this year.

Believe It or Not, a New Level of Corruption and Depravity for New York City.  The district attorney of Manhattan in NYC has announced that his office will no longer prosecute any unlicensed "massage" parlor workers (about 900 cases), nor loitering for the purposes of prostitution (about 5,000 cases).  Abigail Swenstein, a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society's Exploitation Intervention Project, which works with sex workers, said that while the policy doesn't preclude the New York Police Department making arrests, she hopes officers will choose not to, knowing that prosecutors would not bring charges.  Laws against these behaviors are still on the books but will not be prosecuted.  The citizenry has not repealed these laws, but the ever wise and dictatorial district attorney will spit in the face of the citizenry (and God) by deeming these activities unworthy of punishment.  This writer could find reference to only one person, New York Assemblyman Mike Reilly, a Republican, who said Manhattan's new prostitution policy sets a dangerous precedent.  "It flies in the face of law and order," he timidly said.  To me, the fact that there is not an outcry of opposition is as grievous as the decision itself.

Where's the Accountability For California's $31 Billion Unemployment Scandal?  It may be the largest fraud case in U.S. history — perhaps world history as well, although the oil-for-food scandal engineered by Saddam Hussein in the 1990s would give the Golden State fleecing of the unemployment system a run for its money.  The stupendous size of the unemployment claims scandal in California is purely the result of incompetence.  Individuals, criminal gangs, hackers, and state actors siphoned as much as $31 billion away from the California government.  It was a free-for-all that even had criminals locked away in California prisons stealing billions of dollars right under the noses of the guards.

Chesa Boudin and now the dead baby.  It's getting harder and harder to justify San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin's let-'em-all-out prosecutorial policies.  He calls it 'restorative justice.'  In reality, it's bad guys go free.  Last December, the radical leftwing D.A. tried to extricate himself from the deaths of two innocent women hit by a drunken thug in a stolen car who mowed them down in a hit-and-run following a burglary.  The thug was a parolee who was only out on the streets because Chesa let him out of jail.  After that travesty, Chesa said that other people did it, claiming "systemic failure."  That excuse didn't work, and shortly afterward, triggered a public effort to recall him.

Manhattan DA's Office will no longer prosecute prostitution cases.  The Manhattan district attorney will stop prosecuting prostitution and unlicensed massage cases — and is tossing thousands of warrants dating as far back as 1975.  DA Cyrus Vance Jr. appeared virtually Wednesday in Manhattan Criminal Court to ask Judge Charlotte Davidson to vacate 5,994 bench warrants and dismiss the underlying charges of prostitution, unlicensed massage and loitering for the purpose of prostitution.  The motion was granted and the cases dating back to 1975 were dropped.  For years, the Manhattan DA has offered people facing these charges services and programs.

Minnesota Gats.  [Scroll down]  The blacker you are, in appearance and behavior, the more valuable you are as a victim in the racial politics being waged on white America by the ruling class.  This is the reality of Jim Snow America.  Whites, especially white males, will get the harshest treatment from the law.  The usual suspects flood the zone with phony studies on racial differences in sentencing, but they never hold up under scrutiny.  When adjusted for criminal history, whites get longer sentences than other races.  Males, of course, will always get harsher sentences than females for the same crimes.  Of course, the Jim Snow rules apply to victims as well.  Ashli Babbitt was a right-wing white woman murdered by a black cop inside the Capitol, but he is black, and she is a bad white, so it is okay.  Cannon Hinnant was a 5-year-old white boy executed by a black man, but the media could not be bothered to notice.  On the other hand, Adam Toledo, a 13-year-old gangbanger shot by cops, is national news.  This will only get worse.

You Will Not Believe the INSANE Proposals This City Is Considering for 'Reimagining' Public Safety.  Austin Mayor Steve Adler announced that he wanted to "reimagine" public safety in the city.  If the use of the word "reimagine" pinged your "I've got a bad feeling about this" radar, you will soon know how right you are.  Thus far, "reimagining" public safety has gravely damaged it in Austin.  It has amounted to cutting about $150 million from the Austin Police Department's budget and standing idly by while violent crime rates have soared in the once peaceful and slightly weird city.  Two APD cadet classes were also canceled.  Breaking Bad has come to Austin.  By my last count, Austin police officers have been shot on duty four times already in 2021, and there have been 22 homicides, all while officers cannot leave the force fast enough.

Cover-up? ACLU sues to block release of data on number of male-to-female transgender prisoners.  After the ACLU of Washington convinced a federal judge to halt the release of data on the number of transgender inmates in the state's prisons, a feminist activist group is lashing out, accusing the venerable civil liberties group of covering up the danger to female inmates posed by housing violent male-to-female transgender prisoners in women's facilities.  The ACLU suit is an attempt to "prevent the public from knowing this data, so that the harm posed to women by forcing them to be housed with violent male prisoners will continue to go under the public's radar," said Lauren Adams, legal director of the Women's Liberation Front (WoLF), in an interview.  Last week, the ACLU of Washington notified a woman who had filed a public records request for the transgender data that it was seeking an emergency temporary restraining order and injunction to stop the request from being fulfilled, claiming transgender prisoners would face harm if the numbers were released.

Andy Ngo:  U.S. Unsafe Due To Far-Left Terror, Erosion Of Police.  A prominent Asian-American reporter commented on his decision to flee the U.S. due to threats by Antifa.  Journalist and author Andy Ngo said he fled the U.S. due to an escalation of safety concerns.  In an interview Monday [4/5/2021], Ngo of Portland, Oregon said it's not safe for him to remain in the U.S. due to his past reporting on Antifa.  Ngo stressed he left the U.S. due to the weakening of law enforcement and a rise in popularity of far-left violence.

Over 250 Male California Prison Inmates Request Transfer to Women's Facilities.  Since January, 261 California prison inmates have requested transfers to prisons aligning with their gender identity, 255 of them biological males who say they identify as women, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation told the Daily Caller News Foundation.  In January, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed into law a bill requiring the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to ask every individual entering its custody to specify personal pronouns and gender identity, including transgender, nonbinary, or intersex.  The California law, known as SB 132, prevents Corrections and Rehabilitation from disciplining the individual for refusing to give this information, allows for the information to be updated later, and requires staff to use the gender pronouns that the individual requested.

Two teen girls accused of car-jacking and killing an Uber Eats driver in D.C. 'reach plea deal with prosecutor'.  Two girls, ages 13 and 15, who were charged with the murder and carjacking of a Pakistani immigrant killed last month while working at his job delivering food in Washington, DC, have reportedly reached a plea deal with prosecutors.  Mohammad Anwar, 66, died when police said the girls, armed with a taser, sped off in his car as he clung to the driver's side with the door open and crashed seconds later just outside the ballpark of the Washington Nationals.  On Monday [4/5/2021], the teens reportedly reached the plea deal with prosecutors that would ensure they will not be held past the age of 21 nor be placed in a prison facility.

Society Pays When Prosecutors Fail to Punish Crime.  Imagine a society where prostitutes could solicit johns for sex just yards from police officers who did little more than wave them on their way.  Picture yourself walking through a park with your children as a homeless person is free to urinate and defecate beside the park bench where he is stashing the illegal drugs he bought from a dope dealer operating openly without fear of the police.  Does that make you feel safe?  Welcome to the new Baltimore, where law enforcement will no longer be prosecuting what it calls "low-level offenses."  These include possessing drugs or drug paraphernalia, trespassing, minor traffic offenses, prostitution, open container violations, and defecating or urinating in public.  The city announced the initiative last week after a year-long experiment to slow the spread of COVID-19 in the jails and prisons.

Teenage Girls Who Murdered Pakistani Immigrant/Uber Eats Driver Almost Certainly Won't See Jail Time.  A graphic video showing the carjacking and death of Pakistani immigrant Mohammad Anwar, a 66-year-old grandfather working as an Uber Eats delivery driver, was heartbreaking and disturbing to normal people who viewed it.  What was even more disturbing was the reaction and utter lack of humanity shown by one of the teenage girls who carried out the crime.  As the 13-year-old crawled out of the passenger side of the car, which was partially overturned, she was frantically yelling that she needed to get her phone out of the car before making a run for it.  Seeing Anwar's lifeless body on the sidewalk didn't seem to impact her emotionally at all.  At the time, there were reports that one of the girls had been involved in a prior carjacking, and according to D.C.'s FOX 5, that carjacking "involved the younger suspect, who may have been involved in more than one previous crime."

The 10 Radical New Rules That Are Changing America.  [#2] Laws are not necessarily binding anymore.  Joe Biden took an oath to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed."  But he has willfully rendered federal immigration laws null and void.  Some rioters are prosecuted for violating federal laws, others not so much.  Arrests, prosecutions, and trials are all fluid.  Ideology governs when a law is still considered a law.  Crime rates do not necessarily matter.  If someone is carjacked, assaulted or shot, it can be understood to be as much the victim's fault as the perpetrator's.  Either the victim was too lax, uncaring and insensitive, or he provoked his attacker.  How useful the crime is to the larger agendas of the Left determines whether a victim is really a victim, and the victimizer really a victimizer.

Two teens will not receive jail sentences after attack kills 13 year old boy.  The two boys behind a deadly school campus attack that killed a 13-year-old California boy will not receive jail sentences, a judge ruled on Friday according to KTTV-TV.  In 2019, 13-year-old Moreno Valley, California, student Diego Stolz died after two of his teenage classmates assaulted him on school property.  The attack took place at Landmark Middle School.  According to video footage of the incident, "one boy [is] standing in Diego's face, while the victim stood with his hands at his side."  "The boy then backed up before punching Diego in the mouth," the station added.  "The second assailant then blindsided Diego with another punch, causing him to fall and strike his head on a concrete pillar."

Baltimore permanently abandons prosecuting many types of crime.  Back in March of last year, Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby quietly began the process of "decriminalizing" a number of low-level crimes such as drug possession and prostitution.  The move was ostensibly made to reduce jail populations during the pandemic to prevent the spread of COVID behind bars.  Now, after a year of refusing to prosecute people for breaking laws that are still on the books, Mosby has declared the project to be such a resounding success that she's going to make those changes permanent, even if we get the pandemic under control.  What could possibly go wrong?

California judge sentences two killers of a 13-year-old to ... anger management therapy.  In a case that's drawing a lot of attention based on the insane level of leniency shown, two 14-year-olds who bullied, murdered, danced on the body of, and filmed a helpless 13-year-old, have been let off with the mother-of-all-slaps-on-the-wrist by a Riverside County Superior Court Justice. [...] The helpless 13-year-old orphan had been bullied, brutalized, begged for help from the teachers' unionized school officials whose fat-salaried job was to protect him, and got nothing.  They let him get murdered.  And early on, they callously blamed the kid's family for his killing, instead of themselves.  The case makes one's blood boil.  How can a 13-year-old's life be worth absolutely nothing?  The kid was an orphan, living with his aunt and uncle, who are now suing the school district for its lazy indifference.

Boys Who Fatally Beat MoVal Schoolmate Avoid Juvenile Detention.  Two boys who fatally beat a Moreno Valley youth during a schoolyard bullying episode were on probation Friday, following a judge's decision not to sentence either offender to juvenile detention.  The defendants, whose names have not been disclosed, each admitted an involuntary manslaughter charge in November for the 2019 killing of 13-year-old Diego Stolz.  Riverside County Superior Court Judge Roger Luebs on Thursday [3/25/2021] imposed probation terms of unspecified duration.

Mayor Muriel Bowser Delivers a Disgustingly Tone-Deaf Message After Carjacking Murder Video Goes Viral.  Over the weekend, an extremely disturbing video of a carjacking in Washington D.C. went viral.  Two teenage girls, 13 and 15, stole a car from an Uber Eats driver.  When the Pakistani immigrant refused to relinquish his property, they took off, flipping the car on its side and killing the man.  Murder charges have now been filed.  Because the two girls who murdered this man are black, the case has taken on all the partisan connotations you'd expect, including CNN referring to the death of the man as him being "fatally injured" in an "accident." [...] As someone who lived in D.C. and had their car stolen, I can tell you that the police will take your statement and that'll be the end of it.  They don't actually investigate.  They don't take fingerprints once the car is recovered (mine was found totaled the next day after some vagrants took it for a joyride).  When I asked why nothing more was being done, they told me they don't have the resources to bother with auto-theft.

Los Angeles agency votes for $36M police funding boost as crime surges.  Officials in Los Angeles voted this week to re-fund their police amid an upswing in crime.  Less than a year after "defund the police" fervor swept across major cities from coast to coast, Los Angeles County Metro, the region's public transportation agency, voted Thursday [3/25/2021] to boost police funding by $36 million.  The vote passed 12-0, including a "yea" from Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, a major advocate of defund the police measures, who chairs the board.  The money will go toward the agency's law-enforcement contracts with the Los Angeles Police Department, Long Beach Police Department and Los Angeles Sherriff's Department.  Los Angeles has been among the nation's leading communities in efforts to defund the police.

The Editor says...
The inevitable "upswing in crime" could have been avoided if the county leadership had any amount of foresight, along with the backbone necessary to resist the mobs.

10 Months After George Floyd's Death, Minneapolis Residents at War Over Policing.  The sacred intersection where George Floyd died beneath the knee of a Minneapolis police officer has seen such a spike in violence that food delivery drivers are afraid to venture there.  There have been gun battles, with bloodied shooting victims dragged to ambulances because of barricades keeping the police and emergency vehicles away.  "Having no police:  This is the experiment right here," said P.J. Hill, a leader of Worldwide Outreach For Christ, a church that's been on the corner for almost 40 years.  "This is their one-block experiment."

Minnesota Supreme Court Overturns Rape Conviction Because the Woman Willingly Drank Alcohol.  The Minnesota Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a man who picked up a woman outside a bar, took her home, and had sex with her.  Under state law, since the woman drank the alcohol willingly, the man could not be charged with 3rd-degree criminal sexual misconduct.  The judges said the man could be charged with a gross misdemeanor — 5th-degree sexual conduct.  The difference is that the 3rd-degree assault charge carries a sentence of 15 years in prison while the misdemeanor would put the man in jail for 1 year.  Naturally, many women are outraged at the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Soros-funded radical DAs 'are killing our cities'.  While establishment media fixated on alleged Russian interference in U.S. elections, billionaire activist George Soros was quietly wielding more influence than the Kremlin could ever hope for, according to an investigation.  Dale Wilcox, executive director and general counsel at the Immigration Reform Law Institute, said in a column for Breitbart News his organization found Soros is funding hand-picked candidates who are shielding illegal aliens charged with violent crimes from deportation.  In Philadelphia, Larry Krasner was elected district attorney in 2017 after receiving nearly $1.7 million from Soros through an independent political action committee, Philadelphia Justice & Public Safety.  Krasner immediately created the new position of immigration counsel with the goal of achieving "immigration neutral" outcomes in the prosection of non-citizens.  Of approximately 300 cases, 120 were recommended to be changed to plea agreements.

How [the] 'Minneapolis Effect' Explains [the] Surge of Violent Crime in American Cities.  This past year, "defund the police" has been a frequent call from activists seeking systemic reform of the American criminal justice system.  It became a popular rallying cry after the May 25 death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis.  And Minneapolis is among cities that partially defunded police departments and proactive crime prevention programs in response to the incident.  However, the months since brought a massive surge in violent crime, a phenomenon called the "Minneapolis Effect" by two legal experts who spoke at a virtual event held March 16 by The Heritage Foundation.  Paul Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah, and Lawrence Rosenthal, a law professor at Chapman University in Orange, California, laid out the case that the serious, protracted rise in crime is tied to rhetoric and actions after Floyd's death and the ensuing protests.

Asian-Americans Worry About Democrat Bill 'Legalizing' Mugging.  Here's a snapshot of why these violent assaults keep happening.  And why they're happening so often in California and New York, in areas where crime has essentially been legalized.  The upsurge in store robberies in California was driven by pro-crime measures that essentially legalized shoplifting.  Now the Democrats want to all but legalize robbery. [...] SB82 specifically states that, "This bill would define the crime of petty theft in the first degree as taking the property from the person of another or from a commercial establishment by means of force or fear without the use of a deadly weapon or great bodily injury."  That means a mugging is now petty theft as long as the thugs don't use a gun or cause 'great bodily injury[.]'

Bill would require Wisconsin inmates' stimulus money to go toward restitution.  Republican lawmakers have introduced a bill that would require prisoners to spend their COVID-19 stimulus money on restitution.  Democrats rejected a Republican amendment to the $1.9 trillion stimulus package President Joe Biden signed last week that would have prevented prisoners from receiving stimulus checks.

Anti-Asian violence can't be blamed on Trump supporters.  That the Left seems to need to blame every ailment of society at the feet of white people, conservatives, and Trump himself lacks any form of seriousness.  While there are some violent perpetrators who are white, conservative, or Trump supporters, FBI statistics suggest that most anti-Asian violence has come from black perpetrators.  Refusing to look at these statistics represents a refusal to take seriously the lives and security of Asian Americans.  According to the Justice Department, 27.5% of all violent crimes against Asian Americans in 2018 were committed by black people.  That's over 50,000 incidents in a single year.  White criminals and Asian criminals each accounted for 24.1% of all attacks on Asians.  Asian people, similar to their white counterparts, are underrepresented in violent crimes committed to the proportion of the population they make up.  In 2019, Asians made up 6.2% of the population but just 1% of the perpetrators of violent crime.  White people are 62% of the population but commit 50% of violent crimes.

Jalihouse Call May Reveal Why Soros DA Dropped Charges Against BLM Train Derailers.  The Soros DA in question is LA's George Gascon in close competition with SF's Chesa Boudin for the title of the worst pro-crime DA.  While Gascon was backed by Soros, he was also funded by a variety of entertainment industry figures, including the wife of the Netflix CEO and Steven Spielberg, and his time in office has been characterized by a thuggery nearly as ruthless as the criminals he was selected to protect.  The targets of Gascon's thuggery were the prosecutors trying to do their job.  There have been some horrifying things that happened on Gascon's watch, but this might be yet another low.

Portland cut police funding and got a 2,000% surge in murders.  Last June, the city of Portland, Oregon, hopped on the "defund the police" bandwagon.  Now, it is flooded with gun violence, and the mayor is already backtracking from his support for the cuts.  Mayor Ted Wheeler has requested $2 million in emergency funding for the police department, pointing directly to the surge in gun violence.  At this point last year, Portland had seen just one homicide.  This year, that number is 20, with 208 shootings in the city so far.  Wheeler backed the Portland City Council's decision to cut $15 million from the police budget last June, which included disbanding police units that investigate gun violence.  Predictably, that move backfired in a city that saw 100 consecutive days of violent rioting last year.  Riots are back once again in the city, thanks to Wheeler's spinelessness.  Rioters have once again targeted a federal courthouse in the city, a reprise of the violent storming of the courthouse last July.  In June, it was reported that the city lost around $24 million due to the riots.  Damage to federal buildings totals roughly $2.3 million.

New NJ law says cops can't notify parents when minor is caught with marijuana or alcohol in first offense.  Democrats are unyielding in their quest for a permissive society where there is little if any personal responsibility.  Nowhere is this more apparent than their preferred policies on the killing of unborn babies, and amid the current marijuana craze liberal politicians are borrowing from that campaign to mainstream weed.  Just as Democrats pursued laws allowing minors to have an abortion without telling their parents, New Jersey has legalized the consumption of marijuana, in all its forms, on private property and enacted a law restricting law enforcement from notifying the parents of minors who are caught with possession of weed or alcohol.  The most remarkable thing here being, perhaps, that tens of millions of Americans continue to support the party that pushes these destructive law

It's time for Red States to start nullifying federal law.  Here are some of the issues that could be affected by the concept of nullification:  [...] [#4] Nullify the anti-police agenda.  During the Obama regime, his DoJ hamstrung city police departments all over the country with phony "civil rights" investigations, resulting in cities hesitant to arrest or prosecute violent thugs.  With anti-police activists surrounding Biden, his administration will do the same, thereby empowering leftist rioters in our cities.  The founders never gave the federal government a law enforcement role as they thought this responsibility best be carried out by local police and sheriff departments.  States should resist and ignore all federal anti-police regulations and DoJ harassment of local police departments.

Soros' SF DA Chesa Boudin Tried Zero Murders and Only 2 Sex Assaults.  There's a pro-crimes arms race among Soros DAs bent on freeing the most criminals and convicting the fewest.  But even within that fishbowl, Chesa Boudin, Weatherman royalty backed by Soros, is something special.  The Marina Times, which California Democrats have been trying to stamp out, has the numbers and they're something special. [...] Just keep in mind, Chesa Boudin is the DA of San Francisco, not a small town in Iowa.  These are staggeringly insane numbers that paint a picture of a justice system that has essentially shut down.

Convicts Will Get COVID Bucks.  On March 6, the Senate voted on the amendment and every Democrat voted to send checks to prisoners while Republicans remained united to add the amendment and exclude prisoners from the $1,400 stimulus payments.  It is important to note that prisoners did receive stimulus payments from the CARES Act as well as the coronavirus relief package passed in the omnibus in late December. [...] The first attempt at rectifying the issue occurred with Sen. Bill Cassidy's (R-LA) amendment, which would prevent prisoners serving life sentences from receiving checks.  After all, the coronavirus pandemic did not bar them from gainful employment, their heinous and unlawful actions did.  Furthermore, prisoners do not pay taxes.  They do the exact opposite.  The damage they have caused to society extends beyond their crimes and their victims.  They become burdens of law-abiding and tax-paying Americans.  Now they will have $1,400 more than before while 60 percent of U.S. small businesses have closed permanently due to the pandemic.

Louisville prosecutors will permanently DROP charges against Breonna Taylor's boyfriend who shot at police.  Prosecutors in Kentucky have moved to permanently drop charges against Breonna Taylor's boyfriend in connection with the bungled police raid that killed her.  The Commonwealth's Attorney for Jefferson County filed a motion this week seeking to dismiss with prejudice the criminal charges against Kenneth Walker.  A case dismissed with prejudice cannot be brought back before a court.

Feds quietly dismiss dozens of Portland protest cases.  Federal prosecutors have dismissed more than one-third of cases stemming from last summer's violent protests in downtown Portland, when protesters clashed with federal agents.  KGW reviewed federal court records and found 31 of the 90 protest cases have been dismissed by the U.S. Department of Justice, including a mix of misdemeanor and felony charges.  Some of the most serious charges dropped include four defendants charged with assaulting a federal officer, which is a felony.  More than half of the dropped charges were "dismissed with prejudice," which several former federal prosecutors described as extremely rare.  "Dismissed with prejudice" means the case can't be brought back to court.

The Left's Campaign Against Self-Defense.  Last week, federal prosecutors offered an undisclosed plea deal to two lawyers who firebombed an NYPD van and drove around passing out Molotov cocktails to protesters at a violent May 2020 Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest in Brooklyn. [...] In the name of "social justice," politicians and the judiciary in many cities and states are bestowing moral rights on violent left-wing and anarchist groups.  District attorney Mike Schmidt, for instance, announced in August that he won't prosecute most of the 550 people arrested during the 75 days of mayhem in Portland last spring.  He said the leniency was an attempt to "create a forum" to express "collective grief, anger, and frustration" at the death of George Floyd and the history of abuses endured by people of color.  Worse, he said using the criminal justice system against them would "undermine public safety" for those "demanding to be heard." Schmidt, his Democrat cohort, and leftist sympathizers in journalism, law, and academia willfully ignore the fact that such misplaced clemency condones and encourages militant groups' violence, their disrespect for the law, and their anti-American agenda.

2 who killed Chicago cops paroled after decades in prison.  Two men convicted of killing Chicago police officers in separate incidents decades ago were paroled Thursday [2/25/2021], drawing the ire of officials who opposed the move and believe it "sends a troubling message[.]"  Johnny Veal was 17 when he and another man killed Sgt. James Severin and Officer Anthony Rizzato in 1970 as they walked across a field in the Cabrini-Green public housing complex.  Veal, 68, and the now 74-year-old George Knights were convicted of the murders and sentenced to 100 to 199 years.  Knights remains in prison.  Also paroled by the Illinois Prisoner Review Board was Joseph Hurst, 77, who was convicted of killing Officer Herman Stallworth and wounding his partner after being pulled over for speeding in 1967.

Why Wasn't He Already in Jail?  [H]e was out on bond for an attempted first-degree murder in 2019, now he's charged with attempted second-degree murder — and it's on video this time, so perhaps they'll keep him in jail more than overnight, eh?  We keep finding cases like this, where people get shot by someone who arguably should never have been out on the streets, and it's hard to reconcile this reality with liberal rhetoric about "mass incarceration."  The "catch-and-release" approach to law enforcement is, of course, more common in liberal states like California, but the crusade to empty the prisons in the name of "social justice" has recently spread across the country.

We Are Living in the Ruins of Our Civilization.  Another down staircase brings me to the subway platform.  Naturally, the seats in the waiting area are occupied by more bums, one with a shopping cart full of bags and rags.  Toward the far end of the platform I see the same young thug who'd jumped the turnstile now urinating against a supporting column.  He is helping me illustrate the appeal of broken windows policing:  the same people who are willing to break the law to sneak into the system without paying are likely to wreak havoc once they are inside.  This is not anything a good, hard Singapore-style caning wouldn't fix, but we in our first-world society are apparently too evolved and high-minded for that; we are, in fact, apparently too evolved and high-minded to do anything at all to fix the problem.  So the citizens of Singapore get to enjoy near-perfect, First World public order while the citizens of our cities have to endure Third World turmoil and disorder.  We have to suffer the stench of urine on our subway platforms, shameless litterers leaving accumulations of trash in our public spaces and the ever-present threat of crime, both petty and violent, in our streets and our public transit.

Oklahoma man accused of cutting neighbor's heart out, feeding it to his family.  An Oklahoma man suspected of murdering three people has confessed to killing his neighbor, cutting her heart out and then cooking it to feed his family, authorities said.  Lawrence Anderson allegedly stabbed Andrea Lynn Blankenship, 41, to death in her Chickasha home on Feb. 9, The Oklahoman reported.  "He took the heart back to 214 West Minnesota, Chickasha," an agent with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation wrote in a search warrant obtained by the outlet.  "He cooked the heart with potatoes to feed to his family to release the demons."

Mark Zuckerberg Worked to Free Criminals in Oklahoma.  A Monster Freed Early Ate a Woman's Heart and Killed a 4-Year-Old Girl.  Criminal justice reform is a euphemism for a horrifying nightmare in which criminals were set loose under pressure from billionaire activist donors to commit horrifying crimes, terrorizing cities, destroying communities, and taking lives. [...] Anderson's sentence was apparently commuted in June.  Oklahoma was a major target of an alliance between lefties and "conservatives" on criminal justice reform that predated the coronavirus mass jailbreak. [...] Anderson should have been kept locked up.  He was yet another obvious example of a monster who should never have been loose.  But he was.  And now a girl lies dead, stabbed in the eye, and a woman lies dead, her heart torn out.  The only question is how soon Anderson will be released this time.

If you're worried about ending cash bail, you're fearmongering, Pritzker says.  Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law Monday [2/22/2021] a bill that will eliminate cash bail in Illinois, allow for anonymous complaints against police officers in disciplinary hearings and overhaul law enforcement protocols to be more hands off when apprehending suspects.  Some of the material in the 700-page bill passed last month is laudable and worth exploring, as we've said previously.  But it's undeniable that nearly every law enforcement agency and prosecutorial association in the state is ringing alarm bells about the changes, which were shoved through the legislature with little debate in the middle of the night — by design.

City in New York "abolishes" police by renaming them.  The entire "abolish the police" movement has pretty much failed in spectacular fashion in terms of actually attracting any high-profile support around the nation.  Even President Biden reiterated that he doesn't support the idea during his recent town hall on CNN.  There has been plenty of defunding going on, frequently with very bad results, but the idea of completely reimaging an America without cops has been a political loser.  But that's not entirely true everywhere.  The folks at GQ Magazine this week were pretty excited to break the news about one city in New York State that's going whole hog for the idea.  The Mayor of Ithaca, New York is preparing to remove and replace his entire police department, installing something called a "Department of Community Solutions and Public Safety" in its place.

NYC to test no-police mental crisis response in Harlem.  NYPD officers will stay out of many mental health crisis calls and social workers will respond instead in parts of northern Manhattan starting this spring.  The head of the city's wide-ranging mental health initiative gave some details of the test program to lawmakers Monday, fleshing out a plan the city outlined broadly in November.

Illinois bans cash bail.  One of the constants in Chicago is the escalating crime rate over the past year, with many of the crimes committed by people who are out on bail, including "affordable" bail.  This concept is meant to give poor people the same ability as rich people to be free while awaiting trial.  Illinois is now set to follow suit:  Starting in 2023, there won't be any bail in Illinois at all thanks to a new crime bill that will, among other things, end cash bail.  Since affordable bail has already given carte blanche to Chicago's criminals, we can pretty much guess how this will end.

'Evil' Florida man burglarized homes during funerals: sheriff.  An "evil" Florida man burglarized 10 homes — purposely targeting his grieving victims and striking when he knew they were attending funerals, authorities said.  Ronald Lee Rose, 42, of Lake Wales, is facing multiple counts of armed burglary and grand theft in a series of home heists between October and Feb. 8 in Auburndale, Mulberry, Lakeland and Haines City, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said Wednesday [2/17/2021].  Rose allegedly researched his targets, hitting up homes either owned by a recently deceased person or one of their relatives, Judd said.

Carjackings Are Skyrocketing in U.S. Cities.  Carjacking was long thought to be a crime more associated with the past than the present.  But the last several months have seen a surge in that particular crime.  National statistics are not available for carjackings, but there have been numerous media reports of big spikes in carjackings taking place ever since last summer, especially in Chicago and other big cities.  And many media reports have indicated that those responsible are often young teenagers, many of them too young to legally drive.  According to an NPR report, there were 405 carjackers in Minneapolis in 2020, a number that more than tripled over 2019.  Chicago reported 1,400 carjackings last year, and other cities have also seen increases, such as New Orleans, Kansas City, and Washington, D.C.

Dumb Criminal Caught in Trap by Owner.  Owner gets tired of dealing with Burglars breaking into his store so sets a trap and the perp falls right into it and is arrested.  [Video clip]

Are you feeling safer yet?  A New York Post editorial quotes New York City police commissioner Dermot Shea:  "We have made staggering numbers of gun arrests, taking guns off the streets from felons, but when you look, three days later, four days later, those individuals are back on the street committing more gun violence."  The editorial continues by saying that years of often ill conceived criminal justice reform has set up a revolving door that frees even repeat offenders almost instantly.  And "[w]orse, because everyone knows the perp will be back in the neighborhood again — and the no-bail law lets the defense know right away who has talked — witnesses are ever-harder to come by."  Well, that's in one Democrat-run state.  What about California?  According to Hotair.com:  "Through a series of measures starting back in 2014, the state of California has made it increasingly easy for people to commit property theft and get away with it[.] ... Even in cases where they do manage to catch somebody stealing, it's too often not worth the trouble of taking them down to the station because they'll just be released immediately without bail anyway."  One result of this is that California businesses are shutting down for good.

America's Political Prisoners First.  In September 2019, Couy Griffin, founder of Cowboys for Trump, met with President Trump in the Oval Office.  His group, according to its website, believes "securing our border, protecting our Second Amendment, and protecting the lives of the unborn are the most vital and key aspects in America's Greatness."  Trump supporters riding on horseback — often carrying American flags and Trump banners — participated in rallies across the country to show support for the president.  Today, Griffin sits in a jail cell denied bail.  Prosecutors charged Griffin with one minor count of trespassing as part of the Justice Department's sweeping investigation into the events of January 6.  Griffin, who is a county commissioner in New Mexico, never entered the Capitol but investigators scoured his social media account to find evidence that he was "well within the restricted area" of the building.  Griffin did not assault a police officer or break any windows or even steal an important leader's laptop.  His real crime, of course, is that he's a supporter of Donald Trump — and his real threat to society, according to U.S. prosecutors and a federal judge, is that Griffin dares to doubt the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

These black lives didn't seem to matter in 2020.  Last year saw the largest year-to-year increase in homicides ever recorded in US history.  The homicide rate in 34 cities was 30 percent higher in 2020 compared to the previous year, according to a Jan. 31 report by the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice.  Victims of these homicides are disproportionately African American.  At least 8,600 black lives were lost to homicide in 2020, an increase of more than 1,000 compared to 2019 (7,484).  Violent crime is concentrated in primarily low-income, marginalized black communities where the police are underresourced and Democratic leadership has abysmally failed.  In Chicago, 80 percent of gun-violence victims in 2020 were black.  According to the latest data in New York City, 71 percent of shooting victims are black — even though black people constitute just 26 percent of the city's population. [...] Since more than 90 percent of black homicide victims are killed by black offenders, the ghost of endemic white supremacy cannot be invoked to push racial grievance narratives.  As a result, the media turns a blind eye.  Black lives only seem to matter when racism is involved.

California's latest move to thwart its own law enforcement efforts.  The day may yet come when the California legislature proposes a new bill that will actually improve the lives of its citizens, my friends, but today is not that day.  The latest bit of madness to come out of the Golden State is known as Senate Bill 271, and it's clearly designed to make people less safe rather than safer.  Currently, anyone wishing to run for Sheriff in any of California's counties must have either a certification of competence from the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training or recent, equivalent salaried law enforcement experience.  Makes sense, right?  If you're going to put someone in charge of a major law enforcement agency, it might be nice if they actually knew something about law enforcement and the challenges that officers face out on the streets.  But SB-271 would eliminate that requirement entirely.  The stated reason is clear.  They want people who are interested in reforming, defunding or abolishing the police to be able to run for the position.

'QAnon Shaman' demands organic food in jail; judge says he must get it.  A federal judge on Wednesday [2/3/2021] ordered jail officials to provide organic food for the "QAnon Shaman," one of the people charged with participating in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.  The ruling was in response to a motion by Clayton lawyer Albert Watkins, who said Jacob Chansley had not eaten since Jan. 25 and had lost more than 20 pounds.  Chansley has followed an organic diet for eight years, the motion says.  Watkins' motion says that in Chansley's belief system, "non-organic food, which contains unnatural chemicals, would act as an 'object intrusion' onto his body and cause serious illness if he were to eat it."  In a court hearing held by Zoom, lawyers for the District of Columbia jail where Chansley is being held said they could find no requirement for organic food in shamanism.

A San Francisco Murder Sets Leftists and Social Interest Groups at Odds.  On January 28, while attempting to take a photo of a suspicious vehicle cruising in front of his San Francisco home, 76-year-old private investigator Jack Palladino was grabbed by one of the two men in the car and dragged forty feet before falling over backward and lethally striking his head.  Not since the Zebra killings of the 1970s has one murder caused San Francisco's leftist worthies so much consternation.  If you do not know of the Zebra killers, there is a reason why.  The killers were black.  All 21 of their victims, 14 fatal, were white or Asian.  The Zodiac killer worked the same area at roughly the same time, killed far fewer people, and got ten times the attention.  Palladino's killing made the news in spite of the fact that he was white and the two accused killers are black.  What made Palladino newsworthy is that he has friends in high Democratic places.

Man twice bailed out by Kamala Harris-backed fund — gets arrested again.  A Minnesota man twice bailed out by a Vice President Kamala Harris-backed nonprofit group has been busted a third time on felony drug charges, authorities said.  Thomas Moseley's latest collar stems from his arrest on Oct. 15, 2020, when he was picked up at a George Floyd-related protest and charged with damaging the Minneapolis Police Department's Fifth Precinct months earlier, WCCO-TV reported.  Police found a handgun in his waistband and charged him with possession of a dangerous weapon.  Moseley, 29, of Minneapolis, was also busted on rioting charges from a Dec. 31, 2020, demonstration.

Elgin man who sexually assaulted, killed toddler to be freed from prison after serving half of 48-year term.  An Elgin man convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering a 20-month-old girl in 1997 is being released from prison later this month after serving half of his 48-year sentence.  Cayce Williams, 47, pleaded guilty in 2006 to the first-degree murder and criminal sexual assault of Quortney Kley, the daughter of his former girlfriend, in exchange for the prison term. [...] Williams faced the death penalty but reached a plea agreement with the Kane County State's Attorney's office.

Police, allies fight back as Soros-funded liberal DAs oversee big-city bloodshed.  District attorneys implementing liberal agendas in some of America's biggest cities oversaw soaring homicide counts last year and are now being hit with lawsuits and recriminations from police agencies.  Angry police officers and their backers are doing all they can to boost a May primary challenge to Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, who refuses to prosecute some gun possession and drug crimes.  A California court is scheduled to hear a lawsuit Tuesday [2/2/2021] filed by the Association of Deputy District Attorneys in Los Angeles against District Attorney George Gascon.  The suit accuses Mr. Gascon of illegally blocking prosecutors from pursuing enhanced sentencing in violent crimes and other major criminal cases.

Biden Orders DOJ Not To Renew Contracts With Private Prisons As Part Of Racial Equity Agenda.  As part of his promise to advance racial equity, President Joe Biden has instructed the Department of Justice not to renew private prison contracts.  The policy change was part of a fresh set of four additional executive orders the president signed on Tuesday [1/26/2021] to eliminate alleged institutional discrimination within federal agencies.  "No one should be profiteering off of our criminal justice system," President Biden tweeted on Tuesday evening.  "That's why today, I ordered the Department of Justice to end the use of private prisons by the federal government."

What's in crime bill?  No more cash bonds.  One of the hottest topics in Illinois government in the aftermath of the recent lame-duck legislative session is the massive criminal-justice package that's thrilled some and outraged others.  The rhetoric has been dominated by either generic comments of support or disdain.  Although sincere, they do not go to the heart of the issue — what's in the 700-page-plus bill that has generated such feverish feedback.  The most substantive change, one that will not be implemented for two years, is the repeal of cash bonds.  Henceforth, the legislation states, all persons charged with a crime will be presumed eligible for release following their arraignment on the charges against them.

2020 saw the largest percentage increase in murders in America's history.  Heather Mac Donald has the grim details at the Wall Street Journal this week.  While anecdotal evidence we've been covering here for the past ten months certainly suggested it, the final numbers are in.  2020 saw the largest percentage increase in homicides since accurate records have been kept on these statistics.  And the lion's share of the killings took the form of drive-by shootings.  Also of note is the fact that the large majority of the victims were Black.  If you ask most of the largely Democratic mayors of the large or medium-size cities where the killings were most prevalent (or most of the mainstream media), they'll tell you that this surge was driven by the pandemic.  But as Mac Donald notes, the data doesn't back that up.

The push to decriminalize 'streetwalking' follows a deadly run of NYC 'reforms'.  Think Bill de Blasio's dumpster fire of a mayoralty can't get worse?  Think again:  Albany is planning to send him more street hookers.  Whoopee.  State Sen. Brad Hoylman, a Manhattan Democrat now running for borough president, considers the notice police pay to transsexual streetwalkers to be a pressing civil-rights issue — and so he's pushing legislation that effectively would make street-walking of all sorts legal.  The bill appears fated to pass — and what could go wrong with that?  Plenty.  Blame for much of what makes New York City so difficult to navigate these days rests squarely with the normalization — and outright legalization — of anti-social, often dangerously aberrant, public personal behavior.

Our entire system has become a form of cruel and unusual punishment.  The term "cruel and unusual punishment" is usually applied to the death penalty and solitary confinement.  Both are widely condemned by the left, as is incarceration for non-violent crimes.  But the political left treats the sufferings of victims of crime as collateral damage, something that should have nothing whatsoever to do with justice.  Likewise, the left turns a blind eye to those whom the government itself destroys.  The cavalier attitude towards victims of crimes is a quintessentially leftist position.  It's also partially the consequence of substituting the government as the aggrieved party in criminal cases, leaving the actual victim on the sidelines.  Unfortunately, this system makes it the government's job to decide whether to prosecute a case.  Often, the Department of Justice and attorneys-general across the country behave as though the law is irrelevant when deciding whether to pursue a case — to the point of being opaque, quixotic, and under the worst but common circumstance, political.

Cook County Plans To Resume Jury Trials In February, But Will Jurors Show Up?  The leaders of Cook County's criminal justice system are planning on resuming jury trials in February, after months of courts being in a near-total shutdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic.  The shutdown has deprived accused offenders of their right to a speedy trial and left victims waiting for justice.  But the proposed reopening worries court employees who believe leaders are rushing the process and jeopardizing their health.  "People have been locked up, their liberation has been at stake since the coronavirus hit early last year," said Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans.  "We'd like to be able to resume jury trials and bench trials where we can institute social distancing, where we can provide adequate [personal protective equipment], where we can show the potential jurors how safe they would be."  Sources say leaders are aiming to have the first jury selection happen on Feb. 16.  And they say questionnaires were being sent out Friday to potential jurors asking about underlying health issues and other COVID-19 related concerns.

An L.A. councilman lied to the FBI. Probation officials say he deserves no jail time.  It was the first blockbuster case to surface in the federal corruption probe of Los Angeles City Hall — a multi-count indictment accusing former Councilman Mitchell Englander of taking envelopes of cash, lying to the FBI about that money and obstructing its investigation.  Englander, while serving in office, made false statements to FBI agents during three separate interviews, prosecutors said, providing untrue information about his dealings with a businessman who gave him $15,000 in two casino bathrooms.  The case was resolved quickly, with Englander pleading guilty to a single count of scheming to falsify material facts.  But now, prosecutors are voicing objections to the sentence recommended by federal probation officials: three years' probation, a $9,500 fine and no jail time or community service.

Illinois Lawmakers Pass 'Transformational' Criminal Justice Legislation In 11th Hour Of Lame Duck Session.  Illinois lawmakers on Wednesday [1/13/2021] used the final hours of the general assembly's lame duck session to pass a sweeping and controversial criminal justice reform bill that would eliminate cash bail, make it easier to ban officers from working at police departments across the state and allow for anonymous complaints against cops.  The legislation, passed Wednesday morning after hours of late night bargaining, was a legislative priority of the Black legislative caucus.  It was drafted as the legislature's answer to the months of policing-related protests this summer.

The worst run cities in America.  The state of cities around the country is rapidly declining, leading to the greatest rates of emigration since the days of disorder and distress in the 1970s.  Eight cities stand out as the worst run in the country, when ranked with markers like costs of living, education, poverty, and crime.  These are New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Washington, Portland, Oakland and Chicago. [...] Several of the worst run cities had surging crime before 2020.  But such curbing of police has resulted in violent crime spikes that have become out of control.  Shootings in New York nearly doubled, murder spiked by 20 percent, and burglary rose by over 40 percent last year.  Los Angeles enacted a $150 million cut to its police, as the murder rate increased by 20 percent.  The murder rate in Washington rose by almost the same, as Philadelphia boasts the second highest murder rate in the country, and Portland has had the most homicides in three decades.

The Left Finds Time for One More Big Lie Against Trump.  As a preface, let there be no doubt that those who violated the law, acted violently, trespassed federal grounds on Wednesday, January 6, should be prosecuted and punished as prescribed by law for their crimes just as Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and other criminals who brought violence, destruction, bloodshed, and mayhem to Portland, Seattle, and so many other American cities during the months leading up to the presidential election should be arrested, prosecuted, and punished as the law demands for their crimes.

Soros Soars, GOP Cowards Cower.  I devoted my Dec. 15 column to newly elected Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón and his benefactor George Soros.  Gascón has one goal:  to put the people of L.A. at the mercy of criminals.  He's the face of anarcho-tyranny, and George Soros is the wallet. [...] As I wrote in my Dec. 15 column, a key element in Gascón's victory was the fact that the local GOP didn't lift a finger to oppose him.

Defenders of Civilization?  Is there really a legal system any more, at least as we once knew it, in our major cities — New York, Portland, Seattle, and Los Angeles?  Violent crime has soared.  Murders are up 30-50 percent in many of those places.  In 2020, whether an arsonist, looter, or rioter was arrested, indicted, and jailed depended on the ideology of the perpetrator and the political context of the crime.  Old ideas like "broken windows" preventative enforcement went down the memory hole.  Did Rudolph Giuliani's crime-reduction miracle in New York City ever really exist?  Is it legal for a district attorney simply to announce that he will no longer enforce the legal code?  Can victims of ensuing crimes sue such somnolent prosecutors? [...] Either police can make an in-vain arrest in their no-bail, Soros-funded prosecuting attorney jurisdictions and see the arrested subject released, angry or defiant or both.  Or they can risk being attacked or shot by emboldened criminals, given police deterrence has vanished.  Or, in extremis, they can use force and find themselves charged with a felony and likely to have their careers ruined.

S.F. parolee accused of killing 2 pedestrians was free despite several recent arrests.  A driver accused by police of killing two pedestrians in downtown San Francisco on New Year's Eve while intoxicated and in a stolen car is a parolee who remained free despite being arrested several times in the city in recent months, according to city officials and public records.  Troy Ramon McAlister, a 45-year-old city resident who was released on April 10 from a state prison sentence for robbery, was not charged with new crimes by the District Attorney's Office after any of last year's arrests, the most recent of which occurred on Dec. 20.

Early vaccination in prisons, a public health priority, proves politically charged.  First came the outcry in a Denver newspaper op-ed, arguing that Colorado's coronavirus vaccination plan would bring relief to a man who fatally shot four people before it protected the author's law-abiding, 78-year-old father. [...] The plan, which put incarcerated people in line for coronavirus immunization ahead of the elderly and those with chronic conditions, had been released by the state health department.  It was the product of months of deliberation by members of the state's medical advisory group — physicians, public health officials and experts in bioethics.  But their framework, when subject to the machinery of online outrage, quickly unraveled.  Asked by a Fox reporter about the prioritization, and the criticism touched off by the op-ed, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) said at a December news briefing there was "no way" the limited supply of shots would "go to prisoners before it goes to people who haven't committed any crime."  He let out a short laugh as he pronounced the word "prisoners."

2 siblings killed by suspect driving wrong way in Florida chase.  A carjacking suspect driving against traffic on a Florida freeway during a high-speed chase on Tuesday night [1/1/2021] crashed head-on into an SUV, killing two Wisconsin siblings, officials said. [...] The suspect, who led law enforcement on a chase at speeds above 110 mph, also died in the crash, according to the sheriff's office.  His name wasn't immediately released.  Chitwood said the suspect had 50 prior arrests.

Omro Siblings Killed In Florida Wrong Way Crash.  This was intentional," said Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood.  "Everything that he did was about destroying somebody's life." [...] The suspect also died in the crash near Daytona Beach.  Authorities say the vehicle was stolen at gunpoint from an Orlando area pizza delivery driver.  "He's got 50 prior arrests, he has no driver's license, he's been incarcerated eight times in state prison, he's got crimes in here — here's his criminal history and he's out walking amongst us.  200 pages... Carjacking, home invasion, robbery.  He got out of prison last year for grand theft and he's out and about," Chitwood said.

Los Angeles County Prosecutors Sue Gascon For Not Enforcing The Law.  Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon hasn't even been in office for a month yet but he's been making more headlines than the pandemic.  Unfortunately for Gascon (and the citizens of his county), few of those breaking news items have been of the good variety.  The wildly liberal, anti-cop DA has been working overtime to empty the jails and prevent the prosecution of criminals, even as crime rates have been surging in the City of Angels.  The latest news out of his office won't be changing that pattern at all.  His own prosecutors are going to court to ask a judge to block their new boss's orders and prevent them from having to break the law themselves by carrying out his directives.  And it looks like they have a pretty solid case.

California Supreme Court Rules Thousands Of Sex Offenders Are Eligible For Early Release.  On Monday [12/28/2020], the California Supreme Court ruled that thousands of inmates convicted of non-forcible sex crimes may be eligible for early release under a ballot measure that was overwhelmingly approved by voters four years ago.  The initiative, called Proposition 57, was written by then-Governor Jerry Brown (D) and passed by nearly two-thirds of the electorate.  It was crafted to reduce the state's prison population, saying any person found guilty of a "nonviolent felony offense" would be eligible for early parole.  Brown said it was never intended to cover sex offenders.  However, the original language did not exempt them from consideration.  Lower appeals courts had ruled that nonviolent sex offenders could not be excluded, and the high court affirmed those rulings.

What the Media Didn't Want To Report About These Capital Punishment Cases.  This summer, the federal government began putting people to death for the first time in 17 years.  "Trump administration executes Brandon Bernard, plans four more executions before Biden takes office," said a Washington Post headline last week.  While that is technically true, it wasn't Trump who convicted these men of murder; it was a jury of their peers.  It wasn't Trump who upheld their convictions after numerous appeals; it was the judicial system.  It wasn't Trump who found the death penalty constitutional; here, it was the Supreme Court that reaffirmed the Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994 requires executions to be carried out "in the manner prescribed by the law of the state in which the sentence is imposed."  It wasn't Trump who sponsored that law in 1994; it was Joe Biden.  Reporters nearly always glide past the horrifying specifics, spending inordinate amounts of space presenting the case of anti-death penalty advocates, who often dishonestly paint these men as victims.

Operation Legend Leads to Over 6,000 Arrests, Including 467 for Murder:  DOJ.  Outgoing Attorney General William Barr on Wednesday gave his last update on Operation Legend, a Trump administration initiative to drive down violent crime in major inner cities, saying that the program had led to over 6,000 arrests since its launch earlier this year.  The operation was launched in Kansas City, Missouri, in July and has since been expanded to eight cities that saw rising crime rates this past year.  It involves surging federal agents and resources to inner cities to assist local and state law enforcement officials tackle violent crime and restore public safety.  Of those who were arrested, about 1,500 were charged with federal offenses, and 467 were suspected of homicide.  The program also resulted in the seizure of 2,600 firearms, more than 32 kilos of heroin, more than 17 kilos of fentanyl, more than 300 kilos of methamphetamine, more than 135 kilos of cocaine, and more than $11 million in drug and other illicit proceeds.

Democrats ditch 'defund the police' slogan, but not necessarily policy principles.  With the 2020 campaign season over, the message is clear from the upper echelons of the Democratic Party:  "Defund the police" is not the message that they want to communicate to voters.  Former President Barack Obama warned in an interview earlier this month that "you lost a big audience the minute you say it."  President-elect Joe Biden in a private meeting last week, according to audio obtained by the Intercept, said, "That's how they beat the living hell out of us across the country, saying that we're talking about defunding the police."  But behind the debate on semantics and public-facing messaging, Democrats are not necessarily abandoning the stated principles behind the slogan:  Using mental health workers to respond to police calls or funding social services rather than military-grade police equipment, for instance.

AOC, Omar, and Squad Want to Free 500,000 Fat Criminals.  Obese rapists, insane serial killers, and child molesters over 55 years old could be on the loose in your neighbrohood if the Squad's latest social justice bill becomes law.  The bill to free all the fat criminals, sponsored by Rep. Tlaib, Rep. Lee, and Rep. Pressley, and co-sponsored by Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, Rep. Omar, and eight other Democrats, and endorsed by Black Lives Matter, calls for a mass jailbreak to protect criminals from the coronavirus.  The existing wave of coronavirus criminal releases already helped boost crime rates in major cities with double digit increases in homicides.  Robberies have shot up like a rocket with criminals stealing cars and looting businesses while knowing they won't be jailed.  But that's not enough for the Squad.  They want to free all the criminals.  Especially the fat ones.

Seattle politician who defunded the police called 911 to protect her from a crime she wants to legalize.  A Seattle City Councilwoman called the police to her home Friday [12/17/2020] to report a crime she is effectively trying to legalize, according to media reports.  Lisa Herbold phoned authorities on Friday after a man reportedly threw a rock through her living room window, My Northwest reported.  The councilwoman said "she was on the west side of the living room near the kitchen when she heard a loud noise that sounded like a gunshot and dove into the kitchen for cover," according to a redacted police report obtained by the publication.

U.S. City May Pass "Duress Legislation" to Give Criminals "Poverty Defense".  Elected officials in a major U.S. city plan to pass a law that will allow thieves to sell items they steal if they do it to earn money for basic needs and trespassers to set up camp on private property when it is to obtain adequate shelter.  Dozens of other crimes — including assault and harassment — will be excused under the preposterous measure if suspects are poor, mentally ill or addicted to drugs.  It is being crafted as a poverty defense and will allow municipal court judges to dismiss a multitude of crimes if poverty, mental illness or a substance-abuse disorder drove the perpetrator to commit them.  Even for a famously liberal left coast city like Seattle it seems like a bit much.  The proposal was first introduced during the Seattle City Council's budget deliberations weeks ago, according to a local news report.  It was put on hold over a budget process bureaucracy but has gained incredible steam and appears to have enough support to alter the city code early next year.  "The idea could enormously impact the city — and set Seattle apart from the rest of the country in its approach to misdemeanor crimes," according to the news story, which includes the concerns of frustrated public safety advocates who say the law will essentially legalize most crimes in Seattle.

8,000+ Nursing Home Residents and 49 Criminals Died in Pennsylvania.  Guess Which Group Democrats Care About.  One of the most important and least discussed coronavirus subjects in this election was the decision by Democrat governors to infect huge numbers of nursing home residents by forcing nursing homes to accept coronavirus patients.  Governor Wolf in Pennsylvania and his health expert, Richard 'Rachel' Levine, were one of the worst offenders. [...] Let's compare and contrast.  8,047 nursing home residents dead isn't a crisis.  But 49 criminals dead is a death sentence.  These are Democrat priorities.  Free the criminals and kill the elderly.

If the Media Doesn't Report on Crime, It Won't Exist.  The Nieman Foundation for Journalism was set up at Harvard.  Like everything touching old foundations and journalism, it's a toxic disaster.  And this one is right up there with In Defense of Looting. [...] No this stuff isn't marginal.  Nieman is influential and it's part of the larger pro-crime push.  And the reshaping of the legacy media.  Even at this late date, one of the few things the local news does anymore is sports, weather, and crime.  Lefty virtue signaling destroyed sports.  The push to make every weather report about global warmunism while firing any weatherman who doesn't go along has been underway for years.

California Sheriff Rejects Court Order To Reduce Inmate Population, Blasts The ACLU.  The sheriff of Orange County, California, said on Wednesday that he would fight a recent order issued by a local superior court judge to significantly reduce the number of inmates housed in the county's jail system due to COVID-19 concerns.  According to FOX 11 News, Sheriff Don Barnes "is refusing to release any more" incarcerated people despite the mandate.  "These people who remain in the jail, they may have diabetes, but they're also charged with murder," Barnes told the outlet during an online interview.  "Or they may be over 65, but may be a child molester."  Sheriff Barnes posted an open letter to social media on Wednesday afternoon announcing his intention to appeal last Friday's directive by Judge Peter Wilson to cut the detainee population in all congregate living areas by 50%.  The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed in April by the America Civil Liberties Union seeking to protect medically vulnerable people from coronavirus infection.

California Sheriff Refuses To Release 1,800 Inmates After Judge's Order.  A California sheriff is refusing to comply with a judge's order to release 1,800 inmates from Orange County jails, including individuals who have been imprisoned for murder, due to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic.  County Superior Court Judge Peter Wilson on Friday ordered the release of 50 percent — or 1,858 inmates out of 3,716 — to curb the transmission of COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP virus.  "I have no intention of releasing any of these individuals from my custody," said Sheriff Don Barnes, pushing back against the order.  "We are going to file an appeal and we're going to fight it and if the judge has any intent of releasing any one of these individuals, he will have to go through line by line, name by name, and tell me which ones he is ordering released."

DA Who Prosecuted 8-Year-Old Gabriel Fernandez's Killers Tearfully Refuses to Comply With Gascon's Directives.  As one of three members assigned to the LA County District Attorney's complex child abuse unit Deputy District Attorney Jon Hatami prosecutes the most heinous and heartbreaking cases that come into the office.  Between 2013 and 2018 Hatami was the lead prosecutor for one of the most infamous child abuse cases in Los Angeles history, the torture and murder of Gabriel Fernandez.  After winning a conviction against Fernandez's mother's boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre, Hatami revealed to reporters that one reason the case was so personal to him was because he had also been abused as a child. [...] Now Hatami is working to obtain justice for another child's killer, but his hands are tied because of his new boss's Special Directives.

Seattle weighs 'poverty defense' for most misdemeanor crimes.  Seattle lawmakers are considering a law that would excuse suspects from most misdemeanor crimes if they can be linked to poverty or mental illness.  If approved, it would make the Emerald City the nation's first to have such a measure on the books.  The Seattle City Council said the proposal, crafted with input from local public defenders, would excuse suspects from minor crimes like theft, trespassing, or assault — but not in cases of domestic violence or driving while impaired, KUOW-TV reported.  "In a situation where you took that sandwich because you were hungry and you were trying to meet your basic need of satisfying your hunger, we as a community will know that we should not punish that," Anita Khandelwal, King County director of public defense, told the station.  "That conduct is excused."

Inside Soros DA George Gascon's Office:  Deputy DA's Threatened, Intimidated to Uphold New Policies.  Soros-funded Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon, as we've reported, made major waves during his first week in office.  On day one, he issued nine Special Directives instituting "criminals first" policies like failing to prosecute many misdemeanors, a blanket prohibition on seeking the death penalty or life without parole, and a ban on charging juveniles as adults.  Throughout the week, victims, law enforcement officers, and court personnel were shocked to see the results of those policies in action in the courtroom (including a failure to charge enhancements or "strikes" against a man accused of decapitating two of his children).

NYC has freed thousands of gun suspects this year as shootings soar:  NYPD.  Nearly 90 percent of suspects arrested on gun charges this year are back on the streets, which the NYPD says has fueled a historic spike in shootings that have left more than 1,756 dead or wounded.  About 3,345 of the 3,793 perps arrested between Jan. 1 and Nov. 30 for firearms crimes — 88 percent — were let go, according to department data.  Just 450 remain in jail, the NYPD told The [New York] Post.  Some of the suspects posted bail, but judges were required to release others under new reform laws that prohibit them from setting monetary bail on some gun-possession cases.  The crime became ineligible for bail in most circumstances under the Jan. 1 law changes, which mandate judges to release collared suspects, with no money down, on hundreds of charges considered "non-violent."  The NYPD has repeatedly blamed this year's stunning 96-percent surge in shootings on the loosened bail laws and early release of prisoners due to COVID concerns.

Seattle is considering making it legal to steal, as long as you're poor and plan on selling the items.  Remember over the summer when AOC blamed the spike in crime in New York City on parents stealing food to feed their families? [Tweet] She was roundly ridiculed for that, of course, but now Seattle hopes to make AOC's fantasy a reality by creating an affirmative defense for theft if you intended to sell the stolen items for "basic needs" like food or rent.  It's called "the poverty defense," and would not only make stealing legal, but apparently fencing items as well, and would cover over 100 misdemeanor crimes.

Judge to California's 3rd Largest County:  On Account of COVID, Release Half Your Convicts.  How do you empty a large county's jail system by half?  That's a question currently demanding an answer, as a West Coast judge has ordered that very thing.  As reported by The Daily Wire, on Friday, Superior Court Judge Peter Wilson dictated Sheriff Don Barnes must liquidate Orange County's jail system by 50%.  The decision comes following the American Civil Liberties Union's April lawsuit demanding the release of disabled and vulnerable inmates in light of the pandemic.

New DA Gascon to decline prosecution on range of low-level crimes.  The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office will no longer prosecute a range of misdemeanor crimes, from resisting arrest to drug possession to making criminal threats, according to a memo issued this week by new DA George Gascon. [...] The memo spells out misdemeanors which should be declined or dismissed before arraignment, with a number of exceptions at the discretion of the prosecutor.  Among them:  Trespassing, disturbing the peace, driving with no license or a suspended license, making criminal threats, drug possession, drinking in public, loitering to commit prostitution and resisting arrest, among others.

Minneapolis delivers on its George Floyd promise to defund police and wipes $8m from force's budget.  Minneapolis City Council on Thursday [12/10/2020] approved a controversial budget which is set to move $8 million of funding from the police — despite record crime rates since the May death of George Floyd.  Mayor Jacob Frey, who had threatened to veto the entire budget if the council went ahead with a plan to cap police staffing, said the vote was a defining moment for the city which was the first to be hit by anti-police protests following the death of Floyd.  The city has been plagued by soaring violent crime since then — with homicide, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, theft and arson all up on last year's figures.

LA District Attorney Whistleblower:  Gascon's Sentencing Special Directive Is Illegal.  New Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon has had the most active first week on the job of probably any officeholder ever, anywhere.  On Day One he issued nine Special Directives to his staff, instituting a wet dream of Black Lives Matter and Antifa justice policies — and decreed that those policies should be implemented in all pending cases and even up to 20,000 cases in which the criminals were already sentenced.  On Day Two he dropped charges against a "protester" accused of trying to wreck a train (you read that right) during a protest against the LA Sheriff's Department after deputies shot and killed a known gang member and drug dealer, Dijon Kizzee, who'd pulled a gun on them.  We can't wait to see what the rest of the week will bring.

New Los Angeles DA Snubs Staff, Meets With BLM, Will Implement Radical Progressive Agenda.  The worst fears about the new district attorney in Los Angeles County, George Gascón, are already materializing.  After defeating the incumbent DA on November 3, Gascón was sworn in on Monday [12/7/2020].  Gascón announced that his office would immediately end cash bail for many offenses, refuse to pursue the death penalty, and cease trying juveniles as adults for violent offenses.

California Court Order Frees 250 Criminal Illegal Aliens into U.S..  Criminal illegal aliens who were released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody due to a court order in Adelanto, California, have been re-arrested for child sex crimes, burglary, drug possession, and drunk driving.  By October, ICE released more than 250 illegal aliens from their Adelanto detention facility after a court order mandated that they free up space.  Those released were put in the Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program that places GPS ankle bracelets on each illegal alien as they are freed into the interior of the United States.

70th Harris County Resident Murdered by Suspect Out on Bond, Says Victim's Advocate.  According to a victim's advocate, Derrick Mike has become the 70th person in Harris County to be murdered by a suspect out on felony bond.  The suspect, 23-year-old Edward O'Neal IV, had been charged in the 2016 slaying of his friend Ryan Roberts in a case that drew international attention since O'Neal claimed to be a worshipper of Satan.  Records indicate O'Neal had confessed to several people including his mother that he had stabbed Roberts to death.  Family members told police and media that they knew O'Neal worshipped the devil, and his mother stated that he had killed two family pets.

New Los Angeles DA Gascon Sworn In, Will "End Bail Completely Jan 1," Resentence Up To 20,000 Convicted Criminals.  As RedState and countless other publications warned, if Los Angeles elected socialist and Soros-funded candidate George Gascon as its District Attorney, he would institute radical changes in the criminal justice system.  He essentially partnered with Black Lives Matter during the election, and pledged his allegiance to them after Election Day.  Gascon was sworn in Monday [12/7/2020], and immediately implemented sweeping changes that go far beyond what even jaded political observers expected.

Seattle City Council Poised for a Breakthrough in Eliminating Most Property Crime — Make It Legal.  Two months ago Seattle City Councilwoman Lisa Herbold proposed legislation under the guise of a budget bill that would, for all practical purposes, eliminate the prosecution of approximately 90% of all misdemeanor crimes in Seattle through the creation of an affirmative defense to conviction of "duress" stemming from poverty, homelessness, substance addiction, or mental illness. [...] But the proposal from Herbold would create a complete defense of "duress" to misdemeanor criminal charges for any criminal defendant who can show they fit into one of the "exempt" classifications.  By one estimate it is likely that that 9 out of 10 criminal misdemeanor cases filed by the City Attorney's Office would be subject to such a defense, and as a practical matter, charges would never get filed in the first instance.

Have the police just given up on crime?  This prolific shoplifter was caught red-handed by security guard.  Nicholas Richards is a familiar face in the stores of London's West End.  He's a serial shoplifter.  One of the establishments he has been banned from because of his persistent offending is the flagship branch of Boots in Piccadilly.  But here he is, captured on CCTV of that very store before the latest lockdown, brazenly helping himself to £170 worth of Gucci products from the fragrance counter.  Richards, in a fashionable black T-shirt and jeans, was caught red-handed by security officers from private police force My Local Bobby (MLB).  They handcuffed him and waited for the real police to arrive, but they needn't have bothered.

Black Virginia police chief fired for charging prominent BLM vandals and public officials.  Back on June 10th in Portsmouth, Virginia, a large group of protesters decided to tear down and destroy a Confederate monument located in that city.  An investigation was launched, led by Portsmouth Police Chief Angela Greene.  After collecting video from the event and conducting interviews for two months, Greene announced in August that charges were being filed against 19 people who had been involved in the destruction. [...] You might think that would be pretty much the end of the story, but it wasn't.  Among those arrested was State Sen. Louise Lucas, several leaders of the local Black Lives Matter movement, officials from the NAACP, and a member of the local school board.  Since several crimes had obviously been committed, you might think that Chief Greene (who is Black, by the way) would be lauded for holding all citizens, regardless of their status accountable.  You would be wrong, however.  Howls of protest emerged not only from the community but from elected officials.  Yesterday the situation came to a head and Chief Greene was unceremoniously fired.

Virginia Police Chief Fired After Charging Democrat Leaders with Felonies!.  Portsmouth Police Chief Angela Greene was fired Monday morning after being suspended from her position as Police Chief two months ago.  Chief Green was suspended on September 4th by the former city manager just weeks after she brought felony charges against Democrat State Senator Louise Lucas and others in relation to protests and monument destruction that occurred June 8th.  Senator Lucas was caught on video instructing Portsmouth Police officers to stand down during the protests.

Minneapolis Police Chief Pleads For Outside Help Amid Hemorrhaging Police Force.  The Minneapolis chief of police implored the city council to bring in help from the outside after a hemorrhaging police force has left the city reeling amid rising crime.  Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo asked city authorities to reinforce their dwindling numbers as violent crime escalates in the city, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.  "Resources are hemorrhaging," Arradondo said at a Tuesday meeting.  "Our city is bleeding at this moment.  I'm trying to do all I can to stop that bleeding."

Los Angeles cops will no longer be answering certain calls.  [Scroll down]  Another 350 positions for uniformed officers will be eliminated by April according to the latest announcement.  The LAPD will be reducing the number of cops on a variety of task forces, including (but not limited to) robbery, homicide, and gang and narcotics units.  Boy... things must be really going well in Lalaland these days if they don't need to keep the police working as diligently in those areas.  Oh, wait.  That's not actually the case at all.  In fact, murders in the City of Angels are up by 20% compared to the same time last year.  And the number of arrests being made is down.  Some of you may hear about the proposal to not respond to minor accidents anymore and see it as no big deal.  But it is.  It goes back to the basic premise of the theory of broken windows policing.

One-Party Democrat Rule Is Killing California, And It's Coming For The Country.  The twin problem of drug addiction is rampant criminality.  Drug addiction causes criminality as junkies are looking to feed their habits.  Both are traceable to Proposition 47, passed by voters in 2014.  The law steeply reduced penalties for law breaking, including drug offenses, most of which are now misdemeanors, punishable by tickets addicts ignore.  Since theft worth less than $900 has also been reclassified as misdemeanor, in the post-47 environment criminals walk into stores and nonchalantly sweep merchandise into large garbage bags.  Unable to cover the losses, retailers close, turning formerly lively urban enclaves into blight.

Austin sees spikes in violent crime, officer retirements after defund police vote.  Austin has seen a spike in violent crime and officer retirements after the city council voted over the summer to immediately slash $20 million from the police department budget, becoming the first major Texas city to do so.  In August, Austin City Council members voted unanimously to cut about $150 million, or roughly one-third, from its police department and allocate those funds to areas like violence prevention, housing and mental health services.  Only about $21.5 million was immediately removed from the department's funding in part by canceling three upcoming cadet classes and slashing overtime expenses.  "It is demoralizing for the officers.  It is angering for the citizens because they're having to wait longer for officers to get the calls.  And it's unsafe for citizens and officers," Austin Police Association President Bill Cassidy told Fox News.

Logically indisputable reasons why President Trump should be reelected.  [Scroll down]  President Trump is the only candidate in this race who has any real interest in penal and prosecutorial reform.  Both former vice president Biden and his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, have spent most of their careers increasing the sentences of all categories of convicted people and have some direct responsibility for the fact that the United States has 5 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of its incarcerated people, and that an utterly scandalous 99 percent of criminal prosecutions are at least partially successful, 97 percent of those without a trial.  The U.S. has six to twelve times as many incarcerated people per capita as Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom, the most comparable large, prosperous democracies.  The American criminal-justice system is a disgrace, and both of the Democratic candidates for national office are complicit in that disgrace.

Anarchy in New York?  One late summer Sunday morning, Demetrius Harvard, a 30-year old Bronx man, stood on a subway platform in Greenwich Village and methodically threw construction material onto the tracks.  Bystanders tried to stop him, and someone even went into the train well to remove the debris, but Harvard persisted in his sabotage.  Eventually, he succeeded in derailing an uptown A train, injuring several passengers.  You had to read to the end of tabloid news reports to get the real story.  Two weeks earlier, in the same neighborhood, Harvard had tossed a steel bench through a bus window.  He was arrested, charged with criminal mischief, and immediately "ROR'd" — released on his recognizance — with no bail.  This cycle is now all too common in New York, where public order and safety have been buffeted by chaotic forces.  Criminal-justice reform at the state level removed bail as an option for all but the most heinous charges.

Under Trump, black prison rate lowest in 31 years, Hispanics down 24%.  America's imprisonment rate has dropped to its lowest level since 1995, led by a dive in the percentage of blacks and Hispanics sent to jail during the Trump administration, according to a new Justice Department tally.  For minorities, the focus of President Trump's First Step Act prison and criminal reform plan, the rate is the lowest in years.  For blacks, the imprisonment rate in state and federal prisons is the lowest in 31 years, and for Hispanics, it is down 24%.

San Francisco:  A string of drug stores close after shoplifters strip the shelves bare.  You'll be shocked to learn there are some serious problems in San Francisco with petty crime.  This week the San Francisco Chronicle reported on the seventh Walgreens drug store to announce it is closing in the city since last year.  The problem is a wave of shoplifting from retail locations that can add up to millions of dollars in lost merchandise. [...] The Walgreens clerks can't do anything about the theft because the company has a policy preventing them from interfering in shoplifting.  Allegedly this is for their safety but I suspect it's really because if they didn't have this policy and anyone got hurt, they would be sued.

Court: San Quentin must release prisoners due to lack of COVID care.  Finding that state officials have acted with "deliberate indifference" to the health of prisoners at San Quentin — where 75% of them have tested positive for the coronavirus and 28 have died — a state appeals court took the unprecedented step Tuesday of ordering at least half of the prison's 2,900 inmates transferred or released.

Houston Police Sgt. Killed By Repeat Offender After Soros-Funded D.A. Refused to Press Charges.  A police sergeant in Houston, Texas was shot dead Tuesday morning [10/20/2020] by a suspect who was in police custody just two days earlier, but was allowed to go free when the Democrat district attorney refused to press charges.  HPD Sergeant Harold Preston had been with the Houston Police Department for 41-years and was due to retire at the end of the year, according to the Montgomery County Police Reporter.  The local pro-police paper is urging voters to oust the D.A., whose campaign for office was bankrolled by left-wing billionaire George Soros.

Soros-Funded Prosecutors Put 'Social Justice' Above Law and Order, Analysts Say.  Self-styled progressive political activists who win election as district attorneys with financial support from wealthy donors have made "social justice" initiatives more important than public safety, legal analysts say.  George Soros, the Hungarian American billionaire investor, stands out as the big donor behind a super PAC that helped elect district attorneys who have overseen a dramatic increase in crime.  The Justice and Public Safety super PAC feeds into a larger network of local political action committees.  Some of the district attorneys elected with its support have attracted media attention for their antipathy toward law enforcement.  "I refuse to call them progressives," Charles "Cully" Stimson, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, said in an interview with The Daily Signal, adding:  "There's nothing progressive about what they're doing."

The literally deadly results of "bail reform".  Last week, a 43-year-old Long Island man named William Farnum was being pursued in his vehicle by the NYPD. The suspect eventually crashed into a utility pole.  When the police arrived on the scene and approached to investigate they discovered that Farnum had slit his own throat in the driver's seat of his car and was dead.  The bad news didn't end there, however.  When officers attempted to notify his next of kin they discovered two dead bodies in his home.  They are believed to be the remains of Farnum's father and sister, reportedly killed by Farnum.  What's really got the local police and Republican lawmakers up in arms about this situation is the fact that Farnum never should have been out on the streets when all of this was taking place.  Scrolling through the man's recent history of engagements with law enforcement and the totality of his criminal record, he should have been behind bars.  But new bail reform laws in New York have tied the hands of judges and it was virtually impossible to keep Farnum locked up for more than a few hours at a time.

California will begin housing male inmates in women's prisons to 'respect' gender identities.  Biological males who find themselves on the wrong side of the California justice system will now be given the choice to serve their sentence in either a men's or a women's prison.  Under a new law, a prisoner's claimed gender identity will determine what type of facility they end up at.  Prison officials will be forced to address inmates by their chosen pronoun and "honorific" title.  Worse yet, authorities will seemingly be stripped of any real power to stop these transfers.

Slaughter in the Cities.  Establishment voices are finally, grudgingly admitting that murders and shootings are up spectacularly in 2020.  But the reasons, they all agree, are immensely complicated and rather boring.  Perhaps, they muse, it has something to do with lockdowns?  Or there could be any number of other subtly interacting factors.  Who can tell?  In any case, this mysterious rise in violence is beyond the comprehension, much less the control, of politicians. [...] Did anything happen in late May that encouraged criminals and discouraged cops?  The data journalists appear stumped when they try to think back that far.  But, as you may recall (it was in the news at the time), George Floyd died in police custody on May 25, and three days later the Democratic mayor of Minneapolis let rioters burn down a police station.  From there, looting and rioting spread nationwide as the press and universities extolled the Mostly Peaceful Protesters.

Pay Attention To Local Elections, Because Whoever Wins Can Make Your Life Miserable.  This year, more than any other in recent memory, we got a bitter taste of the power of local officials to enable, and even promote, rioting and mayhem in America.  Many of us have watched aghast as mayors of blue cities like Portland, Seattle, Chicago, and New York turned a blind eye or even encouraged mob rule that resulted in wide-scale violence, vandalism, looting, injury, and, yes, murder.  They have flatly rejected all offers by President Trump to bring it under control by calling in the National Guard.  Let's not forget that these mayors — along with the many other officials close to them — were elected locally.  Recall, it's local elected prosecutors, district attorneys, state's attorneys, and attorneys general that have the power to allow violent criminals to roam free after an arrest.  We see this happening repeatedly in Democratic Party-run cities like Seattle and Portland where Antifa thugs caught on camera assaulting officers and citizens are immediately set free without bail.

Stealing Soho:  Luxury retailers terrorized by shoplifting mobs.  Bands of shoplifters are terrorizing Soho's high-end boutiques, lifting hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of designer merchandise, and in some cases, threatening security guards to keep quiet — or be labeled racist, The [New York] Post has learned.  The disturbing pattern began in late May during the riots that rocked the city in the wake of the George Floyd police custody death.  High-end Celine was looted of $1.5 million in merchandise then, and the blatant thievery continues "every week" in ritzy stores such as Prada, Moncler, Dior and Balenciaga, one plugged-in local said.  "This is happening every week.  Walk around Soho on Wooster Street and Greene Street, Mercer Street. ... You have huge bouncers out there trying to deter hit-and-run activity," the source, a restaurateur, said.  But in some cases, the thieves are given carte blanche to steal.

Cop-assaulting NYC teen back on streets after latest arrest.  A Manhattan man who head-butted an NYPD cop amid a string of recent arrests, including three for assaulting officers, was back on the streets Saturday [10/10/2020], just days after landing behind bars for another brazen attack on law enforcement, The [New York] Post has learned.  Angel Rivera, 18, may be the latest poster child for junk justice in the Big Apple.  On Wednesday, Rivera was arrested for assaulting two cops during a late night melee outside the 79th Precinct in Brooklyn, police sources said.  Rivera allegedly hit several officers with a metal barrier and then punched the arresting officer in the face, causing one to be brought to Bellevue Hospital, police sources said.  Charges ranged from criminal possession of a weapon, assault and resisting arrest.  Rivera posted bail Saturday in that case, police sources said.

Tom Gores resigns from LACMA board over prison phones investment.  NBA team owner Tom Gores stepped down from the board of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Thursday night [10/8/2020] after calls for the billionaire's ouster over his investment firm's ownership of a prison telephone company.  Criminal justice activists have been hounding the 56-year-old private equity titan since his Beverly Hills firm acquired Securus Technologies in 2017.  Last month, two groups sent a letter to the museum's leadership accusing Gores of the "deliberate exploitation of Black, Brown, and economically distressed communities."

FBI: Over 4 Times More Killed with Knives than Rifles.  The FBI's Uniform Crime Report (UCR) for 2019 shows more than four times as many people were stabbed to death than were killed with rifles of any kind.  The UCR shows 364 were killed with rifles in 2019, while 1,476 were stabbed to death with "knives or cutting instruments."

REPORT: Nearly 70% Of Portland Rioters Had Charges Dropped By Progressive DA.  Nearly 70% of the individuals arrested during the riots and unrest in Portland, which stretched from the end of May through early October, had their charges dismissed by the Multnomah County District Attorney's office, according to data released Thursday [10/8/2020].  The Portland DA "released a new statistical dashboard that analyzes protest-related cases referred to his office by law enforcement for prosecutorial review and potential issuing," the office announced on in a statement on Thursday, laying bare Multnomah County's strategy in handling cases of individuals arrested during protests, demonstrations, riots, and unrest, referred to them by Portland's Police Department.

Protesters want to defund police.  Homicides and violence are spiking.  The homicide rate is spiking, a troubled police department is reeling from street demonstrations seeking racial justice and accountability, and the city budget is ravaged by the coronavirus economy.  The push to reshape police departments is occurring in cities across the country, but it is perhaps nowhere more evident than here in Oakland, where veteran activists want to sharply reduce the police budget but much of the broader community is struggling with what that could mean.

Former Jail Workers Accused of Cruelty for Forcing Inmates to Listen to 'Baby Shark' on Repeat.  Two former Oklahoma jail workers and their supervisor are accused of cruelty for forcing inmates to listen to "Baby Shark" on repeat.  Five inmates were handcuffed to a wall and forced to listen to the children's song on repeat at a loud volume for hours, the Oklahoman reported.  Court records obtained by the New York Times show that the alleged incidents occurred on at least five occasions in November and December, where each inmate would be placed into an empty attorney visitation room while handcuffed to the wall and forced to stand for as long as two hours.  "Baby Shark" was then played through a computer on an endless loop, and inmates were forced to listen to the song.

Newt Gingrich predicted some disturbing events if Biden wins.  [Scroll down]  During the debate, Kamala spoke openly about her plans to impose on the United States the criminal justice system in California: [...] The language highlighted in that wall of words is the crucial language.  Doing away with cash bail is why people arrested in blue states are immediately out on the street to kill again.  The claim about implicit bias is a lie intended to hamstring police.  The studies about so-called "implicit bias" have been debunked.  Moreover, there is no connection between a police officer's race and the likelihood that he will shoot a black person.  We've also seen what happens in Democrat-run cities that impose Harris's plans for criminal justice reform.  In Los Angeles, Sacramento, and the San Francisco Bay Area, crime is skyrocketing, with the streets now given over to homeless, often crazy, people, and stores and homes subject to endless break-ins.  Democrats have also made clear that they see California leading the way on labor laws (especially for illegal aliens), on climate change laws, and on gun control.  Kamala, the hardest left senator, is the harbinger of California's hard-left policies being instituted in Congress.

BLM: A Righteous Cause or Communism in Blackface?  According to the Gallup Center on Black Voices, 81% of black Americans either want to retain police presence, or want more. [...] [I]n many cities, including my hometown of Stockton, California, one of our biggest complaints about the police is that they don't come fast enough when called; that sometimes, police don't show up for up to two hours, if they show up at all.  In my city, that has a lot to do with the fact that our police officers were reduced by a third in 2010, after a former mayor cut $14 million from the department.  The reduction was felt across the city as crime drastically increased in the subsequent years and Stockton set new records for most homicides in 2011 and 2012.  When the cuts were made, it was so dire that Stockton PD officers had to reluctantly let the city know that they could no longer guarantee our safety.

NYC's crime wave reaches new height as this year's murder tally surpasses all of 2019.  New York City surpassed another grim crime milestone last month, as the number of murders blew past all of 2019's tally — and there are still three months remaining in 2020, according to new data.  The NYPD recorded 51 murders last month, or nearly double the 2019 figure for September — pushing the total number of homicides this year to 344.  That is already the highest overall annual figure the city has seen since 2013, when 335 slayings were logged for that year, NYPD data shows.  If the current pace holds, murders could surpass 400 for the year.  The last time homicides ticked up above 400 was in 2012, when 419 were recorded, according to NYPD data.

Who wants to guess what level NYC's murder rate just hit?  While many media analysts are focusing on the COVID death toll, now over 200,000, the remaining residents of the Big Apple have a different figure to worry about.  The city has finished compiling the official law enforcement numbers for the month of September and New York City has hit a different sort of milestone.  The number of murders in Gotham has now eclipsed the number that was seen for all of 2019 and there are still a full three months to go.  As of Thursday, the city had recorded 344 killings, a figure that's already higher than any full year since 2013, and that record is already in danger as well.

Formerly known as the Ferguson Effect:
US sees 710 additional homicides and 2,800 more shootings, attributed to 'Minneapolis effect'.  With police departments across America under siege, pushed back on their heels by the oft-violent Black Lives Matter movement, the Democratic Party and their media allies, violent crime is "skyrocketing."  That's the assessment of Paul Cassell, a professor at S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah, who has dubbed the explosion of violence the "Minneapolis effect."  The professor is the author of a recent research paper titled, "Explaining the Recent Homicide Spikes in U.S. Cities:  The 'Minneapolis Effect' and the Decline in Proactive Policing."  "I think what Minneapolis is seeing is the same thing we're seeing all over the country," Cassell told Fox 9.  "We're seeing a reduction in proactive policing, and as a result of that homicide and shootings are skyrocketing all over the country."

Operation Legend Results In 500+ Arrests, Including 37 Murder Suspects.  U.S. Attorney Tim Garrison, at a joint press conference with Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas and Kansas City Police Chief Rick Smith, announced today [9/29/2020] that 518 arrests have been made by local and federal law enforcement officers in Operation LeGend.  "On behalf of the team of federal law enforcement agencies involved in this groundbreaking initiative, I made certain promises when Operation LeGend was launched," Garrison said.  "Those promises have been kept.  The FBI, the ATF, the DEA, and the U.S. Marshals Service worked collaboratively and effectively with the Kansas City Police Department and other local law enforcement agencies to accomplish the objectives of Operation LeGend.  We created a model for others to follow.  Our success in Kansas City is now being duplicated in eight more cities across the nation."

NY Attorney General:  We Should Just Ignore Some Arrest Warrants.  NY Attorney General Letitia James had decided to make an example of the police-shooting death of Allan Feliz in 2019 and use that as an excuse to push for a rather radical change in NYPD policy.  Feliz was pulled over by an NYPD sergeant named Jonathan Rivera last October and provided someone else's ID (his brother's) when asked for his driver's license.  The brother had some outstanding warrants for minor infractions.  An altercation ensued, leading to Feliz being shot and killed by the officer.  Using that incident as an example, the AG is now recommending that officers no longer conduct arrests of individuals during traffic stops if they have outstanding warrants for a variety of classes of minor offenses.  These would include bench warrants for failing to appear in court or more minor, public nuisance offenses.

NYPD Should Stop Making Traffic Stops, Attorney General Says.  New York's attorney general on Friday recommended the New York Police Department get out of the business of routine traffic enforcement, a radical change she said would prevent encounters like one last year in the Bronx that escalated quickly and ended with an officer fatally shooting a motorist.  Attorney General Letitia James, who acts as a special prosecutor appointed to investigate certain police killings, argued that traffic stops for minor infractions often end in violence and that Allan Feliz's death last October after he was pulled over for a seat belt violation "further underscores the need for this change."

A "Culture of Lawlessness" in D.A. Offices.  U.S. Attorney William McSwain of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania blames Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner for the rise in violence in the City of Brotherly Love.  Krasner's policies, McSwain announced, "create a culture of lawlessness; they leave criminals emboldened; and they have inevitable consequences."  Indeed, since Krasner took office in 2018, homicides are up 49 percent and shootings have climbed by 59 percent.  If the trend holds, Philadelphia will tally more than 450 homicides in 2020 — the highest count in nearly 30 years.  Crime is spiking precisely because Krasner isn't holding serious offenders accountable.

Convicted NYPD cop killer Anthony Bottom scheduled to be released on parole.  The last of three convicted Black Revolutionary Army members behind bars for murdering two NYPD cops nearly 50 years ago is set to be freed on parole in October, police union officials said Tuesday [9/22/2020].  Anthony Bottom, who has spent more than 43 years in prison for his role in the assassinations of Officers Joseph Piagentini and Waverly Jones in 1971, will be sprung by Oct. 20, a source told Pix 11 News.  The board's decision infuriated Piagentini's widow, Diane Piagentini.

Group Robs A CVS In Broad Daylight As Employees And Manager Just Watch.  Ever since California decriminalized what the state considers 'petty crime', this sort of brazen robberies of stores has become more and more common.  Add mask laws to the mix, which conceals criminals' identities, you can bet on a lot more of these broad daylight heists.  [Video clip]

Shootings soar in Portland after mayor disbands police gun unit.  Shootings in Portland, Oregon, nearly tripled over the summer after Mayor Ted Wheeler disbanded the city's police gun crimes unit, according to new police data.  The city recorded 223 shootings in July and August, up from 77 over the same period in 2019.  And a little more than halfway through September the city already had 64 shootings, or double the shootings from the same month last year.  The numbers were released last week.

Man Suspected in Seattle Homicide Had Been Turned Free by Leftist Prosecutors 34 Times.  Seattle Police think that well-known homeless man Travis Berge killed a 30-year-old woman on Thursday morning [9/17/2020].  Police were called about a body in the city's Cal Anderson Park, and officials then went on the hunt for Berge, the Post Millennial reported.  Officials soon found Berge in a nearby building.  At first, they thought he was barricaded in the building, but after a SWAT team entered, they found the suspect at the bottom of a tank that contained 50 gallons of water and bleach.  A HAZMAT crew was then called in to try and make sense of the situation.

Aurora, Colorado police stand down twice to avoid arresting violent felon.  Guess why.  A couple of weeks ago, some problems arose at an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado.  One of the residents had unwisely invited Robert Thompson, 47, to stay at the apartment he shared with his girlfriend.  He did this despite Thompson having a lengthy rap sheet and a history of criminal behavior. [...] The following day, Thompson's behavior flew further out of control and he wound up trapping McCoy's girlfriend in their bedroom along with a friend.  He then took a golf club and began smashing everything in the apartment, moving on to vandalize cars in the parking lot. [...] The situation was so far out of control that the police believe it might result in someone winding up dead, but they were told to "stand down" and walk away.  Twice.  So what led to that decision?  The Deputy Chief admitted that the choice made by the police was influenced by the death of Elijah McClain in police custody last month.

Minneapolis City Council Panics Over Surge In Violence After Demonizing Police: 'Where Are The Police?'  The Democrat-controlled Minneapolis City Council is reportedly panicking as violent crime is surging throughout the city after they called for defunding the police department following the death of George Floyd in late May.  During a two-hour Minneapolis City Council meeting on police reform, "council members told police Chief Medaria Arradondo that their constituents are seeing and hearing street racing which sometimes results in crashes, brazen daylight carjackings, robberies, assaults and shootings," MPR News reported.  "The number of reported violent crimes, like assaults, robberies and homicides are up compared to 2019, according to MPD crime data.  More people have been killed in the city in the first nine months of 2020 than were slain in all of last year.  Property crimes, like burglaries and auto thefts, are also up.  Incidents of arson have increased 55 percent over the total at this point in 2019."

Oregon catches arsonist in the act, lets him out, surprised to find he sets new fires.  There's stupid, there's pig-stupid, and there's Oregon.  That's the astonishing picture we have here where a suspect, Domingo Lopez, Jr., 45, who had been arrested just 12 hours earlier for setting fires, got somehow let out and proceeded to commit to more arson, with the Antifa weapon of choice, the Molotov cocktail, as if that couldn't be foreseen.  The second time around, he set six fires.  Who needs global warming with guys like this?  The big fail here was from the justice system, which let the known firebug, freshly caught in the act, out and about.  Obviously, there's something going on with this.  How could anyone in authority be this stupid?  It's sheer lunacy to let a caught-in-the-act arsonist out at a time of high fires and not guess he'll go back to the same thing he was caught doing earlier.  But that's exactly what happened.

Random Thoughts On The Floyd Case.  Is it possible for any of the four former Minneapolis police officers charged in the death of George Floyd to receive a fair trial?  In Minneapolis?  If not in Minneapolis, anywhere else in Minnesota?  Is it possible that a Hennepin County jury won't have the external effects of not guilty verdicts in mind when they retire to deliberate?  I've had those questions in mind since expedited criminal charges were filed following the rioting that convulsed the Twin Cities.  Public officials including Governor Walz have repeatedly declared the officers guilty of murder.  We are deep into a verdict first, trial later mode.

Jail Releases Portland Man Who Set Fire With Molotov Cocktail, Then He Sets Six More.  On Sunday, police arrested a man who confessed to starting a brush fire with a Molotov cocktail in Portland.  They booked him in Multnomah County Jail.  Portland being Portland, the authorities released the suspect that evening.  The man then went on to start six more fires before the police arrested him yet again.  The cops took him to a hospital for a mental evaluation. [...] The story did not end there, however.  Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt has notoriously taken the side of violent antifa rioters against the police they attack, and he announced that his office would not prosecute many riot-related crimes, even when some of those crimes endanger the lives of police officers.  Perhaps that attitude helps explain why Domingo Lopez Jr. left jail on Sunday evening [9/13/2020].  Apparently, the suspect had enough time on his hands to set a whopping six more fires before the police again detained him.

'Enter At Your Own Risk!': Texas Police Group Puts Up Billboards Warning Those Entering Austin That City Defunded Police.  People entering Austin, Texas, from Interstate 35 will see two billboards warning them that the city defunded police.  One billboard says, "Warning!  Austin defunded police.  Enter at your own risk!" CBS News reported.  The board is referring to the Austin city council's vote last month to cut the police budget.  The second billboard reads, "Limited support next 20 miles," the outlet reported.  The billboards were put up by the Texas Municipal Police Association, which announced its campaign Wednesday [9/9/2020] on Facebook.

Just 1 in 5 shootings in NYC resulted in an arrest this year.  We recently discussed the sickening news that New York City had already passed 1,000 shootings in 2020, a number that's in excess of the total number of shootings for all of 2019 and there are still four months to go.  But as with any municipal government and law enforcement agency, the raw number of incidents doesn't tell the whole story.  How effective are officials being in solving these cases and putting the guilty behind bars?  According to a new report from the New York Post, things aren't looking all that hot on the enforcement front, either.  The NYPD's clearance rate for shootings is hovering below 20% on the year, meaning that more than four out of five shooters are still on the streets, and this has many of the locals feeling nervous.

Growing numbers of district attorneys are out to undermine the law.  One reason for the surging, often protracted violence in US cities is the rise of a host of progressive prosecutors who actually tilt against law and order.  The trend is most glaring in places known for their kooky left-wing politics, like Portland and San Francisco, but extreme leftists have also taken over as district attorneys in cities like Chicago and Boston.  Many owe big thanks for their elections to funding from far-left fatcat George Soros.  In Portland, violent "protests" have dragged on for months, thanks to the idiocy of Mayor Ted Wheeler, who let hoodlums drive him out of his own condo — but also to Multnomah County DA Mike Schmidt, who dropped charges against hundreds of people arrested for offenses like interfering with cops, disorderly conduct, criminal trespass and rioting.  Schmidt also made it harder to prosecute assaults on cops.

California DA's new policy to consider looters' 'needs' before charging them.  A California district attorney is requiring her prosecutors to consider looters' "needs" when weighing criminal charges against them.  The new mandate, set forth by Contra Costa County District Attorney Diane Becton, makes it tougher to prosecute looting cases in the county, which sits just outside San Francisco.  Investigators must now consider "was this theft offense substantially motivated by the state of emergency, or simply a theft offense which occurred contemporaneously to the declared state of emergency?," according to the policy reported by local outlet East County Today.

Portland Police, FBI and U.S. DOJ Refuse to Arrest Antifa Murder Suspect Because He Supports Joe Biden and Black Lives Matter.  It's time to be brutally honest and face the enemy as a united nation.  Trump supporter Aaron "Jay" Danielson was murdered on the streets of Portland Oregon.  Danielson's murder was caught on camera, and everyone, including thousands of people who watch social media, know exactly who killed him, [...].  However, despite everyone knowing exactly who carried out a politically motivated assassination, [the suspect] has not been arrested.  The Portland police, the FBI and the United States Department of Justice have not arrested him; and the only logical conclusion to be gained from that reluctance is that [the] Antifa supporter [...] is also a supporter of Black Lives Matter and Joe Biden.  Therefore no-one does anything.  When you accept this reality, it is only then that we can start to fathom just how seriously screwed up the U.S. system of justice has become.  If you support Trump you are a disposable statistic; however, if you support the mob all efforts will be undertaken to protect you from the consequences of your own violent action.

Meet The Rioting Criminals Kamala Harris Helped Bail Out Of Jail.  Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have a problem.  They know it, the media knows it, everyone knows it.  For three months they have ignored the deadly rioting that spread across the nation's cities on both coasts and in between.  They insisted that what we were seeing was "mostly peaceful" protests and that Donald Trump and his evil allies were defaming decent Americans who just want social justice.  Now they want to denounce these riots, but there is a problem:  Harris is a financial supporter of the rioters she now claims to denounce.

A Tyranny Perpetual and Universal?  [Scroll down]  Need evidence that going soft on crime is high on the agenda?  Consider how, early in the COVID-19 panic, leftist pols prioritized letting criminals out of jail, ostensibly because they were at risk of infection.  The real reason, though, is explained by Rahm Emanuel's famous exhortation to his comrades to "never let a serious crisis go to waste."  Governors, mayors, district attorneys, police chiefs, and sheriffs in blue zones across the country simply followed hizzoner's advice and did what they always wanted to do anyway but hitherto could, or dared, not.  Emboldened by the crisis, drunk with power, and half-convinced that a scared population wasn't paying attention, they let the bad guys go.  They got away with it, and they'll make the policy permanent once they have lasting power.

The Chaos in Urban America Is Bad Now — But Can Only Get Worse With Biden.  People used to accuse Democrats of being "soft on crime."  Now, Democrat-run cities can't even properly identify crime, let alone punish it.  (Except, perhaps, the ultimate sin of defending your life and home from the mob).  The eccentric, oddball, strange and perverse crew of mayors that run these urban cesspools are intransigent in their refusal to fight crime.  President Donald Trump is increasingly at war with America's Democrat-run cities — but only because their mayors refuse to fight the war with the crime on their streets.  This week, the President announced that he was sending 200 federal agents to Chicago and Kansas City.  He has already sent U.S. Customs Border Security guards to Portland in an attempt to alleviate the lawlessness and chaos in that city.  At least he can still distinguish between legitimate protest and rioting.  Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, apparently, cannot.

John Lennon's murderer denied parole for 11th time.  The man who killed John Lennon in 1980 has been denied parole for the 11th time.  Mark David Chapman, 65, is serving a 20-years-to-life sentence at Wende Correctional Facility outside of Buffalo, New York.  He was denied parole after being interviewed by a parole board earlier in August, the Associated Press reported.  Chapman shot the former Beatle and famed musician outside of his Manhattan apartment just hours after Lennon had autographed an album for him.

Soros DA Diana Becton Requires Officers Consider Whether a Looter "Needed" Stolen Goods Before Charging.  Last week we brought you the story of Nichelle Holmes, a Deputy District Attorney in California who made social media posts proclaiming "We want more than a citation for vandalism" for the couple who painted over a Black Lives Matter mural in her jurisdiction.  The office has now charged the couple with a "hate crime."  Holmes' boss, Diana Becton, is in her first term as elected District Attorney, one of a number of district attorneys heavily supported by lefty billionaire George Soros.  Sources tell RedState that as soon as Becton took over she implemented major changes in the way the office was run and in the way crimes were charged and how aggressively cases were prosecuted.  One recent change, which I'll address further in a moment, has to do with charging people for "looting," which is basically stealing during a state of emergency (i.e., protests or riots).  Becton is BFF's with St. Louis' Kim Gardner and Chicago's Kim Foxx, who've been in the news for their terrible policies.

Oregon governor considers releasing 400 prisoners as coronavirus precaution: report.  Oregon Gov. Kate Brown is considering commuting the sentences of as many as 400 prisoners in the state's detention centers as a coronavirus precaution, according to reports.  The move would come as police in the state's largest city, Portland, have their hands full with nightly riots and destruction for three straight months — with protests in other cities as well.  The prisoners eyed for early release would include those who are within two months of the end of their sentences — as well as about a dozen inmates deemed "medically vulnerable" to the virus, OregonLive.com reported.

California Apocalypto.  It is now August in California.  So we can expect the following from our postmodern state government. [...] We can expect lots of crime, because in fear of COVID-19 and in line with no-to-little bail policies, lots of criminals roam our streets.  The state was once far safer after the adoption of the three-strikes law, but as crime radically declined, the imprisoned criminal, not his prey, was recalibrated as a victim.  Gun sales are soaring, in the bluest of states, as if carjackers and home invaders just might not extend exemption to the woke.  California, as some of the Democratic primary candidates bragged last year, is the progressive model of the future: a once-innovative rich state that is now a civilization in near ruins.

NYC grocers alarmed by uptick in theft, quality of life crimes.  Grocery store owners are convinced: the five-finger discount is back in a big way.  An uptick in shoplifting and other violations during the coronavirus lockdown has hundreds of independent supermarket owners around the city complaining the NYPD hasn't been responsive enough when they call — whether it's about thieves, maskless shoppers or neighborhood drug peddlers.  "We're pretty much on our own," said Pedro Goico, who owns six grocery stores in the Bronx and Brooklyn.  "Right now, it's very tough to be in the grocery store business.  We're getting no help from the city."  Goico said his stores have been plagued with shoplifters and estimates that 6% to 7% of his bottom line has disappeared because of it since March.  Before COVID-19, he said he'd typically lose about 1% to shoplifters.

Despite Constant Libel of Trump, I Trust the People.  Ms. Harris has many critics among the 98% of Democrats who did not support her candidacy for president.  The Left is displeased with her performance as San Francisco's district attorney and as attorney general of California: she always called for maximum sentences and condoned the widespread American practice of prosecutors extorting or suborning inculpatory false evidence by threats of indictment if that evidence is not forthcoming, and promises of immunity from prosecution for perjury if it is.  Loyola law professor Lara Bazelon recently accused Ms. Harris in the New York Times of having "fought tooth and nail to uphold wrongful convictions that had been secured through official misconduct that included evidence tampering, false testimony, and the suppression of crucial information."  President Trump has made serious efforts at penal reform and sentence reduction for nonviolent offenders.  By contrast, Ms. Harris sent over 1,000 marijuana users to prison but acknowledged having tried it herself.  Ms. Harris's performance as a prosecutor clashes with the general current Democratic enthusiasm for defunding and discouraging the police and turning a blind eye to urban vandalism, arson, and looting.

The State of Our Cities That Our Media Is Hiding From You.  [Quoting Mike Doran:]  I've been exchanging messages with friends about what what's happening in our cities:  NY, Philadelphia and LA especially.  A lot of disturbing things are not making the news.  Even Republicans aren't drawing attention to it.  Here's a message from a friend about life in NY today:  "Here's my neighborhood, Mike:  An elderly man, enjoying dinner w/his wife at an outdoor restaurant, punched in the face.  A woman waiting for the subway to come stabbed in the back.  An older neighbor pausing to catch his breath told to pay two dollars in protection money or get [...] off that particular street corner.  This is just the ten block radius from where I live in the last six days."  Other friends from NY talk about shattered business districts, drugstores with locked shelves, and hundreds of homeless people and parolees, including sex offenders, being moved into hotels on the Upper West Side adjacent to schools and playgrounds, which are filled with needles again like in the 1970s.  Friends in Philadelphia report large homeless encampments in the city center and being robbed at gunpoint.  Friends in LA talk about squatters taking over empty homes in professional class neighborhoods whose residents fantasize about emigrating to Canada.

One story from the night of looting in Chicago that doesn't fit the approved narrative.  [Scroll down]  [Demisck] Lomax, 25, was charged with aggravated battery of a police officer.  Prosecutors say he has previous narcotics convictions.  You might expect him to sit in jail until trial.  And you'd be right, in that Chicago of old. [...] Cook County Judge Mary Marubio set his bail at $5,000.  Lomax only had to come up with $500.  I first read about this fascinating story on the Twitter feed of CWB Chicago, which covers a lot of crime news.  Chicago Ald.  Brendan Reilly, who represents much of the looted area, was furious with the bond for Lomax.  So I confirmed the CWB account with law enforcement, then called Reilly.  "It has to change and change fast," said Reilly.  "What we're seeing here with all the violence in Chicago is the result of a series of bad policy decisions, including the push for low bond and the criminal justice revolving door.["]  "I don't want people in jail for nonviolent crimes, but now, there aren't any consequences for committing any crime.  Police catch a lot of the bad guys, but bond court is a joke, with prosecutors and judges releasing violent offenders.["]

Montgomery County Gave ICE A 28-Minute Warning Before Releasing Illegal Immigrant Charged With Second Degree Rape.  Officials in Montgomery County, Maryland, gave Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) a 28-minute notice before releasing an illegal immigrant charged with second-degree rape and sexual abuse back into the public, according to county data obtained by the Immigration Reform Law Institute.  Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich had pledged to allow more cooperation with ICE on Nov. 4 when he rolled back a sanctuary policy he signed into law three months prior that prohibited county officials from working with ICE.  But the data obtained by IRLI shows that ICE was given less than four-hours notification to pick up eight illegal immigrants from Montgomery County jails after Elrich's policy was rescinded.  "Montgomery County claims to be cooperating with ICE, but the implementation of this policy is a joke," IRLI Executive Director of General Counsel Dale Wilcox said in a statement Wednesday [8/12/2020].

Joe Biden's response to rising crime:  Pander to anti-police radicals.  The most serious issue in policing today is a skyrocketing homicide rate — not "systemic racism," the issue that animates those "mostly peaceful protestors" who are looting businesses and destroying public property across the land.  Joe Biden should show leadership on the slay spree.  Instead, he panders to the anti-police left.  The recent uptick in violence is no mere blip.  Homicides in Minneapolis have nearly doubled compared to this point in 2019.  Chicago just saw its deadliest month in 28 years, part of a nearly 50 percent spike in homicides over the past year.  In Gotham, the first six months of 2020 saw a 21 percent increase in murders over the same period last year, only to be followed by a 50 percent increase for July.  It's a pattern extending nationwide — 36 of the country's 50 largest cities have experienced double-digit homicide increases in 2020, and the trend is getting worse, not better.

In Colorado, the police are canceling themselves.  The state of Colorado has been experiencing the same twin dilemmas that have been plaguing much of the country for the past several months and this has had a rather drastic impact on police forces across the board.  They're dealing with the pandemic like everyone else, and police officers have jobs that put them in constant contact with the public.  At the same time, protests and demonstrations blaming the police for many of society's ills have led the state to eliminate qualified immunity for law enforcement officers.  This puts them a greater personal risk of civil suits or criminal charges if an arrest of an uncooperative suspect goes awry.  What's the upshot of all of this been?  Far fewer interactions with the public and a significant increase in police officers retiring early or simply quitting and seeking new types of employment.

Paper: Chicago Prosecutor Kim Foxx Has Dropped 25,183 Felony Cases.  Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx has dropped over 25,000 felony cases, including charges of murder and the alleged hate crime hoax from former Empire star Jussie Smollett, according to an analysis released by the Chicago Tribune on Monday [8/10/2020].

Revealed: Top Chicago prosecutor Kim Foxx's office has dismissed more than 25,000 felony cases including murders, shootings, sexual assaults.  Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx has dismissed more than 25,000 felony cases — including many involving charges of murder and other serious crimes — in her first three years on the job, a new report shows.  Foxx gained notoriety last year when she dropped felony charges against Jussie Smollett, the Empire actor accused of staging a racist, homophobic attack on himself in January 2019.  The Chicago Tribune on Monday published an analysis of Foxx's overall record on dropping charges, revealing that she has done so at a rate that's 35 percent higher than her predecessor.

Left-Wing Prosecutors, Many Backed By Soros Cash, Implement Soft-On-Crime Policies Across America.  Left-wing prosecutors have implemented soft-on-crime approaches to criminal justice across America, in some instances making it a matter of policy in major cities not to prosecute specific crimes, a Daily Caller News Foundation review found.  A common, though not universal, feature of prominent left-wing district attorneys is the backing of political organizations funded by left-wing billionaire George Soros.  The New York Times has credited Soros with pioneering the "push to overhaul prosecutors' offices" across the country.  Cook County, Illinois, State's Attorney Kimberly Foxx, whose jurisdiction includes Chicago, took office in 2017 after winning her election with the help of a Soros-funded super PAC.  Soros poured more than $400,000 into Illinois Justice & Public Safety PAC in 2016, Illinois State Board of Elections records show.  Foxx was the only candidate that the PAC supported in 2016, those records show.

Our under-incarceration problem, violence against women edition.  Last October, Ibrahim Bouaichi sexually assaulted Karla Dominguez with whom he reportedly had been in a relationship.  He was charged with six felony counts and held without bond in an Alexandria, Virginia jail.  In April, a judge, Nolan Dawkins, ordered the release of Bouaichi due to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.  Bouaichi was 33 years old.  The virus probably posed about the same threat to his health as the flu.  Moreover, there had been no cases of the virus at the Alexandria jail.  Bouaichi's lawyers argued that visits to the jail had been curtailed and that they needed to meet with their client.  But all trials had been postponed.  The lawyers apparently did not seek relief from the curb on their ability to visit Bouaichi.  Instead, they insisted on his release. [...] You can probably guess the rest of the story.  In late July, Dominguez was shot to death in Alexandria.  The police issued a warrant for the arrest of Bouaichi on the charge of murder.  He fled.  When the police finally spotted him and moved in for the arrest, he killed himself.  Our criminal justice failed Karla Dominguez, just as it consistently fails the victims of thugs and predators like Ibrahim Bouaichi.

COVID-19 Is No Reason to Empty Prisons.  Under the guise of protecting prisoners from the spread of Covid-19, large numbers of dangerous criminals are being freed from custody.  This is creating a horrific situation that is endangering the public and has now led to the death of a witness in a rape case.  In Alexandria, Virginia, rape suspect Ibrahim E. Bouaichi was released from prison in April because of concerns that he would contract Covid-19.  Even though Bouaichi was indicted on serious charges such as rape, sodomy, abduction, strangulation and burglary, former presiding Circuit Court Judge Nolan Dawkins ordered his release on a $25,000 bond.  Despite the warnings from prosecutors that Bouaichi was a danger to the community, Dawkins released him to home confinement.  This was an incredibly unwise decision because he was a danger to not only the community at large, but also to an especially vulnerable individual, Karla Elizabeth Dominguez Gonzalez, who accused him of rape last December and testified against him.  Sadly, on July 29, Ms. Dominguez was found shot to death.  Local law enforcement authorities identified Bouaichi as her murderer.

Rape suspect freed from jail amid COVID-19 allegedly kills accuser.  A Virginia rape suspect was released from jail over coronavirus concerns — and then shot dead his accuser, authorities say.  Ibrahim E. Bouaichi, 33, of Greenbelt, Md., had been indicted on charges of rape, strangulation and abduction after Karla Dominguez, a native of Venezuela, told cops in Alexandria, Va., that he sexually assaulted her in October, the Washington Post said.  Bouaichi turned himself in 11 days later, and a judge ordered him held without bond.  Then, despite objections by an Alexandria prosecutor, lawyers for the man, who was charged with six felonies, successfully argued on April 9 that he be released on $25,000 bond — with a condition that he only leave his Maryland residence to meet with lawyers or pretrial services officials, the newspaper said.

As always, fear of the virus does far more damage than the virus itself.
Girl Slaughtered After Her Alleged Rapist Was Released From Jail Over COVID Concerns.  An alleged rapist killed his accuser after being released from jail over concerns he and his lawyers would contract coronavirus.  According to the Washington Post, Ibrahim Bouaichi hunted and killed his accuser, Karla Dominguez, after being released from jail because of concerns the Wuhan coronavirus would put Bouaichi and his lawyers at risk of falling ill.  Bouaichi was indicted on charges of rape, strangulation, and abduction after Dominguez, a native of Venezuela, told law enforcement in Alexandria, Va., that he sexually assaulted her in October.  Eleven days after his indictment, Bouaichi turned himself into authorities, and a judge ordered him to be held without bond.  Bouaichi's lawyers requested bond, arguing their client could not be safe from the Wuhan virus because it was "impossible" to provide adequate social distancing and other safety measures behind bars.  The men added that the arrangement also put them at risk, explaining that lawyers seeking a contact visit would "also expose themselves to contaminated air and surfaces."  Jail spokeswoman Amy Bertsch pointed out that the jail implemented increased cleaning and health screening in early March "and there were no cases of covid-19 at the jail during their client's incarceration."

ACLU launches push to free 50,000 inmates from US prisons in response to 'systemic injustice'.  The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is launching a multi-year effort to win the release of tens of thousands of prisoners by lobbying governors to grant mass clemency as a remedy to "systemic injustice."  The effort, called, "The Redemption Campaign," aims to "liberate" 50,000 prisoners with the vision of "transform[ing] the concept of clemency from a case-by-case extension of individual mercy into an essential systemic response to decades of racist, punitive, and degrading incarceration," a report from the group says.  The organization will be attempting to sway constituents and affect gubernatorial campaigns amid widespread calls for change to the criminal justice system.

Democrat Domestic Terrorism Can No Longer Be Ignored.  Section 802 of the USA PATRIOT Act defines "domestic terrorism" as activities involving acts in violation of state or federal criminal laws that are "dangerous to human life" and "appear to be intended" either to (i) "intimidate or coerce a civilian population," (ii) "influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion," or (iii) "affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping."  Intimidating a civilian population?  Coercing government officials?  Engaging in mass destruction and assassination of police?  Ding-ding-ding! [...] Democrat domestic terrorists light fires everywhere they go, egg on violence against police and civilians, and threaten businesses who refuse to pay into their protection rackets by "donating" to their favorite money-laundering 501(c)(3)s; and our criminal justice system looks the other way or even actively abets the terrorists by releasing them from jail cells just as soon as they arrive, while leaving Americans to fend for themselves.

About 20% of N.J. Prisoners Could Be Freed to Avoid Virus.  New Jersey lawmakers seemed close to supporting legislation on Thursday that could free more than 3,000 prisoners — about 20 percent of the state's prison population — months before their release dates in response to the extraordinary threat posed by the coronavirus in tightly packed correctional facilities.  Inmates who are within a year of completing their state prison sentences would be eligible to be released up to eight months early based on credits awarded for time served during the pandemic.

Minneapolis Police Advise:  Give Up Your Property To Criminals And Obey Them.  Minneapolis City Government's 'robbery prevention tips' include giving up your wallet and obeying criminals.  Police are encouraging residents to surrender to criminals as part of their "robbery prevention tips" willingly turn over your valuables, and no matter what, don't resist.

The Editor says...
How is that a robbery prevention tip?

Minneapolis police tell residents to obey criminals and 'be prepared' to be robbed.  Officials are now telling residents to be ready and willing to comply with the demands of criminals in an email sent to Third Precinct residents.  "Be prepared to give up your cell phone and purse/wallet," the police said in their email, a copy of which was obtained by Alpha News.  The email said citizens should listen to criminals and "do as they say."  The message warned that "some victims have been maced, dragged, assaulted, and some threatened with a gun."

The Editor says...
Minneapolis will probably end up under the control of Sharia police, who will be immune to criticism.

California Releases Convicted Murderer Serving 84-Year Sentence Due To Covid.  The family of a murder victim in California was outraged to learn that the state has released the person responsible for killing their loved one as part of an effort to reduce the risk of COVID-19 outbreaks inside prisons.  Terebea Williams, 44, was sentenced to 84 years-to-life in prison on charges including first-degree murder, using a firearm, carjacking, and kidnapping of 23-year-old Kevin "John" Ruska Jr. in 1998.

Convicted child molester gets taxpayer-funded sex-change surgery while in prison.  An Idaho inmate currently incarcerated for sexually assaulting a child has received taxpayer-funded "sex-reassignment" surgery after suing the state for it.  Yep, really.  Adree Edmo, a 32-year-old man who identifies as a woman, has been imprisoned since 2012 for "sexually assaulting a sleeping 15-year-old boy."  He filed suit against the state of Idaho in 2017, claiming that the state was violating his Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment by denying him free (taxpayer-funded) transgender surgery.  Really.  It went all the way to the Supreme Court.

The real world consequences of releasing felons early.  Houston's first Sikh police officer, Deputy Sandeep Dhaliwal, was gunned down by Robert Solis when he pulled Solis over for a routine traffic stop.  Solis had a 30-year career criminal history that includes burglary, theft, multiple arrests for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, robbery with a deadly weapon, drunk driving, and multiple kidnapping charges.  In 2002, Solis was convicted for shooting a man in the leg and then holding his own toddler son hostage with a gun during a standoff with police.  He was sentenced to 20 years, but thanks to Texas' jailbreak policies, was let out in 2014 after serving just 12.  As difficult as it may be to believe, Texas' "evidence-based" rehabilitation programs didn't reform Solis.  Deputy Dhaliwal paid the price.  These are the real world consequences of jailbreak policies in Texas and elsewhere.  The U.S. has a serious under-incarceration problem and, with the complicity of some conservatives, the problem is getting worse.

Great news:  Minneapolis city council decides not to pay armed vigilantes to replace police.  Give credit where due for thinking outside of the box, I guess, although this idea belongs in a box ... buried under the St. Anthony Falls.  In the Minneapolis city council's haste to prove it doesn't need a professional and trained police force to keep the peace, they nearly decided to pay ad hoc bands of armed citizens to patrol the streets.  Only late inquiries about this proposal from city residents and local media managed to change their minds: [...] Ahem.  I myself am a lawful owner of firearms, properly authorized to carry in public.  However, that does not make me a Junior G-Man, nor does it make thousands of other lawful gun owners in the state qualified to keep the peace.  We have the necessary training to use our firearms wisely and to understand the legalities of lawful self-defense, but that's it.

Illinois has paroled double-ax murderer, other heinous killers, offering Gangster Disciples boss hope.  Wielding a hatchet, Otis Williams slaughtered a man and woman in Kankakee County in 1974 to keep them from talking to the police about meat, candy, cigarettes, vegetables and fruit he'd stolen from a market.  Convicted in their deaths, Williams and an accomplice got prison terms of 800 to 2,400 years.  In 2013, making his 30th appearance before the Illinois Prisoner Review Board, Williams finally succeeded in winning his freedom.  The board said he was remorseful, a model inmate and no risk to the public.  He was paroled by a vote of 11-4.  Two years later, his accomplice A.D. Clark also was paroled.  Williams, Clark and a man who massacred five people in a shooting spree at a restaurant are among dozens of elderly Illinois murder convicts who have won parole over the past decade, a Chicago Sun-Times examination of state records found.

Freedom to Deface.  Mayor Bill de Blasio has cancelled a graffiti-eradication program targeted at cleaning private buildings.  He is thus deliberately sending New York City back to its worst days of crime and squalor.  The symbolic significance of this cancellation is as large as its practical effect.  Nothing sent a stronger signal in the late 1980s that New York was determined to fight back from anarchy than the transit system's campaign against subway graffiti.  That campaign was based on Broken Windows theory, the most transformative idea in urban policy over the last 40 years.  Broken Windows recognizes that physical disorder and low-level lawlessness — graffiti, turnstile-jumping, and litter — telegraph that social control in a disordered environment has broken down.  That low-level lawlessness invites more contempt for public norms of behavior, including felony crime.

King County executive plans to depopulate youth jail by 2025.  King County Executive Dow Constantine announced Tuesday afternoon [7/21/2020] he plans to convert the remaining detention units at the county's juvenile jail to "other uses" by 2025.  He made the announcement on Twitter, citing a desire to move public funding away from "systems that are rooted in oppression," The Seattle Times reported.

Mayor de Blasio:  NYC Is Safer With Fewer People in Jail.  New York City mayor Bill de Blasio (D.) said Thursday [7/16/2020] that his city is safer and better with fewer people in jail, even as shootings and violence have spiked in the city this summer.  "We now have fewer people in our jails than any time since WWII and we are safer for it and better for it," de Blasio said.  But the city has experienced a dramatic uptick in crime this year.  According to the most recent NYPD crime statistics, violent crimes — including shootings, murders, and burglaries — have all skyrocketed.  Year-to-date shooting incidents in the city have increased by 61 percent, and the number of shooting victims has increased by 70 percent.

Suspect Who Allegedly Attacked 3 NYPD Officials Is Released From Jail Without Bail.  The man who allegedly beat a top official in the New York City Police Department and two other police officers this week was released from jail without bail.  "Quran Campbell, 25, is accused of socking the highest-ranking uniformed cop [NYPD Chief Terence Monahan] several times in the face as Monahan tried to arrest him after Campbell had allegedly punched another NYPD officer and lieutenant" near the Manhattan approach to the Brooklyn Bridge, The New York Post reported.

Man accused of punching NYPD chief, cops on Brooklyn Bridge released without bail.  The Bronx man who allegedly punched NYPD Chief Terence Monahan and two other officers during protests on the Brooklyn Bridge Wednesday has been released without bail.  Quran Campbell, 25, is accused of socking the highest-ranking uniformed cop several times in the face as Monahan tried to arrest him after Campbell had allegedly punched another NYPD officer and lieutenant near the Manhattan approach to the bridge.  Campbell was arraigned on assault charges in Manhattan criminal court and was granted supervised release.

11th San Quentin inmate's death tied to COVID-19.  San Quentin inmate Jeffrey Hawkins, who was sentenced to death in two Sacramento County murders in 1987, died Wednesday at an outside hospital of complications from COVID-19, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.  Hawkins, 64, is the 11th inmate at San Quentin whose death has been linked to COVID-19.  Across California, 37 state prison inmates with confirmed cases of COVID-19 have died, according to the CDCR website tracking illnesses and deaths related to the pandemic.

California to Release 18,000 Prisoners by End of August to 'Slow the Spread of COVID-19'.  According to the California Department of Corrections, the state is set to release up to 18,000 prisoners by the end of August to 'slow the spread of COVID-19.'  Officials in California say releasing prisoners will help protect the "health and safety of the incarcerated population."  "These actions are taken to provide for the health and safety of the incarcerated population and staff," Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Secretary Ralph Diaz said in a news release.  "We aim to implement these decompression measures in a way that aligns both public health and public safety."

Supreme Court declines to reinstate vote of nearly 1 million Florida felons.  The Supreme Court on Thursday [7/16/2020] let stand a lower court ruling that could strip voting eligibility from up to 1 million Florida felons who have completed their sentences but have yet to pay outstanding fines, restitution and other fees.

Man accused of murdering 11-year-old at July 4 BBQ in DC was released under coronavirus jailbreak.  The same flat-earth "science" being used as a pretext to criminalize Americans for not wearing masks has been used to release violent criminals.  Now, another one of those released from jail under coronavirus jailbreak policies has been charged with murder in the nation's capital.  July 4 weekend was a horrible bloodbath for black children across many of our nation's prominent cities.  As I chronicled each of the cases last week, I predicted that most of the suspects would be repeat violent offenders, gun felons, parole violators, or all of the above.  Well, that appears to be the case in the horrific D.C. shooting on Independence Day that left 11-year-old Davon McNeal dead.  McNeal was helping his mother at a neighborhood barbecue when a group of drive-by shooters fatally shot him.  D.C. police have now arrested two suspects, have issued warrants for two more, and are waiting on a fifth.

Why Do We Have Police, Anyway?  [Scroll down]  Huizinga and Spierenburg write about the "pacification" and "privatization" of European society in the last 500 years.  What they mean is the gradual replacement of clan and gang feuds and public executions with police and courts and prisons.  Here's the prison story.  First they imprisoned madmen; then they imprisoned the poor in workhouses (see peasants, above); then they imprisoned the criminals.  Way to go, guys.  Why do we have our modern pacified middle-class cities?  Nobody knows, least of all lefties, but I have an idea.  It is because violence and blood feuds and gangs do not pay.  Hello Minneapolis?  Anyone there?  Notice that in the USA every immigrant wave involves a surge in gangs.  The Irish had their gangs in the 19th century; the Jews had their gangs at the turn of the 20th century; the Italians had their gangs till the day before yesterday.  But as each immigrant wave climbed into the middle class, their gangs disappeared.  Today we have Black gangs and Hispanic gangs, because those are the ethnic groups that have not yet climbed into the middle class.

Are We In The First Days Of A Lawless Era?  A nation founded on the rule of law appears to be yielding to the rule of the mob.  Not everyone has surrendered.  The trend, though, is worrisome.  Too many of our "leaders" and institutions are failing us.  In 2020, law enforcement officers in this country are being treated not just with disrespect but in many instances are being abused verbally and physically.  Rioters and looters are going unpunished, not because they can't be identified or the cases against them are weak but because prosecutors (several of them backed by George Soros) refuse to uphold the law and charge the offenders.  Violent gangs have been allowed, almost encouraged, to take over city streets, sidewalks, and private property; shut down the free movement of others; and topple public monuments.

Up to 8,000 California inmates could be released early to stop crowding at prisons during COVID-19.  Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced (CDCR) announced new programs that will allow for the early release of up to 8,000 inmates by the end of August to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 as outbreaks continue to flare up across the state prison system.  "These actions are taken to provide for the health and safety of the incarcerated population and staff," Ralph Diaz, Secretary for the CDCR, said in a press release on Friday.  "We aim to implement these decompression measures in a way that aligns both public health and public safety."

California may release 10% of inmates in pandemic response.  California officials will soon release another 2,100 inmates from state prisons in response to the coronavirus pandemic and in all now plans to release a total of more than 10,000 inmates, or nearly 10 percent of prisoners, as Gov. Gavin Newsom responds to intensifying pressure from advocates, lawmakers and federal judges.

Left-wing 'Breathe Act' Would Close All Federal Prisons, Immigration Detention Centers.  The left-wing political group Black Lives Matter is seeking support in Congress for radical legislation that would, among other things, close all federal prisons and immigration detention centers.  The bill "would eliminate federal programs and agencies used to finance and expand the U.S. criminal-legal system, such as the Department of Defense 1033 program, the Edward Byrne-Justice Assistance Grant Program, Community Oriented Policing Services, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement," the bill states.

The joker is wild.  Today, the Supreme Court navigated its way through disputes about the disclosure of President Trump's financial records without doing much harm (in my view, at least). However, the Court issued a real stinker in a case that was under my radar — McGirt v.  Oklahoma.  By a 5-4 vote, the Court decided that much of Oklahoma is "Indian country" for the purpose of prosecuting crimes committed by Indians.  Justice Gorsuch joined the four left-liberals and wrote the opinion.  Gorsuch's idiosyncratic "textualism" has become the joker in Supreme Court litigation (Justice Scalia's sound textualism wasn't).  Today, the joker was wild.  The case involved Jimcy McGirt.

Supreme Court:  Eastern Oklahoma is American Indian territory.  The Supreme Court ruled Thursday [7/9/2020] that a large swath of eastern Oklahoma is actually an Indian reservation belonging to the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, meaning that hundreds of prosecutions could be tossed because the state does not have jurisdiction there, including in part of Tulsa.  The 5-4 decision notes that only federal prosecutors have jurisdiction over American Indians on the reservation, which includes most of Tulsa, the state's second-largest city.  Justice Neil M. Gorsuch joined the court's four liberal justices in the majority decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma.

9 Radical Ideas in the Biden-Sanders 'Unity' Platform.  Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) released the policy recommendations of their "unity task force" on Wednesday [7/8/2020]. [...] Here are nine of the most radical proposals in the "unity" document: [...] [#3] "End cash bail."  The platform calls for eliminating cash bail across the country — a radical experiment in criminal justice reform that has only just begun in California and New York, with results that are deeply concerning.  The idea is to reduce inequities, but in practice the end of cash bail means releasing violent criminals to commit more crimes.  One suspect in antisemitic attacks in New York City late last year, for example, was repeatedly re-arrested after her releases.

Let's Talk about Black Privilege.  During the recent George Floyd — related terrorist looting and riots, retired St.  Louis, Mo. police captain David Dorn was shot and killed; he was 77. His death was recorded on a phone for the world to see, in a grotesquely grim The Truman Show moment for the nation.  Dorn's alleged murderer, a 24-year-old ex-felon named Stephan Cannon, was convicted at 18 for violent felony robbery and was supposed to serve a seven-year sentence.  But he never served a day thanks to leniency from the presiding judge.  The violent ex-felon subsequently twice violated his probation but, alas, never went to prison.  Cannon is black; his two accomplices were also black. [...] As a free black ex-felon after committing a violent crime and then violating his probation:  black privilege — yes or no?

Philly has waived all citations against protesters after they said arrests violated their rights.  During the month of protests against police brutality in Philadelphia, more than 750 people were arrested for curfew violations, failure to disperse, and disorderly conduct.  Many were handcuffed, taken to remote police districts, and kept in hot cars or buses for hours — some so long they urinated on themselves or began pleading for water.  Then, they were released not with criminal charges but civil citations, the type of ticket given for high weeds or litter.  Less than a week after an Inquirer report on allegations the practice was a violation of free speech, Mayor Jim Kenney on Wednesday [7/8/2020] announced that all of the code-violation notices issued to protesters from May 30 to June 30 would be waived.  (The decision has no bearing on cases involving criminal charges.)

Six Weeks, Six Cities, 600 Murders.  The single most important issue, affecting some of the largest swaths of populations in America, is the scandal the media ignores even as it explodes in our faces.  In only six weeks, city after city operated by entrenched Democrats have seen a massive expansion in lawlessness, violence, and murder.  Stunningly, many news outlets seem gobsmacked and mystified at how or why such an explosion of lawlessness has occurred.  For the sake of brevity, let's sample six of the nation's largest cities, including all of the top three. [#1] New York:  The Democratic mayor has long been understood as anti-police.  His wife recently imagined the city as "Nirvana" if the NYPD were eliminated altogether.  Thus far in 2020, homicides are up 21 percent.  Shootings are up by 46 percent.  The Democratic mayor's agenda included emptying the prison known as Rikers Island, bail reform letting perps walk before the paperwork is completed, and the effort to #DefundPolice that took 600 anti-crime units out of commission.

How did a child pornographer get paroled from a 1,000-year sentence?  The judge who originally sentenced Peter Mallory in 2012 called him "probably the most prolific collector of child pornography in the entire world," and applied consecutive sentences to keep him in prison for 1,000 years.  Mallory's collection was not just vast but particularly cruel, with images of child rape and torture among them.  He should have been in prison for the rest of his life.  Today, however, the former county commissioner walks free on parole after serving 0.8% of his sentence.

Seattle police's CHOP sweep brought arrests but quick release from jail as well.  After spending several hours behind bars Wednesday [7/1/2020], Rashyla Levitt returned Thursday to the streets, protesting and confronting authorities just a day after Seattle Police Department officers swept through the area that had been known as the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest.  "We are back with the fire and we are ready to go," she said.  Levitt was one 44 people arrested early Wednesday morning in Capitol Hill as police moved in during a predawn operation that pushed a handful of demonstrators from the area.  Police charged Levitt with failure to disperse, but since it was only a misdemeanor, the judge released her.

San Francisco will end mug shots release, citing racial bias.  San Francisco police will stop making public the mug shots of people who have been arrested unless they pose a threat to the public, as part of an effort to stop perpetuating racial stereotypes, the city's police chief announced Wednesday [7/1/2020].  San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said the department will no longer release booking photos of suspects to the media or allow officers to post them online.  The policy takes effect Wednesday.

The Huge Law Enforcement Scandal that Cries Out for Justice.  In the American Thinker (June 30), Jack Cashill offers an eloquent plea for an Atticus Finch to take up the cause of George Zimmerman in suing those responsible for perpetrating the Trayvon Hoax.  There is another case, also in Florida, awaiting its Atticus Finch, the product of an earlier moral panic, the now largely forgotten "mass sex abuse in daycare" hysteria.  These cases, replete with lurid charges the media mindlessly and breathlessly disseminated in the 1980s and '90s, are today widely recognized as a modern version of the Salem witch trials of the 1690s, down to allegations of Satanic rituals by caregivers.  Despite this, one victim remains incarcerated.  Frank Fuster has now served thirty-five years in prison for a crime not only that he did not commit, but that never happened.  His first parole hearing is scheduled an unbelievable 114 years from now — in March 2134.

LAPD Morale Collapses to 'Record Low': 'It's Simply Not Worth It Any Longer'.  Morale within the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) is currently at a "record low," thanks to the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests and the vilification of police by local politicians.  Robert Harris, the director of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, told CBS Los Angeles that officers feel "beaten" and "bruised" by the ongoing protests.  That was corroborated by a Breitbart News source within the LAPD, who said:  "Morale across the rank-and-file is at a record low.  Especially out on the street in patrol.  We have been vilified and abandoned by the mayor, all but three of the city council members, as well as many business owners and residents of the city of Los Angeles."

Nearly 300 NYPD Officers File for Retirement as Violent Crime Surges.  Close to 300 New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers have filed for retirement over the last month amid riots against the police and as violent crime keeps surging.  According to figures released to the New York Post, about 272 NYPD uniformed officers have filed for retirement since riots over the death of Minneapolis resident George Floyd began in late May.  At the same time last year, about 183 officers had filed for retirement, indicating a nearly 50 percent spike in retirements this year.

Abolish the police?  Prisons?  More? — Here's where this radical experiment is headed.  Radicalism in America's largest cities seems impervious to reason.  Consider this headline in the Minneapolis Star Tribune:  "Despite a wave of violence, Minneapolis 'defund police' effort continues:  An influential bloc of City Council members is pressing ahead with plans to dismantle the department as a monthlong eruption of gunfire sent tremors through neighborhoods."  Reporter Liz Navratil explained that a majority of the Minneapolis City Council and like-minded community activists have used terms such as "defund," "dismantle" and "abolish" in different ways.  There's some semantic tap-dancing.  But they're serious.  They're working to rewrite the city charter and dismantle a "minimum size requirement" for the police department.  They talk about a police-free future.

BLM proves the Broken Windows Theory.  Taking over a crime-ridden New York City in 1993, Mayor Rudy Giuliani applied the Broken Windows Theory approach to crime in which small crimes are enforced as a means to create an atmosphere of law and order.  Liberals have for 20 years denied his success reducing crime as mayor had anything to do with him, much less this theory.  But under Obama, liberals began proving Giuliani was most correct.  Today, as the Black Liberation Movement (aka Black Lives Matter) takes over cities, Democrat-run cities are turning into shooting galleries. [...] This is not an overnight nightmare.  Democrats have planned this BLM rioting for a long time, and have actually held test runs in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore.  Apparently, they are satisfied with their finished product.

Council advances plan to dismantle Minneapolis Police Dept.  The Minneapolis City Council on Friday [6/26/2020] unanimously approved a proposal to change the city charter to allow the police department to be dismantled, following widespread criticism of law enforcement over the killing of George Floyd.

Police Commissioner Dermot Shea:  Our criminal justice system is 'imploding'.  The city's top cop said the criminal justice system is "imploding" as he highlighted a rise in shootings and killings on the city's streets and slammed pols for refusing to support the Finest at an invite-only press conference at NYPD headquarters this week.  "You have to step back and look at this.  You have a criminal justice system that is imploding," Police Commissioner Dermot Shea lamented during a small meeting with reporters Wednesday at One Police Plaza in Manhattan.  "Imploding.  That's the kindest way to put it."  Shea went on to point out that many criminal cases were "ongoing," "stagnant" or "deferred."  "Each one of those represents somebody not being held accountable and no consequences," Shea said.

Obeying The Law Is For Suckers.  If you watch the news, national or local, there is a disturbing percentage of our fellow Americans doing whatever [...] they want to do with little or no concern for the law.  And the law has little or no concern for itself, at least when it comes to those charged with enforcing it.  Across the country, charges are being dropped against rioters and looters.  Why?  Many of those people in position to prosecute the guilty have no interest in doing so.  [Indeed], many of them ran on the idea of not prosecuting people.  What kind of idiot would vote for a district attorney who promised to let people get away with more?  Well, from San Francisco to St. Louis, they did just that.

Nonwhite Minnesota corrections officers blocked from guarding Derek Chauvin: complaint.  Eight minority corrections officers in Minnesota say they were sent to a separate floor of a county jail and barred from guarding fired Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin after his arrest in the death of George Floyd, according to a report.  The minority officers working in Ramsey County, who have filed a discrimination complaint, also say a supervisor told them they were viewed as a potential "liability" regarding Chauvin's stay in the jail because of their race, the Star Tribune of Minneapolis reported.

Former officer warns about civil war when thin blue line breaks: 'America is tearing itself apart because of the radical left'.  Former Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Peggy Hubbard warned that America is about to step over the "thin blue line between chaos and order.  The Navy veteran and former police officer came to the defense of law enforcement in an emotional Facebook Live video shared this week, warning that the nation stands at the edge of coming chaos as officers who have been disrespected continue to abandon their posts.

14-year-old guilty of robbery in Tessa Majors case sentenced to 18 months in prison.  A 14-year-old who admitted taking part in a robbery that led to the brutal stabbing death of Barnard College student Tessa Majors was hit with the maximum sentence of 18 months in custody Monday [6/15/2020].  The 5-foot-5 defendant — nabbed a day after Majors' murder — admitted participating in the robbery and picking up the murder weapon off the ground shortly before it was used in the horrifying murder.  The sentence handed down by Manhattan Family Court Judge Carol Goldstein was the maximum possible time the teen could have gotten, according to the city Law Department.

Gov. Cuomo's New York: 250 Inmates Freed from Prison Rearrested 450 Times.  At least 250 convicted and accused criminals freed from New York's Rikers Island prison have been rearrested 450 times thanks to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's (D) jailbreak directive.  New York Police Department (NYPD) data reported by NBC New York's Melissa Russo reveals that since Cuomo issued a statewide order demanding jails and prisons release inmates to abide by social distancing measures in late March, at least 250 inmates from Rikers Island have been re-arrested.

Rikers Island Inmates Released Because of COVID Rearrested Hundreds of Times.  Hundreds of inmates were released from Riker's Island in New York City to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in the prison.  Officials knew the risks.  And those fears have been realized, hundreds of times.  New reporting from Melissa Russo reveals that at least 250 prisoners out of the 2,500 who were released early have gone on to commit at least 450 more crimes.  "The NYPD is not happy," Russo said, somewhat understatedly.

Manhattan judge frees alleged looter busted in bloody attack on NYPD cop.  A Manhattan judge set free an alleged looter charged with bashing a cop's head open with a glass bong swiped amid violent protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd, The [New York] Post has learned.  The move marked at least the second time that Judge Laurie Peterson has overruled prosecutors and released a defendant without bail — which in the earlier case allegedly led to a pair of unprovoked slashings by the psycho who got sprung.  "What could she possibly be thinking?  Is she living under a rock?  Did she see the looting going on in the city?" said a cop who worked in Manhattan every night of the recent riots.  "I guess they really want to do away with cops and let the criminals run wild."

New York and California Freed Thousands of Criminals and the Riots Began.  New York City released over 2,650 criminals from prison to protect them from the pandemic.  But they didn't stay home or wash their hands.  They went back to their old jobs and 100 of them accounted for 190 arrests for crimes like burglary and robbery.  A rapist was released and he went back to raping.  One of the freed criminals was responsible for 18 burglaries at closed eateries.  And when he was arrested, the end of bail meant that he was set loose.  This looting was going on long before the riots.  Now as the rioters and looters rule the streets of Manhattan, when the police manage to arrest them, they have to quickly let them go.  "When it comes to a burglary, a commercial store, which is looting, they're back out," Chief Terrence Monahan said.  "Because of bail reform, you're back out on the street the next day.  You cannot be held on any sort of bail."  Of the 650 thugs arrested, almost all will be released back on the street to riot and loot again.

Our under-incarceraton problem, looting edition.  During last week's rioting, Chicago police arrested Antonio Harris for looting.  He was stealing shoes from a New Balance store.  Who is Antonio Harris?  According to Daniel Horowitz, Harris was convicted of first-degree murder in 1999.  Instead of life imprisonment, the sentence he would get in a well-functioning criminal justice system, he received a 25-year sentence.  Instead of serving that sentence, as he would in a well-functioning criminal justice system, Harris was let out after serving only half of it.  Since that release less than ten years ago, Harris has been sent back to prison for three felony drug convictions, according to Horowitz.  Harris also has a pending felony case of criminal damage to government property.  Let that sink in.  Harris, with a 1999 first degree murder conviction and three subsequent felony drug convictions, was on the street last week.

What Do They Really Want?  [Scroll down]  The main job of the police officer, after all, is not to stop crimes in progress (since there are too few of them to see everything), but to show up after the fact and then sniff out a suspect.  This means everyone who fits a criminal's description in the area will be tracked down, picked up, tied up, and locked up — and if he refuses, probably beaten up.  If he refuses too manfully, possibly killed.  In a country of 330 million people, there are going to be a few dozen murders by cop.  But you get rid of this right to track, and you've gotten rid of the police.  You get rid of profiling, and you get rid of the concept of policing.  You get rid of the police, and you get rid of society.  And Minneapolis, where the violent crime rate was already horrible — this year, before the riots, twice the national average, and last year three — is already too dangerous.  Thanks to Black Lives Matter blowing up the police stations, it is about to get worse.

Minnesota AG Keith Ellison May Have Just Screwed Up Case Against George Floyd Cops.  I'm no legal expert, but I wondered to myself if Keith Ellison hadn't overcharged the cop who killed George Floyd.  Now there's someone much smarter than I who agrees.  Andy McCarthy, who writes for National Review, is a former federal prosecutor and has been a trusted guest on my radio show for the better part of 20 years.  He believes Ellison might have just colossally screwed up his case against the cops.  My words, not his.  McCarthy called Ellison's amended charges "dangerously flawed."  Overcharging is tantamount to over-promising.  It's perceived as overly punitive and less thoughtful in some cases.  Sure, everyone's angry.  Sure, Floyd's death appears to be criminal.  But you've got to be able to prove what you charge.

Are States Going To Prosecute Their Rioters?  It Depends.  Footage of violent riots and rampant looting is coming out of nearly every major city in the U.S., but states vary wildly in their efforts to prosecute those responsible for the unrest.  While local police have had no issues arresting those engaging in violence, some jurisdictions have declined to prosecute them.  Others, however, such as Texas and Missouri, are taking a far more strict approach and partnering with the federal government to press charges.  Arguably the most relaxed reaction to rioters came out of St. Louis, Missouri, where local prosecutor Kim Gardner refused to charge nearly 40 people arrested for rioting.

DA declines to prosecute man arrested in St. Patrick's Cathedral vandalism.  Turns out desecration is no crime in New York City.  The Queens man arrested for scarring the landmarked façade of St. Patrick's Cathedral during a George Floyd protest is now free — because the Manhattan District Attorney's office declined to prosecute him.  Yadir Avila Rosas, 26, was taken into custody at 5:30 a.m.  Saturday, an NYPD spokeswoman told The [New York] Post.  Police charged Rosas with criminal mischief in the third degree and making graffiti, alleging that he was the "getaway driver" for two women who tagged the famous house of worship with spray-painted slogans on May 30.  But an expected Saturday afternoon [6/6/2020] arraignment never happened, at the DA office's discretion.

Famous bail opponent suddenly wants cash bail back.  We've covered any number of stories about New York's disastrous "bail reform" law and the chain of resulting arrests that would be almost comical were it not for the number of people victimized through recidivism. [...] As you've no doubt heard, there have been quite a few arrests being made in New York City over the past week or so, mostly at night as a result of the "unrest" sweeping the city these days.  Because of these laws, nearly all of the people found to have been looting, smashing windows and setting police vehicles ablaze have been immediately released.  As you might imagine, that doesn't provide much of a disincentive for them to go out the following night and do it all over again, as many have gone on to do.  This seems to have finally come to the attention of the Governor, who now wants judges to start bringing the hammer down and keeping them behind bars while the police struggle to restore order.

George-Soros-Backed Leftwing Radical Attorney General Kim Gardner Has Released Every Single Rioter and Looter Arrested in St. Louis.  George Soros realized that it was very expensive and very hard to attempt to support so many leftwing legislators that they could change the law to make crime, well, not a crime.  So he settled on a new strategy.  One that worked.  He put a huge amount of money into the campaigns of leftwing, pro-crime prosecutors and attorney generals.  He wouldn't bother to get laws changed — too difficult!  No legislator wants to face a campaign ad against him pointing out, accurately, that he voted to decriminalize crime.  No, he'd just bankroll dozens (hundreds?) of leftwing DAs and AGs to ignore the laws entirely, claiming that prosecutorial discretion gives the absolute power to simply declare that The Law Is No Longer The Law.

Riots, Brought To You By District Attorneys Who Won't Prosecute.  adicalized district attorneys in cities across America are putting violent rioters and looters back on the streets, and letting other hardened criminals walk.  More than anyone, one man is responsible for this outrage:  Billionaire socialist George Soros.  St. Louis is a case in point.  There, prosecutor Kim Gardner let 36 people arrested for looting and rioting go scot-free, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.  Gardner's office used the pathetic excuse that it needed "essential evidence" from the police, implying it had none.  One wonders how people caught in flagrante delicto could simply be released.  The answer is, Gardner is a far-left acolyte of Soros, having been the recipient during her 2016 election of no fewer than three separate donations from a Soros-backed political-action committee.

NYC Arsonists to Be Instantly Freed from Jail Thanks to 'Bail Reform' Law.  Arsonists who set fires in New York City, New York, during multiple nights of riots will be instantly freed from jail if ever arrested thanks to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's (D-NY) bail reform law.  For many nights now, arsonists have set ablaze New York City Police Department (NYPD) vehicles, city dumpsters, and rubble on the streets of New York City.  Those arrested for arson, if arrests are made, will spend less than 24 hours in jail.

Nearly All Rioters Freed from Jail in D.C., Most Avoid Felony Riot Charges.  Nearly all rioters have been freed from jail in Washington, D.C. and most have had felony riot charges dropped against them, and now they are only facing burglary, destruction of property, and curfew violation charges.  Arrest records obtained by WUSA 9 reveal that hundreds of rioters have been arrested over the last week in riots and looting sprees across the nation's capital.

Over 400 NYC Looters to Be Freed from Jail Thanks to 'Bail Reform' Policy.  More than 400 looters arrested in New York City, New York, riots this week will be immediately freed from jail thanks to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's (D-NY) "bail reform" policy that eliminated bail for many nonviolent and violent crimes.  As riots rage on in New York City — and Mayor Bill de Blasio has refused to deploy the U.S. National Guard — hundreds of looters arrested for burglarizing shops and stores are set to be immediately freed back onto the streets.  The New York Times noted that more than 400 people in New York City have been arrested for looting commercial businesses.  Almost all of them will likely be released from jail immediately after their arraignments in court.

Houston sees 'unprecedented violence' after bail reform amid pandemic, says police chief.  Texas bail reform measures being implemented in the wake of the coronavirus crisis have led to a spike in crime and some police officials are warning of the consequences.  The police chief of Houston decried the "unprecedented violence" assaulting the city and blamed the pandemic for new orders that have effectively made it easier for criminals to go free.

The Continued Attacks On The American People As Convicted Criminals Released Onto The Streets.  Whether it is business owners or those who work, since this entire coronavirus hoax began, it has been the people who have been under attack.  Government remains "essential" while hair salons and general merchandise stores are deemed "non-essential," unless you're a national brand.  States are releasing convicted criminals others are being pardoned, but in the end, it's always the people under attack.  [Video clip]

Why is THEIR health so important?
One Third Of Jail Inmates Nationwide Set Free in Unprecedented Coronavirus Jailbreak.  A new study reveals that almost a third of county jail inmates have been set free from the facilities during the coronavirus pandemic.  The Prison Policy Initiative study has determined that 32% of inmates at county jails have been set free. [...] Many jails have released up to half of their inmates, with facilities in Oregon, Arkansas and New Jersey releasing between 57% and 63% of their jail inmates.

California governor:  Shrink prisons to help cut budget.  Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing to significantly shrink the footprint of California's prison system, partly because of massive budget cuts prompted by the pandemic but also because of philosophy.  The revised budget he sent to state lawmakers this week envisions closing two state prisons in the coming years; cutting nearly one in five of the 43 inmate firefighter camps; and eventually closing all three state-run juvenile prisons.

Felon Freed from Jail Over Coronavirus Accused of Murdering Young Woman.  A convicted felon who was freed from a Colorado prison over concerns of the Chinese coronavirus spreading has been arrested less than a month later for allegedly murdering a 21-year-old woman.  Cornelius Haney has been charged for the first-degree murder of Heather Perry, whose body was found in a Denver, Colorado alleyway, according to CBS Denver.

Pelosi Coronavirus Plan Orders Felons, Illegal Aliens to Be Freed from Prison.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) latest Chinese coronavirus relief package includes a mandate that federal inmates, as well as local convicts and illegal aliens, be released from jail so long as a court considers them "non-violent" offenders.  Pelosi's plan would order the release of federal prisoners, illegal aliens in federal immigration detention facilities, and local convicts if they are considered by the courts and judicial officers to not be a threat to the community.

The Editor says...
They have all been proven to be "a threat to the community."  That's why they're in prison.

More evidence that the virus is perceived as no big deal:
California inmates tried to infect themselves with coronavirus for freedom.  A group of California inmates are accused of trying to intentionally infect themselves with the coronavirus — thinking they would be set free if they contracted the contagion, authorities said Monday [5/11/2020].  Prisoners at the North County Correctional Facility in Castaic were filmed sharing a disposable cup and sniffing a used face mask in order to accomplish their alleged plot, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva.  "Somehow, there was some mistaken belief among the inmate population that if they tested positive, that there was a way to force our hand and somehow release more inmates out of our jail environment — and that's not going to happen," Villanueva said at a press briefing.

San Francisco DA Says His Father, Convicted Murderer And Former Member Of Terrorist Group, Should Get Out Of Prison.  San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin believes his father, convicted murderer and former Weather Underground member David Gilbert, should be released from prison due to the coronavirus pandemic.  Gilbert and Boudin's mother, Kathy Boudin, were convicted of murder in 1983 for serving as getaway drivers during a bank robbery that left three people dead at the hands of their co-conspirators.

Liberal District Attorney Boasts 'I'm Keeping San Francisco Safer by Emptying the Jail'.  San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin is bragging about his city's jailbreak policies that have been implemented throughout the coronavirus pandemic, claiming in a Los Angeles Times op/ed that he is "keeping San Francisco safer by emptying the jail."

Authorities: Cook County Jail Inmate Switched Identities With Another Inmate, Was Released From Jail While Wearing Mask.  A Cook County Jail inmate switched identities with another inmate and was wrongfully released while wearing a face mask this past weekend, the Sheriff's office said.  On Saturday [5/2/2020], Quintin Henderson, 28, was scheduled to be released from custody on an I-bond for a drug charge, when he gave his identity to another inmate, Jahquez Scott, for a promise of $1,000, the Sheriff's office said.

Men Accused of Raping Children Among 830 Inmates Freed in Massachusetts.  Two men accused of raping children are among the nearly 830 Massachusetts inmates that have been freed in the last month over concerns of the Chinese coronavirus crisis spreading in prison facilities.  Convicted child rapist Glenn Christie, 54-years-old, and 29-year-old Matthew Parris, accused of raping two teenage girls this year, have both been released from Massachusetts prisons after the state's supreme court has ordered the routine release of hundreds of accused and convicted criminals.

Orange County DA 'outraged' after commissioner releases 7 dangerous sex offenders due to COVID-19 restrictions.  Orange County, Calif.  District Attorney Todd Spitzer stated Saturday [5/2/2020] that he is "outraged" after the state ordered the release of seven high-risk sex offenders from the county's jails over concerns they could contract coronavirus.  Appearing on "Fox & Friends Weekend" with host Jason Chaffetz, Spitzer said that the issue at hand is not just in Orange County or California, but "is a ruse that has been pulled on the American public, on jails and custodial facilities all over the nation."

Why is the Trump admin allowing judges to illegally release criminal aliens?  Attorney General Barr threatened to file lawsuits against governors overstepping their power to infringe upon civil liberties, yet the only lawsuits that are succeeding are the ones from illegal aliens.  Suddenly, when it comes to those with no right to be in our communities, the courts are all-powerful and the executives are weak.  In fact, the president really has the power to deport illegal aliens and prevent them from being released into our communities.  Late on Thursday [4/30/2020], U.S. District Judge Marcia G. Cooke in Miami became the latest federal judge to illegally mandate that ICE release "vulnerable" populations in detention facilities.  She charged that ICE acted with "deliberate indifference" and engaged in what amounts to "cruel and unusual punishment" against illegal aliens by not releasing them during the coronavirus epidemic.  Therefore, Cooke ordered ICE to submit twice-weekly reports on the status of the detainees and who is being released.

Second sex offender put up for early release, Spokane list includes gang members, others connected to homicides.  A KHQ investigation has identified another convicted sex offender on the list of prisoners up for early release, as the state seeks to stop the spread of COVID-19 behind bars.  The Department of Corrections website indicates that Milo M. McCune was scheduled to be released yesterday to the community under the commutation program.  He qualified for this special, safety-first leniency because the state considered his last crime to be violent.

Murders in NYC surge for second week in a row as coronavirus lockdown continues.  Despite coronavirus lockdown measures, murders in New York City have doubled over last years's numbers for the second consecutive week.  This week last year, the city saw five murders to this year's 10 murders, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) reported.  The NYPD regularly publishes statistics through its CompStat portal, comparing current stats with the equivalent period in the previous year.  While some crimes — including felony assault and rape — have declined, murder has increased, as did burglary and grand larceny auto, according to the department.

Washington Supreme Court rejects lawsuit seeking additional release of prisoners due to coronavirus threat.  The Washington Supreme Court on Thursday swiftly rejected a lawsuit seeking to force Gov. Jay Inslee to order the release of thousands of people from Washington prisons to protect them from potential exposure to the coronavirus.  In a 5-4 decision, a court majority found the emergency petition by Columbia Legal Services had not proved the state is failing in its duties to incarcerated people.  The court's order, signed by Chief Justice Debra Stephens, said, "on the record presented, the Petitioners have not shown the Respondents' actions constitute deliberate indifference to the COVID-19 risk at the Department of Corrections facilities..."

Serial Burglary Suspect Free Without Bail Despite Alleged Crime Sprees.  A serial burglary suspect with a long criminal history is free without bail despite allegedly being involved in a recent string of burglaries in Fremont, Milpitas, San Jose, Santa Clara and Palo Alto, Fremont police said.  Kristopher Sylvester, 34, of Fremont, was arrested by Fremont detectives on April 2 for allegedly committing multiple commercial burglaries, possessing a loaded firearm, evading police and violating his probation, according to police.

Early inmate release a 'kick in the gut' for Chehalis burglary victim.  The burglary was more than two years ago, but it still hurts Keith Heldreth. [...] Heldreth's trailer was stolen out of the front yard of his Chehalis home in December 2017.  He said there were more than $100,000 worth of collectibles, tools and memorabilia stored in the trailer.  One of the men convicted of the burglary, Shane Poeschl, is on the state's list of inmates who will likely be released early to create more room in prisons because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Why is coronavirus being used as excuse to release illegal aliens instead of send them back?  Federal judges and liberal governors had a brilliant idea the minute the coronavirus outbreak became apparent:  In addition to releasing our own criminals, why not release other countries' criminals?  Thanks to the ruling of a federal judge who is not even in New Jersey, ICE released 700 criminal aliens from New Jersey.  This is happening throughout the country.  As citizen rights are being infringed upon without due process, it seems like illegal aliens are the only ones with access to the courts.  Now, a single California judge, Jesus Bernal, is ordering ICE to release all illegal aliens at high risk and all those over 55. [...] Let's not forget that most aliens can voluntarily depart without proceedings under INA §240B.  We are not trying to hold them.  They are the ones demanding to stay.

50 Freed Coronavirus Inmates Carried Out Crime Spree.  Pro-crime policies work.  Enact them and you get more crime.  As I discuss in today's article, thugs killed more people in Chicago than the coronavirus.  Freeing thugs as a response to the coronavirus makes as much sense as setting your house on fire to stop flooding in your kitchen. [...] The coronavirus jailbreak that freed criminals under the guise of protecting them from the pandemic has endangered everyone's lives. [...] Mayor Bill de Blasio's priority is putting as many criminals back on the street as he can.

California sheriff outraged that child abuse suspect could be freed due to coronavirus.  San Bernadino County Sheriff John McMahon said California's decision to free inmates in the name of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) will endanger the public by recycling felons back into society.  In a Tuesday [4/21/2020] interview with Fox 11, McMahon claimed repeat child abusers are able to benefit from the state's new $0 cash bail emergency mandate and will be released back into circulation.  There are 13 exceptions for serious offenses, but child abuse is not one of them.  "Felony child abuse does not fit into that list of 13, so even though this guy had a prior for domestic violence conviction for child abuse, he gets arrested for child abuse again, and then he gets released on zero bail with a court date in July," he said.

Some inmates receiving coronavirus stimulus payments, watchdog warns.  Some inmates are receiving the $1,200 coronavirus economic stimulus payments that are part of the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, according to a government watchdog.  "We have no doubt that inmates are receiving checks for the same reason dead people are receiving checks," Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, told Just the News.  "The IRS is relying on 2018 or 2019 tax returns, and does not know whether the taxpayer is deceased, incarcerated, or divorced, all of which, among other factors, would impact their eligibility to receive stimulus checks today," he also said.

De Blasio Learns Released Inmates Committed New Crimes.  Somehow He Is Surprised By This.  After learning that inmates released from Rikers Island because of the coronavirus were committing new crimes, groundhog murderer Bill de Blasio lamented dolefully that the criminals' actions were "unconscionable."  De Blasio mourned during his morning briefing, "I think it's unconscionable just on a human level that folks were shown mercy and this is what some of them have done."  De Blasio protested that few released criminals had committed new crimes, saying, "We do see some recidivism.  I have not seen a huge amount, but any amount is obviously troubling.  We're going to just keep buckling down on it, making sure there's close monitoring and supervision to the maximum step possible.  And the NYPD is going to keep doing what they're doing."

Cops enforcing Florida beach restrictions nab Pennsylvania murder suspect violating lounging rule.  Florida police patrolling beaches just days after they partially reopened nabbed more than a violator of coronavirus restrictions.  Jacksonville police came across a man suspected of homicide hundreds of miles away and ended up arresting him on Sunday [4/19/2020], as hundreds of people had flooded beaches again after the closures were partially lifted.

Dallas Starts Emptying Jails Because Wuhan Virus.  As people are imprisoned with excessive bail for throwing a party or dragged off in handcuffs for exercising constitutional rights, authorities continue to let real criminals run loose.

Spitting criminals are NYPD's new scourge amid coronavirus pandemic.  The coronavirus has given criminals a new deadly weapon:  saliva.  Spit-slinging sickos are declaring they are infected with COVID-19 and spraying their targets with sneezes, coughs or sputum. "[...], now you have coronavirus," Jason Mason, 28, told four NYPD officers last Wednesday [4/15/2020] as he spit on them from inside a holding cell, police said.  Cops said he was collared after being caught with a knife in a suspected drug deal.

Over 16K US inmates have been released as coronavirus crisis has progressed.  As of Thursday [4/17/2020], there have been more than 16,000 inmates released from prisons all over the United States due to the novel coronavirus.  A total of approximately 16,622 inmates have been released — or are scheduled to be released shortly — due to the COVID-19 outbreak.  The majority were being held on non-violent charges or were deemed to pose no immediate threat to society if released.  With very few exceptions, jail inmates have yet to be convicted.  They are usually awaiting trial.  Prison inmates, on the other hand, have already been convicted and sentenced.

Inslee plan to release hundreds of prison inmates leaves questions, draws criticisms from all sides.  Gov. Jay Inslee's announcement of a plan to release hundreds of inmates from Washington prisons has left unanswered questions, with officials unable to share a detailed plan on Tuesday for who will be freed and exactly how the changes will protect inmates left in state lockups.  Inslee and state Department of Corrections (DOC) Secretary Steven Sinclair on Monday announced they would release as many as 950 inmates to free up room in Washington's 12 correctional facilities as a way to help protect vulnerable inmates from contracting the coronavirus.

Florida inmate freed because of coronavirus outbreak, accused of murdering someone the next day.  An inmate freed from the Hillsborough County Jail in Tampa to prevent the spread of the coronavirus is back behind bars after allegedly murdering a man the day after his release, the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office said late Tuesday [4/14/2020].  Joseph Edwards Williams, 26, was sprung from jail along with 163 detainees said to be low-level offenders on March 19, according to records from the Sheriff's Office.  Mr. Williams had been arrested on March 13 for possession of heroin and possession of drug paraphernalia.

LA County Sheriff Frees Thousands More Prisoners.  Law enforcement leaders across the U.S. have used the COVID-19 crisis to free prisoners that they ardently wanted to free anyway.  Even as the worst of the plague has passed over the land, elected leaders are still freeing crooks from the jails.  This isn't as a favor to the rest of us, it's in service to the elected leaders' social justice friends and personal (or George Soros's) political agendas.  This brings us to hapless LA Sheriff, Alex Villanueva, who announced on Monday [4/13/2020] that LA County's jail population is lighter by 25% thanks to him!

Inmate Released Over COVID-19 Fears Arrested For Murder Hours After He Got Out of Jail.  An inmate who was released from jail due to fears of coeronavirus spread has been re-arrested on a murder charge.  Deputies say 26-year-old Joseph Edwards Williams commited second-degree murder the day after he was released.

The LA Sheriff Who Released 4,276 Inmates Now Fears a Crime Wave.  The LA Sheriff released the inmates fearing the Wuhan virus, now he worries he may have put the public at risk.  You just can't make this up.  Save the criminals, destroy the community.

Some Violent Crime Is On The Rise As Coronavirus Engulfs America.  As most of the U.S. is shut down over the coronavirus pandemic, some violent crime rates continue to rise.  While the virus has slowed overall crime in some major cities, certain types of violence has increased.  Just days after the White House released its strict coronavirus guidelines, domestic violence rates surged across the country.  The Seattle Police Department reported a 23% increase, while a domestic violence hotline in Nashville reported a 55% increase in calls over the first few weeks of March.  Those numbers have only continued to surge as the U.S. and other parts of the world have been put under a quasi-form of indefinite house arrest.

Convict let out on coronavirus concerns arrested for assault and robbery.  The nation's thugs rejoiced when the coronavirus plague hit the U.S., giving anti-incarceration social justice warriors just the push they needed to find a reason to let them out of their prisons.  Lefty city and state leaders ensured it happened, and predictable as sunrise, the released thugs went back to doing what got them incarcerated in the first place. [...] Only to a leftist would any of this make sense. [...] It's a textbook example of social justice warrior leftists taking the coronavirus crisis and using it to advance their long-held agendas.

George Soros-Funded Group to Governors:  Release as Many Prisoners as Possible Due to Coronavirus.  The Brennan Center for Justice, which is heavily financed by George Soros, has submitted a letter to the governors of all fifty states urging them to use executive action to "release as many people as possible from incarceration" due to coronavirus fears "provided they do not pose serious public safety threats."  The letter cited concern that the U.S. prison population could face greater risk of illness and death than the general public due to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.

Closing Churches, Opening Jails.  Thousands of prisoners have been released from jails since the coronavirus crisis hit.  "In Los Angeles County, Sheriff Alex Villanueva has embarked on what appears to be the largest U.S. effort to release inmates, freeing 1,700 people this month, or about 10 percent of the population of one of the nation's largest jail systems," reports the New York Times.  The New York Post has reported on the case of a child rapist who was released to protect him from the coronavirus: [...] This appears to be happening throughout the world, with countries such as Great Britain announcing large releases of prisoners.  One would have thought the safety of the community trumps a prisoner's right to be free of exposure to sickness in jail.  But, no, we're told that opening up prisons is sound public policy.  Meanwhile, in keeping with our pagan times, as prisoners leave jail, some pastors enter it.  In Tampa, pastor Rodney Howard-Browne was arrested for violating public health orders after holding Sunday services.  In Baton Rouge, pastor Tony Spell was arrested for not observing a ban against large gatherings.

Federal judges reject California mass prisoner release.  Federal judges on Saturday refused on procedural grounds to order California to free thousands of prisoners to ease crowded conditions that attorneys representing inmates likened to a "tinderbox" ready to ignite with the rapid spread of the coronavirus.  But the three judges invited inmates' attorneys to file a new motion with either or both of two individual judges who oversee major class action lawsuits over inmate medical and mental health care.

In What Sense Do You Think We Are Free?  [Scroll down]  Ostensibly to "socially distance" inmates from infected jail cells, Los Angeles' Sheriff Alex Villanueva "is freeing prisoners from Los Angeles County jails and curbing arrests for more law-breakers."  Apparently, Villanueva and Co. have "cut their arrests by 80 percent."  Four-in-five potential not criminals going to jails in Los Angeles is a real problem, because that unquestionably means more criminals on the streets free to commit crimes.  And police around the country seem to have their hands full enforcing "social distancing" guidelines, arresting pastors and whatnot.  But Americans have Second Amendment rights, and can protect themselves, right?  Well, in Los Angeles, gun shops were, just days ago, being forced to close their doors, clearly infringing upon the rights of law-abiding Americans who would "keep and bear arms" in order to protect themselves from the criminals their government has been releasing into the public.

Child rapist ordered released to keep him safe from coronavirus.  A Massachusetts man convicted of repeatedly raping a 12-year-old boy was ordered released from jail Friday — because he suffers from health conditions that can make him vulnerable to coronavirus, according to new reports.  Glenn Christie, 54, who uses a wheelchair, was ordered released from the Massachusetts Treatment Center by Superior Court Judge Heidi Brieger, WBUR reported.  One of the conditions is that Christie tests negative for COVID-19, the station reported.  Christie was convicted of child rape and indecent assault on a child under 14 and was being held for violating his probation conditions, according to the report.

Philadelphia's Only Surging Industry.  Last week, Philadelphia's police department reported that criminal activity in the first three months of this year increased by double-digit percentages when compared with the same period in 2019 — the most violent year since 2007.  So far in 2020, property and violent crimes have spiked by 16 percent and 11 percent, respectively, with the largest increases in retail theft — which skyrocketed 59 percent, after district attorney Larry Krasner announced that his office wouldn't prosecute that crime — and other serious violent offenses, such as aggravated assault, up by 20 percent.  Though the Philadelphia Inquirer has tried to downplay the spike in crime, statistics show that, even as the Covid-19 pandemic unfolds, crime has increased overall, despite a slight dip during the city's first full week of shutdowns.

Mayor deBlasio Releases 900 Inmates To Reduce Coronavirus Risk — Makes Room To Arrest Priests, Ministers, Pastors.  New York City Mayor Bill deBlasio has released 900 inmates from city jails in an effort to reduce the risk of coronavirus.  Days earlier he announced the intent to permanently close houses of worship that defy the 'stay-at-home' dictates.

California to release 3,500 inmates early as coronavirus spreads inside prisons.  California is granting early release to 3,500 inmates in an effort to reduce crowding as coronavirus infections begin spreading through the state prison system.  Lawyers for Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday told a panel of federal judges the state is taking "extraordinary and unprecedented protective measures" to slow the spread of the virus and protect those who live and work within California's 35 prisons.  The accelerated parole policy — affecting inmates due to be released over the next 60 days — comes in the face of pressure to do much more.

NYC judge frees alleged murderer out of concern he'll catch coronavirus.  A Manhattan judge on Thursday [3/26/2020] ordered the release of a career criminal charged with stabbing his girlfriend to death out of concern he could contract coronavirus at Rikers, the [New York] Post has learned.  State Supreme Court Justice Mark Dwyer freed Pedro Vinent-Barcia, 63, and 15 other inmates after the Legal Aid Society filed a petition arguing that their detention exposed them to serious medical harm in the midst of a pandemic sweeping through city jails.  Prosecutors objected, citing the brutality of the crime and the defendant's criminal record.

NYC to release more than 1,000 prison inmates due to coronavirus concerns.  New York City will release more than 1,000 prison inmates due to coronavirus concerns, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday [3/24/2020].  According to the New York Post, approximately 300 prisoners in the Rikers Island prison complex and other city facilities will be released this week to limit the spread of COVID-19 through NYC's jail system.  De Blasio said inmates chosen are serving less than a year in prison for misdemeanors or non-violent felonies.

And how is that idea working out?
Anarchy mixed with tyranny:  Jailbreaker criminal terrorizes woman in her home.  Utah, like nearly every state with Democrat or liberal Republican leadership, has released some criminals from prison, supposedly under the guise of avoiding spread of the virus in prison.  What they are really doing is spreading the disease of crime into our communities.  Joshua Haskell, 42, of American Fork, Utah is someone deemed by the liberal politicians as a "nonviolent, low-level" offender.  He was released on March 17 from a halfway house, pursuant to an incomprehensible order to release low-level offenders into the community during the coronavirus epidemic.  Just two days later, he was arrested in the home of a woman after he allegedly attacked the homeowner with a knife in her bed.  According to the charging documents, as reported by the Deseret News, the woman awoke to find Haskell standing over her bed.

Pedophile Who Sexually Abused 9 Boys Murdered in Georgia Prison.  A child molester who was serving a life sentence after he had sexually abused nine boys was brutally murdered during a fight.  Last Friday [3/20/2020], Cesar Pastrana, 33, had served eight years out of his life sentence before he was killed during a fight at Hancock County Jail, Georgia.  Georgia Department of Corrections have signaled that they are treating the death as a homicide, but have not released how the inmate was killed, the name of his suspected killer, or whether it was in connection with his crime.

NJ Releases up to 1,000 Prisoners From Jail, Threatens Residents For Disobeying Lockdown Orders.  Democrats hate ordinary citizens, and it is during times like now, where it becomes really apparent.  In New Jersey the state's Chief Justice, Stuart Rabner, has ordered up to 1,000 prisoners in the state be released due to the threat posed by the coronavirus.  The Chief Justice released two classes of prisoners, those imprisoned for low level crimes and those in prison for probation violations.

Philadelphia goes lawless.  Officially, this time.  Restaurants are closing.  Toilet paper is flying off the shelves.  Arrests are being put on hold.  Is there an end to the madness the coronavirus has inflicted on our nation?  In Philadelphia, crimes are no longer being treated as crimes as law enforcement has been instructed to stop making arrests.  No, seriously.  A decree has been sent down from ironically named Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw for police to stop arresting people who commit "non-violent" crimes.  They are instead to hold suspects in their cars and issue warrants for future arrest, assuming law enforcement can find them later.  Drug dealers, car thieves, and prostitutes will now be essentially ticketed with an order to appear in court for arrest at a later date, though that is not necessarily described in the warrant they receive.  Instead, they will be found when the Commissioner decrees it is okay to book people at the police station again.

'A Storm Is Coming': Fears of an Inmate Epidemic as the Virus Spreads in the Jails.  It started with a jails investigator in an office three miles from Rikers Island.  Then, a correction officer at a security checkpoint near the entrance to the jail complex got it.  Hours later, it was an inmate in a crowded housing unit.  Within days, the investigator had died and three more correction officers and two other staff members had tested positive for the coronavirus, confirming fears that the highly contagious disease had arrived in the nation's second-largest jail system, endangering 5,300 inmates and twice as many guards.On Thursday, the jail system's chief physician, Ross MacDonald, took to Twitter with a warning:  "A storm is coming."

Philadelphia Braces for Looting as Police Suspend Arrests for Non-Violent Crimes.  A controversial suspension of non-violent arrests has Philadelphia businesses on edge and fortifying against potential looters.  Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw announced the suspension of all arrests for certain non-violent crimes Wednesday, according to WTXF-TV. According to documents acquired by law enforcement journalist Rob O'Donnell, the move suspends arrests for narcotics offenses, theft, burglary, stolen vehicles, fraud and prostitution.

Philadelphia's progressive DA has declared war — on cops, law and order.  Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner is a direct threat to the public safety of the City of Brotherly Love.  Philly PD Cpl.  James O'Connor, shot and killed in the line of duty Friday, didn't have to die.  If not for Krasner treating violent and dangerous criminals with kid gloves, O'Connor would be alive today.  O'Connor's alleged killer, Hassan Elliot, should never have been on the streets.  He was cut loose and slapped on the wrist by Krasner's office time and again.  Every time Elliot was arrested for serious felonies, Krasner's indifference and ideology prevented the government from doing its duty to protect the public.  Elliot's 2017 illegal firearms possession case was settled almost immediately for time served when Krasner took office in 2018.  Krasner's predecessor detained Elliot, but Krasner released him the next day.  A year later, he was caught with large amounts of cocaine packaged for distribution.  That was a violation of his supervision requirements.  Krasner released Elliot, scheduling his trial.  That same day (March 1, 2019) Elliot killed someone.

Ohio Jail Releases Hundreds To Protect Them from Coronavirus Despite No Known Cases.  Do you know what we need during a national emergency?  More alleged criminals out on the streets.  This is apparently the lesson we're supposed to take away from officials in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, the jurisdiction in which the city of Cleveland is located.  Ohio's second-most populous county has decided to release hundreds of inmates from the Cuyahoga County jail over COVID-19 fears.  Here's the thing — not a single person in the jail was known to be infected.

You Can't Get Hand Sanitizer Because Of Government Regulations.  After the Wuhan Flu hit America, the Democrats decided that America should be more like China.  New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo, who got his job the same way as many totalitarian leaders, by being the son of the guy who used to have the job, led the way to the People's Republic of America. [...] "We are introducing New York State Clean hand sanitizer, made conveniently by the state of New York.  This is a superior product to products now on the market," Governor Cuomo declared. [...] The specific part of the state making NYS Clean is the Great Meadow Correctional Facility: a maximum-security prison which Cuomo had visited two years ago to address the constant violence in the prison. [...] Corcraft, also known as the Bureau of Corrections, was already making hand sanitizer at $68 bucks for a five-gallon pail.  There's a nice profit margin there considering that prison workers are being paid between 16 cents to $1.30 an hour.

Update:
Cuomo's New York branded hand-sanitizer isn't being made by inmates after all.  Earlier this month, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that New York would be producing its own hand-sanitizer called "NYS Clean."  He explained that the new hand-sanitizer would be "made" by Corcraft which is the name for New York's prison industries.  But according to a report published today by Vice, prison inmates aren't "making" the sanitizer so much as putting the stuff, which is made elsewhere, into jugs and bottles.

Philadelphia Police Will Not Arrest for Burglary or Theft Due to Coronavirus.  As an outcome of short-sighted coronavirus issues, the Philadelphia police department has announced they will no longer be arresting suspects for retail theft, auto theft, burglary, narcotics or other "non violent" offenses.  Instead they will write tickets, release the suspects and address the criminality later on.  Now watch what happens.  CTH saw the instructions earlier today [3/17/2020] but we did not want to immediately distribute the information.  It should be remembered the current Philadelphia police commissioner, Danielle Outlaw (pictured left), is a social justice activist from Portland, Oregon.  Unfortunately, there is a predictive element to this.  Perhaps some are familiar with the post Hurricane Andrew experience in Homestead and Miami-Dade.  The only thing standing between law-abiding citizens and those who would take their possessions is an ability to defend your own property.  This is now the Philadelphia reality.

5 Big Government, America-Destroying Schemes Democrats are Proposing During COVID-19 Crisis.  Here are just five, America-destroying proposals that we would never seriously consider but are now floated as serious policy proposals during this crisis. [...] [#4] Empty Prisons:  Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley told MSNBC's Al Sharpton that she was advocating for a blanket commutation of sentences to release prisoners from incarceration in light of the COVID-19 dilemma.  "This pandemic, COVID-19, has certainly highlighted and exasperated every socio, ratio, and political fault line in our country.  And I'm just advocating to make sure that when we are talking about those that are most vulnerable, our low-income residents and citizens, those experiencing homelessness, our seniors, that we are also including the incarcerated men and women, who are certainly amongst one of the most vulnerable populations.

Major crimes in NYC unexpectedly surge after bail reform law.  We recently looked at some new proposals for fixing New York's disastrous new "bail reform" law or at least mitigating some of the damage it's causing.  They may want to get off the stick and start looking at those suggestions in a hurry because a newly released report shows that major crimes in New York City took a very sharp turn upward in February as compared to the same period of time last year.  And the police have the data to show that the bail reform policies are playing a significant role in this very bad development.

Here's What's Happened in NYC Since the State Ended Cash Bail on January 1.  During a press conference on Thursday, the New York Police Department reported that "major crime is up 22.5% this February over a year ago."  And they "attribute the spike to the bail reform pushed through the state Legislature in Albany last year, which is releasing people who have been arrested for one crime to go out and commit another." [...] Even de Blasio admits it.  He said, "There's a direct correlation to a change in the law, and we need to address it, and we will address it."  He added that he was "absolutely confident it would be addressed in Albany in the budget due April 1."

NY Major Crime Soars.  Police Blame Bail Reform.  Major crimes soared in February in New York City, and New York Police Department (NYPD) officials blame one change that was implemented for the uptick: bail reform.  The NYPD stated in a press release, "Criminal justice reforms serve as a significant reason New York City has seen this uptick in crime."  According to the NYPD, compared to February 2019, major crimes grew 22.5%; in addition, the city suffered a 7.1% increase in shootings.  The city also saw a rise in robbery, assault, burglary, grand larceny, and grand larceny, according to Fox News.  The only piece of good news was that murder plunged 20%.

MPD whistleblower details alleged crime underreporting in the first interview.  A whistleblower from the D.C. Police Department is talking openly about the crime underreporting she says she's witnessed inside the Metropolitan Police Department.  "I was surprised," said MPD Sergeant Charlotte Djossou.  "I didn't want to believe it."  Djossou, a 15-year MPD veteran previously honored for her service by Police Chief Peter Newsham, is going public with stunning allegations about what she says is going on in her own department. [...] She claims D.C. police supervisors are ordering investigators to downgrade crime classifications form more serious crimes to less serious ones to make the city's crime stats look better.

The Editor says...
In other words, the streets are even more dangerous than you think they are.

Legalizing Ecoterrorism on the Left Coast.  Law & order break down where liberals rule.  San Francisco is an obvious example.  Portland is another:  ["]Five climate radicals arrested for sabotaging train tracks used by Zenith Energy to transport crude oil are free today because Portland, Ore., jurors just couldn't bring themselves to convict the earth's saviors.  The five jurors believed the defendants' 'climate necessity defense,' which argues you can break the law if you're saving the planet.["]

Black-on-Jewish attacks in NY, black-on-Asian attacks in SF: Same progressive rule.  [Scroll down]  The second thing we see is that this person has no fear of the police, no fear of the feds, and no fear of punishment, no matter what he does.  That's the work of leftist politics that in San Francisco now requires a dollar value of $951 in thievery before any police action can take place.  Thieves know they get the first $950 free in that city.  Cash bail has been eliminated, and San Francisco's district attorney has a pinned tweet praising Bernie Sanders for praising that.  That crazed leftist "serving" as district attorney, one Chesa Boudin, is the son of a terrorist killer, raised by Bill Ayers, last seen "serving" as Hugo Chávez's translator, whose big selling point is "decarceration," and ending "mass incarceration," and who refuses to prosecute quality-of-life crimes such as public urination.  The cops in that city are throwing up their hands at having this creep at the prosecutorial helm, effectively making all street crimes get-out-of-jail-free cards.

Is It Illegal To Encourage Unlawful Behavior?  If you tell someone to violate the law, is that a punishable crime?  Simply put, that case comes before the Supreme Court on Feb. 25.  Justices will consider whether to uphold the conviction of a woman whose crime was advising immigrants to break the law.  Will the justices rule that the First Amendment forbids making this a crime, or try to avoid that question altogether?

Jamming in Jail.  Illegal cell phones are smuggled into America's prisons by the thousands each year through a variety of means including drones, incoming vehicles, and facility staff.  Due to the growing illegal market for the phones, individuals are paid an average of $50 to $1,000 to smuggle the contraband into state facilities.  Phones go for even higher rates if the risks and security protocols at the facility are higher.  Oklahoma has experienced numerous challenges and risks that contraband has inflicted on its prison system.  According to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, 52,039 contraband cell phones have been confiscated in the state's correctional facilities since 2011.  Once inside prison walls, the phones are used to conduct criminal activities ranging from cash transfers for drugs and extortion, to ordering violence against individuals outside of prison.  Prison staff are even subject to threats or violence outside of prisons by disgruntled inmates.  Most recently Oklahoma experienced a statewide correctional facility lockdown from gangs ordering coordinated riots using contraband cell phones across the prison system.

Family of Spring Valley library stabbing victim demands answers.  The family of a security guard who was fatally stabbed on the job at a Spring Valley library is demanding answers.  Just months before Blanchard Glaudin, 25, was charged with stabbing Sandra Wilson at the Finklestein Library, a judge had allowed his release without bail after an alleged attempted rape in November.  Wilson's brother, Marvin Hayward, believes his sister would still be alive had it not been for Glaudin's release.

Convict Who Thanked New York Democrats for Abolishing Bail Arrested for 140th Time.  A convicted felon who thanked New York Democrats this week for eliminating bail for a series of crimes deemed "non-violent" was arrested for the 140th time, just days after he was released from New York City Police Department (NYPD) custody.  Career criminal Charles Barry, 56-years-old, was arrested Tuesday evening by NYPD for allegedly scamming a Belgian tourist on the New York City subway, provoking his 140th arrest, as the New York Daily News noted.

San Francisco car break-ins are so common that the city's district attorney is proposing reimbursing residents whose windows are smashed.  San Francisco's district attorney is proposing creating an auto-burglary-assistance fund that would reimburse residents for the cost required to repair shattered windows from break-ins.  The DA, Chesa Boudin, is proposing using $1.5 million from the mayor's office to fill the fund.  If it passes, it could be the country's first fund of this kind.

Witness Murdered After NY Governor Andrew Cuomo's Jailbreak Law Revealed His Identity in MS-13 Trial.  New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has pilfered the people of New York of their hard earned money, attacked their freedoms and now, due to his flagrant disregard for human life, a man has been murdered due laws that forced his identity to be revealed in a criminal case involving MS-13 gang members.  Wilmer Maldonado Rodriguez, 36, was to testify against members of the MS-13 gang who were alleged to have beaten and stabbed him in October 2018.

Top NYPD cop warns officers not to wear their uniforms in public and to hide department logos for their own safety.  A top NYPD official has warned officers not to wear their police uniforms or department logos in public following back-to-back assassination attempts on cops in the Bronx.  Hazel Jennings, chief of the Department of Corrections, issued a memo on Sunday night essentially urging officers to hide their police affiliation to avoid being targeted.  The memo came after a career criminal carried out two separate attacks on officers in the Bronx in the span of just 12 hours, leaving two officers injured.

De Blasio admits NYC crime jump is linked to bail reform.  Mayor Bill de Blasio linked a recent crime surge in the Big Apple to the state's controversial overhaul of bail laws Friday, after spending a week dancing around the matter.  "We had, for six years, steady decreases in crime across the board.  There's not a whole lot of other environmental things that have changed recently," Hizzoner told WNYC's Brian Lehrer on new CompStat data that shows crime has soared since the new laws took effect at the start of 2020.  "It sort of stands out like a sore thumb that this is the single biggest new thing in the equation and we saw an extraordinary jump."  "Of course there's always a possibility this is plain statistical variation, that happens sometimes," he added.  "But I think it's pretty clear that there's only one new major piece in the equation."

Shoplifter hijacks Uber for wild getaway while also wearing ankle bracelet.  A Long Island man hijacked an Uber to use as his getaway car — apparently forgetting that he was still wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet from his last bust, leading cops straight to him, police said Friday [2/7/2020].

Crime Is on the Rise in New York City.  Major crimes jumped in New York City in January, new data from the NYPD show, bucking the trend of decades of declining crime.  Compared with January 2019, the Big Apple saw increases in robbery, assault, burglary, and larceny in the first month of 2020.  The new statistics also confirm an increase in crime on the city's subways, a longtime hot spot for violence that was thought to have cooled in the past two decades.  The new figures come as the city and state struggle with a controversial new bail reform law, which mandates the release of most nonviolent offenders before trial.  The uptick in crime will likely add fuel to the fire for opponents eager to see Albany modify the law or scrap it altogether.

Grocery Chain Begs Forgiveness for Not Liking Shoplifting.  Once, rights were meaningful.  People insisted on fundamental rights such as free speech and self-defense.  But then liberals perverted the word "right," just as they perverted the word "liberal."  Now we are told that we have a "right" for other people to be forced to provide us with what we want for free.  For example, thanks to the predominance of feminism, someone else being made to pay for a woman's tampons is becoming a right.  The right to free tampons has not yet been implemented by Big Government.  No matter; for now, people can just help themselves in stores.  Stores that object are bullied into backing down.

UK Supermarket Forced to Apologize For Asking People Not to Steal Female Menstrual Products.  A UK supermarket was forced to apologize for asking people not to steal female menstrual products, because shoplifting is apparently 'woke' now.  Yes, really.  It all started with a tweet which received nearly 15,000 likes.  "We really need a genuine conversation as a society about what 'safety' means," commented Oonagh Ryder alongside an image of sanitary products on a shelf behind a sign which read "Help us build safer communities — report shoplifting to a member of staff."  [Photo]  Respondents to the tweet asserted their human right to steal tampons and sanitary towels.

High-Ranking Judge Says New Bail Rules a 'Significant Threat to Public Safety' in NYC.  A high-ranking judge in New York City said the state's recent guidelines regarding bail represents a "significant threat to public safety" in the five boroughs and beyond.  "It is my opinion that without significant changes, the current legislation will not only be a missed opportunity for long-overdue criminal justice reform, but also a significant threat to public safety," Bronx Criminal Court Supervising Judge George Grasso said.  "We already are seeing serious spikes in violent crime throughout New York City in 2020."  "I am now in the criminal justice system for over 40 years — 30-plus NYPD and 30-plus judge — and I am very concerned," he said during a speech in Queens, NY.

America's Quiet Policing Crisis.  Across the United States, from cities to rural counties, police departments are confronting a recruitment crisis.  "Going back to 2010, we had about 4,700 online applications.  That dropped down to about 1,900 last year," said Steve Anderson, chief of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, in a Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) report last year.  Seattle's police department reported a 40 percent to 50 percent drop in applications, while Jefferson County, Colorado's applications plummeted 70 percent.  In total, 86 percent of police chiefs nationwide reported a shortage of sworn officers, with nearly half stating that the shortage had worsened over the past five years.  Currently, about 18,000 police departments in the U.S. are responsible for protecting over 300 million Americans.  But there just aren't enough cops to go around.  This little-noticed staffing crisis could intensify over the next decade, especially as a glut of cops hired in the 1990s ages into retirement.

FBI: Violent crime is up and arrests are down.  Here's your criminal justice "reform".  Across the country, we're seeing an increase in the amount of crimes being committed, but are seeing fewer arrests.  Some say it's a push for criminal justice reform.  Others say it's because of the growing divide between police officers and the public.  Whatever the case, here are the facts.  Per new FBI data, the vast majority of reported crimes do not end in arrest (chart below). Less than two out of five reported crimes end in an arrest.  Arrests are declining.  Falling arrests have real implications for citizen satisfaction, fear of crime and a sense of justice.  Concurrently, there are those who believe that fewer arrests are in society's best interest.

Sanctuary recidivism rate at 25% in California's Orange County.  Orange County in California is seeing a recidivism rate of more than 25% for illegal immigrants it has released under the state's sanctuary law, according to new data the sheriff's department released and ICE highlighted this week.  Migrants who were released then rearrested for new crimes had charges of rape, domestic violence, DUI and child sex offenses.  In 2019, Orange County said it got requests from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to turn over 1,507 inmates.  It did release 492 of them to ICE after they'd completed their sentences, but 1,105 were put back on the streets under the terms of the state's sanctuary law, known as SB54.

Convicted Killer Was Given Supervised Time To 'Satisfy Sexual Needs' Then Murders A 22-Year-Old Woman.  I have a hunch that maybe letting a guy have more relations with women after being known for killing his partners probably wasn't the best idea they've had.

'McMillions': How ex-cop orchestrated $24 million McDonald's Monopoly scam.  In 1987, McDonald's launched an ingenious sweepstakes based on the game of Monopoly.  Customers would purchase sandwiches, fries, drinks, etc., that included peel-off game pieces on the packaging — potentially rewarding them with anything from a Filet-O-Fish to a new car to $1 million.  People went wild for it and business spiked by 40 percent for the fast-food giant, who kept it up for years.  But it wasn't all happy meals.  "It seemed like an opportunity for ordinary people to get ahead, but there were consequences," said Brian Lazarte, co-director of the HBO docu-series "McMillion$," premiering Monday, about the contest.  In fact, some 50 people would be convicted for cheating.

Antifa plans massive anti-cop action in NY subways, push for free transit, ending police presence.  Police in New York are increasing their presence in subways Friday after members of the far-left Antifa movement called for a mass protest against law enforcement and transit fares.  The Police Benevolent Association of New York City issued a strong warning ahead of Friday's Antifa demonstration, urging New Yorkers to "pay close attention."  "This is [the] true endgame of the anti-police movement, an end of all policing & destruction of public order," the group said in a tweet.  "Our members have spent their careers — and in some cases given their lives — to bring public safety back to NYC.  We can't go backwards."

Report indicates child sex offender does not meet criteria for a predator after transitioning to woman.  Iowa officials will release a biological man who molested up to 15 children and obtained a sex change after a preliminary report indicated the sex offender is not a threat.  The Iowa attorney general's office filed a Jan. 9 motion announcing that it will no longer recommend that 23-year-old Joseph Matthew Smith, who now identifies as a woman, be institutionalized in the Cherokee Civil Commitment Unit for Sex Offenders (CCUSO), the Storm Lake Times reported in January.

Transgender woman arrested for aggravated assault against public official is jailed — with male inmates.  A biological male who identifies as a woman was arrested on a first-degree felony charge of aggravated assault against a public servant after 12-hour standoff with police in Harker Heights, Texas, and was booked Monday into the Bell County Jail — with male inmates, despite the suspect's transgender status, the Killeen Daily Journal reported.  "Inmates are processed based on their actual sex at the time they arrive here and not what they say they want to be," Chuck Cox, chief deputy of the Bell County Sheriff's Office, told the paper.  "It is our policy to keep all inmates safe regardless of who they are."

Fatal DWI suspect bragged about bail reform: 'I'll be out tomorrow'.  A Long Island man arrested after a fatal drunken wreck Jan. 12 bragged to cops, "The laws changed, I'll be out tomorrow," thanks to new bail reform measures, prosecutors said Thursday [1/30/2020].  Jordan Randolph, 40, who did walk free the next day, also told cops the deadly crash was "just a DWI."  Details of the boozy bust were revealed Thursday as Randolph was hit with a 24-count indictment for vehicular manslaughter, aggravated vehicular homicide and a slew of other charges in the crash that killed 27-year-old Jonathan Flores-Maldonado.

New York City Politicians:  Fixing What Isn't Broken.  [Scroll down]  The War on Police and the soft on crime, hug a thug mentality, has returned and destroyed the safety and order of the city.  Criminals have morphed into victims, where Mets Baseball tickets are given out for promises to appear in court.  Meanwhile, Mayor de Blasio and his band of cowards offer hugs and kisses for criminal conduct.  Who comes up with this idiocy except liberals?  Mayhem has returned.  Murders, and robberies are increasing, and the message is clear to crime victims:  you don't matter.  Politics does.  The current climate in New York City is dire.  Yet rather than protect the law-abiding citizens, the misguided liberal politicians doubled down with another pro-criminal policy that no longer requires bail for people arrested.  This will fully unleash the criminal element on law-abiding New Yorkers.  It won't be long before it begins to have an impact on Manhattan tourism.  The results in the first month of this insane policy are apparent.  A sharp rise in crime so far in 2020 has predictably occurred.

About 90 percent of all jaywalking tickets issued to black and Latino pedestrians in NYC.  New Yorkers are known for darting into traffic without heeding crosswalks and traffic lights.  It's a habit that's largely ignored by law enforcement, but the NYPD can and does hand out hundreds of summonses for jaywalking each year.  Last year, about 90 percent of all tickets were issued to black and Latino pedestrians, according to city data first reported by Streetsblog.

The Editor says...
Is it not possible that lily-white New York pedestrians obey the law?  Maybe that's why they don't get ticketed.

Long Island judge ignores bail law, refuses release of 'menace to society'.  A Long Island judge intentionally ignored the state's controversial bail-reform law and refused to release a defendant he deemed a "menace to society," The [New York] Post has learned.  Nassau County District Judge David McAndrews admitted in court that accused two-time bank robber Romell Nellis wasn't charged with a "bondable or bail offense" — but still ordered him held on $10,000 cash or $20,000 bond.  "I don't want you walking around my neighborhood," McAndrews told Nellis, according to a transcript of the Jan. 9 hearing in Hempstead.

It looks like New York's getting the crime uptick politicians have been asking for.  Robbery is up almost 30% in New York City since the first of the year.  Is this a statistical blip, a trend — or a New Year's bail-reform gift from Albany, robbery now largely being a revolving-door offense in the Empire State?  Time will tell, but consider this as well:  According to the latest NYPD stats, the number of shooting victims in the city is up 31% since New Year's Day — so at the very least Gotham appears to be off to a rocky 2020 compared to last year.  Which should not surprise:  Not only does government usually get more of what it encourages, when it comes to crime, it also gets more of what it fails to discourage.  Sad to say, New York falls down on both counts.

Two Convicted Pedophiles Beaten to Death by Inmate with Cane.  An inmate at a California prison murdered two convicted child molesters by beating them to death with a walking cane, according to authorities.  Jonathan Watson, 41, allegedly beat David Bobb, 48, and Graham De Luis-Conti, 62, to death last Thursday at around 2:30 p.m. at the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility (SATF) and State Prison in Corcoran, according to the New York Post.

Latest Liberal "Solution."  Start Slashing Police Budgets.  Philip V. McHarris is a PhD candidate in Sociology and African American Studies at Yale University.  In his WaPo op-ed, McHarriss explains how the real problem with law enforcement is that there are just too many [...] police in this country.  And if the Democrats really want to get serious about criminal justice reform, they need to be pushing to cut police budgets all across the nation, particularly in our larger cities, so there won't be so many cops out there arresting people.  The funds should instead be channeled toward social assistance programs designed to lift people out of poverty.

Suspected robber who 'targeted four banks and was released under New York's no-bail law strikes A FIFTH time.  A serial bank robber targeted four New York banks, was released under the city's new law which requires no bail for holding suspects, only to strike a fifth financial institution, police claim.  The suspect, Gerold Woodberry, 42, is alleged to have robbed banks in New York's Midtown Manhattan, Harlem, West Village and the Upper West Side, since December 30, sources said.  However, under the new 'no bail' law, he was released on Thursday [1/9/2020].

Criminals are going from Rikers Island straight to the subways.
De Blasio giving freed NYC inmates MetroCards and gift cards.  So sorry we had to lock you up — please accept these parting gifts as an expression of our hope, it won't happen again!  Mayor Bill de Blasio's latest soft-on-crime initiative has workers stationed on Rikers Island presenting newly released jailbirds with free transit passes and two $25 debit cards each, The [New York] Post has learned.  Plans even call for the addition of prepaid, "burner"-style cellphones and drawstring bags for the ex-inmates to carry their swag, a source familiar with the program said.  The "crime pays" giveaways build on another de Blasio policy — revealed by The Post last month — that showers freebies including Mets tickets on prisoners being released under the state's new bail-reform law.

Atlanta PD Will No Longer Chase Criminals if They Flee From Cops.  Last Friday [1/3/2020], Atlanta police chief Erika Shields announced that her officers would not engage in vehicle pursuits while the department evaluates its policies.  "Please know that I realize this will not be a popular decision," she said, understating the case considerably.  "And more disconcerting to me personally, is that this decision may drive crime up."  I suggest "may" is not the proper auxiliary verb here.  The decision will drive crime up.  How could it not?  When it becomes known among Atlanta's criminal classes that all one need do to escape punishment for his misdeeds is to use a stolen car, or perhaps alter or remove the license plates on one's own, and you'll have a crime wave in no time.

Confirmed: New Jersey gave Texas church gunman plea deal wiping out gun felony.  Last month's shooting at West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas, has sparked much conversation on the state's gun laws, as well as proposed gun-related legislation in states like Virginia.  Another thing that has come to light from this tragedy relates to bail reform taking place in several states, most notably New York.  Since the shooting, it's been discovered that the gunman, 43-year-old Keith Thomas Kinnunen, now deceased after being shot by the church's head of their volunteer security group, Jack Wilson, had previous run-ins with law enforcement in Texas, as well as other states.

Trump Hater Starts Fires in Jewish Girls' Dorm, Released the Next Day.  Early Friday morning [1/3/2020], Peter Weyand broke into the all-female dormitory of Yeshiva University's Stern College.  He kicked through the glass door of the Manhattan Jewish dorm and began starting fires.  FDNY firefighters arrived, put out the fires, and fire marshals arrested the arsonist.  "Thanks to the thorough investigative work of our Fire Marshals, a dangerous individual has been quickly apprehended," Commissioner Nigro announced.  Not so fast.  On Saturday, Weyand had his hearing and was out.  Prosecutors hadn't asked for bail because pro-crime "bail reform" meant that arson was not longer a qualifying crime requiring bail.  A day after this "dangerous individual" had been caught, he was out again on supervised release.  By that evening, he had been arrested for yet another break-in.  This time targeting a private home in Staten Island.

Under-incarceration allowing scary frequently arrested predator to roam the streets of Chicago looking for more victims.  Scary people are roaming the streets of many big cities, thanks to Democrats, who believe that innocent black people are arrested convicted by our purportedly racist justice system.  Under the rubric of "bail reform," even chronic offenders can be back on the streets the same day they are arrested.  New York Mayor Bill de Blasio was recently so embarrassed by the catch and release of Tiffany Harris after back-to-back arrests for violent attacks on orthodox Jews accompanied by hateful rhetoric that he personally intervened with the court to get her locked up on psychiatric grounds.  But the policies that led to her release remain in place in New York.  Equally problematic is Chicago, where "bail reform" has been in place since 2017.  In addition, probation is liberally granted, leading to this scary fellow now walking the streets after four recent arrests, and one conviction (so far) in just a few months.

New York's Jewish Elite Bails Out.  Attacks on New York Jews continue unabated in the New Year.  A Jewish teen was threatened with a knife by a mob on New Year's Eve, and a Jewish man was attacked by two women on the street on New Year's Day.  Many of the attacks are simply not reported out of fear.  No wonder — unless the attack causes serious injuries, most of the suspects have been released without bail and are walking the same neighborhoods as their victims, unlikely to serve any time or even make their court appearances. [...] Thanks to the new bail law, Jews are now being beaten in the streets with impunity.  The law eliminates bail and requires pre-trial release for those charged with many violent and heinous crimes, such as second-degree manslaughter, aggravated vehicular homicide, criminal possession of a gun, and dozens of other serious charges.

Democrats call for and act on abolishment of cash bail.  If your sole source of news is leftist media such as Slate, you'll believe that there are "people who are in jail solely because they can't afford to pay their way out."  Nope.  There are people in jail awaiting trial because they are accused of serious crimes and they are deemed by a judge to be a threat to society.  Someone like Tiffany Harris of Brooklyn seemingly fits that bill.  Late last month Harris allegedly slapped three Orthodox Jewish women as she said "F-U Jews" and was promptly arrested.  Courtesy of New York State's new laws that eliminate most cash bails, Harris was back on the street a few days later.  The next day Harris allegedly punched a woman and was arrested again — and was released.  A few days later, during a court-mandated meeting with a social worker, Harris was arrested again after allegedly pinching that worker.

Mayhem on the Streets of NY.  Beginning on the first of this year, New York's "no bail no jail" law, enacted by the Democratic legislature and put into law by Governor Andrew Cuomo went into effect. [...] It may be true that some low-level crimes for which poorer arrestees cannot afford bail, means they languish in jail until trial, but this law is so poorly crafted that it includes crimes for which bail is warranted no matter what the economic condition of the person arrested, for otherwise there is no penalty for immediately repeating the criminal acts.  Criminals learn there are no consequences for their actions.  Of course, it won't much affect the rich, who glide about in chauffeured cars and live in gated communities or buildings guarded by doormen, but the middle class surely are impacted.  Once, again these misguided efforts to coddle the underclass have the effect of remaking our cities and states on a feudal model where the rich are protected and serfs who work and pay taxes are in constant danger from brigands and murderers.

Texas church shooter had massive rap sheet — with almost no prison time.  [T]he shooter who killed two people at the West Freeway Church of Christ in Texas on Sunday [12/29/2019], was not allowed to own a gun.  Under current law, it was 100 percent illegal for him to own or carry any firearm.  He had a massive rap sheet dating back to 1998, including gun felonies.  Yet he wasn't locked up.  That is why he was able to kill two people in the church. [...] Texas allows citizens to carry concealed weapons, so he was stopped before he could shoot and kill more.  But the ugly fact is that most mass shooters are repeat offenders and known to law enforcement.  If we actually had criminal control, almost all of these attacks would be prevented.  If the Left really wants to prevent most mass shootings, how about we bring back and reinforce mandatory minimum sentencing on gun felons?  Throughout Americans cities, so many violent offenders have rap sheets full of gun violations, yet they are not seriously punished.

Illinois governor pardons more than 11,000 marijuana convictions to ring in 2020.  Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker granted tens of thousands of pardons for people convicted of low-level marijuana-related offenses on Tuesday.  The Land of Lincoln is set to welcome a new marijuana legalization law on January 1, becoming the 11th state to legalize pot for those 21 years of age and older.  Pritzker, a Democrat whose family owns the Hyatt hotel chain, described the more than 11,000 expungements as the first step in anticipation of the new law taking effect on Wednesday [1/1/2020].

Back to the pre-Giuliani era:  Serious crime up 31% in NYC's Central Park this year.  NYPD crime stats recently reported by the New York Post show that violent crime incidents in Central Park, Manhattan, have spiked 31 percent in 2018. [...] The cleanup of Central Park was one of the milestones of the era of former Mayor Rudy Giuliani in New York that jump-started a two-decade decline in crime throughout the city.  Those gains are now being reduced due to the abolishing of pretrial bail, reduced sentencing, early release, and almost no deterrent against juvenile criminals.  The subways have already returned to pre-Giuliani-era crime levels.  According to NYPD data, there were 1,185 transit misdemeanor assaults citywide from Jan. 1 to Nov. 17, which reflects a 10.9 percent increase from the same time last year.

Organized Retail Theft On The Rise; Cops Blame Prop 47, Safe Neighborhoods Law.  You've likely seen the videos on social media or the local news: groups of people rushing into a store, grabbing armfuls of merchandise.  The brazen crimes are on the rise and CBS13 has learned, in most cases, the crooks get away from authorities.  After searching police reports and arrest records, CBS13 found that while the rate of these grab and dash crimes is on the rise, the rate of arrest is down.  We turned to law enforcement and the retail industry for answers.  Both blame a California law intended to make "neighborhoods safe."

Suspects released without bail after shocking attacks on Jews.  Suspects arrested in last week's spree of eight anti-Semitic attacks are being quickly released right back into the neighborhoods they terrorized thanks to "bail reform" legislation — which doesn't even take effect until Jan. 1.  The most recent case of revolving-door justice came Saturday morning, with the release, with no bail, of a woman charged with punching and cursing at three Orthodox women, ages 22, 26 and 31, in Crown Heights, Brooklyn at dawn the day before.  The accused assailant, Tiffany Harris, was hauled in handcuffs before a Brooklyn judge on 21 menacing, harassment and attempted assault charges.

Nashville man wanted in connection with murder of brother of 49ers QB had just been released from jail.  Tennessee's allegedly Republican governor, Bill Lee, has promised to "empty our jails."  He claimed, "We have to be creative and innovative and disruptive and challenge the way we've been doing things forever."  Well, if the man Nashville police are seeking in connection to the murders of Clayton Beathard, 22, and Paul Trapeni III, 21, indeed committed those murders, it will be precisely because he was let out of jail so "innovatively."

Mayor Pete Wants to Decriminalize 'Meth, Coke, Ecstasy,' Not Just Pot.  In an interview on Friday [12/27/2019], Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D-Church of Social Justice) clarified his drug policy, calling for decriminalization of all drugs including methamphetamine, cocaine, and ecstasy.  "Incarceration should not even be a response to drug possession," Buttigieg told editors at the Des Moines Register.

Abolish the Police?  The latest call to action from some criminal-justice activists:  "Abolish the police." [...] When I first heard this slogan, I assumed that it was a figure of speech, used to legitimize more expansive criminal-justice reform.  But after reading the academic and activist literature, I realized that "abolish the police" is a concrete policy goal.  The abolitionists want to dismantle municipal police departments and see "police officers disappearing from the streets."  One might dismiss such proclamations as part of a fringe movement, but advocates of these radical views are gaining political momentum in numerous cities.  In Seattle, socialist city council candidate Shaun Scott, who ran on a "police abolition" platform, came within 1,386 votes of winning elected office.  During his campaign, he argued that the city must "[disinvest] from the police state" and "build towards a world where nobody is criminalized for being poor."

FBI is investigating former Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin who issued more than 400 pardons in the weeks after he lost his reelection bid.  The FBI is investigating former Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin who controversially issued more than 400 pardons in the weeks after he lost his reelection bid.  Among those who were granted clemency after Bevin lost his seat on November 5 was murderer Patrick Baker, who had served two years of a 19-year sentence for killing a man during a home invasion.  Bevin also pardoned Micah Schoettle who was sentenced in 2018 to 23 years in prison for multiple sexual offences involving children.

Liberal Virginia Prosecutors Spread Soros Project to DC Suburbs.  Parisa Dehghani-Tafti placed her left hand on her old law school textbook, "A Theory of Justice," from New York University as she was sworn in Monday evening as commonwealth's attorney for Arlington County, Virginia, and the neighboring city of Falls Church.  Dehghani-Tafti is one of three new progressive prosecutors seeking to "reimagine" law enforcement in the Washington suburbs of Northern Virginia.  The others are in nearby Fairfax and Loudoun counties.

Cook County Christmas shopping, Kim Foxx style.  When state's attorney Kim Foxx announced no prosecution for shoplifting under a thousand dollars, the results were fully predictable.  Chicago and Cook County, Illinois are leading the headlong American rush toward lawlessness and the loss of civil order.  The election of Kim Foxx as Cook County state's attorney, with hundreds of thousands of dollars in backing by George Soros, has been a further disaster — with not just the scandalously lenient treatment of Jussie Smollett after convulsing Chicago and the entire country with a fake hate crime caper, but the virtual abolition of laws against felony shoplifting under one thousand dollars.

Rising disrespect for cops not only wrong, it puts us in danger.  Police officers are now required to handle the fallout from a vast range of social pathologies that were once the domain of social workers, psychologists and family members, such as mental illness, widespread homelessness and drug abuse.  Even more demoralizing, police officers must look on as the criminals that they have risked their lives to apprehend get turned loose by "social-justice" DAs and "progressive" judges who no longer see their role as protecting the community from predators.  Some DAs have even exposed police officers to greater danger by announcing that they will not prosecute those who resist police.

My husband was shot dead in a gun-free zone — Now his imprisoned killer sends me love letters.  My stalker just won't go away.  Ten years ago, he murdered my husband, Ben, right in front of me in the middle of a busy restaurant.  But my nightmare didn't end with my stalker's incarceration, as I recently found out that he is writing me letters from prison.  The letters show absolutely no remorse and profess his twisted love for me.  This man already terrified me, and what he has written has made me even more fearful.  I have nightmares about the threat that he poses to me and my loved ones after his release from prison.

Cop Killer brags on video about his life of crime & getting out of prison easily.  Tavores Dewayne Henderson was wanted for the murder of Nassau Bay Police Sergeant Kaila Sullivan.  He has been captured, but there is more to that awful story.  Henderson murdered Nassau Bay Police Sergeant Kaila Sullivan during a traffic stop on Tuesday [12/10/2019].  He is a career criminal who has bragged about his extensive criminal history on social media.

Car burglaries in some California cities are at crisis levels.  Prosecutors say their hands are tied.  An epidemic of car burglaries in San Francisco over the last few years has led one Democratic lawmaker to propose plugging a loophole in state law that allows some break-ins to go unpunished, but the Legislature has balked at prosecutors' requests to make obtaining convictions easier.  The proposal, which would eliminate a requirement that prosecutors prove a car's doors were locked at the time of a break-in, has been shelved two years in a row in legislative committees.  Lawmakers struggling with prison crowding and public pressure to enact criminal justice reform have been reluctant to do anything to put more people behind bars.

Why Is Our Society Degrading So Badly, So Fast?  On a local level in many cities and communities, Democrats in power are by their actions undermining the rule of law.  For example, expected compliance with the law in several of our leading cities run by Democratic Party leaders, including most notably New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle, is now often based on a person's economic and immigration status, race, sex, sexual orientation, and increasingly an indication of a person's political and religious affiliations.  The reason for these exemptions being granted is based on the dual ideologies of identity politics and social justice.  The creation of an implied multi-tier justice system expressly violates our fundamental value of the law applying equally to citizens from all walks of life and most importantly results in the increasingly intolerable and dangerous conditions existing on the streets of these cities and an overall perception of communities in decline.

Thought San Francisco's Quality Of Life Couldn't Get Worse?  Think Again.  San Francisco garnered national headlines with the election of its new district attorney, a progressive, which means there will be zero progress made in the homelessness crisis, and little if any made toward reducing crime in the city and county.  Chesa Boudin, a one-time deputy public defender who has never tried a case, was elected in a close race, and will assume office in January.  Before he had a chance to decide if the new drapes in his office were going to be socialist red or blue state blue, Boudin announced that he would not prosecute quality-of-life crimes such as "public camping, offering or soliciting sex, public urination, blocking a sidewalk, etc."  We assume public defecating on streets and sidewalks, today's San Francisco "treat," will also go unprosecuted.

Michael Bloomberg Vows to Free 316K Accused 'Non-Violent' Criminals from Jail.  Billionaire and 2020 Democrat presidential primary candidate Michael Bloomberg is vowing to free hundreds of thousands of accused criminals who are deemed "non-violent" by eliminating bail nationwide.  During a speech in Jackson, Mississippi, Bloomberg laid out his plan to "reduce or eliminate the use of cash bail for non-violent offenders" who are awaiting trial.  Such a policy would mean that of the roughly 462,000 accused criminals held in local jails, about 316,000 would be released without ever having to post bail.

Man drove stolen SUV to bail out brother — who was busted for stealing an SUV: cops.  A Kansas man was busted for driving a stolen Chevy SUV to a local jail to bail out his brother — who was being held for driving a stolen Chevy SUV, according to authorities.  The sibling already in the pokey, Eric Dean McCracken, 36, had been arrested in Topeka early Friday for allegedly driving a stolen 2007 Trailblazer with a suspended license, the Jackson County Sheriff's Office said in a release.  A few hours later, his younger brother, Keith Ray McCracken, 32, was also arrested after a short chase with cops tracking the GPS of a stolen 2015 Silverado, the department said.

New York City to Free 125K Accused Criminals, Give Taxpayer-Funded Housing, Job Training.  The state of New York is likely to free at least 125,000 accused criminals from prison next year and provide many with taxpayer-funded housing and job training services thanks to criminal justice reform laws.  As Breitbart News has reported, the state's series of bail reforms will ensure that suspects accused of crimes deemed "non-violent" are not jailed before their trial dates and do not have to post bail. [...] Across the county, jailbreak legislation is helping to free thousands of accused and convicted criminals from prison.  Federally, the First Step Act that was signed into law by President Trump has thus far freed about 240 sex offenders, nearly 60 convicted murderers and assailants, as well as almost 1,000 inmates convicted of drug crimes.  Also freed by the First Step Act is Joel Francisco, a notorious former leader of the "Latin Kings" gang who immediately returned to a life of drugs after his release and is now accused of murder.

'I've been dying for 25 years': How a cop has stalled his child sex abuse trial for decades.  In 1995, Leonard Forte was due in a Vermont courtroom to face charges that he'd repeatedly raped and molested his daughter's 12-year-old friend.  Instead, he started dying.  Forte, then a 54-year-old former detective with the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office in New York, told the Vermont court his heart had failed and that he was on a transplant list.  He said his doctors had given him a grim diagnosis:  Without a new heart, he'd be dead within a year.  A Vermont prosecutor agreed to delay the case until Forte was healthy enough to stand trial — unless his terminal condition made prosecuting him a moot point.  Forte never received a heart transplant.  But he also didn't die.

Anti-prison anarchy is spreading:  It's way beyond 'soft on crime'.  Stathos Hugunnie was wanted in connection with two stabbings in a housing project in Long Island City one day in April 1997.  When police showed up, Hugunnie fired eight shots, striking NYPD officer Peter Bueti three times in the chest, which would have killed him if not for his protective vest.  After being released from prison two years ago, he was picked up again on drugs and firearms charges.  Yet he was released on just $5,000 bond.  This, folks, is the real criminal justice dysfunction that needs "reform," but victims and law enforcement don't have the same lobbying power criminals do.  Although New York's new law abolishing cash bail won't be enacted until January 1, judges are already getting a head start by either applying it now or setting bail at a very low rate, even for repeat violent felons.  Hugunnie was charged with attempted murder, assault, criminal weapons possession, and criminal use of a firearm for the 1997 incident.  Back then, criminals were actually locked up, so he served 20 years in prison.

Taking off the woke glasses.  Now, we are living in a time in which those committing crimes will not likely face up to consequences befitting their transgressions.  In California, it appears that homelessness and petty crime go together.  All kinds of offenses are occurring with little or no accountability for those involved.  New York is suspending bond and bail for criminality, including assault, arson, bribery, resisting arrest and so much more.  Radical mobs are outright intimidating and assaulting those who don't agree with their philosophy and are mostly getting away with their heinous behavior and actions.  The tiniest bit of common sense would indicate that bad behavior and disregard for law cannot be corrected with inaction.  In other words, bad behavior without consequences begets more bad behavior.  This is elementary stuff, right?

Dem prosecutors fear for suburbs' safety; radical district attorneys, fueled by Soros cash, take control.  Radical social justice activists will serve as the top prosecutors for three major Washington, D.C., suburbs — including the two wealthiest counties in the U.S. — after George Soros's political action committee poured $2.1 million into ordinarily sleepy local races.  In Virginia's Fairfax and Arlington counties, the "reformer" attorneys ran on platforms far to the left of the Democratic incumbents, beating them in primary races before ultimately winning the general elections.  In both cases, the incumbents expressed concern for public safety if the Soros-backed candidates took control.  They also said that the activists were pushing a national platform about racism and over-incarceration that had no basis in reality in the affluent, liberal jurisdictions.

Kamala Harris Campaign Collapses Under Perception of Law and Order.  The Black Lives Matter movement that burst on to the scene in 2013 and 2014 poisoned the Democratic Party.  Harris is a delayed casualty.  Any hint of belief in law and order is now the kiss of death in the party.  The Left relentlessly attacks all law enforcers, from policemen to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.  These brave guardians are viewed with suspicion at best and hatred and revulsion at worst.  In a party where up is down, the criminals are celebrated as heroes while courageous defenders are cast as villains.  It is the same trend that has led Democrats to decriminalize many drug and theft crimes in their jurisdictions down to misdemeanors.  The result, to no surprise, is that these types of acts are becoming as common as jaywalking.  Lawlessness is now viewed as a civic virtue.  In some areas of California, you can walk into a Target and help yourself to your favorite DVD or a pair of designer jeans with no threat of being apprehended.

Lucky San Francisco:  With Chesa Boudin as DA, good luck getting a cop when you want one.  Well, Chesa Boudin has finally done it: he's gotten himself into the San Francisco D.A.'s seat, after a lifetime of standing up for crooks and mastering criminal "justice" from Bill Ayers's stepdad berth and Hugo Chávez's knee.  Like the way criminal justice works in Caracas?  In San Francisco, Hugo Chávez's trusted adviser is now there to help.  He's there to "transform," as he says.  That's his brand, as the Bay Area tech marketing hipsters say.  This won't work out too well if you've got bums vomiting at your doorstep, gang members shooting with muzzle flashes 'round corners, and junkies setting up camp on your sidewalk.  We've already seen the boulder-warfare some of the homeowners are putting up in a desperate bid to stop it.  Such people can probably now look forward to getting arrested.

Conservatives aim to convert convicts at 'Prison CPAC'.  The Conservative Political Action Conference went to prison — and found a receptive audience among the locked-up murderers, robbers and drug dealers there.  The American Conservative Union hosted its first-ever "Prison CPAC" this week to coach about 250 inmates on the life lessons and conservative values they need to reenter society.  Libertarian activist Maj Toure, founder of Black Guns Matter, told the prisoners gun control was a racist tool of the political left rooted in the bigotry of the Civil War era.  Mr. Toure implored the prisoners to "organize, organize, organize" to become a powerful political bloc to fight the radical left and to earn back the right to vote.  "Overwhelmingly, Democratic policies put black and brown people in jail," Mr. Toure said, prompting the inmates at State Correctional Institution at Chester to leap to their feet and applaud.

Trump Hasn't Yet Fulfilled His "Law and Order" Vow.  Let's look at one point where the party has fallen far short of its promises.  Among the vows we haven't kept is this one:  "I have a message for all of you:  The crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon — and I mean very soon — come to an end." [...] But is there any demographic in this country where people don't want to see crime and violence come to a sudden end?  Only on the extreme Left — a sinister region to which Democratic activists and politicians increasingly are drawn — do criminals have prestige and cops get treated as enemies.  That is not where suburbia lives.  No swing voter sees law and order in that way, and an enormous number of the very folks for whom the Left presumes to speak don't see it that way either.

More than 450 Oklahoma inmates [are] walking out of prison doors.  More than 450 inmates walked out the doors of prisons across Oklahoma on Monday [11/4/2019] as part of what state officials say is the largest single-day mass commutation in U.S. history.

Nearly 900 city inmates may be freed even before bail-reform law takes effect.  Nearly 900 city jailbirds could be celebrating Christmas early courtesy of Gov. Andrew Cuomo and a plan to quietly free them before the state's bail-reform law goes into effect next year, The [New York] Post has learned.  And if that weren't enough of a gift, Mayor Bill de Blasio is promising to follow up with even more presents for the lucky accused criminals — by giving them free baseball tickets, movie passes and gift cards to encourage them to return to court, sources familiar with the program said.  "You're literally rewarding them for committing a crime," said a disgusted senior staffer in Manhattan Criminal Court.

Female Offenders:  Perpetrators, Predators, and Pedophiles.  A survey done by California Coalition against Sexual Assault revealed that one in three lesbians admitted to being sexually assaulted by another female.  The U.S. Centers for Disease Control then completed its own national survey, and the results were surprising.  Men were just as likely to be victims of sexual assault over the course of one year and, in 79% of cases, reported a woman as the perpetrator.  The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) showed that in 58% of cases, when a woman sexually assaulted a man, she used violence (and 41% of the time when it's a female-on-female sexual assault).  The BJS also looked at rape in U.S. prisons, and its findings were even more startling.  According to BJS data, a woman is much more likely to be sexually assaulted by another female inmate than by male staff and also more likely than men are in male prisons, shattering the stereotype of prison rape being a male-on-male scenario.  Even more disturbing is that in nearly every case of a minor (regardless of sex) being sexually assaulted in a juvenile detention facility, the perpetrator was female.

Crime and no punishment:
Maryland driver gets probation for Delaware crash that killed 5 NJ family members.  A horrific crash in Delaware last year left a New Jersey man and his four daughters dead — but the Maryland driver whose pickup truck crossed a highway median, according to authorities, won't be going to prison.  Instead, defendant Alvin Hubbard III, 46, of Cambridge received one year of probation from Judge Calvin L. Scott Jr.  The sentence came Friday [11/1/2019] in a Delaware courtroom.

Oklahoma parole board approves largest inmate commutation in US history.  Oklahoma officials voted Friday [11/1/2019] to release more than 400 prison inmates in what would be the largest one-day commutation in U.S. history.  The vote by the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board granted commutation to 527 inmates, 400 of whom are scheduled to be released Monday [11/4/2019] once their commutations are processed over the weekend.  Oklahoma's Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, who has made reducing the state's prison population a priority, backed the panel's decision.

California's Prop 47 leads to [a] rise in shoplifting, thefts, [and] criminal activity across [the] state.  These brazen acts of petty theft and shoplifting are a dangerous and all-too-common consequence of Proposition 47, a referendum passed five years ago that critics say effectively gives shoplifters and addicts the green light to commit crimes as long as the merchandise they steal or the drugs they take are less than $950 in value.  The decision to downgrade theft of property valued below the arbitrary figure from felony to misdemeanor, together with selective enforcement that focuses on more "serious" crimes, has resulted in thieves knowing they can brazenly shoplift and merchants knowing the police will not respond to their complaints, say critics.

New York Lawmaker Proposes Bill Allowing Prisoners to Vote.  A New York state lawmaker is proposing legislation to make prison inmates eligible to vote in elections while incarcerated.  State Sen. Kevin Parker (D-Brooklyn) introduced a bill before Election Day on Tuesday, November 5, that would allow prisoners to register and vote while incarcerated, the New York Post reported.  The state and county boards of elections would keep tabs on the program, and convicted felons would also be allowed to take part.

Heroin addict allegedly drags NYPD cop with his car — and wins $11 million in court.  A heroin addict with nearly 20 arrests to his name allegedly dragged a cop along a busy Bronx street while fleeing a traffic stop, forcing another lawman to shoot him — and a jury just handed him an $11 million payday, The [New York] Post has learned.  Raoul Lopez took the city to court over the harrowing 2006 run-in that left him partially paralyzed on his right side, and was awarded the eight-figure sum by a Bronx jury on Tuesday [10/29/2019].  Lopez, 27 when the encounter happened, was in the midst of "a two-week long bender" and had just scored his latest fix on February 1, 2006, when he rolled through a stop sign at East 169th Street and Grand Concourse, a city lawyer wrote in papers filed in the Bronx Supreme Court case.

Is California Becoming Premodern?  Stores are occasionally hit by swarming looters.  Such Wild West criminals know how to keep their thefts under $950, ensuring that such "misdemeanors" do not warrant police attention.  California's permissive laws have decriminalized thefts and break-ins.  The result is that San Francisco now has the highest property crime rate per capita in the nation.

How America's justice system is beginning to crumble.  We Americans have long prided ourselves on the fairness of our system of justice.  It remains the best in the world.  But, just like a strong and magnificent bridge across a wide river, corrosion can set in.  If not monitored and repaired, the bridge can suddenly collapse.  Likewise, if we ignore the warning signs, if we do not address the inequities in our justice system, the public will reach a point when there is so little respect for the law that its enforcement will cease to be effective.  The danger is that we might become a lawless society, and that will lead to becoming a failed state.  Chaos and disintegration could follow.  Hyperbole?  Here are seven warning signs, present today, that we ignore at great peril. [...]

Federal judge rules Florida can't stop ex-felons from voting because of money owed to state for restitution.  A federal judge has ruled against a Florida law saying ex-felons can only vote if they are up to date on money owed to the state.  U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle declared the rule as unconstitutional in his 55-page opinion.  Hinkle acknowledged in his Friday ruling that the law will still likely go through the Florida Supreme Court or a federal trial.

Fewer Jails Won't Make Fewer Criminals.  New York City has approved a plan to close the incarceration facilities on Rikers Island and replace them with four new borough-based jails.  When first put forth in 2017, the plan was conditioned on a reduction of the city's total jail population over the next ten years to about 5,000 inmates by 2026.  Unlike Rikers Island — which, at half the size of Central Park, is large enough to hold ten separate low-rise jail facilities, along with parking lots, maintenance areas, and space for outdoor basketball courts and running tracks — the new jails will be high-rise buildings in already-dense urban areas.

Portland homeless man who menaced a woman and child gets probation despite 220 previous arrests.  A homeless man named Brian Ray Lankford who threatened a woman and her son with a large tree branch in 2017 was given a break this week.  Instead of putting Lankford in jail, the prosecutors cut a deal which gave him probation and mandatory drug treatment.  That might not seem so bad until you learn how many laps Lankford has already made around this particular block.

Ocasio-Cortez Calls For Abolishing Prisons In The United States.  Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said this week that it was time for the United States to have a serious conversation about "decarceration" and "prison abolition in this country."  "Mass incarceration is our American reality," the former bartender tweeted.  "It is a system whose logic evolved from the same lineage as Jim Crow, American apartheid, & slavery.  To end it, we have to change.  That means we need to have a real conversation about decarceration & prison abolition in this country."

The Editor says...
First of all, Jim Crow, apartheid, and slavery have nothing to do with the overwhelming majority of the people in state and federal prisons today, because they were born after 1965 or because they are not black.  If Ms. Ocasio-Cortez were to visit a few state prisons, she would quickly see there are people in those prisons who need to be locked up permanently.  Secondly, there are no "mass incarcerations."  Everybody in prison was tried individually and found guilty, one at a time.

The O.J. verdict introduced the world to social justice.  Justice — the real, blind kind that is dependent on due process, the presumption of innocence, and evidentiary standards — takes each case in a vacuum.  The individual is judged for his individual crimes or lack thereof, and guilty or innocence is not transferred by association.  Social justice, in contrast, judges based on collective responsibility.  Rather than evaluate O.J., a black man with all of the privilege and wealth of a beloved celebrity in white America, for his individual crime, social justice averaged out all of the historical and not-so-historical atrocities against black Americans and gave him a get-out-of-jail free card as a result.

Report: Violent Crime Rate in 2018 Lowest Since 1971.  FBI crime stats show the "estimated rate of violent crime was 368.9 offenses per 100,000 inhabitants."  That is a 3.9 percent reduction in the rate when compared with 2017 stats, but the real lesson emerges when we look long term.  For example, Bearing Arms reports that the 2018 rate of violent crime was barely above the 1971 rate of 396 offenses per 100,000 inhabitants.

California Shocked To Find Bill Decriminalizing Retail Theft Resulted In... More Retail Theft.  A few years ago, California passed one in a series of bills aimed at emptying the jails and prisons.  Proposition 47 carried the disingenuous name of "the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act and its stated purpose was to keep non-violent offenders out of jail.  To achieve this goal, the state decriminalized a number of lesser offenses, including retail theft.  The law raised the value of the amount of merchandise someone could steal while still only being charged with a misdemeanor to nearly one thousand dollars.  To the great surprise of the government, people noticed this change and began taking advantage of it.  They have now recorded multiple years of steadily increasing, organized robbery.  These plots are known as "mass grab and dash" thefts and they generally involve large numbers of young people all entering a store at the same time, grabbing armfuls of merchandise and dashing back out to their vehicles and hitting the highway.  Not only are robberies on the rise, but arrests and prosecutions are down.  Who could possibly have predicted this?

Warren Financially Benefited from Private Prisons Despite Claiming They Are 'Profiteering off Cruelty'.  Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) benefited financially from the existence of private prisons despite vowing to ban them on the grounds that they are "profiteering off cruelty," a report from the Washington Free Beacon revealed.  Warren pledged in June to ban private immigration centers and private prisons, detailing the vow in a Medium post.

1 in 7 New Orleans Adults is the Target of an Arrest Warrant.  So how do they intend to fix this situation?  Some simply want to act like those warrants were never issued and wipe them from the books.

There is 1 arrest warrant for every 7 residents in city of New Orleans.  According to city data — there are more than 55,000 outstanding warrants in Municipal and Traffic Court in New Orleans.  If you do the math, that means there is 1 outstanding warrant for every 7 people in the city of New Orleans.  "The main reason so many people are in this cycle is because they are poor and they could not get off work and did not have child care, they couldn't afford that fine on the front end," City Councilman Jason Williams said.

Biden Says If Male Identifies As Woman He Should Be Housed With Female Inmates In Prison.  What could possibly go wrong?  [Video clip]

Gov. Newsom Commutes Sentences of 21 Violent Criminals Incarcerated in CA Prisons, Including 4 Murderers with Life Sentences.  Far-left California Governor Gavin Newsom commuted sentences of 21 violent criminals including 4 murderers with life sentences without possibility of parole.  One of the murderers was arrested in 1993 for fatally shooting a man during a carjacking and another was incarcerated in 1991 for killing an armed guard during a robbery.  A man who served 31 years of 2 life sentences for a double murder in 1988 was also given clemency by Newsom.

No Justice But What We Make.  After a drawn-out legal battle, [Jose Inez] Garcia-Zarate was acquitted on charges of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, and assault with a firearm.  The only thing Steinle's vindicators managed to stick to this slimy foreigner was a felony conviction for unlawful possession of a gun.  That conviction, however, was recently overturned by a California state appeals court.  According to NPR, the 1st District Court of Appeals ruled in late August that the conviction should be overturned because the judge did not give the jury proper instructions on the possession charge.  The judge made a "prejudicial" error when he failed to provide the jury with "the momentary possession instruction."  If this makes no sense to you, then rejoice, for you are among the sane.

California Introduces Bill to Ban ICE Detention Centers, Private Prisons.  The state of California is cracking down on "private for-profit prisons" after introducing a bill to ban the facilities.  Moreover, it means shutting down U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's privately run detention centers.  The bill AB-42 passed the state assembly Wednesday [9/11/2019] with 65 votes in favorable votes.  According to Newsweek, it would mean shutting down four detention centers holding "up to 4,500 inmates."

Convicted rapist killer strikes again in NYC after getting out of jail.  A convicted rapist-killer who strangled a teen in 1981 and was suspected of cutting out the eyes of an earlier victim has been arrested on a new rape charge, six years after he got out of jail.  Christopher "Crazy Chris" Aniades, 62, is being held on a charge of attempted forcible rape after the alleged attack, according to the city Department of Correction.

The Case for High-Speed Police Car Chases.  Gentle readers, in our previous visit we discussed a police chase in Baltimore, one that was, in my view, imprudently and prematurely called off by a police commander who was worried about the potential for a traffic collision.  The suspect being pursued had committed two acts of attempted murder on police officers, the first by trying to run an officer over with a car, the second by shooting at another officer, yet this supervisor chose to allow the suspect to escape.  Two days later, police shot and killed the suspect after, yes, another car chase.  A police officer and a civilian were wounded during the second chase, injuries that would not have occurred had the suspect been captured in the first one.

Four years after allowing universal 'concealed carry' law, Maine rated the safest state in the nation for crime.  Since 2015, residents of the state of Maine have been allowed to carry a concealed firearm without any special permit, and now the results are in: crime has fallen to the point where the state is now rated the safest in the nation from the threat of crime. [...] As the Maine Examiner noted, second-ranking Vermont also has a constitutional carry law.  Guns in the hands of honest citizens decrease crime.

Criminologists Mislead Us.  There is significant bias among criminologists.  The reason for that bias is that political leanings of academic criminologists are liberal.  Liberal criminologists outnumber their conservative counterparts by a ratio of 30-to-1. Ideology almost perfectly predicts the position of criminologists on issues from gun control to capital punishment to harsh sentencing.  Liberal criminologists march in step for gun control, oppose punitive prison sentences, and are vehemently against the death penalty.  In 2012, the National Academy of Sciences commissioned a study on the growth of incarceration.  It showed that from 1928 until 1960, crime rates rose slowly each year.  After the 1960s, crime rates exploded to unprecedented levels of violence until the 1990s.

7 ways for conservatives to counter gun control with criminal control.  As the Democrats seek a relentless war on guns by focusing on the relatively small number of people killed in mass shootings, Republicans should have a bold counter-agenda to deal with the vast majority of other homicides in this country — committed with handguns or other objects — who are almost always known career criminals.  Senate Republicans should counter the coming gun control agenda with a criminal control agenda. [...] Also, how about dealing with the ultimate avoidable deaths caused by criminal aliens who would never have been in the country if we actually enforced our immigration laws?

They've Lost Their Minds in San Francisco.  San Francisco, a city described in song for its natural beauty, is descending into an abyss of homelessness, the use of sidewalks as toilets and a place you might not want to visit, much less live.  The latest, but surely not the last demonstration of insanity, is San Francisco's Board of Supervisors' adoption of new "person first" language guidelines meant to "change the public's perception of criminals."  The words "convicted felon," "offender," "convict," "addict" and "juvenile delinquent" are now out.  These individuals will henceforth be referred to as a "justice-involved person."  Someone previously called a "criminal" will now be referred to as "a returning resident," or "a formerly incarcerated person." [...] The English language once conveyed meaning.  Properly written and spoken, it suggested one was educated and capable of conversing in polite company.  Today, it is often used to cover up true intentions.

San Francisco's New PC Terms For Criminals Met With Mockery.  Amid the city's interconnected and rapidlly escalating crime and homelessness crises, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has determined that one of the ways it can help inspire the city's expanding criminal population to good behavior is to simply play some games with language.  In a non-binding resolution passed last month and which has gained the support of the district attorney, the city presents the grim statistic that now one-fifth, one out of every five, residents of the city has a criminal record.  In response to this alarming criminal reality, the board has introduced its new "person first" terminology, in which old terms the city fears might encourage "negative predispositions" and "unfounded assumptions" have been swapped out for more positive and "stigma"-free language.

San Francisco, where felons are 'justice-involved' and there's no shame in crime.  San Francisco's Board of Supervisors just adopted a resolution recommending that felons not be called felons but rather "formerly incarcerated person" or former "justice-involved" person or "returning resident" — or any other number of soft and fuzzy names that won't hurt the feelings of the, umm, felons.  File this under Ridiculous.  "We don't want people to be forever labeled for the worst things that they have done," Supervisor Matt Haney said to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Why you'll no longer find 'convicted felons' in San Francisco.  "Convicted felons" may be getting a makeover in San Francisco.  Under a new resolution by the city's Board of Supervisors — which voted to use "person-first" language in the criminal justice system — they'll be referred to as "justice-involved persons," the San Francisco Chronicle reported.  The guidelines nix other terms too, such as "prisoner," "convict" and "inmate," along with any words that "obstruct and separate people from society and make the institutionalization of racism and supremacy appear normal."  As part of the guidelines, a drug addict or substance abuser will become a "person with a history of substance abuse."  And a "juvenile delinquent" will instead be referred to as a "young person with justice system involvement."

The Editor says...
One of the traditional deterrents to crime is the lifetime stigma attached to convicted felons.  An increase in criminal activity will naturally accompany the erosion of that disgrace.  The politicians in California are going out of their way to make criminals feel better about themselves.  They don't need encouragement!

Republican Sen. Martha McSally wants to make domestic terrorism a federal crime.  Sen. Martha McSally wants to make domestic terrorism a punishable crime in the wake of two mass shootings potentially tied to ideologically motivated violence in California and Texas.  McSally, R-Ariz., intends to introduce legislation when the Senate returns from the summer recess to create a law in the federal criminal code to address domestic terrorism.  Federal authorities use other laws, such as weapons offenses and hate crimes, to charge such acts.

The Editor says...
How is domestic terrorism worse than foreign terrorism?

To stop more shootings, stop erasing criminal records of juveniles prone to violence.  The mass shooter in Dayton, Ohio who was killed by police early Sunday after he shot nine people to death and wounded more than a dozen fit the now-familiar profile of the troubled youth with a well-documented history of threats dating back to high school.  The Dayton gunman had a "kill list" and had interacted with law enforcement as a minor, authorities said.  Similarly, the man charged with killing 17 people and wounding 17 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., last year was also well known to high school counselors and local police before he turned 18, police said.

Venezuela's death squad regime warns Venezuelans to stay out of... Dayton, Cleveland, El Paso, Detroit.  Venezuela, that land of free health care, free education, subsidized food, subsidized gas, and five million nationals fleeing for their lives, is warning its nationals, many of whom are waiting to be let in at the U.S. border for asylum, to stay out of the very, very, very dangerous U.S.

Fellow prisoner drowns a pedophile, 56, who abused an 11-year-old girl, in a jail toilet in a 'revenge killing'.  A convicted child sex abuser was drowned in the toilet by a fellow prisoner as the result of a 'revenge killing', said police.  David Oseas Ramirez, 56, who had been serving a life sentence for molesting an 11-year-old girl in 2013, was found dead in his prison cell at Duval County Jail in Jacksonville, Florida, on Tuesday morning [7/30/2019].  Jacksonville Sheriff's Office announced in a statement on social media that a fight broke out between Ramirez and convicted murderer Paul Dixon, 43, who was later arrested over the incident.

Ex-cop cellmate claims to have saved Jeffrey Epstein from hanging, source says.  A law enforcement source confirmed that the cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, claimed to have helped Epstein after finding him unconscious.  Investigators were still trying to determine if an assault had occurred or if the sex offender facing up to 45 years in prison had in fact tried to take his own life, the law enforcement source said.  "You've got a guy who is a millionaire who is now living among rats and mold and wants to go home," the source said.  "This is a disgusting place and the people there, they treat you disgusting.  Who wouldn't be suicidal in that kind of place?  You have a silver spoon in your mouth and then you're put in a cesspool."  Bruce Barket, a lawyer for Tartaglione, refused to go into detail about the incident but did not dispute the account.

Commentary about Baltimore and Chicago.  [Chicago is] a town that has a homicide clearance rate (that is, percentage of fatal shootings for which someone got caught) this year of nine percent.  You literally have a 90% chance of getting away with shooting someone in Chicago.  In addition among those shootings where we know the race of the assailant just 5% — a literal one — was white.  15 were black and 4 Hispanic.  Yet the city has an approximate 32% white population with the same, roughly, being black and about 28% Hispanic.  In other words both black and Hispanic people are ridiculously over-represented when it comes to both shooting victims and perpetrators.  That's not racist, it's factual.

Everything You Don't Know About Mass Incarceration.  The FBI tracks and reports on eight "index crimes" committed in the United States.  Half of those offenses are violent, and half concern property: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny theft, motor-vehicle theft, and arson.  Since 2010, the U.S. has averaged about 1.2 million violent index crimes and 8.5 million property index crimes yearly.  Keeping in mind that many similar crimes never get reported to the FBI, note that police clear just 46.8 percent and 18.9 percent of violent and property index offenses, respectively.  Put differently, since 2010, about 5.1 million violent index crimes and 54.9 million property index crimes have gone unpunished — which works out to more than 7.5 million of these offenses yearly.  Even assuming that certain criminals commit a disproportionate number of the crimes, one can say with confidence that, in any given year, a large number of people who should be in prison are not.

Killer released from prison, dubbed too old to be dangerous, kills again.  A man who spent decades in prison for fatally stabbing his wife was released after being deemed too old to pose a threat — only to be convicted this week of a nearly identical crime.  It took jurors in Maine less than an hour to find Albert Flick, 77, guilty in the 2018 murder of a homeless mother, Kimberly Dobbie, who was stabbed at least 11 times while her twin sons watched. [...] Flick was freed in 2004 — only to be sent back to jail in 2010 for assaulting another woman.  The judge at the time ignored the recommendation for a longer sentence, saying Flick wouldn't be a threat because of his age and it didn't make sense to keep him locked up.

This Man Did Nothing Wrong, But He Faces 49 Years In Prison.  The weaklings and fools in the California state legislature decided that guns are bad, bad, bad, so they passed some stupid 'gun control' laws to fight crime.  But Mr [Girard Damian] Saenz was never charged with any crime other than having weapons the state didn't think he should have.  He didn't rob anyone, he committed no crimes using the firearms in his possession.  This is the natural result of the left's insanity when it comes to our Second Amendment rights:  the state legislature made simple possession of firearms it didn't like a crime in itself, but the crime they said that they were preventing never occurred; Mr Saenz was not even suspected of using the firearms illegally.  The Pyrite State created a crime where no crime existed, infringed a man's rights when he had infringed on no one else's.

When the MSM Say Someone Is in Prison for a Minor Drug Crime, They're Always Lying.  If the left has its way in the next few years, there won't be anyone left in prison because, you see, they're overflowing with innocent black men locked up for "nonviolent drug crimes."  All of them!  Over the weekend, NBC News investigative reporter Leigh Ann Caldwell appeared on MSNBC's "Kasie DC" to tell the story of Bill Underwood, loving parent and prison mentor, who has already spent nearly 30 years in prison for a nonviolent drug crime. [...] Despite what I'm sure was an exhaustive investigation, I was suspicious of Caldwell's characterization of Underwood's crime.  My rule is:  If you're not telling me why someone was sentenced to life in prison, there's probably a reason you're not telling me.

20% federal inmates are immigrants, mostly Mexican.  One-fifth of all federal prison inmates are not U.S citizens, many facing illegal immigration charges, according to new data from the Federal Bureau of Prisons.  There are a total of 35,009 "criminal aliens" of 180,344 in prison, and 60% are Mexican, according to an analysis provided to Secrets by David Olen Cross of Salem, Ore., a crime researcher who writes on immigration issues and foreign national crime.

Decriminalizing Crime; Criminalizing Speech.  By a strange and perfectly logical logic many people believe that, for example, if there were no guns there would be no gun violence.  Ergo, eliminating all guns will eliminate all gun violence.  It will do nothing about knife violence, but you can't have everything.  And the logic does not explain how we are to take way over 300 million guns.  But, to the zealot, ideology trumps reality.  Similarly, if we want to reduce crime, or, at least crime statistics, the best way is to decriminalize crime.  The more we legalize otherwise criminal activities, the fewer crimes there will be.  By the logic of political correctness and certain idealist thinkers, what means that what makes a crime a crime is saying that it's a crime.

Criminal Justice Reform Comes Home to Roost.  The same public officials who used to brag about how many criminals they arrested are now proud of how many they let go.  In Chicago, the local papers run banner headlines touting the success of this new social-justice strategy — as measured by the record low number of people in Chicago jails.  The thinking is that we have to rethink how we treat black criminals.  The talking heads and politicos agree that black people are victims of relentless white racism, all the time, everywhere, and that explains everything — especially why so many black people are stopped, arrested, charged, convicted, sent to prison, released, then returned to prison in numbers that are so wildly out of proportion.

Teenager Accused of Rape Deserves Leniency Because He's From a 'Good Family,' Judge Says.  The 16-year-old girl was visibly intoxicated, her speech slurred, when a drunk 16-year-old boy sexually assaulted her in a dark basement during an alcohol-fueled pajama party in New Jersey, prosecutors said. [...] But a family court judge said it wasn't rape.  Instead, he wondered aloud if it was sexual assault, defining rape as something reserved for an attack at gunpoint by strangers.  He also said the young man came from a good family, attended an excellent school, had terrific grades and was an Eagle scout.  Prosecutors, the judge said, should have explained to the girl and her family that pressing charges would destroy the boy's life.

Radical Democrats seem to think it's shameful to put bad guys in jail.  A perfect symbol to show how far-left and crazy the Democratic Party has become is that it was an attack line in Thursday night's debate to say someone was a prosecutor. [...] The assumption was that being a prosecutor is a bad thing.  Apparently, for this primary electorate, that assumption may be correct.  And the lack of media surprise at this as a counterpunch also indicates that a prosecutorial background is a liability in today's Democratic Party.  This is nuts.  In general, prosecutors are the "good guys."  They make sure bad guys, indeed sometimes truly awful people, go to prison.

Supreme Court rules 'crime of violence' law is unconstitutionally vague.  A divided Supreme Court ruled Monday [6/24/2019] that a federal law requiring longer prison sentences for using a gun during a "crime of violence" is unconstitutionally vague.  The court voted 5-4 stating the law "provides no reliable way" to determine which offenses qualify as crimes of violence.

SCOTUS decision might lead to release of thousands of violent felons.  Justice Neil Gorsuch seems really determined to give violent gun felons a degree of due process our founders never envisioned.  In yet another opinion, expanding upon previous decisions declaring the "crime of violence" statute unconstitutional, Gorsuch joined with the four liberal justices to vacate the criminal conviction of two violent robbers while declaring the statute upon which the conviction rested as unconstitutional.  Meanwhile, there is no urgency from Congress to promote "criminal justice reform" that would actually stem the tide of judicially-mandated jailbreak of violent criminals.

Crime Without Consequences.  National Public Radio (NPR) reported, "the majority of these violations are for 'minor infractions, such as failing a drug test or missing a curfew.  Those so-called technical violations cost states $2.8 billion every year, the report says."  But the underlying data and the footnotes to CSG's own report belie those bold, topline claims.  A few necessary corrections and clarifications are in order.
  •   "State prison" includes county jails (which aren't state prisons, at all) and most sentences are short stays.
  •   Parole and probation are distinct, but all terms are mutually agreed upon conditions to maintain the offender's liberty and are often tailored to their risk and history.
  •   Prior to being re-incarcerated, both parolees and probationers receive revocation hearings, administered by a neutral third-party.
  •   Technical violations are not necessarily minor and often include a re-offense or serious abrogation of their release terms that threatens the public safety.
So little of what CSG says is true it almost would be laughable — if not for the tragedy that some state lawmakers may use the report to alter public safety laws to favor criminals.

Supreme Court offers gun-possession loophole for illegal immigrants.  The Supreme Court ruled Friday [6/21/2019] that an illegal immigrant who had a gun — a crime — can't be prosecuted if he didn't know he was in the country illegally.  In a 7-2 decision the justices said in a crime where the status of a person is the "crucial element" to the offense, the government must prove the person was aware of that.  Otherwise, it might just be an innocent mistake.  That could affect "thousands" of previous convictions.

The Editor says...
Anyone who crawled over (or under) a wall or a fence in the middle of the night, and then began a "life in the shadows," should be well aware that he or she is living here illegally.

A self-imposed protection racket:
Fresno Plan to Stop Crime:  Pay Criminals Not to be Violent.  The San Joaquin Valley Sun reported that the Fresno plan to stop gun violence by paying criminals not to be violent is in the budget process.  Richmond, Stockton and Sacramento have funded stipends for 'high risk' individuals such as gang members in a program called "Advance Peace."

Alaska Supreme Court rules state sex offender registry law unconstitutional.  The Alaska Supreme Court ruled that a state law requiring the registry of all sex offenders is unconstitutional because it violates offenders' rights to due process.  The ruling was issued Friday [6/14/2019].  In a 3-2 decision, the court said an offender must be given the chance to prove he or she is rehabilitated and no longer remains a threat to the public.

California court says convicts must pay restitution, even if crime is minor.  Convicted criminals in California must repay their victims for financial losses even for the minor crimes classified as infractions, like a mauling that killed a disabled person's service dog, an appellate court has ruled.  The state Constitution, under a provision added by a 2008 ballot initiative, specifies that "restitution shall be ordered from the convicted wrongdoer in every case ... in which a crime victim suffers a loss," said the Los Angeles County Superior Court's Appellate Division.  The ruling was issued a week ago and was published Friday [6/7/2019] as a precedent for future cases.

DC Considering Voting Rights for Prisoners.  Washington, DC, could become the first jurisdiction to restore voting rights for prisoners after a majority of its council-members on Tuesday backed bills to give incarcerated individuals voting rights and the ability to vote via absentee ballots.  Council-member Robert White (D) introduced legislation that would give voting rights to "residents convicted and imprisoned for committing felonies."  Another bill would allow D.C. residents in federal prisons to vote with absentee ballots.

Reflections on the Torture of Paul Manafort.  The sadistic treatment of Paul Manafort illustrates something I have believed since I attended graduate school in the 1970s and saw the behavior of left-wing students:  Leftism makes people meaner.  There are kind and mean conservatives and kind and mean liberals.  Neither liberalism nor conservatism makes people kinder or meaner.  But this is not the case with leftism.  With the handful of exceptions that accompany every generalization, leftism makes people meaner, even crueler.  Take the transfer of Manafort, the one-time Trump campaign manager, from a federal prison to New York's Rikers Island prison.

An obvious violation of the Eighth Amendment:
Why is Paul Manafort off to Rikers?  The decision to move Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman who was sentenced earlier this year to nearly seven years in prison in connection with two federal cases, from the decent federal prison to which he was sentenced to solitary confinement to the dangerous hell hole that is New York City's Rikers Island seems abusive and possibly illegal.  I know Rikers well having spent time there visiting numerous defendants accused of murder and other violent crimes.  It is a terrible place that no one should ever be sent to.  It should be shut down.  It is so bad that defendants often plead guilty, even if they have defensible cases, simply to move to a safer and better prison.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:  Paul Manafort "should be released" from "torture" of solitary confinement.  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday knocked reports that President Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was going to be moved into solitary confinement in her district, calling the punishment "torture."  "Paul Manafort is being sent to solitary confinement in my district — Rikers Island.  A prison sentence is not a license for gov torture and human rights violations.  That's what solitary confinement is.  Manafort should be released, along with all people being held in solitary," the New York Democrat tweeted.  Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has been a vocal critic of prisons' use of solitary confinement.

Deep State:  First, the attempted coup.  Now, the political prisoner.  What we are all looking at is how criminal Deep State is, demonstrating how it can use the levers of power to turn a first-world country into a banana republic.  We aren't seeing normal things from these people, we are seeing some incredible abuses of power.  Manafort was convicted earlier and is doing time in Pennsylvania for white collar crimes around taxable income and foreign agent registration.  These are crimes few are ever prosecuted for, but they were real enough.  Now he's a wedge player in a new and very dirty deep-state political game.

Update:
Paul Manafort [is] not going to Rikers Island, will remain in federal custody after DOJ rejects move, source says.  The Justice Department has rejected New York County District Attorney Cy Vance Jr.'s attempt to have former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort transferred to the notorious Rikers Island prison complex ahead of his pending state court trial, amid questions as to why the move was even contemplated in the first place, Fox News is told.  Fox News first reported earlier this month that a New York State judge ordered the transfer at Vance's request.  However, because Manafort has been convicted on federal charges, any attempt to move him out of federal custody must be approved by Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen.  On Monday [6/17/2019], Rosen denied the attempt, effectively keeping Manafort in federal custody.

The Editor says...
Earlier coverage of this story indicated that Mr. Manafort had already been moved [1] [2] or "will be sent" there [3] or "could happen as early as Thursday [6/6/2019]." [4]

Manhattan prosecutors cave in on Manafort Rikers scheme after DoJ note.  Maybe we really do have a Department of Justice that's serious about reforming itself.  Attorney General William Barr deserves applause for this one. [...] Now, Manafort is not a guy anyone needs to feel much sympathy for for being in a federal prison, given that he committed crimes on his tax reportage that most of us would never think of doing.  But the Deep State has shown itself to be far, far more vile than Manafort ever was.

California Is The Future The Liberal Elite Wants For You.  [Scroll down]  Already, petty crime has been effectively legalized.  Crooks get a free pass on the first $950 a day they steal.  The casual larceny and other offenses that make life unbearable are becoming more and more common as liberal laws release criminals to victimize regular citizens.  This is known as "justice," as if someone who steals from a hardworking businessman is being cruelly put out by being arrested for it.  And now pot's effectively legal here, which is spectacular.  Just what Cali needed — more people on a drug that makes them dumber and lazier.

Alabama lawmakers back chemical castration for child predators.  Alabama state lawmakers passed a bill that would require child predators to be "chemically castrated" before they leave prison, a report said Tuesday [6/4/2019].  The bill, which was submitted to Gov. Kay Ivey over the weekend, will require sex offenders convicted of abusing a child under the age of 13 to take drugs that block the production of testosterone and hormones as a condition of parole.  If a convict refuses to take the medication, they'll be considered in violation of parole and immediately taken back into custody, the bill states.  They'll also be required to pay for the medication.

De Blasio wants teens charged with robbery, assault freed without bail.  Mayor Bill de Blasio hopes to "more than triple" the number of teens who are released from city jails with no bail on charges as serious as armed robbery, assault and burglary, The [New York] Post has learned.  New guidelines from the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice will also "significantly" expand the number of adults eligible for de Blasio's no-bail Supervised Release Program, according to a memo sent to top city judges this month and obtained by The Post.  The policy changes — which take effect on Saturday — will let defendants between ages 16 and 19 qualify for the program's Youth Engagement Track, which is now capped at age 17, except in Brooklyn.

Why Plea Deals Are a Gross Miscarriage of Justice.  [Robert P. Murphy] goes solo to explain why the common practice of "offering a plea deal" is a horrible practice, which gives us little reason to trust that those convicted are actually guilty of the crimes to which they confess.  [Video clip]

A Full Presidential Pardon.  [Scroll down]  The American criminal justice system is frequently and largely evil; I was convicted for attempted obstruction of injustice.  It was never anything but a smear job.  For my friends, no explanation was ever necessary; for my enemies, none would ever have sufficed.  As I told the trial judge at resentencing:  I always try to take success like a gentleman and reversals like a man.

Dallas prosecutor encourages shoplifting.  The liberal district attorney in Dallas, John Creuzot, is refusing to prosecute shoplifters who steal less than $750, if what they stole was "necessities" like food or diapers, and they haven't tried to resell what they stole.  This refusal to prosecute will spawn an increase in shoplifting.  That will drive up prices for necessities like food, at the expense of law-abiding people.  Criminal penalties deter crime, as studies have found, and serious penalties deter better than trivial ones.  So the Dallas DA's refusal to prosecute shoplifters will embolden more people to steal.

Testimony from legally blind eyewitness results in murder conviction; case now under review.  The murder conviction of a Chicago man is under review in Illinois, after it was revealed following trial that the key witness — who purportedly saw the crime and identified the perpetrator — is legally blind.  Dexter Saffold swore under oath five years ago that he saw Darien Harris kill a man at a South Side gas station in 2011.  While there was no physical evidence linking Harris to the crime, and surveillance footage did not show the shooting or the suspect's face, Cook County Circuit Judge Nicholas Ford found Saffold to be an "honest witness" who gave an "unblemished" testimony, according to a report in the Chicago Sun-Times.

Could A $15 Minimum Wage Make Neighborhoods Less Safe?  The minimum wage debate has reignited in recent months as Congress considers the Raise the Wage Act of 2019, a bill that would more than double the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour.  Skeptics worry that a 107% increase in the minimum wage will substantially reduce low-skilled employment, hurting many of the vulnerable workers it was designed to help.  But a $15 minimum wage could mean more than lost jobs.  My new research, co-authored with Zachary Fone of the University of New Hampshire and Resul Cesur of the University of Connecticut, finds evidence that some affected younger workers turn to property crime as a consequence of a higher minimum wage.

Unlocked and Unsafe:  Leaked videos expose Arizona prison's broken cell doors.  The video reveals a disturbing, everyday truth about multiple units inside Lewis:  Cell doors don't lock.  And the doors haven't locked for years.  "It's Jurassic Park," said Carlos Garcia, a retired 20-year employee of the Arizona Department of Corrections.  "These are top-of-the-line offenders, and they're running rampant with open doors.  How do you like that?  They don't even need a key," he said.  "They just open their own door."

A Seattle Judge Sent A Homeless Man With 72 Convictions To Jail, The City Attorney Was Furious.  A 55-year-old homeless man named Francisco Calderon punched a complete stranger in the mouth one day in November, giving him a bloody lip.  The victim called 911 and Calderon was arrested and charged with assault.  He pleaded guilty to the crime.  That turned out to be his 72nd time being convicted of a crime, fourteen of those convictions were felonies.  And yet, City Attorney Pete Holmes worked out a plea deal with Calderon's public defender which would keep him out of jail.  Instead, he would get probation and drug treatment.  Enter Municipal Court Judge Ed McKenna whose job it was to sentence Calderon.  McKenna wasn't convinced no jail time was appropriate in the case and questioned the plea deal.

Rapists and murderers could be set free after age 55 if 'crazy' bill proposed by NYC Dems passes.  New York City Republicans and law enforcement officials are incensed over a proposal seeking to grant parole eligibility to older inmates who have served some prison time.  Currently imprisoned felons, including murderers and rapists, could be out on the street again if the controversial state bill passes, allowing inmates aged 55 and older who have been in prison at least 15 years to be eligible for parole.

Report: U.S. Incarceration Falls to 20-Year Low.  The share of the adult population in prison has fallen to its lowest point since 1997, a new report released Thursday by the Bureau of Justice Statistics shows.  The report is the latest instance of the BJS's ongoing Prisoners series, which has provided the public with detailed statistics on state and federal offenders for decades.  Thursday's [4/25/2019] report provides information on the state of the nation's prison system in 2017, with data on both the federal system (which accounted in that year for about 12 percent of all incarcerated) and the prisons of the 50 states.

Saudi Arabia beheading so many prisoners it needs more executioners as Kingdom is tipped to set new slaughter record.  The ruthless Saudi government is beheading so many people it needs to recruit a deadly new squad of sword-wielding executioners.  The news comes after it slaughtered 37 people in one bloody day last week meaning it is now tipped to kill a record number of its citizens in 2019.

Long before latest arrest, serial rape suspect had lengthy criminal history.  Julie Lensing saw the story, "Serial rapist targets escorts, assaults them at knife-point" and felt sick to her stomach.  She recognized the suspect, Kenyatta Buckles, because she had been a juror when he was on trial in an earlier rape.  Lensing was convinced he was guilty.  Other jurors disagreed and eventually acquitted him.  "I wish we could have found him guilty," she said.  It wasn't the first time Buckles, 24, had avoided prison.  During the past five years, Buckles has been convicted of two felonies and charged with several others.  He admitted to violating his probation three times, and warrants had been issued for his arrest at least 10 times.

Jail survey: 7 in 10 felons register as Democrats.  A new study of how criminals vote found that most convicts register Democratic, a key reason in why liberal lawmakers and governors are eager for them to get back into the voting booth after their release.  "Democrats would benefit from additional ex-felon participation," said the authoritative study in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.  The authors, professors from the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University, found that in some states, felons register Democratic by more than six-to-one.  In New York, for example, 61.5 percent of convicts are Democrats, just 9 percent Republican.  They also cited a study that found 73 percent of convicts who turn out for presidential elections would vote Democrat.

15 Serial Killers, Rapists, Kidnappers, Child Molesters [who are] Eligible to Vote Under Bernie Sanders' Plan.  This week, socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) endorsed a plan that would allow felons serving time behind bars the right to vote from their prison cells.  "So, I believe people who commit crimes, they pay the price and they get out of jail, they certainly should have the right to vote," Sanders said during a town hall.  "But, I believe even if they are in jail, they're paying the price to society, but that should not take away their inherent American right to participate in our democracy."  Initially, Sen. Kamala Harris said, "I think we should have that conversation" when asked about allowing convicted criminals to vote from their cells, but she has since backtracked on that statement, declaring that she actually opposes giving felons in prison the right to vote.  "Do I think that people who commit murder and people who are terrorists should be deprived of their rights, yes I do," Harris said.

California Inmate Accused of Torturing, Beheading Cellmate.  A California inmate now stands accused of torturing and beheading his cellmate, according to reports.  Convicted murderer Jaime Osuna has been accused of the brutal torture and death of his cellmate at Corcoran State Prison in the Fresno suburb of Corcoran, California.  The man was killed in the early morning of March 9 and died of blood loss from "multiple sharp force trauma injuries," charging documents state.

County judge unleashes on prosecutor as more and more people aren't getting the "Smollett Deal".  One of the many topics that Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx's office has regularly avoided since abruptly dropping charges against Jussie Smollett on March 26th is this:  Could they point to any other occasions when they flat-out dropped felony false police report charges without requiring the accused to at least plead guilty?  It's an essential question because Joe Magats, the top aide who took over the Smollet case when Foxx "recused" herself insisted that the resolution Smollett enjoyed "is available to all defendants; it's not something out of privilege; it's not something out of clout."

Soros-Funded Groups Work to Register 1.4 Million Ex-Felons Ahead of 2020.  The current battle revolves around a Florida state amendment that was passed last year restoring voting rights for felons, with progressive groups opposing a local bill that would require the state's ex-felons to first pay civil fines and court fees before registering to vote.  Florida's Amendment Four was approved by voters during last year's Midterm election.  The heavily Soros-funded American Civil Liberties Union and Brennan Center for Justice based in New York both served as consultants in drafting Amendment Four.

The Editor says...
The loss of voting privileges is part of the punishment for felonies.  One can pay his or her "debt to society" in the penitentiary, but one of the traditional deterrents to felonious behavior is to be permanently banned from voting, jury duty, and with various types of licensing, among other things.  Crime and punishment, minus punishment, leaves only crime.

Killer of LA Police Officer Dies at San Quentin.  The killer of a California police officer has died [4/20/2019] after being found unresponsive in his cell at San Quentin State Prison.

Dallas will no longer prosecute 'petty crimes'.  Is this the face of criminal justice "reform"?  Dallas County district attorney John Creuzot is enacting sweeping changes to the way his office deals with crime.  It appears that Creuzot will be giving petty criminals a pass.  Creuzot will "decriminalize" most petty crimes against property, reform the bail system, and refuse to prosecute first-time drug offenders.

Social Justice Prosecutors.  [Scroll down]  Individuals from this new class of legal eagles have advanced in all branches of government and at all levels — local, state, and federal.  They have attended notable law schools, they are African-American, and they are hellbent on ushering in an era of seeking what today's liberal law schools are pouring into their students by the bucket full — not "justice" but "social justice."  Now finding themselves in positions of power, these social justice warriors have a deep-rooted belief in the fundamental unfairness of America in general, and our judicial system in particular.  They believe that crimes for which underprivileged groups, namely blacks and Latinos, have higher rates of sentencing and incarceration, are the product of an at best a biased, and at worst a racist system; a system which they are a part of and can find ways to affect.  One example is when the Obama/Holder DOJ released 6,000 people from federal prisons and reduced the sentences of as many as 46,000 others as a part of their sentencing-reform efforts in 2015.

Florida man gets out of jail, immediately steals from car in prison parking lot: cops.  A man leaving jail in Florida this week was arrested minutes later — accused of stealing from a car in the prison parking lot, police records show.  Michael Casey Lewis, 34, had just been bonded out of St.  Lucie County Jail in Fort Pierce, Fla., when officers spotted him "acting suspicious" in the parking lot, according to his arrest affidavit.  He claimed to be waiting for his girlfriend — but security footage allegedly showed him checking for unlocked cars and finally getting into one.

China Using AI Surveillance In VIP Jail To 'Make Prison Breaks Impossible'.  A high-security VIP prison in China is deploying an AI monitoring system to surveil convicts — tracking their every move to 'learn' their behavioral patterns and flag abnormal activity, according to SCMP.  State-run Yancheng prison has installed a network of cameras in every cell and every corner of the building, which some experts believe will make escape impossible even if inmates are able to bribe the guards (who we expect the system to be used to monitor as well).

Inmates at UK's largest prison [are] allowed to lock and unlock their own cells.  Inmates at the largest UK prison have been given the ability to lock and unlock their cells, along with requesting privacy.  The all-male prison, HMP Berwyn, located in Wales, is the largest prison controlled under the Ministry of Justice.  The inmates are majority C-class offenders, meaning they cannot be trusted in open conditions yet they are unlikely to try and escape.

Are 18-year-olds minors?  Pennsylvania judges urge review of case that could affect hundreds of young lifers.  It was standing room only last fall when Superior Court heard arguments about whether Avis Lee, who was 18 when she served as lookout in a 1981 robbery, was really just a kid at the time, and therefore constitutionally protected from automatic life without parole.  The case, attendees hoped, could clear the way for as many as a thousand Pennsylvania lifers who were just a couple years into adulthood to be resentenced under the same U.S. Supreme Court decision that relied in part on evolving neuroscience to determine that juveniles are less culpable than adults, and so cannot be sentenced to life in prison without individualized hearings.

The Editor says...
The line has to be drawn somewhere.  Right now, the line is at age 18.  If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

Roberts Keeps Joining High Court Liberals.  Chief Justice John Roberts is showing a new willingness to side with the U.S. Supreme Court's liberal wing after the divisive confirmation fight over Justice Brett Kavanaugh.  Roberts joined the liberals Wednesday [2/27/2019] in two rulings that left the conservatives in dissent.  Most notably, he cast the deciding vote to order a new look at the mental competence of a death row inmate who says he can't remember the crimes he committed.

G-Men Out of Control.  The broadening revelations of the lawless, almost putschist excesses of the Comey-McCabe FBI and elements of the Justice Department and the Brennan-Clapper intelligence services invite serious contemplation of how close the United States came to being a country where regime change might be plausibly and self-righteously attempted by what in undemocratic countries is generally known as the secret police. [...] For at least 60 years I have heard high American officials announce that the United States is not a "banana republic."  Of course it is not, and never was. But there is a complacency about America's status as a society of laws that is both unbecoming and unjustified.  As many judges, lawyers, and commentators have noted, the level of prosecution success in criminal cases is over 95 percent, 97 percent of those without a trial; these, and the proportion of the population that is incarcerated, are totalitarian numbers.

Shooting Death of a Teenager in Brooklyn Comes Amid Rise in Murders.  A 15-year-old boy from Haiti was shot and killed in front of his sister by a hooded gunman on Friday night in a horrific scene that rocked his Brooklyn neighborhood and served as a grim reminder of a growing number of murders in New York. [...] His murder was the latest in an increasingly violent year in New York City, and Brooklyn in particular.  As of Feb. 17, there had been 48 murders in the city this year, up from 31 during the same period in 2018.  That increase has been driven mostly by killings in Brooklyn, where there have been at least 15 more murders compared with this point last year.

Based On 'Discrimination' Law, Iowa Jury Awards Trans Woman $120,000, Access To Male Prison Facilities.  A jury in Iowa has concluded that the state discriminated against a former Iowa Department of Corrections nurse because the employer wouldn't let her use the bathrooms with male employees.  The jury also said the Iowa Department of Corrections denied Jesse Vreogh health care coverage for "medically necessary surgery" — i.e. a double mastectomy to look more like a man.  The jury awarded Vreogh $120,000 for the "emotional distress" of both instances based on Iowa's sexual orientation and gender identity law, which was introduced in 2007 and signed by Democrat Gov. Chet Culver.

Alabama man serving life sentence for sex trafficking escapes maximum-security prison.  A man serving life in prison on human-trafficking charges escaped from a maximum-security prison in north Alabama Wednesday, officials said.  Corey Aris Davis, 30, was not in his cell at St.  Clair Correctional Facility in Springville during a security check at 8 p.m. CST, the Department of Corrections said in a statement.

America's incarceration rate is at a two-decade low.  The U.S. incarceration rate fell in 2016 to its lowest level in 20 years, according to new data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), the statistical arm of the Department of Justice.  Despite the decline, the United States incarcerates a larger share of its population than any other country.  At the end of 2016, there were about 2.2 million people behind bars in the U.S., including 1.5 million under the jurisdiction of federal and state prisons and roughly 741,000 in the custody of locally run jails.  That amounts to a nationwide incarceration rate of 860 prison or jail inmates for every 100,000 adults ages 18 and older.

Convicted child killer found dead in Oklahoma prison cell; victim's body never found.  A man convicted in the cold case murder of an 8-year-old girl whose body has never been found was discovered dead in his Oklahoma prison cell Friday night [1/11/2019], according to reports.  The body of Anthony Joseph Palma, 59, was found around 7:30 p.m. by a correctional officer doing a routine security check, a report said.  Medical staff could not revive him and he was pronounced dead around 8:55 p.m.

Maryland man who attacked police station in 2016 gets 195 years.  A Maryland man who opened fire on a police station in 2016, leading to the friendly-fire death of a narcotics detective, was sentenced Thursday to 195 years in prison.  Michael Ford, 25, was convicted in November of second-degree murder, first-degree assault and weapons charges in the killing of Prince George's County Police Detective Jacai Colson. [...] Ford's brothers, Malik and Elijah, recorded cellphone videos of the ambush after dropping him off at the station in Landover, a suburb of Washington, D.C.  They agreed to film the shooting so the video could be sent to [...] a website known for posting users' violent videos, a police detective testified in 2016.

Inmate convicted in child porn case dies of injuries suffered in prison fight, authorities say.  A man serving a 40-year sentence for his role in an international child pornography ring has died following a fight at a federal detention center in Michigan, authorities said Friday [1/4/2019].  Christian Maire, 40, of New York, was pronounced dead following an altercation involving seven inmates Tuesday at the Milan detention center about 50 miles southwest of Detroit, a statement from the Federal Bureau of Prisons said.

San Quentin inmate who escaped prison captured at Taco Bell.  A 21-year-old prisoner who escaped from the high-security San Quentin State Prison in California was captured by police Saturday afternoon [12/29/2018].  Shalom Mendoza, who was serving five years for using a deadly weapon during a carjacking attempt, walked away from a prison work crew Wednesday [12/26/2018], according to police, and was discovered missing that night during an official head count.

Department Of Justice Continues To Run Interference For The Obama Administration.  [Scroll down]  There are lots of "cooperating witnesses" an boodles of physical evidence but the fly in the ointment is that El Chapo has a history of being a customer of Eric Holder's Justice Department.  Under Holder, the only Attorney General to ever be cited for criminal contempt by the Houses of Representatives, El Chapo was allowed to buy a massive amount of firepower from gun stores in the United States using straw-buyers and using gun stores who were cooperating with the federal government under what was known as Operation Fast and Furious.  Several of those weapons were recovered from El Chapo's headquarters when he was arrested.  Federal prosecutors don't want the jury of rubes to hear about it.  I say rubes because that is plainly how the federal prosecutors see the jury.

More Post- Freddy Gray Bad News From Baltimore.  This Washington Post article about homicide rates in Baltimore is important for two reasons.  First, it confirms with updated statistics the killing spree that followed attacks on policing in Baltimore after Freddy Gray's accidental death.  Second, it demonstrates why recidivism rates based on arrest statistics vastly understate the amount of crime committed by those released for prison. [...] A depleted, demoralized police force is going to struggle to solve crimes, especially when crime is increasing.  And a police force that's demonized by politicians and the federal government is probably going to receive less help from residents in solving crimes than a force that's not under concerted assault.  But here's the point that's relevant to legislation, like the recent jailbreak bill, that results in less jail time for criminals, especially felons.  The inability of the police to solve crimes means that the recidivism statistics based on arrest rates vastly understate the amount of crime released prisoners actually commit.

More about Baltimore.

Biologically Male Transgender Inmate Moved To Women's Facility After Yearlong Legal Battle.  On Thursday, attorneys for 27-year-old Deon "Strawberry" Hampton announced that their client, a biological male who identifies as a female and is serving a ten-year prison sentence for residential burglary, would be transferred from a men's correctional facility to a women's correctional facility.  Hampton filed a lawsuit against the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) in late-November 2017, demanding to be moved to a women's prison following 16 months of hormone therapy.  The lawsuit alleged that Hampton was the target of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of correctional officers at multiple facilities — first at Pinckneyville Correctional Center, then at Menard Correctional Center.

Federal Judge Orders Male Inmate Transferred To Women's Prison Because He Identifies As Female.  A man presenting as a woman is being sent to a previously all-female prison.  Deon Strawberry Hampton is serving a 10-year-sentence for burglary.  A federal judge has approved the Illinois inmate's transfer to a women's penitentiary.  27-year-old Strawberry claims he's endured years of sexual assault, taunting, and beatings at the male Big House.  He was moved this past week from his old prison bars in Dixon to all-new prison bars at the women's Logan Correctional Center.

Stand by for a wave of male prison inmates claiming to be transgender females.  Two federal judges now have ruled, setting the precedent of transferring a male prison inmate to a female prison because he claims to feel that he is a woman and poses as one, and, in the current instance, has undergone surgical mutilation of his reproductive organs.  The "transgender female" is referred to as a "woman" and "she" in the following report from the Associated Press:  ["]A transgender woman serving a 10-year sentence in Illinois for burglary has been moved from a men's to a women's prison in what could be a first for the state, her lawyers announced today.["]  The transfer was forced by a federal judge whom the AP does not wish to identify.  (Why?)  That judge evidently accepts the politically correct line that, contrary to settled science, sex is not determined by chromosomes.

Five homeless vagrants face no charges in attack on cop seen in viral video, says Manhattan DA.  Attacking a cop has joined fare beating and public urination on the list of subway misbehavior Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance won't bother prosecuting.  Officer Syed Ali — an Army combat vet who served in Iraq and Afghanistan — had no trouble fending off five homeless vagrants with his baton and his feet as they came at him one by one on Sunday night.  The attack, captured on video, was viewed 4 million times on Twitter.

NYPD officer fights off aggressive drunks in the subway but none of the attackers are charged.  While most of us were getting ready for Christmas, NYPD officer Syed Ali was working a transit beat in the NY subways Sunday night [12/23/2018].  This particular night, five intoxicated men were harassing a woman on the platform of the East Broadway station. [...] Officer Ali, who is a combat veteran, was praised by the Mayor and various NY authorities for dealing with the drunks without escalating the situation. [...] But some were upset that the men who harassed the subway rider and tried to fight a police officer were released and won't be charged with anything.

5 California deputies attacked, injured by jail inmates: sheriff's office.  Five deputies at a California correctional facility were hospitalized after they were attacked by inmates on Thursday morning.  The attacks happened around 7:30 a.m. as inmates were exchanging items in a hallway at the Central Men's Jail in Santa Ana, the Orange County Sheriff's Office said in a news release.  The jail was placed on a temporary lockdown following the incident, which officials said was "quickly controlled."

Missouri man sentenced to watching 'Bambi' once a month as part of punishment.  A Missouri man charged with taking part in the illegal killing of "several hundred deer" was ordered to undergo an unusual punishment as part of his sentence.  David Berry Jr., part of a southwest Missouri family arrested for killing and leaving deer to rot after removing their heads, has been ordered to watch the animated Disney classic "Bambi" once a month while he is in prison, Fox News reported.

One percent of the population commits one eighth of the aggravated assaults in a city of four million.
Los Angeles Doubled its Homeless Budget, Doubled Homeless Crime.  It wasn't all that long ago that the nation watched transfixed in horror as fires tore apart California, destroying homes and claiming lives.  In all the debates about global warming and forestry management, one singular cause of the fire was left unaddressed.  Global warming wasn't starting the fires.  People were. [...] This November, the Los Angeles Zoo had to evacuate its animals over a fire in yet another homeless encampment.  That fire not only endangered lives, but diverted resources from fighting the much more serious fires in Ventura County.  But instead of shutting down the encampments, Mayor Garcetti, who has done more to legalize and subsidize homelessness in Los Angeles than any of his predecessors, sent "outreach workers" from the expanding behemoth of the LA Homeless Services Agency to ask them to please move.  That worked about as well as expected.

Escaped child killer missing for more than 40 years may be 'hiding in plain sight,' feds say.  A convicted child murderer who has eluded authorities for more than four decades may be living under an alias in one of two states and "hiding in plain sight," according to federal officials.  The U.S. Marshals Service added Lester Eubanks to its "15 Most Wanted List" on Dec. 7 in hopes of ending his 45-year stint on the lam.

Homeless Crime in LA is Up 50%.  You get more of what you subsidize.  When you subsidize homelessness as Los Angeles, New York and a number of other cities driving a boom in homelessness have been doing, you get more of it.  And you also get more of the crime that comes with it.

Homeless Crime Jumps Nearly 50 Percent in Los Angeles, LAPD Says.  The number of crimes in which homeless individuals were listed as suspects increased by nearly 50 percent in the city of Los Angeles in 2018.  Crime data provided by the Los Angeles Police Department showed there were 8,906 crime reports between Jan. 1 and Dec. 1 this year in which a homeless person was listed as the suspect, compared with 5,976 for the same time period in 2017.  LAPD officials said most concerning were the disproportionate number of homeless individuals listed as suspects in physical attacks that cause serious injuries, described as, "aggravated assaults," in police records.

Jared:  The Birdbrain of Alcatraz.  As anyone with an amoeba's understanding of recent history knows, beginning in the early '60s, assorted [...] liberals jettisoned logic, common sense and a basic understanding of human nature by releasing criminals from the prisons where they belonged.  Instead of punishing criminals, we would give them social services, education and job training — with the implied understanding that they wouldn't move next door to any of the reformers.  The experts assured a disbelieving public that these policies would reduce crime.  As Thomas Sowell writes in The Vision of the Anointed:  Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy, the stage was set.  Liberal criminologists' soft-on-crime policies were in place.  We only needed empirical evidence.  "THE RESULTS:  Crime rates skyrocketed.  Murder rates suddenly shot up until the murder rate in 1974 was more than twice as high as in 1961.  Between 1960 and 1976, a citizen's chances of becoming a victim of a major violent crime tripled."  Prior to this period, crime had been declining for three decades.

The Anti-Trump Hysterics Roll On.  The rotten criminal justice system of the United States itself (99 percent conviction rate, 97 percent without trial) does not meet standards distinctly higher than some despotisms.

The Nixon 'Road Map' Won't Save Mueller's Futile Prosecution.  [Scroll down]  At least there was a crime at the Watergate and a few other places.  But both attempts at pseudo-legal putsches are and have been disgusting and profoundly illegal corruptions of the system, and contribute to an understanding of why the American prosecutors win a North Korean level 99 percent of their indictments, 97 percent without a trial, and the sweet land of liberty has six to 12 times as many incarcerated people per capita as comparable large and prosperous democracies:  Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

Man killed woman hours after his release from prison, authorities say.  A man who police suspect of killing a woman hours after he was released from an Arizona prison was arrested Friday [11/23/2018] at a hotel, authorities said Saturday.  The suspect, identified as David Bohart, 34, had been released the Tucson state prison complex Monday after serving a three-year stint for possession or use of dangerous drugs, according to the Arizona Department of Corrections website.

Crime Plummets After QuikTrip Stores Add Good Guys with Guns.  QuikTrip convenience stores added good guys with guns in Wichita, Kansas, and the results were so good that they are expanding the program to stores in other areas.  The NRA noted, "After implementing the new strategy at its Wichita, Kansas locations and seeing success, QuikTrip, the massive gas station and convenience store chain said it would expand the policy to other stores."  KWCH reports that the good guys with guns will be armed security, but QuikTrip also left the door open to armed clerks in situations where the clerks "have previous experience and necessary licenses."

Whose fault is this?
Dallas jailers ordered transgender woman to show her genitals, lawsuit says.  A transgender woman has filed a federal lawsuit against Dallas County alleging jailers ordered her to show her genitalia to them so they could determine her sex.  Valerie Jackson, 32, had been arrested in November 2016 after she left a gun in her purse when she went through security at Dallas Love Field, but a grand jury declined to indict her on the weapons charge.  Her lawsuit, filed Friday [11/2/2018], alleges that she was harassed and humiliated at the jail and that her constitutional rights were violated.

When Laws Are Not Enforced, Anarchy Follows.  What makes citizens obey the law is not always their sterling character.  Instead, fear of punishment — the shame of arrest, fines or imprisonment — more often makes us comply with laws.  Law enforcement is not just a way to deal with individual violators but also a way to remind society at large that there can be no civilization without legality.  Or, as 17th-century British statesman George Savile famously put it:  "Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen."

Our Under-Incarceration Problem, Explosive Packages Edition.  This is a recurring but almost always ignored phenomenon.  In one high-profile case after another, we learn that the criminal is a chronic offender with a rap sheet that, in a properly functioning society, would have mandated his incarceration at the time of his latest offense.  Yet, Democrats and too many Republicans, including some in the White House, are dead set on increasing the number of convicted felons, including dealers of drugs like fentanyl, on the streets.  They want shorter sentences for such offenders and they want them released from jail early — an obvious recipe for more crime faster.  In short, the bipartisan leniency-for-felons crowd seeks to make our under-incarceration problem worse, even though doing so can only increase the occurrence of crime, including violent crime.

Inmates charged in 2 Ohio prison knife attacks.  Two Ohio inmates have been charged in separate knife attacks at a prison in assaults that severely wounded a guard and injured four prisoners who were unable to defend themselves because they were handcuffed to a table.

Jerry Brown's get-out-of-jail-free card in California.  Here's a story that's making the news in San Diego as a local district attorney protests, but it's actually a state problem that goes back to the usual lefty suspects, starting with Gov. Jerry Brown.  Thousands of murder convictions are likely to be vacated due to a change in state law that effectively says that if you were the guy sitting in the shotgun seat of the car as the other guy pulled the trigger, you get off scot-free — you're no longer convicted of murder, too.  The County of San Diego alone is set to release about 150 such charmers onto the streets, and the other 57 counties are going to have to do similar.  All told, about 800 of them are reportedly going to get let out.

Juvenile center brawl gets out of hand.  New video obtained by the [New York] Post shows the wild gang melee at the city's new juvenile center Wednesday [10/3/2018] that left 20 officers injured.  The footage, which begins mid-brawl, shows correction officers at the Horizon Juvenile Center in the Bronx frantically scrambling to get the teenage inmates under control.  [Video clip]

The new Mafia is wising up and keeping quiet.  Meet the new mob — same as the old mob.  Thirty-three years after John Gotti carried out his audacious hit on crime boss Paul Castellano, which flouted Mafia rules and brought a wave of devastating prosecutions under the Dapper Don's brash reign, New York's five crime families have reverted to their old-guard ways.  They're keeping quiet.  No more press conferences or TV appearances.  No more weekly meetings with capos at favorite restaurants or social clubs.  No more shootouts between warring factions.  No more wire rooms for taking wagers.

Nation's Largest Jail System To Host Voter Registration Event For 'Justice-Involved' Inmates.  Los Angeles County officials have organized a special event on Tuesday, National Voter Registration Day, targeting eligible inmates inside a downtown jail.  It's part of a government-ordered effort "to register as many justice-involved County residents as possible in advance of the November 2018 election."  County agencies leading a "voter engagement task force" have been working with the ACLU, anti-incarceration groups, and the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, which operates seven custody centers that make up the nation's largest jail system.  The campaign, called "L.A. Free the Vote," was created "to strategize and guide voter registration efforts for justice-involved residents."

Florida man sentenced to 20 years in prison for stealing $600 worth of cigarettes.  A Florida man who stole 10 cartons of cigarettes from a Circle K was sentenced to 20 years in state prison.  Robert Spellman, 48, was convicted of burglary and grand theft in August, according to the Pensacola News Journal, after he stole the cigarettes from a stock room in the store manager's office at the convenience store. [...] Spellman has 14 felony and 31 misdemeanor convictions on his résumé, making him a habitual felony offender.

The Editor says...
No, Mr. Spellman did not get 20 years for stealing ten cartons of cigarettes, as the headline above falsely asserts.  He got 20 years in the slammer because he is unwilling to obey the law and stay out of trouble.  Our society is a safer place because recalcitrant felons like Mr. Spellman are locked up.

Woman stole ambulance, led cops on chase, for 39th arrest since 2013: reports.  An Oregon woman charged with stealing an ambulance last Sunday while paramedics performed CPR on an unconscious woman had one question after her arrest, according to a report.  "Why did they leave it unlocked?," suspect Christy Lynn Woods, 37, of Roseburg, asked, according to an affidavit reviewed by the Oregonian. [...] It was Woods' eighth arrest this year, the report said.

Transgender woman accused of sexually assaulting inmates.  A transgender woman serving time at an all-female UK prison sexually assaulted four inmates at the facility, according to new reports.  Convicted sex offender Karen White, 52, who was born a man and identifies as a woman, confessed this week to two counts of sexual touching at New Hall Prison, in Wakefield, The Sun reported.  She denied the two other counts, according to the report.

Notorious baby-killer released after 30 years behind bars.  A New York woman convicted of killing her infant daughter in the 1980s and suspected of killing seven of her eight other children has been released from prison.  R29vZCBsdWNrIHdpdGggeW91ciBjYXJlZXIgYXQgUGxhbm5lZCBQYXJlbnRob29kLg==

California Gov. Jerry Brown Sets Record of 1,018 Pardons in 8 Years.  California Gov. Jerry Brown used his executive powers to issue 36 gubernatorial pardons on Friday, to hit a record of 1,018 pardons in eight years in office.  Although 22 of those were for murder and 13 for attempted murder or manslaughter, Brown said each of the pardons he provided went to individuals that had had "demonstrated exemplary behavior" and lived "productive and law-abiding lives" following their convictions and time served in prison, according to the Fresno Bee.

Lawmaker Proposes Implanting Microchips in People to Track Non-Violent Offenders Like "Pets".  This Tuesday [8/7/2018], Toledo City Councilman Rob Ludeman suggested that criminals be implanted with microchips so they can be tracked by police and the courts.  Ludeman also made comments essentially describing people charged with crimes as animals.  The councilman said, "this can't be inhumane because we do it to our pets."  Ludeman suggested that implantable microchips should be used instead of ankle bracelets for people doing time on house arrest because ankle bracelets don't work on the cop shows that he watches.

More about RFID.

Convicted child rapist escapes from Kansas prison three days after arrival.  A man convicted of raping a child escaped from a Kansas prison Saturday [8/4/2018] — just three days after his arrival, authorities said.  The inmate, identified as Robert Terrell, 36, jumped a fence on the west side of the Winfield Correctional Facility around 8:50 p.m., according to a Facebook post by the Cowley County Emergency Communications department.

'How could he be found competent after what he did?'.  The mental health therapist, one of a parade over the years, recommended Christian Gomez might try socializing a little more.  As if some coffee shop rendezvous would be therapeutic for an increasingly withdrawn schizophrenic who skinned and buried the family cat. [...] On the afternoon of Dec. 30, 2014, Christian's grandparents took him for a regularly scheduled visit with a therapist where it was decided the then-23-year-old needed to find a new psychiatrist.  The next day Christian cut off his mother's head.  He is crazy no more.  At least not according to the state of Florida.  After roughly three years in a state mental hospital, Christian Gomez, now 27, was declared competent to stand trial on July 9.  Facing a life sentence, he accepted a plea deal that effectively works out to a 25-year sentence followed by 10 years of probation and treatment.  Factor in time already served and the possibility of an early release, and he could potentially be free in another 20 years or so.

Dozens of locked up sex offenders among those granted conditional pardons by Gov. Cuomo so they can vote.  Dozens of convicted sexual predators deemed too dangerous to be returned to the community after their release from prison are among the thousands who received conditional pardons from Gov. Cuomo, giving them the right to vote, the Daily News has learned.  At least 77 sexual predators sent to civil confinement in state psychiatric hospitals after their prison time was up are affected by the widespread pardons, various records show.

Inmate chokes fellow prisoner to death on Rikers Island.  An inmate was killed when another prisoner blindsided him and choked him inside a facility on Rikers Island Monday [7/16/2018], sources said.  Artemio Rosa, 27, came up from behind the victim while he was sitting down in the Anna M. Kross Center and began to choke him, according to sources.  Corrections officers pried Rosa from the 35-year-old victim and called 911 — but the man collapsed and died before EMTs could revive him.

Alleged Cop Killer Should Have Been in Jail Due to Drug Charges.  Last week, Townhall reported the senseless killing of Weymouth, MA police officer Sgt. Michael Chesna on July 15th.  More than 3,000 people attended a vigil held in Chesna's honor this past week, but it turns out his alleged killer, Emanuel Lopes, should have been in jail due to violating the conditions of his bail on a drug-dealing charge from October 2017.  The Boston Herald reports that Emanuel Lopes was arrested in October 2017 for dealing cocaine to minors.

Minnesota inmate's bloody past comes to light after allegedly killing corrections officer.  A one-eyed inmate accused of killing a Minnesota corrections officer on this week has a history of violence — though his recent "good behavior" allowed him access to tools and an industrial building where the officer was killed, authorities said Thursday.  Edward Muhammad Johnson, 42, attacked and fatally injured Officer Joseph Gomm with a weapon, authorities said.  While authorities didn't name the type of weapon, reports say it was a hammer.  A preliminary autopsy showed Gomm died of blunt force trauma.

The Editor says...
In a more sensible world, killing a prison guard would result in an immediate transfer to death row.  Or straight to execution.

The Police State Abolishes the Trial.  Several years ago, the police entered the office of a young professor at a reputable university and arrested him for an online crime.  They took the professor away, booked him, and then offered him a deal:  admit guilt and get off easy.  The professor said to the few people to whom he was permitted to speak that this was crazy because he was innocent.  His lawyer warned him:  fight this and you could get life; admit guilt and you will get a suspended sentence.  He took the deal.  It was a trick.  Now he languishes in jail, his life wrecked as far into the future as he can see.  This doesn't happen in America, does it?  Yes, it does.  Not only that, it is increasingly the norm.

Man gets life term for beating 2 children to death, torturing a third.  A California man who was convicted of murdering two young children and torturing another with his lover in 2015, has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The Gangster State.  Consider what we are watching with our government.  News brings word that the US Attorney is dropping charges against the terrorists, who went on a rampage during the inauguration last year.  They announced this in a holiday week, so it would get the least amount of news coverage.  Now, they certainly could have looked into who financed the riot, who helped organize it and then went after the shot callers, but they never bothered to do that.  Instead, they sat on it until people forgot about it and then dropped the case.  Now, we have mountains of laws for dealing with self-defined criminal groups.  The Feds could go after a Lacy MacAuley, who details her activities on-line, in order to figure out who pays her rent.  Then they could go after that person or group.  This is basic police work.  At the very minimum, the people financing these terrorists would know they have some exposure, but that never happens.  You see, everyone knows who finances Antifa and other terrorists operations and they have friends in high places.

Ex-New York Chief Judge:  It's time to end cash bail.  As the former chief judge of New York, I have seen that money bail doesn't work.  In New York, like most states, a person who is charged with a crime can be required to put down money as bail, serving as collateral to ensure he or she returns to court.  If you can pay, you go home.  If you can't, you go to jail.  In other words, if you are wealthy, you can fight your charges from home with the help of high-end lawyers.  If you aren't, you may have to defend yourself from behind bars, represented by a public defender who is hard-pressed and more than likely overloaded with other cases.  In New York City, only 12 percent of the people who have bail set can pay immediately.  The other 88 percent are transported to the infamous jail complex on Rikers Island.

Gangbangers arrested for killing teen getting protection in jail.  The eight gangbangers accused of butchering innocent teen Lesandro "Junior" Guzman-Feliz are getting special treatment in jail, according to law enforcement sources.  The men — all variously charged with murder in the 15-year-old's grisly mistaken-identity slaying — have been moved out of the general population because they are getting threats, sources said.  Some are being held at Rikers Island and the rest at other jails.  Each time one of them is moved, all other inmate transfers are put on hold — and the suspects are accompanied by several correction officers and a captain who film the transfer, the source said.

Florida man sent back to jail after not paying for taxi ride home from jail.  Authorities say a Florida man was returned to jail shortly after his release because he couldn't pay the taxi driver that took him home from the jail.  Florida Today reports that 40-year-old Charles Folk was arrested Thursday morning [6/28/2018] and charged with petty theft.  Melbourne police say Folk hailed a taxi outside the Brevard County Jail Complex in Cocoa shortly after midnight.  After traveling 30 miles to his Melbourne home, Folk told the driver that neither his sister nor his roommate could help him pay the $70 fare.  The driver called the police.

Senator wants to know how police can locate any phone in seconds without a warrant.  A senator is demanding that the FCC investigate why a company, contracted to monitor calls of prison inmates, also allows police to track phones of anyone in the US without a warrant.  The bombshell story in The New York Times revealed Securus, a Texas-based prison technology company, could track any phone "within seconds" by obtaining data from cellular giants — including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon — typically reserved for marketers.  The report said former Mississippi County sheriff Cory Hutcheson used the service nearly a dozen times to track the phones of other offices, and even targeted a judge.

Service Meant to Monitor Inmates' Calls Could Track You, Too.  Thousands of jails and prisons across the United States use a company called Securus Technologies to provide and monitor calls to inmates.  But the former sheriff of Mississippi County, Mo., used a lesser-known Securus service to track people's cellphones, including those of other officers, without court orders, according to charges filed against him in state and federal court.  The service can find the whereabouts of almost any cellphone in the country within seconds.  It does this by going through a system typically used by marketers and other companies to get location data from major cellphone carriers, including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, documents show.

Study: No Racial Difference in Police Shootings Compared to Crime Rates.  Black Americans are not more likely to be shot by the police than White Americans in proportion to each group's rate of interaction with the police, as measured by crime rate, a new study argues.  The report, by psychologists Joseph Cesario and David Johnson and criminologist William Terrill, analyzes trends in fatal shootings by police in 2015 and 2016 using a variety of data sources.  Measuring racial disparities in police use of force is a touchy subject.  High-profile shootings of black men by police have been a focal point for Blacks Lives Matter and similar groups, which see such shootings as both endemic of larger police abuses and an epidemic in their own right.

Chief: NYPD's Gang Database is 99% Minorities.  The 17,000 individuals named in the NYPD's gang registry are 99 percent black or Latino, Chief of Detectives Dermot F. Shea revealed this week, according to the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange.  Shea, testifying Wednesday before the City Council's Committee on Public Safety, was talking publicly for the first time about one of the department's most popular crime-fighting tools.  He said the database is 65 percent African Americans, 24 percent non-white Hispanics, and 10 percent black Hispanics.  He said the average age of those included is 27 and that 1,460 of those listed are younger than 18.

Thefts rise after California reduces criminal penalties.  California voters' decision to reduce penalties for drug and property crimes in 2014 contributed to a jump in car burglaries, shoplifting and other theft, researchers reported.

Another Terrorist Sues the Bureau of Prisons.  Add convicted terrorist Rafiq Sabir to the growing list of incarcerated radical Islamic terrorists who are suing the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) for allegedly violating their rights.  Sabir is serving a 25 year sentence after a 2007 conviction for conspiring to provide material support to al-Qaida.  Sabir's attorneys argued "that he was a gullible man" and only pretended to pledge bayat to al-Qaida to impress someone.  U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska saw it differently.  She felt that Sabir lacked remorse and imposed the stricter sentence to deter others who would seek to join a terrorist organization.

Dozens of pencils, 7 tweezers found inside inmate's 'birth canal': Georgia sheriff's office.  Pencils, tweezers and hair pins were discovered inside a female inmate this week, according to a Georgia sheriff's office.  The writing utensils were captured in a snap the Oconee County Sheriff's Office put on Facebook Thursday [6/7/2018].

The Editor says...
I suspect it was the misuse of her "birth canal" that landed her in jail initially.

30 percent of federal prisoners are immigrants, DOJ/DHS reports.  Immigrants accounted for more than 30 percent of the federal prison population and nearly all of them are confirmed or suspected illegal immigrants, the government said in a new report Tuesday [6/5/2018].  The government said it had 57,820 migrants in its prisons as of Dec. 31, Homeland Security and the Justice Department said in the joint report.  Nearly 20,000 other immigrants were held in pretrial detention by the U.S. Marshals Service, most of them in contracted facilities, costing the government $134 million for just three months.  That works out to nearly $90 a day for each person in those contract facilities.  Attorney General Jeff Sessions said there shouldn't be any illegal immigrants in prisons, because they shouldn't have been in the country in the first place.

Soros becomes the kiss of death for his own handpicked DA candidates.  Is Soros money becoming the kiss of death for candidates who take it?  Sure looks like it, based on the miserable poll performance of Soros's little pawn in the San Diego district attorney's race. [...] Soros, remember, had this master plan to take over district attorney offices in key cities across America and seed them with his hand-picked anti-law enforcement candidates.  The plan was to get people in office who would let crooks out of jail to effectively reduce the quality of life for the middle-class law-abiding people he has such a problem with.

Facebook Cofounder's Wife Bankrolls BLM Activist Shaun King's PAC.  The wife of a Facebook cofounder has provided a bulk of the funding to a political action committee that was co-founded by Black Lives Matter (BLM) activist Shaun King to target district attorney races across the country in an attempt to "fight structural racism."  Liberal activists and entities, such as billionaire George Soros and the Color of Change PAC, have quietly flooded local district attorney races across the country with cash and organizational support in an attempt to overhaul the criminal justice system by electing far-left DAs.  King, who first spoke to media on the formation of the Real Justice PAC in February, told the Huffington Post at the time that "No position in America, no single individual has a bigger impact on the criminal justice system — including police brutality, but the whole crisis of mass incarceration in general — than your local district attorney."

Staggering DOJ study: 83 percent of prisoners re-arrested within 9 years of release.  Last Wednesday, the DOJ released an updated study from the Bureau of Justice Statistics showing that 83 percent of prisoners released by states under jailbreak programs similar to what the bipartisan cabal is promoting in Washington were re-arrested within nine years of their release.  So much for the recidivism argument for early release programs.  Unfortunately, the House was in such a rush to pass this bill even without a CBO score that the DOJ report didn't come out until a day later.

New York cop killer released from prison given right to vote under new Cuomo policy.  A cop killer recently released from prison will get another added benefit of freedom:  the right to vote.  Herman Bell, 70, who served 44 years in prison for the murder of two New York police officers in the 1970s, was granted parole last month by the state parole board.  But a fresh decision by New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo to issue conditional pardons to more than 24,000 parolees means Bell can vote in the upcoming election.

A First Step for Prison Reform.  The First Step Act establishes new tools for prison management to conduct ongoing risk assessments of each prisoner, evaluating the likelihood of the prisoner recommitting a crime.  The profiling also establishes a basis for programs and job training to assist in rehabilitation of these individuals.  Prisoners productively participating in these programs, and showing progress in behavior and attitudes, are rewarded with increased phone time, visits, and transfers to facilities closer to their homes and families.  Those achieving a low-risk profile of recidivism may be eligible for at-home confinement or for being transferred to halfway houses for the final period of their sentences.

Cuomo issues pardons officially giving parolees voting rights.  Gov. Andrew Cuomo has issued conditional pardons restoring voting rights to more than 24,000 parolees — including cop killer Herman Bell, who was released from prison last month.  The pardons cover 24,086 ex-cons who are currently under parole supervision, the governor's office said Tuesday [5/22/2018].  Cuomo issued an executive order last month which gave him the authority to issue pardons so ex-cons could vote while on parole.  Bell is among the among the felons whose voting rights were reinstated, records show.

Liberalism's Impact on Abhorrent Behavior.  Instead of strongly enforcing the rule of law, liberals purport that people shouldn't be held responsible for their behavior via formal punishment.  This has strangled the justice system for over two decades.  It manifests in failed social engineering experiments like community corrections that allow a violent repeat offender to walk among the law-abiding public.  That does not teach such an offender that their behavior won't be tolerated.  Consequently, such criminals do not learn about their wrongdoings, continue to engage in antisocial behavior, and reoffend.

Transgender:  AG Sessions Ends Obama's Mixed-Sex Prison Policy.  Attorney General Jeff Sessions' deputies are ending President Barack Obama's last-minute decision to impose the transgender ideology in federal prisons.  Obama's January 2017 transgender policy directed prison officials to allow men to move into women's prisons if the men claim a female "gender identity."  Sessions' revised policy says officials "will use biological sex as the initial determination" when assigning people to either male or female prisons, according to the policy document published May 11 by Buzzfeed.

500 Driving Mile Rule and Restoring Congressional Intent to Truth in Sentencing Law.  The crux of the bill is that it would require the implementation of evidence-based recidivism reduction programming in federal prisons and allow eligible offenders to earn time credits to serve part of their sentence in home confinement, halfway houses, or community supervision.  It also has other long overdue provisions, mostly related to prisoner re-entry into society.  The bill is modeled after the reforms in more than 30 states, including Georgia and Texas, to reduce recidivism and enhance public safety.

Justices: No Life-Without-Parole Presumption for Juveniles.  North Carolina's highest court says there's no legal presumption young people convicted of first-degree murder should receive life in prison without parole.

$46,654: Annual Cost of Detaining Illegal Alien Exceeds Average American Income.  The federal government paid a "bed rate" of $127.82 per day to house each illegal alien detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in fiscal 2016, according to ICE data published in a new report by the Government Accountability Office.  Even if you do not count the extra day in that leap year, that works out to $46,654.30 for each detention bed occupied by an illegal alien for 365 days.  The approximately $46,654 it cost to house a detained illegal alien for 365 days in fiscal 2016 was approximately $104 more than the average income for Americans 15 and older that year — which, according to Census Bureau Table PINC-01, was $46,550.

Transgender inmate sues prison over witchcraft rights.  A transgender inmate is suing a North Carolina prison, saying it's blocking her from practicing witchcraft.

Violent crime by juveniles up sharply since Broward County adopted PROMISE program.  Broward County's PROMISE program (which stands for Preventing Recidivism through Opportunities, Mentoring, Interventions, Supports & Education) coincides with higher levels of violent crime among juveniles, even as levels of such crime have been falling statewide.  Broward County adopted the PROMISE program in 2013 at the urging of the Obama Education Department.  As Ed pointed out last month, based on a story by Paul Sperry of RealClearInvestigations, the move away from arrests even for repeat offenders appears to help explain why school shooter Nikolas Cruz was able to engage in violence and even bring bullets to school without any arrests or legal consequences.  Sunday, Sperry published a follow up looking more broadly at the results of the PROMISE program.  He found those results don't match up with the claims of its supporters.

Texas inmates go on hunger strike after feces-throwing sparks lockdown.  Several inmates at a Texas prison north of Houston are on a hunger strike after their unit was locked down because they were berating guards and throwing feces, the Houston Chronicle has reported.  The hunger strike began Friday [4/13/2018] after inmates at the Wynne Unit in Hunstville [sic] were put on lockdown for "an uptick in infractions, including verbal abusiveness toward officers and 'chunking,' or throwing bodily fluids," according to the Chronicle.  Officials said the 17 inmates participating in the strike are being monitored by medical staff; 156 total are on lockdown.

Prosecutors in D.C. Focus on 'Restorative Justice' for Juvenile Offenders.  D.C. Chief Deputy Attorney General Natalie Ludaway said all of the District of Columbia's prosecutors consider themselves "progressive prosecutors." [...] Using the example of a young person stealing someone's smartphone, Ludaway touted the benefits of the district's Alternatives to the Court Experience (ACE) Diversion Program.  Ludaway said the young person might be arrested for the crime and "generally held in lock-up, and then that morning our prosecutor goes through the list and really making very quick decisions of how that youth should be treated."  "If the youth receives diversion, we work with a program called ACE diversion and ACE diversion, for $4,000, for that youth, $4,000 over a 6-month period, that youth, instead of entering the criminal justice system, will be given mentorships, mental health, monitoring in school; sometimes it means being able to go to activities, to museums," she said.  According to Ludaway, the $4,000 diversion estimate compares to probation at $40,000 and confinement at $70,000.

The Editor says...
I'd rather see the government spend $40,000 and keep the thief out of circulation for a while.  He wasn't going to the museum anyway.  Moreover, there is no such thing as "mass incarceration."  There's never a trial at the county courthouse at which 500 juvenile defendants are convicted at once.  Large prison populations exist because this country has so many godless, fatherless, poorly educated and amoral young men who act like baboons.

Seven inmates killed at South Carolina maximum-security prison after hours of fighting.  Gang-related fights over territory and over cellphones and other contraband provoked nearly eight hours of rioting at a maximum-security prison in South Carolina, where seven prisoners were killed amid the chaos, state corrections officials said Monday [4/16/2018].  All the dead at the Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville were killed by their fellow prisoners, and were mostly stabbed or slashed with homemade knives, authorities said.  An additional 17 inmates were injured and treated at hospitals.

South Carolina prison riot leaves seven inmates dead.  Seven prisoners have been killed and at least 17 others injured in a riot at a maximum security prison in the US state of South Carolina, officials say.  Violence erupted at the prison facility on Sunday evening [4/15/2018] and was brought under control in the early hours of Monday.  "This was all about territory, this was about contraband," the South Carolina Department of Corrections said.

Judge says torching victim can testify from beyond the grave at boyfriend's trial for her murder.  A woman who died after being set on fire by her boyfriend will testify at his murder trial from beyond the grave.  Judy Malinowski, 33, died in August 2017, two years after being torched by her boyfriend Michael Slager outside a gas station near Columbus, Ohio, in June 2015 but recorded a video in hospital before she lost her fight for life.  Slager goes on trial for her murder in July, and in a rare move, a judge has allowed the interview Malinowski gave from her hospital bed to be heard by the jury.  The judge ruled Friday [4/13/2018].

Alabama teen turns down 25-year plea deal, gets sentenced to 65 years instead, and laughs.  An Alabama teen laughed Thursday as a judge sentenced him to 65 years in prison for murder and theft after he rejected a plea deal that would have given him 25 years behind bars.  Lakeith Smith, 18, of Montgomery, Ala., was sentenced to 65 years by Judge Sibley Reynolds for "felony murder, armed burglary, second-degree theft and third-degree theft," FOX8 LIVE reported.  Smith smiled and laughed while being sentenced at the Elmore County courthouse.  He had turned down a plea deal that would have recommended he spend 25 years in prison on the charges.

'Palm Sunday Massacre' killer freed from prison and believed to be living in New York.  The killer who took the lives of eight children and two young mothers in 1984 in Brooklyn in what has been called the 'Palm Sunday Massacre' has been released from prison, despite multiple denials of parole.  Christopher Thomas, now 68, was convicted of the mass shooting and sentenced in 1985 to 25-50 years, but was released on January 5 and is now believed to be living in Queens, New York.

Drones delivering contraband to prisons [is] a budding problem.  A package of contraband covered in grass clippings that was dropped by a drone at a Panhandle prison is one of the most recent examples of inmates using advanced technology to smuggle illegal items behind prison walls.

Why is the death penalty for drug-traffickers controversial?  President Trump is proposing that the death penalty be used for drug-traffickers.  Most of the reporting I have seen presents that as a controversial, radical, dictatorial proposal. [...] I would think CNN and other supposed journalists point out that the death penalty for drug-traffickers has been on the books since 1988 and was greatly expanded in 1994, when Democrats controlled the government, but they seem to either forget or intentionally ignore the actual laws.

NY Lawmaker Blasts State Board for Paroling Double Cop Killer.  A New York City lawmaker ripped the New York State Parole Board for agreeing to release a former Black Liberation Army member convicted of murdering two NYPD officers.  State Sen. Marty Golden (R-Bay Ridge) said the board's membership was recently shuffled and that the members were nominated by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D).

Obama DOJ Forced FBI To Delete 500,000 Fugitives From Background Check Database.  The Justice Department under Barack Obama directed the FBI to drop more than 500,000 names of fugitives with outstanding arrest warrants from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, acting FBI deputy director David Bowdich testified Wednesday [3/14/2018].  Fugitives from justice are barred from buying a firearm under federal law.  But what is a fugitive from justice?  That definition has been under debate by the FBI and the ATF.  According to The Washington Post, the FBI considered any person with an outstanding arrest warrant to be a fugitive.  On the other hand, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives defined a fugitive as someone who has an outstanding arrest warrant and has crossed state lines.

Steyer Works to End Bail Payments for Criminal Defendants in California.  Liberal billionaire Tom Steyer, who has been pushing for President Donald Trump's impeachment and recently spent $3 million to register Latino voters, also is working hard this week to resuscitate a California state bill that would end the process of demanding thousands of dollars in cash bail from suspected criminals.

25 cities where crime is soaring.  Violent crime is a broad designation consisting of the most egregious infractions — aggravated assault, robbery, rape, and murder.  According to the FBI, there were 386 violent crimes for every 100,000 people in the United States in 2016.  While the crime rate has fluctuated slightly in recent years, the incidence of violent crime in the United States remains effectively unchanged from half a decade ago.  The national violent crime rate does not tell the whole story, however.  Crime is a local issue, and in some parts of the country, violence is surging.

CNN Admits:  U.S. Town Where Guns Are Required Has Had Only 1 Murder in 6 Years.  CNN admitted in a report on March 6, 2018, that a Georgia town requiring gun ownership has only seen one murder in six years and maintains a violent crime rate of less than two percent.  CNN reports that Kennesaw, Georgia, adopted an ordinance in 1982 requiring the head of every household to "maintain a firearm."  CNN suggested the law requiring gun ownership is not actually enforced, but it simultaneously reported that the town of Kennesaw has only witnessed one murder in the past six years.  In other words, just the common knowledge that guns are in the hands of law-abiding citizens appears to restrain the actions of criminals.

Suspect in Chicago cop's death got off easy for major parole violations, records suggest.  The suspect who allegedly gunned down Chicago police Commander Paul Bauer near City Hall earlier this month received an unusually light sentence for major parole violations in 2007, court records show.  The documents, reviewed by the Chicago Sun-Times, reveal that Bauer's accused killer, Shomari Legghette, dodged up to 30 years in prison when he was booked for the violations that year.  At the time of his 2007 sentencing, Legghette was on parole following an armed robbery conviction that landed him a 16-year sentence, and prison time from 1998 to 2005.

How a list of 23 crimes now dominates California's debate over prison punishment.  California has a long history of mixing crime and punishment with raw politics.  But outrage doesn't always translate into coherent policy, and unintended consequences can spark even more public anger.  With that in mind, consider the last two years of debate over what should, and should not, be a "violent" crime.  That debate begins with the index of crimes in section 667.5 of the California Penal Code.  The list was first enacted in 1976, and has been tinkered with so many times it's hard to say whether it's a fair representation of the most heinous crimes.

Court ends bail for illegal aliens.  The headline in the Washington Times was close but no cigar:  "Illegal immigrants have no automatic right to freedom, Supreme Court rules."  Oh they have a right to freedom.  Just not here.  They are free to go home in the paradises they left behind.  President Trump is helping them get home.  "Immigrants being held for deportation don't have an automatic right under the law to post bond and be set free, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in a decision that could give the Trump administration more freedom to pursue stiff detention policies for illegal immigrants who show up at the border claiming asylum," Stephen Dinan of the Times wrote.

Rates of unsolved murder by state.  News reports based on FBI statistics show that somewhere between 35%-40% of homicides in the US go unsolved in the US today.  Uniform Crime Reporting data, available at the state level (excluding Florida), show that right at one-third of homicide offenders remain racially unidentifiable.

   District of Columbia   56.1%
   Illinois               55.4%
   Maryland               46.1%
   New York               44.0%
   California             43.9%
   Massachusetts          43.8%
   Rhode Island           42.0%
   New Jersey             41.8%
   Michigan               38.8%
   Connecticut            37.1%

Stepping Up initiative seeks to keep mentally ill out of jail.  So the Lorain County Board of Mental Health and the Lorain County Sheriff's Office along with several community partners ranging from local police departments and the court system are participating in an innovative program aimed at intervention and redirection.  According to the national Stepping Up initiative, each year more than two million people suffering from severe mental illnesses find themselves incarcerated turning county jails into makeshift psychiatric facilities and making it more difficult for those in need to receive the care they need.

New York City prison guard seriously injured in attack by 6 inmates, authorities say.  In what authorities said was a premeditated beatdown, a gang of six Rikers Island prison inmates attacked a New York City correction officer Saturday [2/10/2018].  The unidentified 39-year-old officer was hospitalized in serious condition, Michael Skelly, a spokesman for the Correction Officers Benevolent Association, told the New York Post.  Media reports said the officer had suffered a broken neck or "fractured spine."

Worst Responders.  Latent within the idea of gun control is the notion that guns increase aggregate danger, and if prohibited, police and other professionals might easily protect the disarmed populace from any remaining guns, as well as other risks.  This is a dubious hope.  We have relatively few police in this country, and they are spread very thin, particularly in rural areas.  As the saying goes, "when seconds count, the police are minutes away."  As a general matter, police investigate crimes after they are completed.  Their deterrent effect consists primarily in the general threat of detection and incarceration.

San Francisco Prisons Implement Reforms Giving Transgenders Special Treatments.  San Francisco prisons formally announced they are implementing a policy for transgenders that will respect their gender preferences, house them in the cells of their chosen identity, and offer other gender identity services.  The San Francisco Sheriff's Department announced Wednesday [2/21/2018] that inmates who identify as transgender, gender variant or non-binary will be able to choose a name and gender identity upon entering the prison.  They will also get to determine if a man or woman will search them before they're admitted into the prison, according to CBS San Fransisco.

Second, Third, and Fourth Chances — at What Price?  The deincarceration movement, which would return thousands of convicts to American streets, presents a threat to public safety.  Repeat offenders already commit a substantial portion of the nation's violent crime — according to one study, 53 percent of killers have at least one prior felony conviction.  They will be walking the streets in greater numbers if deincarceration advocates have their way.  Consider a few examples.  In October 2017, Radee Prince shot and killed three people in Maryland.  Prince, it turns out, had 42 prior arrests and 15 prior felony convictions. [...]

New York City prison guard seriously injured in attack by 6 inmates, authorities say.  In what authorities said was a premeditated beatdown, a gang of six Rikers Island prison inmates attacked a New York City correction officer Saturday [2/10/2018].  The unidentified 39-year-old officer was hospitalized in serious condition, Michael Skelly, a spokesman for the Correction Officers Benevolent Association, told the New York Post.  Media reports said the officer had suffered a broken neck or "fractured spine."

Is California Starting to Circle the Drain?  I recently became a crime victim for one of the few times in my life.  My car was burgled while I was up in the Bay Area on my weekly sojourn to the Peoples Republic of Berkeley.  I say "burgled" rather than "broken into," because there was no smashed window, or picked lock, nor did I leave the car unlocked.  Rather, I was the victim of a clever gang of organized car burglars in the Bay Area who are using sophisticated scanners to copy and boost the key-fob signal for recent model keyless entry and ignition cars.  Once you latch on to the signal, the car door unlocks at the touch of your hand, as people with such models know. [...] This kind of activity is epidemic in the Bay Area right now.  There were 30,000 car thefts reported in San Francisco last year (much higher in the Bay Area as a whole).  The police are doing very little about it.

Inmate's Weave Hid Coke, Meth, 78 Doses Of LSD.  A Pennsylvania inmate had 78 doses of LSD, cocaine, methamphetamine, and a glass pipe stashed under her hair weave, contraband the woman apparently smuggled into the lockup following a prior arrest, according to court records.  Carema Lashandra Brown, 29, was booked into the Jefferson County jail on January 5 after she was charged with two felony theft counts.  Unable to post $60,000 bail, Brown was detained at the jail in Brookville, a borough about 80 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.  Within a week of Brown's arrival, jail personnel began investigating the distribution of narcotics inside the facility.  During questioning, two female inmates — whose recorded phone calls indicated they had been using LSD — confessed that they obtained the acid from Brown.

Parents of slain Pizza Hut robber angry that victim used a gun against him.  Self-defense is regarded as a right deriving from natural law.  But that offers no justification to the parents of Michael Grace, Jr. of Charlotte, NC, who was shot to death while attempting to rob a Pizza Hut. [...] I may be an extremist, but it seems to me that if one decides to commit a crime, the victims should have more rights than the perpetrator, especially the right to defend themselves from the presumption of violence that accompanies a robbery, home invasion, or other property crime.

The 'War on Crime' has failed.  Here's a better battle plan.  Since President Lyndon Johnson declared a "War on Crime" in 1965, politicians have been embracing tough-on-crime policies every election cycle.  Unfortunately, this has exacted a horrific toll.  The U.S. crime rate has never fallen below 1965 levels, and the incarceration rate now approaches that of North Korea.  What 50 years of uninterrupted bipartisan tough-on-crime policies have produced is a 16 percent higher crime rate, a near doubling of violent crime, and thousands of murders.  The population equivalent of Houston is behind bars, while the public is less safe than a half-century ago.  Lady Justice has cast her scales aside in disgust and fallen on her sword.

The Editor says...
"The public is less safe that a half-century ago" because there are not enough people behind bars, and more violent criminals enter this country every day.  Other factors include poor education, the Ferguson Effect, violent movies and video games, and fatherlessness.

Democracy's Highest Crime and Misdemeanor.  Is there sufficient decency and courage in the midst of Washington's swamp to compel the pursuit of justice wherever in the Ruling Class it leads and then to prosecute the lawbreakers — whomever they are?  First, it's vital to understand that when you give a pass — or worse you give multiple successive passes — to lawbreakers, you not only protect those who violated the law, but you empower and encourage would-be lawbreakers to do the same or worse.  Second, when laws are not enforced they cease to have meaning.

Convicted Muslim rapist sues state over failure to provide sharia meals.  An inmate has sued Oregon Department of Corrections staff for failing to serve meals that observe his Muslim faith.  Rashid Kambarov, 29, who is serving a sentence for rape, filed a complaint this week in U.S. District Court in Pendleton.  He is a legal permanent resident from Turkey and is incarcerated at Two Rivers Correctional Institution in Umatilla.  He is suing the superintendent of Two Rivers, Troy Bowser, and other administrators at the prison.

The Real Gender Gap:  Family Breakdown and Black Males.  Data from the state of Virginia shows a strong association between single parent households and violent crime. [...] According to the Heritage Foundation, black illegitimacy rose exponentially halfway through the 1960s.  This is precisely when the perverse incentives of Johnson's "War on Poverty" were being implemented.

What could go wrong?  NY to give tablet computers to 51,000 prison inmates.  Good news for every inmate in New York State prisons:  Each of you will soon be receiving your own tablet computer.  The free tablets for all 51,000 state prisoners are being sold to the public as an opportunity to educate prisoners for a law-abiding life when their sentence is completed.  Although inmates will not have uncontrolled Internet access, prison system officials say the individual devices will help prisoners keep in touch with their families and become better prepared to reenter lawful society.

The Editor says...
I thought that was what the weight room was for.

Coast Guard rape conviction overturned after court's scathing attack on women-packed jury.  The nation's highest military court has thrown out the 2012 rape conviction of a Coast Guard enlisted man because admirals and prosecutors packed the seven-member jury with five women, four of whom held jobs as advocates for victims of sexual assault.  In a 5-0 ruling that could change how the military conducts sex abuse trials, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces unleashed caustic criticism of all involved. [...] Ten jurors were selected, and seven of them were women.  Of those jurors, five women and two men heard evidence, deliberated and rendered a verdict.  Of those five women, four were assigned as advocates for victims of sexual misconduct.

Inmates destroy an Ohio prison with broken metal furniture in violent riots.  Teenage inmates at a Ohio juvenile prison have been caught on camera destroying the facility during a violent riot.  Six inmates have since been charged over the January 8 incident at the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Detention Center in Cleveland.  The sheriff's department SWAT team was called in after the teens — aged 14 and 15 — used broken metal furniture to smash security glass and barricade themselves into cell blocks.

The Editor says...
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Man who fled country after fatal Tampa DUI crash gets 15 years in prison.  Many of William Angel's family and friends were willing to forgive Christopher Ponce for taking his life in a wrong-way drunken driving crash.  But in 2013, Ponce cut off a court-ordered electronic monitor and fled.  For the victims, that made a difference.

Inmates in California prison hospital riot after crackdown on child porn.  In the case of Coalinga State Hospital, located halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles around 57 miles southwest of Fresno, it was opened in 2005 as a self-contained, 1,286 beds, psychiatric hospital with a security perimeter.  Most of the hospital's forensically committed patients are sexually violent predators.  Red Pill reports for The Goldwater that on January 14, 2018, patients at Coalinga State Hospital overtook the facility in a major riot after hospital staff removed all electronics equipment from the patients due to the widespread sharing and distribution of child pornography.  The staff deprived the patients of access to the Internet — and to child porn — as a result of a Department of State Hospitals emergency regulation that blocks the patients' "possession, viewing, and distribution of illicit materials" by barring them from possessing digital memory storage devices such as flash drives or thumb drives, hard drives such as those in computers, memory cards, digital media players, and digital media burners.  Prior to the crackdown, "patients," including convicted violent sex predators, were allowed compact disc and digital video disc players, as well as Internet access — in a prison hospital!

Activists make the case for 'a world without prisons' in new Black Lives Matter memoir.  Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele, authors of the new book When They Call You a Terrorist:  A Black Lives Matter Memoir, are self-described "prison abolitionists." [...] Khan-Cullors, a cofounder of the Black Lives Matter hashtag and subsequent movement, called upon acclaimed journalist and author Bandele to compose the memoir.  The pages reveal the racial profiling and police brutality that Khan-Cullors and her family have experienced, the circumstances that led to the formation of one of the most controversial civil rights movements, and the way in which her narrative of black liberation has been branded as "terrorism."

75 women have been strangled or smothered in Chicago since 2001. Most of their killers got away.  Over the last 17 years, at least 75 women have been strangled or smothered in Chicago and their bodies dumped in vacant buildings, alleys, garbage cans, snow banks.  Arrests have been made in only a third of the cases, according to a first-ever analysis by the Tribune.  While there are clusters of unsolved strangulations on the South and West sides, police say they've uncovered no evidence of a serial killer at work.  If they are right, 51 murderers have gotten away with their crime.

Rate of Imprisonment for Black Adults Falls 29% Over Decade.  The rate of imprisonment for black adults fell almost 30 percent over a decade, according to a Wednesday [1/10/2018] report from the Department of Justice.  The Bureau of Justice Statistics released its statistics on the United States prison population and the rate of imprisonment among different groups, according to a release from the bureau.  Among its findings was that black Americans' rate of imprisonment declined by 29 percent between 2006 and 2016.

One in Fifteen Oregon Prisoners Is a Criminal Alien; Nearly Half Convicted of Sex Crimes.  The murder of Kate Steinle in California highlighted the fact that we have a serious criminal illegal alien problem in this country.  Many of these individuals, after breaking the law to enter the country, go on to commit other crimes — theft, rape, and even murder.  David Olen Cross released a December 2017 report based on Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) data, announcing that there are "973 foreign nationals (criminal aliens) incarcerated in the state's prison system."  Oregon has 14,739 inmates incarcerated in its 14 prisons scattered across the state.  "Approximately one in every fifteen prisoners incarcerated by the state was a criminal alien, 6.60 percent of the total prison population," the report said.  According to Cross, all of the 973 criminal aliens currently in the state's prisons were identified by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).  Anytime that happens, DOC officials will place an "ICE detainer" on the inmate.  "After the inmate completes his/her state sanction, prison officials will transfer custody of the inmate to ICE," he said.

President Trump's Murder Report Card.  One reason Donald Trump is president is because of the Obama administration's own goal in setting off a major murder wave in Ferguson in 2014, in an era when both technology and prosperity should have been lowering the death toll from crime. [...] The FBI won't release its 2017 murder statistics for many months.  But to shed light on the important question of how the Trump administration is doing, I've sifted through year-end local newspaper reports and police department databases from the 51 biggest municipalities in America.  The impact of the Ferguson Effect is statistically vivid in Ferguson's neighbor St. Louis, where the number of homicides ranged from 113 to 120 from 2011 to 2013.  Then in 2014, when the Obama administration and the prestige press took the side of anti-police rioters in promoting the Michael Brown fake news, homicides jumped to 159.  Killings numbered 188 the next two years, and in 2017 had reached 205 by Dec. 29.  While St. Louis used to be the fourth-biggest city in America back when it hosted the 1904 Olympics, it is now merely the 61st-largest city, with only 311,000 people.  So St. Louis' murder rate (65.8 per 100,000 in 2017) is now 27 times that of increasingly utopian San Diego (2.4), the least murderous of the country's fifty biggest cities.

Two Thieving Thugs Attempt Burglary At Detroit Power Station, Get "Shocking" Surprise.  I'm sure it won't be long before the families of these two clowns are suing the city to try to turn this incident into a payday.  These guys were trying to steal instead of working for a living.  In my opinion, they got what they deserved for being criminals and for being stupid.  I am curious about whether either of them could read the "DANGER HIGH VOLTAGE" signs posted all around that building.

More whites, less crime.
Don't Take the Wrong Lessons from NYC's Murder Drop.  New York City's formerly high-crime neighborhoods have experienced a stunning degree of gentrification over the last 15 years, thanks to the proactive-policing-induced conquest of crime.  It is that gentrification which is now helping fuel the ongoing crime drop.  Urban hipsters are flocking to areas that once were the purview of drug dealers and pimps, trailing in their wake legitimate commerce and street life, which further attracts law-abiding activity and residents in a virtuous cycle of increasing public safety.  The degree of demographic change is startling.  In Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, for example, the number of white residents rose 1,235 percent from 2000 to 2015, while the black population decreased by 17 percent, reports City Lab.  In Bushwick, Brooklyn, the number of whites rose 610 percent over that same decade and a half; the black population was down 22 percent.  Central Harlem's white population rose 846 percent; the black share dropped 10 percent.  In 2000, whites were about three-quarters of the black population in Brownsville-Ocean Hill; by 2015, there were twice as many whites as blacks.  In 2000, whites were one-third of the black population in Crown Heights North and Prospect Heights; now they exceed the black population by 20,000.

Wrong-footing the NYPD.  New York's city council passed a controversial package of bills this week collectively called the Right to Know Act.  The laws require police to provide business cards to almost everyone they encounter and also mandate that they inform people of their legal right to refuse being searched.  Both policies will raise the transaction costs of policing and undermine the proven — and legal — tactics that have contributed to the city's sharp decline in violent crime over the last 25 years.  The provision that will require officers to inform investigatory targets of their right to withhold consent to searches is based on the city council's finding that "many New Yorkers are unaware of their constitutional rights when interacting with law enforcement officers."  The law is thus meant to minimize the consequences of constitutional ignorance for New York's criminal class, with whom the NYPD often interacts.

Once US murder capital, NYC close to record low in homicides.  Through Dec. 17, the city of 8.5 million people, once America's murder capital, had recorded 278 killings.  That puts it on pace to end this year with killings down 14 percent from last year, and well below the 333 in 2014, which was the year with the fewest homicides since the city began keeping accurate crime statistics in 1963.

Chicago court: 'Making a Murderer' defendant's confession stands.  A federal appeals court in Chicago narrowly overturned a ruling Friday that could have freed a Wisconsin inmate featured in the "Making a Murderer" series from prison, though one dissenting judge called the case "a profound miscarriage of justice."  The full 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reviewed Brendan Dassey's claims that investigators tricked him into confessing that he took part in raping and killing photographer Teresa Halbach in 2005.  Dassey was sentenced to life in prison in 2007 after telling detectives he helped his uncle, Steven Avery, rape and kill Halbach.

Philadelphia Committee Passes Bill Forcing Store Owners to Remove Bullet-Proof Glass Because it's Offensive.  What's more important, protecting the dignity of customers who shop in local liquor stores, or the innocent employees and store owners who come in every day, knowing that the only thing that ensures they will go home alive, is the bullet-proof glass between them and the criminal element who enters their store?  Well, according to one Philadelphia councilwoman, it's the dignity of the customers.  Philadelphia's Public Health and Human Services Committee passed a bill Monday [12/4/2017] to ban shop owners from protecting themselves with bulletproof plexiglass.

Portland police reportedly scrap gang database over fear of labels.  Authorities in Portland, Ore., are reportedly scrapping their database of suspected gang members out of fear that these labels will most negatively affect minorities.  Portland police, next month, will end its two-decade-old practice of designating people as gang members or associates following the pressure from the community, The Oregonian reported.  Activists have been trying to abolish the database and gang designations for years, claiming they disproportionately affect minority communities.

If there was ever a candidate for capital punishment, it was this guy:
Charles Manson Dies At 83.  Manson was born into and raised in true dysfunction.  A reason for his depravity but never an excuse.  Good people have come out of far worse.  I can't help but realize Charles Manson was older than my living grandmother.  He also lived to be older than my maternal grandfather and paternal grandmother.  This is a travesty and a shame.  Better people deserved Manson's longevity.

Charles Manson dead at 83.  Manson incurred more than 100 rules violations since 1971, when he and other members of his so-called family were convicted of killing pregnant actress Sharon Tate and six other people during a bloody rampage in the Los Angeles area during two August nights in 1969.  Over the years, he was cited for assault, repeated possession of a weapon, threatening staff, and possessing a cellphone.  Officials have said over the years that he spat in guards' faces, threw hot coffee at a prison staffer, started fights, tried to cause a flood and set his mattress ablaze.

Confused NYPD cops afraid of 'stopping anyone' under new stop-and-frisk policies.  NYPD cops are terrified of "stopping anyone" under new stop-and-frisk policies, fearing that the brass "won't have our backs," a court-appointed monitor reported.  Attorney Peter Zimroth, who is tasked with implementing court-ordered reforms to the NYPD's controversial stop-and-frisk program, said officers have been telling trainers that they are unsure "what's expected" of them.  "Officers have said, 'The law is confusing.  I don't know what's expected of me anymore,'" Zimroth wrote in a memo to Manhattan federal Judge Analisa Torres, outlining focus-group feedback ahead of new training procedures.

Good News:  Many Liberal Cities Are Providing Free Legal Help To Illegal Aliens.  So, they're getting some sweet, sweet taxpayer cash to protect people who shouldn't be in the country to start with, which means less cash to deal with things like cleaning streets.  Or dealing with all the violence, especially in places like Atlanta, Baltimore, and Chicago.  According to Neigborhood Scout, Baltimore ranks a 2, with 100 being the safest.  Surprisingly, Chicago is an 11 (it's very big, and the reported crime is confined within small areas).  Atlanta is a 2.  The other cities aren't exactly great, either, excepting Santa Ana, which is a 24.  That means that 76% of cities are safer.  Some are more about property crime, some are more about violent crime, some are both.  Anyhow, this adds to the money already being appropriated by many cities to provide legal council to illegal aliens, meaning less money for law abiding/legal citizens.

Cook County Jail in Chicago is out of control.  The forces of law and order no longer control the streets of Chicago.  [Indeed], they can't even control inmates in the jail.  Civil order is collapsing in Chicago.  We learn that once incarcerated, the inmates are controlling the Cook County Jail, and engaging mass behavior so vile that public defenders are refusing to enter and meet their clients.  What follows is so disgusting that readers are cautioned to proceed only if psychologically able to face repulsive information. [...] But this is a problem that money can't solve.  Inmates have lost all respect for civil society and all fear of punishment, and that is part of the larger problem of the breakdown in civil order in Chicago, on its way to becoming America's first Third World City.

Paroled killer goes back to prison after fourth murder.  A Missouri man who served time for a triple homicide nearly 50 years ago before being paroled was sent back to prison after pleading guilty to his fourth murder.  Torrance Epps, 79, pleaded guilty Monday to a reduced charge of second-degree murder for fatally shooting Tiandra Johnson, 32, while he rolled his wheelchair through a senior housing complex where he lived on Jan. 19, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.  Epps told St. Louis Circuit Judge Dennis Schaumann that he shot Johnson because he thought she entered his apartment with a backup key from the complex's office to steal from him.  Johnson was later found dead in a hallway at the Lafayette Towne senior housing complex.

79-year-old man going back to prison for another homicide.  A 79-year-old St. Louis man who spent several years in prison for killing three people is going back to prison after pleading guilty in another killing.

Mark Zuckerberg and liberals seek to weaken bail system that keeps us safe.  For any liberal to entertain winning the Democratic nomination for president these days, there are some important boxes to be checked, including taking on America's system of law and order.  Now Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has begun checking the boxes.  Zuckerberg has hired Hillary Clinton's pollster.  He's hired Barack Obama's campaign manager.  He's even visited the first presidential caucus state of Iowa.  And he's pandering to the left's machine by funding a campaign that aims to get rid of our nation's bail system.

Judge won't cut prison term of man who pleads obesity.  A claim of obesity won't shave time off a Tampa man's prison sentence.  U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday on Friday [12/20/2017] declined to reduce the 76-month term he imposed Oct. 12 on Stephen Donaldson Sr., 72, for peddling an illegal offshore tax shelter.  On Monday, Donaldson's attorney suggested his client, at 5-foot-9 and 273 pounds, was too fat for his prison sentence, given the likely effect of weight on his health and longevity.

Police-focused NFL protests overlook rising, disproportionate black homicide rate.  Lost in the uproar over the NFL sideline protests against police brutality are newly released statistics showing that the threat to black men is skyrocketing — not from trigger-happy or racist cops, but from crime.  More than any other demographic group, black men are paying the price with their lives with a surging violent crime rate over the past two years, including a 20 percent jump in the overall homicide rate, even as the number of blacks killed by police declines.  Using homicide figures from the 2016 FBI Uniform Crime Report released Sept. 25, Manhattan Institute fellow Heather Mac Donald found that the number of black homicide victims has jumped by nearly 900 per year since the Black Lives Matter movement took root in 2014.  "The majority of victims of that homicide surge have been black," Ms. Mac Donald said in an email.  "They were killed overwhelmingly by black criminals, not by the police and not by whites."

How the private prison industry came to California, Part 1.  On March 5, 2012, Tom Weil, City Manager of California City, California, signed a letter to a lawyer from Fort Lauderdale.  "Speaking from over 12 years of experience," he wrote, "you will not find a better partner in the business world."  The partner was Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the most successful for-profit prison company in the United States.  Well-established in dozens of jurisdictions but perpetually battling public distaste, CCA, like any dynamic business, is ever-exploring new opportunities, and there seemed one to be had in rural Southwest Ranches, Florida.  The letter was among a collection of documents recently released by the City of California City.

The Big Myth About Dirty Jobs, Minimum Wage, and Illegal Immigration.  I have a friend who's a United States marshal, and one of his duties is to work with people in the federal Witness Protection Program.  Over and over again, the protected witness gets a new location, a new house, a new identity, and then spends the first couple of years going to a community college or some other training program to develop a skill — since their prior skills might have been either bank robbery or serving as a punching bag for a Mafia husband — and then when it's time for the final step, nobody will hire them.  The marshal is required by law to tell the potential employer that the new hire is a protected witness with a fake identity — and most bosses say, "No, thanks."  But believe it or not, those are easier placements than the typical ex-convict recently out of state prison on, say, an aggravated assault charge.  One of the cruelest things we do to prisoners is pump them up with the idea that, if they educate themselves in prison and learn a trade, they will be able to work when they get out.  This is a lie.  They probably won't be able to work, because, aside from typical job-interview demerits like too many nasty facial tattoos, that felony conviction automatically eliminates them on most application forms.

Vicious Street Thug Cries Like a Baby When Sentenced.  The man being sentenced murdered somebody.  During his trial, the perpetrator smiled, gestured and cursed at the family. during the trial.  These are behaviors that might do well on the street; however the judge showed complete disdain for his theatrics.  The man's behavior impacted the judge's view, and thus her decision.  This criminal showed no remorse for murdering somebody.  Regardless of the circumstances of the murder, the man should at least find some humanity for those who were impacted.

FBI releases shocking new data on murder rates hidden by Obama administration.  The FBI report adjusts and corrects numbers released for 2015 during the Obama administration. [...] The FBI report showed that black Americans are more frequently the victims of murder than whites or Hispanics.  Of the 16,964 murder victims registered, 6576 victims were white, 7881 were black, and 2367 were identified as Hispanic in ethnicity.  As for offenders, there were a total 16,914.  Of these offenders, 5004 were indentified as white, 6095 were black; of unknown race there were 5574, other races were 291, while those of Hispanic ethnicity totaled 1553.

Detroit police chief:  FBI is wrong.  Detroit is not most violent city in U.S.  Newly released FBI statistics paint Detroit as the most dangerous big city in America.  One former FBI chief suspects other cities cooked their numbers to rank better.  Police Chief James Craig says the FBI data is flat wrong.  "I reject it," Craig said of the FBI report on Monday [9/25/2017], saying his own data using a new software system shows violent crime in Detroit went down 5% in 2016, and has been trending downward since 2013.

Detroit is again the most violent city in the USA.  Detroit regained the title as the most violent big city in America in 2016, witnessing more murders last year than Los Angeles, which has four times as many people, according to new FBI crime figures released Monday [9/25/2017].  But Detroit Police Chief James Craig disputed the FBI's numbers, stating:  "Just because it's coming out of the FBI" doesn't mean it's accurate.  "I reject it," Craig said of the FBI report, saying his own data using a new software system shows violent crime went down 5% in 2016, and, has been trending downward since 2013.

Teen accused of shooting Yonkers officer got probation last week on gun charge.  While Yonkers Police Officer Kayla Maher recovered from a bullet to the face, PIX11 News learned on Tuesday that one of the teenagers charged in the shooting, and who was shot himself in the exchange, had been released by a Bronx judge last week in another weapons case that involved a semi-automatic gun, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and a machete.  Frank Valencia, 18, of New Rochelle, received probation and youthful offender status when he was sentenced by Judge George Villegas of Bronx Supreme Court on Sept. 20.  The light sentence was meted out over the objections of prosecutors representing the Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark.

Violent crime rising throughout US, FBI says.  The report says increases in violent crime were happening in suburban areas and cities of all sizes, ranging from those with populations below 10,000 to those with populations of more than 250,000.  It added that rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults all showed an uptick in 2016.

Teen who shot cop was loose thanks to judge's slap on the wrist.  The Yonkers cop who was shot in the face during an ambush Monday [9/25/2017] left the hospital to the cheers of fellow officers — as it emerged Tuesday that the teen who allegedly blasted her was free thanks to a Bronx judge's leniency.

Teen who punched principal in face gets sweet deal from judge.  A hot-headed teen got a slap on the wrist Friday for slugging a Manhattan principal who told him to turn down his music.  Judge Edwina Richardson-Mendelson granted Luis Penzo, 19, youthful offender status and sentenced him to a conditional discharge — as long as he stays out of trouble for three years he'll dodge prison and a criminal record.  "You made us very proud," the judge said of the surly teen's compliance with a family therapy program.  Penzo, who sauntered into Manhattan Supreme Court Friday [9/22/2017] wearing a white T-shirt and red gym shorts, offered no apology for the October 2016 beatdown of Principal Matthew Tossman.

Sub-Chicago and America's Real Crime Rate.  The NYU School of Law's Brennan Center for Justice, in its annual report on crime, finds that the murder rate in America's 30 largest cities rose 13.1 percent in 2016 — an alarming figure, especially considering last year's identical increase.  Striking a calming note, the Brennan Center's press release accompanying the report begins by reminding us that "Americans are safer today than they have been at almost any time in the past 25 years."  But downplaying the recent uptick in the homicide rate distracts from the fact that there is more than one America when it comes to violent crime:  indeed, 51 percent of all U.S. murders are committed in just 2 percent of the nation's counties, according to the Crime Prevention Research Center.  No city more starkly illustrates this disparity than Chicago.

Are Sex Offender Registries Unconstitutional?  A ruling coming out of a federal court in Denver this week could lead to a significant change in how the country deals with convicted sex offenders.  Judge Richard Matsch heard a case involving three convicted sex offenders who were protesting having all of their personal information published on a public sex offender registry.  Rather than ruling on whether or not the three could have their details removed (which was all that was requested), Matsch ruled that the entire registry was unconstitutional.  This one is going to be appealed and if it makes it to the Supreme Court it could impact the laws in pretty much every state in the union.

Houston police catch 14 armed robbers and looters amid flood emergency.  Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said he is not going to tolerate criminals taking advantage of people in the community during such a devastating time.  He said his officers arrested 14 alleged looters since Sunday [8/27/2017].  Those arrested will face stiffer punishments under a Texas law providing heftier penalties during a crisis, prosecutors announced Tuesday [8/29/2017].

In Chicago, people get away with murder.  In some years in the 1960s, the police solved murder cases at a rate of higher than 90 percent.  But high murder clearance rates are just a memory.  Since Jan. 1 of this year, more than four out of every five murders in Chicago have gone unsolved.  That's a shockingly low number, perhaps even a historic low.  On what grading curve is 20 percent anything but utter failure?  Since 2006, the city's murder clearance rate has dropped steadily, with just a couple of notable bumps up.  Fewer arrests mean more killers on the streets.  More killers on the streets mean nobody is quite as safe.  And when killers are not caught, others are less afraid to kill.

Women Push Back Against Crossdressing Men in Female Prisons.  Surprise, surprise.  Women, whose interests liberals loudly claim to represent, don't like it that perverted men who dress in women's clothes have been forced upon them in prisons in order to advance the liberal agenda.

Hospitals Grapple With $6B Issue: Inmates Ingesting Foreign Objects.  American medical professionals are weighing an issue that costs taxpayers about $6 billion a year: prison inmates intentionally swallowing foreign objects like forks, steak knives, razor blades, paperclips and pens.  Medical ethicist Brendan Parent came across the problem in early 2016 while making rounds at NYU Langone Medical Center facilities.  He found that certain inmates from Rikers Island had been admitted to NYU facilities five, six or seven times after voluntarily ingesting foreign objects on separate occasions.  Though swallowing objects is a common form of smuggling contraband into prisons, Parent said that was not an issue with the cases he came across.  He instead questioned the conditions at Rikers, a New York City facility with a history of inhumane treatment and living conditions.  He suggested in a recent interview that inmates are ingesting objects to momentarily escape, even if the hospital visit is only a two- to four-day stay.

Google Women.  Why aren't there more women criminals?!  Men in jail outnumber women by a ratio of 14-to-1.  We male stutterers outnumber women, too.  This isn't fair!  We need more affirmative action!  These disparities must be caused by sex discrimination because everyone knows there are no real differences between genders.

Immigrants are 22 percent of federal prison population.  A stunning 22 percent of the federal prison population is immigrants who have either already been deemed to be in the country illegally or who the government is looking to put in deportation proceedings, the administration said Tuesday [8/1/2017]. [...] The 22 percent is much higher than the population of foreign-born in the U.S. as a whole, which is about 13.5 percent.  All told, the government counted more than 42,000 aliens in federal prisons as of June 24.  About 47 percent already face final deportation orders, making them illegal immigrants, and 3 percent are currently in immigration courts facing deportation proceedings.

FOIA still doesn't apply to private prisons.  What right to privacy do for-profit prisons have?  Should it be closer to those of a company like Hilton Hotels or Lockheed Martin, or closer to that of the governments alongside which they provide their incarceration services?  Through the Freedom of Information Act and equivalent state laws, the operations and artifacts of the government's activities are made available to citizens and businesses.  This level of openness, though, severely flawed as it is in practice, often doesn't extend to the private businesses, contractors, non-profits, and other entities with whom government agents share their work.  Among these are major prison companies, like GEO Group and CoreCivic, and a slowly-shrinking group of lesser known businesses focused on managing lock-ups at a cost they claim is less than that these agencies would otherwise be paying.  Since their inception, this built-in barrier to accountability has bothered opponents of prison privatizations.

Five heartbreaking examples of why the bail bonds industry is badly in need of reform.  One man put down his car as collateral for a $1,420 bond to get his brother out of jail.  Shortly after, he then learned that ICE had put a detainer on his brother, and he would be deported, rendering the need for bail moot, since bail doesn't apply in those cases.  Did the bail bond company promptly release his car?

Mississippi man freed after 11 years in jail without a trial.  A Mississippi man who has been in jail for 11 years without a trial for the alleged murder of his father soon will be released.  Police say Steven Jessie Harris was arrested in October 2005 for the murder of his father, Malichi Randle.  He was indicted with 11 different counts including murder in 2006, but a later ruling declared him incompetent to stand trial after he was diagnosed with schizophrenia.  Clay County Sheriff Eddie Scott says Harris at the time went on a crime spree shooting his father and cars.  He also allegedly carjacked and stabbed a driver.  Deputies pursued Harris and the spree ended in a shootout with police injuring three deputies, according to police.

The Editor says...
Obviously the man needs to be locked up, but not without due process.

Car thief found dead in O.C. jail cell he shared with suspected double-murderer.  A car thief killed earlier this month at Orange County Jail shared a cell with a suspected psychotic double-murderer, leading the victim's attorney to question why two men with such different criminal histories were housed together.

Drug dealer arrested after calling police to report stolen cocaine.  David Blackmon probably won't go down in history as a criminal mastermind, at least judging by the ridiculous reason for his arrest.  The 32-year-old "self-proclaimed drug dealer" stunned police in Florida when he called 911 to report his cocaine had been stolen, along with some cash.

Chicago To Make Bail More Affordable.  On Monday [7/17/2017], the Circuit Court of Cook County, Ill. issued an order stating that judges are prohibited from setting bails higher than a defendant can afford.  For felony defendants, this will begin Sept. 18, but those facing misdemeanor cases will have to wait until January.  "I think people who are arrested will be given the full recognition that they are presumed innocent," Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans, who signed the order for the new policy, told the Chicago Tribune.

The Editor says...
If they are presumed innocent, why were they arrested?  If you commit a crime, you are guilty.

Illegal Immigrants Face Criminal Charges for First Offenses.  Migrants who are caught crossing the border illegally for the first time are now facing criminal charges in federal court in Arizona as the Trump administration steps up efforts to deter illegal immigration.

For Many of Us, the War on Drugs Is Not Real.  For instance, did you know that America spends over $51 billion per year on this war against drugs?  Did you know that about 1.25 million Americans are arrested annually for drug possession?  That 643,000 of them were only in possession of marijuana?  That since 2006, over 100,000 people have been killed in Mexico's drug war?  You probably did know that, more or less.  These are facts — we know about "mass incarceration," for instance — and I do not dispute them.  But there are different ways to know something, distinctions that make all the difference.

Police officer deaths on duty have jumped nearly 20 percent in 2017.  The ambush shooting that killed a New York City police officer in the Bronx marked the latest in a growing number of officer deaths in 2017, up 18 percent from this time last year.  A total of 67 officers have died so far this year, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.  It found there were 57 officer deaths between January 1 and July 5, 2016.  In addition, gun-related deaths have risen by 9 percent, from 22 to 24 for 2017, the researchers say.  The figures suggest a grim trend; 2016 was the deadliest year for police in 5 years.  A total of 135 officers died last year.

Who Is Keeping Score On Obama's Failed Pardons?  As expected, the black beneficiaries of Obama's mass pardon/commutations are already returning to whence they came.  As reported by myself and others over the last few years [...], Obama commuted the sentences of a whopping 1715 federal inmates and outright pardoned another 212.  These pardons were heavily weighted to black drug offenders.  The reason he gave was a belief that the justice system was rigged against his fellow African-Americans.  It seems that Carole Denise Richardson[,] one of his fellows who needed a second chance, is back in custody for theft and according to authorities, "Richardson violated five separate terms of her release including failing to report that she was arrested, that she'd been terminated from a job for failing to show up and that she had changed her address."

Arkansas inmate recaptured 32 years after escape.  Arkansas authorites said Sunday [6/25/2017] that they had apprehended an inmate who had been on the run for more than three decades. [...] Dishman escaped from the Cummins unit in rural Lincoln County on May 28, 1985 while serving a 7-year sentence for theft of property and burglary convictions in Washington County.

Texas woman freed from life sentence by President Obama is back in prison.  A Texas woman who was freed from a life sentence last year after President Obama granted her clemency is behind bars again.  According to the Houston Chronicle, Carol Denise Richardson, 49, was arrested for theft in Pasadena, a Houston suburb, and violated other conditions imposed when she was released from prison.  "This defendant was literally given a second chance to become a productive member of society and has wasted it," Assistant U.S. Attorney Ted Imperato said in a statement released by his office.

The Editor says...
Like it or not, there are people who should stay in prison forever because they think like criminals, act like criminals, and will always be criminals.

Alabama man jailed for a decade without trial awaits decision from judge.  An Alabama man who has been jailed on a murder charge for the last 10 years without a trial could soon learn his fate.  Houston County Circuit Judge Kevin Moulton heard arguments in a case involving Kharon Davis on Tuesday [6/6/2017] in Dothan.  Davis was arrested and charged for the murder of Pete Reaves in June 2007 at an apartment in Dothan, the Dothan Eagle reported.  Davis' attorney Thomas Goggans argued his case should be dismissed because he was previously represented by a lawyer with a possible conflict of interest in the case.  His previous attorney, Ben Meredith, had a son who was going to testify as a witness for the prosecution.

Immigrant Deaths in Private Prisons Explode Under Trump.  Men and women held by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement are on pace to die at double the rate of those who died in ICE custody last year, a Daily Beast review of ICE records found.  And most will die in privately run facilities.  Eight people have died in ICE custody in the 2017 fiscal year, which began on Oct. 1, 2016.  That's almost as many as the 10 who died in the entire 2016 fiscal year.  All but one of the deaths this year, and all but two last year, occurred in privately run prisons.  Nine of the 18 deaths occurred at facilities run by GEO Group, the nation's second-largest private prison company.

Heroin dealers deserve prison, not sympathy.  The deadly poison that is heroin made its way to your small town from Mexico, where it was grown and processed, later to be trafficked to your neighborhood where its target customers were someone's children, parents, brothers and sisters.  But right now, when you open the newspaper or turn on the television, you learn that the person that brought the drugs into your neighborhood, which ultimately made their way to your child, is considered by many in both the media and the public to be a "non-violent, low-level drug offender."

DC sniper Lee Boyd Malvo's life sentence thrown out.  A federal district court judge has overturned the sentence of Lee Boyd Malvo, one of the two people convicted in D.C.-area Beltway sniper attacks nearly 15 years ago, according to a ruling released Friday [5/26/2017].  Malvo was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the sniper-style attacks committed around the region in October 2002 along with John Allen Muhammad.  Ten people were killed and three others were shot during a three-week period.

The Democrats' Second Secession & America's New Civil War.  [Scroll down]  Similarly, the animus behind Democratic assaults on Republicans and their support for law and order as "racist" is the direct consequence of viewing all social disparities through the distorted lens of oppression politics.  Thus, the "over-representation" of African-Americans in the prison system is not because of systemic racism.  Police forces have been integrated for decades, along with the entire criminal justice system.  African-Americans are "overrepresented" in the prison population because they are "over-represented" in the commission of actual crimes.  Democrats' embrace of the Black Lives Matter movement and its efforts to cast career criminals as civil rights victims and law enforcement officials as villains is an inevitable consequence of ignoring the specific circumstances of the incidents under review, and forcing them into the melodramatic framework of "racism" and "oppression."

Longer prison sentences: Good for the crime rate, bad for the criminal.  Getting tough on serious crime was a central focus of the Trump campaign, and so far Jeff Sessions, the new Attorney General, has not disappointed.  His latest action, a memorandum to all federal prosecutors amending the Obama policy of going easy on serious offenders, orders federal prosecutors to charge criminals with the most serious offense that is readily provable — that is, charge with the crime that carries the most severe sentence — including a mandatory minimum sentence. [...] By directing federal prosecutors to "charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense" in felony cases, as Attorney General Jeff Sessions did last week, he is fulfilling the government's primary responsibility:  protect American citizens from harm, and provide them with a safe environment.

Murder Isn't a Nationwide Problem.  The vast majority of murders in the United States occur in just a tiny percentage of counties.  In fact, the country can be divided up into three types of places:  those where there are no murders; those where there are a few murders; and those where murders are very common.  In 2014, the most recent year that a county level breakdown is available, 54 percent of counties (with 11 percent of the population) had no murders.  69 percent of counties had no more than one murder, and about 20 percent of the population and only 4 percent of all murders in the country.  The worst 1 percent of counties have 19 percent of the population and 37 percent of the murders in 2014.  The worst 2 percent of counties contain 47 percent of the population and accounted for 51 percent of the murders.  68 percent of the murders occurred in only 5 percent of counties.

Police arrests are plummeting across California, fueling alarm and questions.  In 2013, something changed on the streets of Los Angeles.  Police officers began making fewer arrests.  The following year, the Los Angeles Police Department's arrest numbers dipped even lower and continued to fall, dropping by 25% from 2013 to 2015.  The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and the San Diego Police Department also saw significant drops in arrests during that period.

California has fewer arrests, but not necessarily less crime.  The number of arrests by police in California has plunged in recent years, but that doesn't necessarily represent good news on crime, according to an analysis published Saturday [4/1/2017].

They're Not Federal Prisons, They're Factories With Fences.  It is immoral, not to mention economically self-defeating, to permit into U.S. markets goods made by prison labor overseas.  So why isn't it just as immoral and just as self-defeating to flood the marketplace with products made by prison labor here in America?

1st sex reassignment inmate says women's prison is 'torture'.  The first U.S. inmate to have taxpayer-funded sex reassignment surgery says she's been mistreated since being transferred to a California women's prison, where she now has a beard and mustache because officials have denied her a razor.

The judges & others who left alleged EMT killer walking free.  Just what does it take to get a ticking-time-bomb thug off the streets?  That searing question is prompted by news that the man charged with the murder of an EMT last week had no business walking free — yet officials failed to rein him in.  At just 25, José Gonzalez already had 31 arrests, including violent incidents, before his fatal run-in with EMT Yadira Arroyo.  Reports also say he was a Bloods gang member.  Yet a Mayor de Blasio-tapped rookie judge, David Kirschner, still gave him a free pass — just three weeks before the fatal encounter.

Why wasn't this man permanently locked up?
Bronx EMT Yadira Arroyo's killer is a Bloods gang member with 31 prior arrests.  The man arrested for running over FDNY emergency medical technician Yadira Arroyo and killing her after stealing her ambulance in the Bronx has a long arrest record and a history of mental illness, sources said.  Jose Gonzalez, 25, who goes by the nickname "Breezy Blood" and is a Bloods gang member, has 31 past arrests — plus six other contacts with cops related to mental illness or injury, according to police sources.  He lives in Fordham Heights in the Bronx.

Beloved mother-of-three beaten to death with a wine bottle by a parolee robber at the liquor store she owned.  A mother-of-three liquor store owner was bludgeoned to death with a wine bottle at her store on Thursday [3/2/2017], during a robbery carried out by a parolee.  Police were called to Char's South Ave Wine and Liquor around 5pm and found owner Charlotte Lahr suffering from severe trauma to the upper body.  Police and firefighters tried to revive the mother-of-three at the scene but she died.  Parolee Kevin Quander, 59, was arrested the next day for her murder and for robbing the store.

The Illusion of Freedom:  The Police State Is Alive and Well.  [Scroll down]  In fact, the American police state has continued to advance at the same costly, intrusive, privacy-sapping, Constitution-defying, relentless pace under President Trump as it did under President Obama. [...] For-profit private prisons haven't stopped locking up Americans and immigrants alike at taxpayer expense.  States continue to outsource prison management to private corporations out to make a profit at taxpayer expense.  And how do you make a profit in the prison industry?  Have the legislatures pass laws that impose harsh penalties for the slightest noncompliance in order keep the prison cells full and corporate investors happy.

The revolving door at the prison is a problem for all of us.
Gang member accused of killing Whittier cop had cycled in and out of jail, records show.  The gang member accused of killing a Whittier police officer Monday [2/20/2017] has cycled in and out of jail for repeatedly violating the terms of his release, records show.  L.A. County sheriff's homicide Capt. Steve Katz on Tuesday identified the suspect as Michael C. Mejia, 26, a career criminal with a history of drugs and violence.  Mejia has a "history of control problems," Katz said.  Mejia is suspected of killing Whittier Police Officer Keith Boyer and wounding another officer in a shootout following a crash involving a stolen vehicle.

Face-tattooed gangster shot LA cop dead in murderous rampage after he was released from prison early.  The first picture has emerged of the face tattooed gangster who killed a Los Angeles cop and wounded his colleague when they found him in a crashed, stolen car after allegedly murdering his cousin.  Michael Mejia, 26, shot dead veteran police officer Keith Boyer, 54, on Monday morning when he approached him at the scene of a crash in Whittier, around 23 miles south east of central Los Angeles.

Here's A Rundown of All the Looting and Robbery Incidents That Occurred During the Oroville Evacuation.  There's a lot to worry about when a disaster strikes your community.  You have to make sure that your friends and neighbors are going to be okay.  You have to make sure that you have plenty of food, water, and medical supplies.  You may even have to prepare to evacuate your home and leave most of your valuables behind.  And while you're focused on making sure that you and your loved ones are prepared to ride out that disaster, you can rest assured that there will always be some predatory person in your community who is preparing to take advantage of your situation.  That's the ugly truth about disasters, natural and man-made, that everyone needs to understand.  When everyone else is panicking or gathering supplies or hunkering down or running away, there's always someone watching the chaos and thinking "there's an opportunity for me here."

Michigan prisoners face harsh penalties for throwing bodily fluids at guards.  Inmates at Michigan jails will soon be seeing a new sign around their facilities warning them that throwing bodily fluids at working guards is a felony punishable by an additional five years behind bars.  The Officer Dignity Initiative will take effect this month and will add five years to the sentence of any inmate that throws food, urine, blood, feces, spit or other bodily fluids at a guard.

Just like Stalag 13:
Inmates have been sneaking in and out of Atlanta prison for years.  Inmates trying to break out of prison is nothing new.  But inmates breaking out, then breaking right back in?  It's apparently been happening for years at a federal facility in Atlanta.  Back in January 2013, the Atlanta Police Department started investigating inmates "temporarily escaping" from the medium-security US Penitentiary in the city, according to court documents filed in what appears to be the latest unapproved furlough.  Cops believe the inmates escaped through holes cut in the prison fence.  Officers first noticed a car parked near the prison fence line.  The people inside wore ski masks and jumpsuits.  When cops approached, the suspects climbed the fence and ran back onto prison grounds, court records show.

Muggers share their secrets on who they target and why.  Muggers often don't care how old their victims are or if they're robbing a man or a woman.  They're also not concerned about being seen on surveillance cameras.  Those revelations are some of the results of a survey of convicted robbers conducted by NBCNewYork.com.

Man freed early from life sentence by Obama back in jail.  A San Antonio man who was freed from life in prison by President Barack Obama is back behind bars after allegedly crashing his vehicle into another motorist and undercover police cars while fleeing from a drug deal Thursday [2/2/2017].

Man freed early from life sentence by Obama back in jail.  A San Antonio man who was freed from life in prison by President Barack Obama is back behind bars after allegedly crashing his vehicle into another motorist and undercover police cars while fleeing from a drug deal Thursday [2/2/2017].  Robert M. Gill, 68, whose life sentence for cocaine and heroin distribution conspiracy was commuted by Obama and expired in 2015, was profiled last year in the Express-News about his readjustment to life on the outside.

How Donald Trump and Friends Can Crush the Great Crime Wave.  [Scroll down]  Under Chief Justice Earl Warren, the magnification of technicalities went into overdrive.  With Mapp v.  Ohio (1961), the Warren Court extended the exclusionary rule to state prosecutions, and with Miranda v.  Arizona (1966), it added to the right of a suspect to remain silent a right not to be questioned and a right to receive helpful legal advice from detectives whose true job is to solve crimes.  Decided on a 5-4 vote and perhaps the most controversial ruling of Warren's tenure, Miranda provoked three bitter dissents, which make interesting reading for anyone of Roosevelt's or Cardozo's bent of mind.  And then there is the interdiction of the death penalty, a series of rulings starting with Trop v.  Dulles (1954) that traduced the original meaning of the Eighth Amendment and, through its multifarious restrictions and requirements, has made the condign punishment of capital crimes virtually impossible.

Convicted killer first U.S. inmate to get state-funded sex-reassignment surgery.  A 57-year-old convicted killer serving a life sentence in California became the first U.S. inmate to receive state-funded sex-reassignment surgery, the prisoner's attorneys confirmed Friday [1/6/2017].

Willie Horton:  A Fake News Story That Refuses to Die.  To merit his life in prison, Horton robbed a 17-year-old gas station attendant, fatally stabbed him 19 times, and dumped him in a trash can to die.  Twelve years later, despite a life term without parole, Horton received a weekend furlough, during which he knifed, blinded, and gagged a man in Maryland, raped his fiancée, and stole their car.  Dukakis supported the furlough program even after this incident.  So perversely liberal was the idea that Al Gore cited the Horton incident in his primary campaign against Dukakis.  The Bush campaign did not show or name Willie Horton in the ad it produced on this subject.  The ad showed prisoners passing through a revolving door while telling how liberal Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis had supported this program.

Land of the Free, Home of the 33,000 Violent Street Gangs.  The FBI says that altogether, the United States is now home to about 33,000 violent street gangs, with a presence in all 50 states.  There are an estimated 1,350 gangs in Los Angeles alone. [...] There are a total of 1.4 million criminally active gang members across the country.  That means for every two sworn law enforcement officers in America, there are three gang members.  The number of violent gang members today is 40 percent higher than in 2009, and 25 times higher than in 1975.  And the figure keeps growing each year.

1 in 5 D.C. Killers Were Set Free by "Sentencing Reform".  Sentencing reform, a euphemism that the pro-crime lobby uses to mean going soft on criminals, is championed by the left and by some elements on the right.  [A recent] Washington Post story shows the terrible effects of sentencing reform on the victims of criminals freed to rape and kill. [...] The mythical "kid just locked up for smoking pot once" touted by sentencing reform advocates is just that.  A myth.  The system is full of repeat offenders who take advantage of every loophole thanks to their lawyers and then continue committing more crimes, going in and out of the system.

Five terrifying truths about our criminal justice system.  [#1] The Constitution may not apply:  Ironically, once a person has been taken into the custody of the state, a whole swath of that Supreme Law of the Land may not apply.  There's no definite verdict yet on how much an inmate is allowed to express under the First Amendment, though it's pretty clear that censorship is permitted of both the materials he or she receives and reads and is allowed to send.  Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure don't apply in your cell or even in your home when on probation, where a search can be conducted by a probation officer without a warrant.  And multiple state prison systems themselves have been deemed in violation of Eighth Amendment guarantees against cruel and unusual punishment by virtue of their terrible medical offerings.  Package that up with explicit prisoner carve-outs in the Thirteenth Amendment for slavery and in the Fourteenth Amendment permitting their denial of the vote, and you've got a situation in a majority of the country where to be in prison is to effectively be in political exile.

The 7 Ugliest Propositions on the California Ballot.  [For example,] Prop. 57 — Jerry Brown's "Let's Put Violent Criminals Back On The Street" Act is a terrible measure.  Don't be fooled by the false and misleading ballot title and summary that leftist Attorney General Kamala Harris put on this one — it will reduce prison sentences for many, many violent criminals and put them back on the streets.  Worst of all — the sentencing "reforms" in it are retroactive — so victims of violent crimes trying to recapture some dignity and meaning in their lives will be re-victimized because of this cruel and dangerous ballot measure.

The Clinton Record.  [Scroll down]  Consider some highly noteworthy facts:  In 1990, when there were about 1,149,000 prisoners in penitentiaries nationwide, there were 1,820,130 violent crimes committed that year, including 23,440 murders.  In 2014, when there were 2,208,000 inmates in penitentiaries nationwide, a total of 1,197,987 violent crimes were committed that year, including 14,249 murders.  So, even as the population of the United States grew by 28% between 1990 and 2014, the incidence of violent crimes declined by 46%, and the incidence of murders fell by 39%.  These numbers suggest that putting more criminals in prison has helped to spare at least a million people per year from being victimized by violent crimes, and to save at least 9,000 people per year from being murdered.  If we look at the numbers from this perspective, incarceration suddenly doesn't look like such a bad thing, does it?

Arrest Numbers Reflect Growing Pot Tolerance.  FBI statistics released last week show that the number of marijuana arrests in the United States, after rising slightly in 2014, fell by 8 percent last year, reaching the lowest level in two decades.  The total was nevertheless more than twice the number in 1991, before a nationwide cannabis crackdown that peaked in 2007.  The number of marijuana arrests has fallen more or less steadily since then, reflecting a growing consensus that cannabis consumers should not be treated as criminals.

The Editor says...
The article immediately above is slightly misleading, in my opinion.  The number of arrests is down, but that's because in Texas, possession of small amounts of marijuana is a misdemeanor that is handled like jaywalking:  A citation is issued and eventually the defendant pays a fine.  And in other states, like Alaska, Oregon and Washington (for example), mere possession is no longer illegal.  The statistics have nothing to do with tolerance.

Heather Mac Donald Fact-Checks Hillary Clinton on Systemic Bias and Stop-and-Frisk.  Outside of academia, the legal profession is second to none in its leftward bent and racialist worldview; and its conservative members believe in equal protection under the law.  Participants in the system, particularly the judiciary, would not tolerate a situation in which black defendants were, as Clinton alleges, being given more severe sentences than white defendants for the same criminal conduct.  Federal sentences (and sentences in most states) are computed under race-neutral guidelines that factor in both offense conduct and criminal history.  The more crimes one commits, the heavier the sentence for any one crime.  This is a recidivism thing, not a race thing.

Obama Admin Slows Immigration Prosecutions, Increases Weapons Charges.  The number of new federal criminal prosecutions have hit their lowest level in nearly a decade, helped by declines in white collar and immigration prosecutions.  That's according to Justice Department data recently analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.  As TRAC details, the 9,118 federal criminal prosecutions the government undertook in July are the fewest since July 2007.  The July 2016 tally represented a 15.5 percent decline from June and continued this fiscal year's ongoing downward trend.

Presidential Pardons, Not Just for Low-Level Offenders Anymore.  On Tuesday [8/30/2016], the Obama administration granted presidential commutations to 111 federal inmates — including Oakland's Darryl Lamar Reed, a.k.a.  "Lil D."  So Reed stands out as the rare Californian to win a commutation, as well as an exception to the criteria for Obama's 2014 Clemency Initiative.  Then-Deputy U.S. Attorney General James M. Cole explained that inmates applying for a sentence reduction should be "nonviolent, low-level offenders without significant ties to large-scale criminal organizations, gangs or cartels."  Former Alameda County prosecutor Russ Giuntini was appalled to see Reed's name on a commutation list.  "This is not a guy that got caught up in the draconian federal sentencing guidelines," Giuntini wrote in an email.  Lil D is the kind of guy "the guidelines were made for.  He headed the largest dope organization in Oakland," which was responsible for a lot of carnage, was caught "red handed" processing some 20 kilograms of cocaine into crack — and thus landed in the federal pen.

One California city is paying people not to commit crimes.  A San Francisco suburb is testing a controversial strategy to combat the gun violence that's plagued the community — paying people not to commit crimes.  The experiment known as "Advance Peace" is being conducted in Richmond, Calif., and works like this:  The 18-month fellowship hires convicted felons to "court" troubled youth — who so far have avoided arrest due to lack of evidence — with offers of cash and out-of-town vacations if they mend their ways.  If, after six months, a "fellow" in the voluntary program begins to achieve specific goals, they can earn up to $1,000 a month.

Ramen noodles replacing cigarettes as US prison currency, study finds.  The level of care inside America's prisons, and particularly the quality of the food, has fallen so far prisoners are using ramen noodles as their preferred form of money for buying and selling goods and other favours, a new study has found.  The emergence of ramen noodles as a sort of cell-block currency in place of cigarettes is evidence of what Michael Gibson-Light, a doctoral candidate at the University of Arizona, calls the new "punitive frugality" that has taken hold in a prison system that is intent on cutting costs.

The Editor says...
Here is some free advice:  Prison is bad.  Perhaps you should do whatever is necessary to avoid incarceration.

Justice Department Says Poor Can't Be Held When They Can't Afford Bail.  Holding defendants in jail because they can't afford to make bail is unconstitutional, the Justice Department said in a court filing late Thursday — the first time the government has taken such a position before a federal appeals court.  It's the latest step by the Obama administration in encouraging state courts to move away from imposing fixed cash bail amounts and jailing those who can't pay.

US announces end of private prison use.  The US Justice Department has announced its intention to stop using private prisons, after a recent audit concluded that private facilities are both less safe and less effective than government ones.  US Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates circulated a memo instructing officials to either stop renewing contracts for private prison operators, or to "substantially reduce" the contracts' scope.  The goal, Yates wrote, is "reducing — and ultimately ending — our use of privately operated prisons."  "They simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs, and resources; they do not save substantially on costs; and as noted in a recent report by the Department's Office of Inspector General, they do not maintain the same level of safety and security," Yates added.

Obama administration to end use of private prisons.  The Justice Department says it's phasing out its relationships with private prisons after a recent audit found the private facilities have more safety and security problems than ones run by the government.

More than 100,000 defective combat helmets made by federal inmates put soldiers' lives at risk — and cost the government $19 Million.  Defective combat helmets made by federal inmates in Texas put soldiers' lives at risk.  The poorly-manufactured helmets were produced for the US military using prison labor and later failed ballistics tests, the Justice Department's Inspector General said Wednesday [8/17/2016] in a report.  Nearly 150,000 of the helmets were manufactured between 2006 and 2009, when the White House ordered 'surges' in combat troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Poorly supervised inmates also used dangerous, improvised tools such as makeshift hatchets, which could easily have become weapons.

Women in jails are the fastest growing incarcerated population, study says.  The majority of those women entering jail are black and Hispanic, mirroring demographic trends that cross gender lines.  Women, however, tend to enter jails in more vulnerable situations than men, as a higher percentage of women in jail were using drugs, unemployed or receiving public assistance at the time they were arrested.

The Editor says...
If the intent of this article was to make me feel sorry for the women in prison, it didn't work.

'Irish travelers' federally indicted in sweeping fraud probe.  Twenty-two Augusta area residents, many known as "Irish travelers," were named Tuesday in a 45-count federal indictment on charges of racketeering and other criminal activity related to the group's alleged scams.  According to allegations in the indictment, the defendants operated out of Murphy Village, near North Augusta in Aiken County, and committed a number of fraudulent schemes to obtain life insurance benefits, food stamps, Medicaid funds and fraud involving vehicle financing.  The travelers, which founded Murphy Village, self-identify as roving laborers and salesmen who offer an array of door-to-door services, according to the indictment.

These Gun Owners Are Least Likely Criminals, Report Finds.  Concealed-carry permit holders are nearly the most law-abiding demographic of Americans, a new report by the Crime Prevention Research Center says — comparing the permit holders foremost with police.  "Indeed, it is impossible to think of any other group in the U.S. that is anywhere near as law-abiding," says the report, titled "Concealed Carry Permit Holders Across the United States 2016."  From 2007 through 2015, permits issued by state and local governments increased by 215 percent, to more than 14 million Americans, according to the data.

Crack Dealer Freed Early Under Obama Plan Murders Woman, 2 Kids.  This week a grand jury in Franklin County returned a 10-count, death-penalty indictment against the ex-con, 35-year-old Wendell Callahan, for the triple murders.  Callahan broke into his ex-girlfriend's apartment and stabbed the three victims, according to a statement issued by Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien announcing the indictment.  The bloody crime scene was discovered by the woman's current boyfriend, who subsequently engaged in a fight with Callahan before he fled. [...] Callahan should have been in jail when the crimes occurred, but he was released four years early because federal sentencing guidelines for crack dealers got reduced.  The change is part of President Obama's effort to reform the nation's justice system as a way of ending racial discrimination.

For some people, being in prison isn't that bad.
FBI: Woman robbed Wyoming bank to return to prison.  A woman who was recently released from prison in Oregon robbed a bank in Wyoming only to throw the cash up in the air outside the building and sit down to wait for police, authorities said Friday [7/29/2016].

Unfair to the jury:
Judge rules Neo Nazi can cover up his white supremacist face tattoos to hide them from the jury in his armed robbery trial.  A white supremacist is being allowed to cover up his Neo Nazi face tattoos as he goes on trial for armed robbery.  Bayzle Morgan is accused of stealing a man's motorcycle at gunpoint in Las Vegas, Nevada, in May 2013.  But prosecutors are concerned that jurors will not give the 24-year-old a fair hearing when they see his numerous Nazi-themed face tattoos, Review Journal reports.

The Editor says...
Apparently the definition of "a fair hearing" is a hearing most likely to result in a positive outcome for the defendant.

Inside the Deadly World of Private Prisoner Transport.  Every year, tens of thousands of fugitives and suspects — many of whom have not been convicted of a crime — are entrusted to a handful of small private companies that specialize in state and local extraditions.  A Marshall Project review of thousands of court documents, federal records and local news articles and interviews with more than 50 current or former guards and executives reveals a pattern of prisoner abuse and neglect in an industry that operates with almost no oversight.  Since 2012, at least four people, including [Steven] Galack, have died on private extradition vans, all of them run by the Tennessee-based Prisoner Transportation Services.  In one case, a Mississippi man complained of pain for a day and a half before dying from an ulcer.  In another, a Kentucky woman suffered a fatal withdrawal from anti-anxiety medication.  And in another, guards mocked a prisoner's pain before he, too, died from a perforated ulcer.

Violent Felons Are Trying to Get Their Gun Rights Back in Virginia.  As congressional Democrats spent the week pressing for the passage of new gun control legislation, violent felons in Virginia were able to take steps towards having their right to own a firearm restored thanks to action taken by the state's Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe.  When McAuliffe restored the voting rights for 206,000 felons in a move critics say was politically motivated, he also opened the door for those felons to have their right to own a firearm restored.  Previously, felons would individually have to petition the executive branch to have their civil rights restored.  Petitioners would have to fill out an application to the secretary of the commonwealth and submit a letter to the governor explaining why they deserve to have their rights restored.

The Editor says...
I can see where a state might restore a convicted felon's rights after a period of 15 or 20 years of good behavior, post-incarceration, but to forgive and forget as soon as his prison sentence is completed is reckless and highly premature.  The lasting stigma of a felony conviction is supposed to be part of its value as a deterrent.

U.S. Spends More on Medical Care for Inmates than Seniors, Veterans, Military Personnel.  President Obama has repeatedly demonstrated that there's an extra special place in his heart for incarcerated criminals, but this is a bit much.  The administration spends a lot more money on the medical care of jailed convicts than retired seniors on Medicare, active U.S. military personnel or veterans, including an extra $100 million in one year alone, according to a federal audit released this month.  The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) consistently pays outside doctors and hospitals more to treat inmates than Medicare or other federal agencies would pay for the same services, according to the report which is the result of a Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General investigation.

'Ferguson Effect' is a plausible reason for spike in violent US crime, study says.  A new justice department-funded study concludes that a version of the so-called "Ferguson Effect" is a "plausible" explanation for the spike in violent crime seen in most of the country's largest cities in 2015, but cautions that more research is still needed.  The study, released by the National Institute of Justice on Wednesday, suggests three possible drivers for the more than 16% spike in homicide from 2014 to 2015 in 56 of the nation's largest cities.  But based on the timing of the increase, University of Missouri St Louis criminologist Richard Rosenfeld concluded, there is "stronger support" for some version of the Ferguson Effect hypothesis than its alternatives.

Man vows to continue to stalk TV reporter when sentence expires.  A man who was being sentenced for stalking a Philadelphia news reporter vowed Wednesday [5/25/2016] to continue to stalk the woman once his 15-year term ends.  Christopher Nilan, 32, made the promise after he received his sentence for stalking a female KYW-TV reporter, The Delaware County Daily Times reported.

The Editor says...
This is the sort of person who should be locked up indefinitely.  He has made his criminal intents known, and the state can either keep him in custody or try to follow him around wherever he goes.

Gunman Who Killed Auburn Officer Had Attacked Police Before.  State officials said 35-year-old Jorge Zambrano had been released from the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, a maximum-security prison, on Nov. 1, 2013, after serving time on a list of charges, including cocaine trafficking, two counts of assault and battery on a police officer, two counts of resisting arrest, and selling, using or possessing a firearm silencer. [...] "When you have an Incorrigible criminal, someone who just doesn't cooperate whether they're in jail or out of jail, the criminal justice system doesn't know what to do with them to be honest with you," [Former Boston Police Commissioner Ed] Davis said.

Fundamentally Transformed: City after City Seeing Rising Crime Rates.  [T]his phenomenon is simply the most important development in police work since the advent of data-driven police work some 25 years ago.  In 1990 there were 2,245 murders in New York City; in 2014 there were 328.  In Los Angeles, there were 1,092 murders in 1992; in 2014 there were 260.  More than any other factor, it was data-driven police work, carried out by well-trained, well-informed, and well-motivated cops that brought these grim numbers to their currently more tolerable levels.  But now it's all being undone, and in city after city the trend is once again pointing toward higher crime.  America's police officers are today just as well trained and informed, but they are less motivated to do the proactive police work that keeps criminals in check.

Obama To Decriminalize Criminals.  [Scroll down]  Rather than blame the system they set up or the criminals themselves, Obama blames the criminal justice system.  In a speech last July at the NAACP convention our president, the "social justice warrior," said that our criminal justice system was neither smart enough nor fair enough.  "It's not keeping us as safe as it should be.  It is not as fair as it should be.  Mass incarceration makes our country worse off, and we need to do something about it," Obama declared.  Really?  How "smart" does it need to be.  The legislature passes laws, the president signs them at the justice system does what it is told to do — dispense justice.  It's neither fair nor unfair.  It's impartial, or supposed to be.  You break the law — you go to jail.

The 10 Most Dangerous Lies About Criminal Justice "Reform".  Myth #5:  We have a big government culture of over-criminalization that threatens liberty.  Fact:  Absolutely.  There are plenty of frivolous regulatory crimes on the books.  And none of that is addressed in this legislation or in any of the ongoing "bipartisan" negotiations.  This is all about promoting the ACLU's agenda for hardened criminals.  As it relates to our culture of violent crime, witnessed by the recent spike in crime across the nation, we do not do enough to combat it.  Ordered liberty is built upon government doing a few things well, one of which is law enforcement.  Returning to pre-Reagan crime levels where people are restricted in their movements and activities due to the paralysis we are now seeing in places like Baltimore, represents the highest level of tyranny.  Crime, lawlessness, and fiscal dependency policies undermine liberty in the inner cities, not sentencing and incarceration.

Obama doesn't think rapists, armed robbers, drug dealers are 'criminals'.  It's only May, but I think I've found the euphemism of the year:  According to Team Obama, criminals should now be declared "justice-involved individuals."  The neo-Orwellianism comes to us from the bizarre flurry of last-minute diktats, regulations and bone-chilling threats collectively known to fanboys as Obama's Gorgeous Goodbye.  In another of those smiley-faced, but deeply sinister, "Dear Colleague" letters sent to universities and college this week, Obama's Education Secretary John King discouraged colleges from asking applicants whether they were convicted criminals.

Obama: Our criminal justice system imprisons too many criminals.  [President Obama's weekly remarks]  Today, there are some 2.2 million people behind bars in America.  Millions more are on parole or probation.  All told, we spend $80 billion taxpayer dollars each year to keep people locked up.  Many are serving unnecessarily long sentences for non-violent crimes.  Almost 60 percent have mental health problems.  Almost 70 percent were regular drug users.  And as a whole, our prison population is disproportionately black and Latino.

The Editor says...
By and large, the people in prison are there for good reasons.  It may be true that a wholesale marijuana distributor or a serial burglar may be "non-violent" criminals, but there are minimum-security facilities and halfway houses for people like that.  Talk to someone who works as a prison guard, and you will quickly learn that there are thousands of people in this country who are behind bars because they need to be.

What's Next?  Voting Absentee from Prison?  [Scroll down]  Supporters of the plan like to talk about how these individuals have "paid their debt to society," only in this instance these 44,000 are still making payments in the form of probation or parole.  This is like allowing a layaway customer to take possession of the Xbox before he's made the last payment.  Come to think of it, some of these future Democrat votes may be on probation or parole because they took the Xbox without making any payments.  [Governor Larry] Hogan originally vetoed the bill because he harbors quaint notions about the need for consequences to follow when someone breaks the law.  He felt that no one put a gun to the criminal's head and made them take up a life of crime.  On the contrary the people with the guns to their heads were the law-abiding.  Forfeiting the right to vote until they paid their entire debt to society was only right and proper.

Prosecutors have too much power.  Juries should rein them in.  If there's strong evidence that you've committed a crime, there's still hope.  Despite the evidence, those responsible for convicting you may choose to let you go, if they think that sending you to jail would result in an injustice.  That can happen through what's called "prosecutorial discretion," where a prosecutor decides not to bring or pursue charges against you because doing so would be unfair, even though the evidence is strong.  Or it can happen through "jury nullification," where a jury thinks that the evidence supports conviction but then decides to issue a "not guilty" verdict because it feels that a conviction would be unjust.  Strangely, the former is much less controversial than the latter.

Jurors need to take the law into their own hands.  Nationally, most of the people locked up for drug crimes are African American, in spite of studies that demonstrate blacks don't use or sell drugs more than any other group.  We make up 13 percent of the country's population but nearly 60 percent of the people doing time for drug offenses.  And an endless series of videos have shown how black people get policed:  the mailman arrested in Brooklyn for yelling at the cops who almost ran him down; the teenage girl tackled by the cop at a pool party in McKinney, Tex.; Eric Garner, arrested for selling a cigarette in Staten Island and then put in a chokehold that killed him.  Like a lot of African Americans, I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.  I encourage any juror who thinks the police or prosecutors have crossed the line in a particular case to refuse to convict.

The Editor says...
The Editor does not necessarily agree with all of the opinions expressed in the article immediately above.  Some of them, perhaps, but not all of them.

Potential Supreme Court Candidate Defended Pipe Bomber, Child Murderer.  Judge Jane Kelly, who was appointed to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2013, is reportedly on President Obama's short list for the Supreme Court vacancy left by Justice Antonin Scalia.  Before becoming a judge, Kelly worked for years as a public defender in Iowa.  In 2005, Kelly was the appointed attorney for a 26-year-old man named Casey Frederiksen, who was charged with possession of child pornography.  Although Frederiksen had previously been convicted of sexual assault involving a minor, Kelly urged the judge to grant him leniency, arguing that he was not a danger to others and should be released and allowed to live with his father.  Frederiksen was sentenced to 14 years in prison in the case.  A decade later, Frederiksen was convicted of murder and sexual assault in the 2005 cold case killing of 5-year-old Evelyn Celeste Miller.

Obama's prisoner clemency plan faltering as cases pile up.  In April 2014, the administration of President Barack Obama announced the most ambitious clemency program in 40 years, inviting thousands of jailed drug offenders and other convicts to seek early release and urging lawyers across the country to take on their cases.  Nearly two years later the program is struggling under a deluge of unprocessed cases, sparking concern within the administration and among justice reform advocates over the fate of what was meant to be legacy-defining achievement for Obama.

Police: Man charged in North Bergen crash that killed 2 teens driving at 'outrageous' speed.  Shock and sorrow overflowed among relatives and friends who gathered in mourning on Monday [3/7/2016] at the site where two teenagers were killed by a speeding car in North Bergen over the weekend, as more details emerged about the motorist who is charged in their deaths.  Eric Patterson, 23, of Jersey City had tallied a long list of motor vehicle violations and had racked up 23 license suspensions.  He had last driven legally in September 2014.  Law enforcement officials on Monday [3/7/2016] said he may have been traveling at 74 mph on the 25-mph roadway just before the deadly crash occurred.

The Editor says...
This young man is 23 years old, and has had his license suspended 23 times, prior to September 2014, which was 18 months ago.  If he started driving when he was 16, that means he got his license suspended 23 times in 5½ to 6 years, or about every 90 days.  It would be interesting to read the court transcript from the day his license was suspended for the 21st time.  Surely something was said along the lines of, "We'll give you just one more chance, and then you're really in trouble!"  But no, for whatever reason, the State of New Jersey is determined to keep a license in this guy's pocket — even though he would probably drive around without one.  To me it appears that the judges in New Jersey don't care what you do, or how many times you fail to learn your lesson, as long as you hire a lawyer and pay the fine promptly.  Even for the 22nd time.  It's no wonder there's so much crime in this country.  Punishment is hit-and-miss, at best.

A Million People Were In Prison Before We Called It Mass Incarceration.  October's cover of The Atlantic carries a headline that, even a decade ago, you probably never would've seen:  "The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration."  The 20,000-word article attached to it, by Ta-Nehisi Coates, covers the remarkable growth in the United States' prison population and its outsize impact on black individuals, families and communities.  That Coates's piece employs the phrase "mass incarceration" 17 times is telling.  The term has become ubiquitous in conversations about prison in the United States.  But 10 years ago, barely anybody put the two words next to each other to talk about what the phrase has come to represent for many:  everything that's wrong with the American justice system.

Crack Dealer Freed Early Under Obama Plan Murders Woman, 2 Kids.  A convicted crack dealer who left prison early as part of the Obama administration's mass release of federal inmates has been indicted by a grand jury for fatally stabbing his ex-girlfriend and her two kids in Columbus, Ohio.  The gory crime drew national attention because the children, ages 7 and 10, were murdered to eliminate them as witnesses in the brutal massacre of their 32-year-old mother.  This week a grand jury in Franklin County returned a 10-count, death-penalty indictment against the ex-con, 35-year-old Wendell Callahan, for the triple murders.

Minor offenses in Manhattan will no longer result in arrests.  Under the terms of a new initiative that takes effect March 7, low-level criminal offenses such as public consumption of alcohol and taking up two seats on the subway for offenders won't result in arrests or prosecutions — just summonses.  "The Manhattan District Attorney's Office will no longer prosecute most violations or infractions, and the NYPD will no longer arrest individuals who commit these offenses — such as littering, public consumption of alcohol, or taking up two seats on the subway — unless there is a demonstrated public safety reason to do so," the agencies said in a joint release with City Hall.

The New California Crime Wave.  Something amazing has happened in California.  First, a brief background:  Crime rates across the state, after a long period of steady decline, had reached fifty-year lows in 2014.  Then, that November, a 60 percent majority of California voters — presumably incapable of accepting such good news without a measure of collective guilt — decided that it would be a really enlightened idea to pass Proposition 47, a ballot initiative bearing the cheery name "The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act."  The purpose of this measure was to downgrade many types of drug possession and property crimes from felonies (punishable by more than a year in prison) to misdemeanors (which often entail no prison time at all).  For the benefit of squeamish skeptics, the self-assured proponents of Prop 47 condescended to explain that these reduced penalties would not only alleviate prison overcrowding, but would also make California's streets safer by placing drug offenders into warm-and-fuzzy treatment and counseling programs, rather than into disagreeable prison cells.  If you think this sounds like a familiar old tune, you're quite correct.  It was #1 on the left-wing hit parade throughout the 1960s, when it became the theme song of skyrocketing crime rates across the United States.  And now the Golden Oldie is back, in the Golden State.  The tangible results of Prop 47 were both immediate and breathtaking.  Within a year, there were some 14,000 fewer inmates in California's state prisons and local jails, just as the Proposition's backers had promised.  But the other half of their promise — improved public safety — somehow failed to materialize.

California's "unprecedented mass forgiveness" of convicts raises more than a few questions.  In case you hadn't heard, California's governor has been on something of a binge in terms of releasing convicts from prison and reforming the system to be more fair to everyone.  Prison reform and rehabilitation vs isolation is all the rage these days it seems.  The Washington Post ran a feature this week on how wonderfully this has been going and it certainly makes a grade A effort to paint a happy face on these proposals.

Reverse shakedown:
Washington D.C. council passes proposal to give residents up to $9,000 in cash not to commit crime.  They say crime doesn't pay, but that might not be entirely true in the U.S. capital as lawmakers look for ways to discourage people from becoming repeat offenders.  The D.C. Council voted unanimously Tuesday [2/2/2016] to approve a bill that includes a proposal to pay residents a stipend if they don't commit any crimes.  It's based on a program in Richmond, California, that advocates say has contributed to reductions in crime there.

Lunch Money Surrendered.  The Council of the District of Columbia approved legislation Tuesday [2/2/2016] that would pay residents in the nation's capital for not committing crimes. [...] The experiment in Richmond, on which the above is based, involved "sifting through police records to determine the 50 [or so] residents most likely to shoot someone."  And then "approaching them and [offering] a stipend [of up to $1000 a month] to turn their lives around, and a mentor to help."  After four years of being subsidised for not being caught committing any further violent crimes, 65 of the 68 "fellows" enrolled in the programme were "still alive," although "one had survived a shooting and three had died."  This was deemed "promising."

Escaped California inmate was ordered deported in 1998, but never left.  One of the three violent convicts who escaped from a Southern California jail Friday [1/22/2016] had been ordered deported to his native Vietnam in 1998, but was able to remain in the U.S. and rack up more criminal convictions.  Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Tuesday [1/26/2016] that Bac Duong, 43, came to the United States legally in 1991 but was ordered removed seven years later after he served time in state prison for a 1997 burglary conviction.  However, the Orange County Register reported that Vietnam routinely refused requests from the U.S. to accept Duong and other deportees.

Supreme Court justices extend bar on automatic life terms for teenagers.  The Supreme Court ruled Monday [1/25/2016] that people serving life terms for murders they committed as teenagers must have a chance to seek their freedom, a decision that could affect more than 1,000 inmates.

Judge ignored warnings, freed 'slasher'.  The career criminal charged with slashing a woman on her way to work in Chelsea was on the streets because a judge ignored warnings that he's a "high risk" defendant and sprung him without bail on an earlier assault, The [New York] Post has learned.  Kari Bazemore is also suspected in yet another attack on a Bronx woman after Manhattan Judge Laurie Peterson set him free on Dec. 31.

Murder suspect in Washington had been released from prison early, officials say.  Officials announced last week that as many as 3,200 prisoners had been mistakenly released since 2002 because of problems calculating sentences.  So far, more than two dozen offenders who need to serve additional time are back in custody, and the Department of Corrections is reviewing additional releases.

Study: Smaller Counties Driving US Jail Population Growth.  While big-city jails get most of the attention, lockups in small and medium-sized counties have actually driven the overall explosion in the U.S. inmate population, according to a new analysis of 45 years of jail statistics.

Burglary suspect hides in Florida lake, where gator eats him.  A suspected burglar jumped in a Florida lake apparently hiding from law enforcement before an 11-foot alligator killed him, investigators said Monday [12/7/2015].  His hand and foot reportedly turned up inside the animal's stomach.  Brevard County Sheriff's Maj. Tod Goodyear says 22-year-old Matthew Riggins told his girlfriend he would be in Barefoot Bay to commit burglaries with another suspect.

Cruz: Most violent criminals are Democrats.  Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said late Monday that most violent criminals also identify as Democrats.  "Here is the simple and undeniable fact — the overwhelming majority of violent criminals are Democrats," he said on "The Hugh Hewitt Show" that evening.  "There is a reason why for years the Democrats have been viewed as soft on crime," Cruz continued.  "They go in and appoint to the bench judges who release violent criminals.

Agency to Remove Art by Native American Activist Prisoner.  The paintings were done in prison by Leonard Peltier, 71, a Native American activist who is serving two consecutive life sentences in the deaths of two FBI agents during a 1975 standoff on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

In some countries, the justice system moves with lightning speed:
Kill on the spot': Poll shows most Israelis support immediate execution for Palestinian attackers.  Over 50 percent of Israelis think that Palestinians suspected of carrying out terror activities "should be killed on the spot," says a new think-tank poll.  The hardening stance comes as 6 more Israelis were injured and 2 attackers killed over the weekend.

Obama Wants You To Refer To Juvenile Delinquents As 'Justice-Involved Youth' Now.  It's time to update your politically-correct jargon, America, because the Obama administration is no longer referring to juvenile delinquents as "juvenile delinquents."  Instead, the new, preferred and totally different term for kids who commit crimes is "justice-involved youth."  Attorney General Loretta Lynch rolled out the term earlier this week in a press release obtained by the Media Research Center.  "The Department of Justice is committed to giving justice-involved youth the tools they need to become productive members of society," Lynch explained.

Juvenile Delinquents Are Now 'Justice-Involved Youth'.  They used to be called juvenile delinquents.  But not any more.  The new term is "justice-involved youth," a non-disparaging, government-speak phrase that fits with the Obama administration's recent push to give people with criminal convictions a second chance to become productive citizens.  "The Department of Justice is committed to giving justice-involved youth the tools they need to become productive members of society," Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in a news release on Monday [11/2/2015].  Lynch said the Justice Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development are launching a $1.7-million initiative to help Public Housing Authorities and legal assistance groups "reduce barriers for justice-involved youth."

Obama: Too many folks in our prisons.  [Quoting Barack H. Obama:]  ["]Today, there are 2.2 million people behind bars in America and millions more on parole or probation.  Every year, we spend $80 billion in taxpayer dollars to keep people incarcerated.  Many are non-violent offenders serving unnecessarily long sentences.["]

The Editor says...
Really, Mr. President?  Name one "non-violent offender" currently living in a state penitentiary.

Judge orders risk review of sex offenders in civil program.  Judge Donovan Frank laid out what he says must be done to fix problems with indefinite detentions that he ruled unconstitutional earlier this year.

States Struggle With What to Do With Sex Offenders After Prison.  Behind razor wire and locked metal doors, hundreds of men waited on a recent morning to be counted, part of the daily routine inside a remote facility here that was built based on a design for a prison.  But this is not a prison, and most of these men — rapists, child abusers and other sex offenders — have completed their sentences.  They are being held here indefinitely under a policy known as civil commitment, having been deemed "sexually dangerous" or "sexual psychopathic personalities" by courts.  The intent, the authorities say, is to provide treatment to the most dangerous sex offenders until it is safe for the public for them to go home.

Drone carrying drugs, hacksaw blades crashes at Oklahoma prison.  A drone carrying mobile phones, drugs, hacksaw blades and other material dangling in a bundle from a fishing line crashed at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester before inmates could grab the contraband, prison officials said on Tuesday [10/27/2015].

The Banana Republic of America.  The American justice system is not without its flaws as we've seen all too many times.  A grievous crime is committed and the perpetrator is never discovered.  Sometimes there is a suspect who seems to be the perfect candidate but a grand jury doesn't find sufficient evidence for the prosecutors to move forward.  And in other cases, even if you get them to trial a jury doesn't see things the same way as the public.  (O.J anyone?)  In very rare cases a pardon can be issued and the system seems to have been short sheeted.  (Democrats will always cite Nixon for that one.)  But all of these scenarios have one thing in common:  the rule of law was followed, the accused were given their fair shot at defending themselves and the republic managed to stumble along on its way.

The Myth of Criminal-Justice Racism.  As President Barack Obama said in July in Philadelphia:  "The real reason our prison population is so high" is that we have "locked up more and more nonviolent drug offenders than ever before, for longer than ever before."  In popular understanding, prisons and jails are filled with harmless pot smokers.  The most poisonous claim in the dominant narrative is that our criminal justice system is a product and a source of racial inequity.  The drug war in particular is said to be infected by racial bias.  "Mass incarceration" is allegedly destroying black communities by taking fathers away from their families and imposing crippling criminal records on released convicts.  Finally, prison is condemned as a huge waste of resources.  Nothing in this dominant narrative is true.  Prison remains a lifetime achievement award for persistence in criminal offending.  Drug enforcement is not the driving factor in the prison system, violent crime is.

Obama's Tragic Let 'em Out Fantasy.  It takes a lot more than marijuana or cocaine use to end up in federal prison.  But the truth didn't matter.  Mr. Obama's prison tour came amid the biggest delegitimation of law enforcement in recent memory.  Activists, politicians and the media have spent the past year broadcasting a daily message that the criminal-justice system is biased against blacks and insanely draconian.  The immediate trigger for this movement, known as Black Lives Matter, was a series of highly publicized deaths of black males at the hands of the police.  But the movement also builds on a long-standing discourse from the academic left about "mass incarceration," policing and race.

A Life Sentence for James Holmes, Aurora Theater Gunman Who Killed 12.  In a decision that surprised many in this community, a jury sentenced James E. Holmes on Friday [8/7/2015] to life in prison with no chance of parole, rejecting the death penalty for the man who carried out a 2012 shooting rampage that killed 12 people in a Colorado movie theater.

California man who held 26 kids, bus driver captive in underground trailer gets parole.  The governor of California on Thursday [7/30/2015] allowed parole for one of three men convicted in the 1976 kidnapping of 26 children and their school bus driver who were held captive in a buried trailer.

Youngest children ever tried for first-degree murder set to be released from prison.  Curtis Jones was 12 and Catherine Jones was 13 when the siblings killed their father's girlfriend, Nicole Speights, 16 years ago.  They eventually pleaded to second-degree murder and were given 18-year sentences.  Curtis and Catherine will be on probation for the rest of their lives.

The Editor says...
Unless the penitentiary system works a lot better than I believe it does, I predict they'll both be back in prison within a year.

Obama and Over-Criminalization.  Obama recently told Americans that we are locking up too many people.  He meant, by that, that Americans are sending to prison people who are guilty only of drug offenses and pose no threat to public safety.  There is a kernel of truth in what he says.  People who use drugs, like people who drink too much, are not a threat to us unless they are on the highway or are committing other crimes while under the influence.  There is a predictable flaw in this leftist logic.  Look closer at the criminal records of these "non-violent" offenders and, almost always, if they are in prison, they have a history of violent offenses, or there is a lesser included violent crime in the underlying sentence, or the offense has been plea-bargained so that the violent nature of the underlying criminal act is watered down.

Inmate was nearly cut in two, missing organs after California prison riot.  Homicides are distressingly common in California prisons.  More than 160 inmates have been killed in the last 15 years, and the state has one of the nation's highest inmate homicide rates.

12 prison staffers suspended after convicted killers escape.  State prison officials announced a major shake-up Tuesday [6/30/2015] at the maximum-security slammer where two convicted killers broke out and led authorities on a 23-day manhunt.  A "new leadership team" is being installed at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, with three top-ranking officials and nine security staffers suspended, according to a statement from the Department of Corrections and Community Service.

FBI investigating possible corruption at New York prison.  What started as an investigation into how two convicted murderers managed to break out of a maximum-security prison in upstate New York has now sparked an FBI investigation into possible broader corruption and drug trafficking at the facility.  Prison employees have told investigators about heroin use among inmates at the Clinton Correctional Facility, and the role of employees in the drug trade, law enforcement officials briefed on the probe told CNN on Monday [6/29/2015].

Cops livid over proposed 'police reform' measures.  Rank-and-file cops are fuming over several "police reform" measures [New York] City Council members plan to review this week, including bills that would force cops to get suspects' consent for searches, imprison police for using chokeholds, and require cops to give out the Civilian Complaint Review Board's phone number.  "These pieces of legislation have been proposed by individuals who have neither the expertise nor the experience to establish policy in the dangerous business of fighting crime," PBA President Patrick Lynch said in a statement Sunday [6/28/2015].

Across US, over 130 prison escapees on the loose.  Somewhere out there are an admitted killer who crawled through a Texas prison's ventilation ducts, a murderer who apparently escaped from an Indiana institution in a garbage truck, and a Florida convict who got other inmates to put him in a crate at the prison furniture shop and had himself delivered to freedom by truck.

Murder map shows where in the world you are most likely to be a victim of homicide.  A Brazilian think tank has released a macabre interactive map, which exposes the nations where people are most likely to be murdered — with Latin American nations coming top.  The Homicide Map, compiled using the most recently available date from 2012, lays bare how a third of the world's 450,000 murders were against victims in Central America, South America and the Caribbean, despite the fact that less than a tenth of the world's population lives in this region.

Free the Baltimore Six.  [Scroll down]  From the days of Sacco and Vanzetti on, leftists had invested a great deal of emotional capital in claiming the guilty innocent.  They particularly liked to declare groups of guilty people innocent — the "Jena Six," the "Chicago Seven (or Eight)," the "Catonsville Nine."  Beginning with the Zimmerman case, they switched tactics and began to insist the innocent were guilty, a darker turn altogether.  Now America has a genuine collective of the unjustly accused, the six officers that the New York Daily News casually describes as the "suspected killers" of Freddie Gray, the Baltimore Six.  But now leftists are the ones doing the accusing.

Three Observations About Hillary's Speech on Criminal Justice Reform.  I have read Hillary Clinton's speech on criminal justice reform and have three observations I would like to make.  First, Hillary gave the speech at Columbia University under the auspices of the David Dinkins Leadership and Policy Forum. Hillary said that Dinkins "leadership helped lay the foundation for the dramatic drop in crime in the years that followed."  Those would be the years that Rudy Giuliani was mayor.  Let me put this way.  Would Hillary have walked through Times Square while Dinkins was mayor?

Citing Baltimore unrest, Hillary Clinton calls for police body cameras and an end to mass incarceration.  Amid continuing unrest in Baltimore over the death of a young black man in police custody, Hillary Clinton on Wednesday [4/29/2015] called for widespread use of police body cameras and an end to mass incarceration during her first major policy speech since launching her presidential campaign.

The Editor says...
There is no mass incarceration.  Every defendant gets his own trial.  Incarceration will stop when crime stops, unless there is some monetary incentive to keep the prisons full.  The judges and court reporters can find jobs elsewhere.

More Prisoners, Less Crime.  For many reasons, including better policing and more incarceration, Americans feel, and are, safer.  The New York Times has not recently repeated such amusing headlines as "Crime Keeps on Falling, But Prisons Keep on Filling" (1997), "Prison Population Growing Although Crime Rate Drops" (1998), "Number in Prison Grows Despite Crime Reduction" (2000) and "More Inmates, Despite Slight Drop in Crime" (2003). [...] Last July [2007], Obama said that "more young black men languish in prison than attend colleges and universities."  Actually, there are more than twice as many black men ages 18 to 24 in college as there are in jail.

Baltimore proves the need for 'Broken Windows' policing.  Here's hoping Mayor Bill de Blasio isn't too busy playing political games and barnstorming the country to absorb the right lessons from the Baltimore riots.  If he's paying attention, he'll learn a thing or two about policing and that the bloody price of failed leadership is paid by innocent families and businesses.  The disgraceful orders for cops to disappear or stand by and watch as rioters, looters and arsonists had their way should never be repeated anywhere again.  Nor should any mayor talk, as Baltimore's foolishly did, about giving "those who wished to destroy space to do that."

The perilous new push to excuse lawlessness.  Announcing his presidential bid this month, Sen. Rand Paul said he wants to repeal "any law that disproportionately incarcerates people of color."  Fulfilling this promise would require gutting murder statutes, and most other criminal laws, given the disproportionate black crime rate.  But whether or not Paul reaches the White House, a wide-ranging movement is already under way to transform the criminal justice system in order to avoid a disparate impact on blacks.  This push will jeopardize the country's two-decade-long crime drop.

Unexpectedly: Crime Rates Begin to Rise in Los Angeles.  I bring you shocking news, gentle readers.  If you take thousands of incarcerated felons and turn them loose on society, and you then allow the federal government and cultural elites to demoralize the police officers charged with keeping these liberated hoodlums in line, you end up with higher crime.  Who would have dared imagine it?  This is the state of affairs in California, where a succession of imprudent decisions by judges, lawmakers, and the electorate have combined to throw open the prison gates to swarms of men who in a sane world would have remained locked away at a safe remove from the law-abiding public.

Ankle monitors are no substitute for the incarceration of violent criminals.
D.A. says teen in alleged assault of pizza deliverer wore monitor.  A 17-year-old boy charged as an adult in connection with the alleged kidnapping, sexual assault and robbery of a woman delivering Domino's Pizza in Antioch was wearing a GPS ankle monitor, prosecutors said Wednesday [2/11/2015].  Darrion Miles Jr., 17, appeared in Contra Costa County Superior Court in Martinez on Wednesday on felony charges of forcible rape, sodomy, oral copulation, digital penetration, kidnapping, robbery and making criminal threats.  He did not enter a plea and was held at juvenile hall in lieu of the $6.4 million bail.  Authorities would not say why Miles had been outfitted with an ankle monitor, but Miles referred to his "po," or probation officer, on his Facebook page, which is peppered with derogatory references to women.

How to Make Sense of an Incoherent America.  [Scroll down]  Lots of college campuses are in so-called dangerous neighborhoods.  East Palo Alto is not far from the Stanford campus.  New Haven can still be a perilous place for Yale students.  Many of the Cal State campuses are in iffy neighborhoods.  Women alone walking to cars or apartments in these environs can often be targeted by criminals.  Why, then, is there not a greater campus awareness campaign about the dangers of the street, or at least more attention to insist that felons and convicted rapists are not released early in college neighborhoods?  Instead, more emphases recently have been focused on date rape and other college students.

Senator Leahy on Justice Dep't.: Incarcerating Criminals Doesn't Make Us Safer.  During a hearing on the nomination of Loretta Lynch to serve as Attorney General to the United States, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), ranking member, Senate Judiciary Committee seemed to suggest that the Justice Department spends too much money on incarcerating criminals and that such incarcerations don't keep Americans safer.  "Nearly one-third of its budget goes to the Bureau of Prisons, draining vital resources from nearly all other public safety priorities," said Senator Leahy.  "A significant factor leading to this budget imbalance is the unnecessary creation of more and more mandatory minimum sentences."

Which Criminals Can Be Rehabilitated?  Imprisoning convicted criminals serves two primary purposes:  (1) to increase the safety of the public by quarantining unlawful offenders, and (2) to rehabilitate those who are incarcerated through punishment.  Point 1 is fairly straightforward, but point 2 may be food for thought.  Recidivism rates in America have been trending upward, from around 63% in 1983 to around 77% now.  This presents a peculiar contrast to the 40% decrease since 1983 in overall crime.

California Voters to Decide on Sending Fewer Criminals to Prison.  California voters appear poised to scale back the heavy reliance on incarceration they once embraced, with a measure that would transform several lower-level, nonviolent felonies into misdemeanors punishable by brief jail stays, if that, rather than time in a state penitentiary.  The referendum on Nov. 4 is part of a national reappraisal of mass incarceration.

Federal inmate dies after attack at prison.  A federal inmate serving a 40-year sentence for child-related sex offenses has died after being attacked at a southern Kentucky prison.

California Releases Thousands of 'Lifers' from Prison.  California continues to stretch the imaginations of non-liberals.  One unthinkable policy is Governor Brown's policy by which thousands of presumably dangerous prisoners originally sentenced by juries to life sentences in the slammer are being set free.  A Friday [8/8/2014] radio segment on the California Report was downright cheery about cons being released into local communities. [...] In other words, don't be scared, little citizens — the murderers and rapists have been taught techniques in anger management.

13 Ways The American Police State Squanders Your Tax Dollars.  [#8]  $6.4 billion a year for the Bureau of Prisons and $30,000 a year to house an inmate.  There are over 3,000 people in America serving life sentences for non-violent crimes.  These include theft of a jacket, siphoning gasoline from a truck, stealing tools, and attempting to cash a stolen check.  Most of the non-violent offenses that triggered life sentences were drug crimes involving trace amounts of heroin and cocaine.  One person imprisoned for life was merely a go-between for an undercover officer buying ten dollars' worth of marijuana.  California has more money devoted to its prison system than its system of education.  State spending on incarceration is the fastest growing budget item besides Medicaid.

Our Unwillingness to Defend Ourselves.  The U.S. Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that 2012 losses because of personal identity theft totaled $24.7 billion.  The money losses from identity theft pale in comparison with the costs of paperwork, time and inconvenience imposed on the larger society in an effort to protect ourselves.  According to LifeLock, while the laws against identity theft have gotten tougher, identity theft criminal prosecution is relatively rare.  Unless we develop a low tolerance and a willingness to impose harsh sentences, identity thieves will continue to impose billions of dollars of costs on society.

Facing legal heat, Texas prison system tries new cooling devices to ease oppressive temps.  The nation's most populous prison system, facing legal actions and criticism about inmates having to endure oppressive Texas summer heat, is looking to make conditions a bit more bearable at seven state lockups by installing cooling systems similar to those seen on the sidelines of early-season football games.

Prison: The Benefits are Great!.  Some of you may recall that back in 2002 there was a fair amount of controversy surrounding the California Department of Corrections' (DoC) decision to allow a life-saving, million dollar heart transplant for an inmate serving 14 years for armed robbery.  The DoC reasoned that not doing so would violate the 1976 Supreme Court ruling that states it's "'cruel and unusual punishment' to withhold necessary medical care from inmates."  The decision by the DoC raised an important question:  Should prisoners get transplants ahead of law-abiding citizens?

Court affirms Mass. murderer's right to get sex change in prison.  A federal appeals court on Friday [1/17/2014] upheld a judge's ruling granting a taxpayer-funded sex change operation for a transgender inmate serving a life sentence for a murder conviction, saying receiving medically necessary treatment is a constitutional right that must be protected "even if that treatment strikes some as odd or unorthodox."

Alabama Lawmaker Re-Introduces Castration Bill For Sex Offenders.  An Alabama legislator has re-introduced a bill to legalize castration of convicted child molesters if their victims were under the age of 12 — and make them pay for the procedure.  The Florence Times Daily reports that Rep. Steve Hurst (R-Munford) is proposing the bill for the 2014 legislative session, which begins in January. Hurst attempted to push this bill during the 2013 session, but it did not make it out of committee.

Same Lies, Different Day.  By focusing on the gun, and not the user, the left does not have to address the failure of the criminal justice system to consistently punish illegal gun use.  They can ignore, for example, that prior gun charges against the Navy Yard shooter were not pursued in a liberal criminal justice system that coddles criminals and ignores gun crimes.  Prosecutors in liberal jurisdictions, and perhaps in many jurisdictions, are much more interested in obtaining convictions than actually punishing gun crimes.  For the sake of their stats, they will accept guilty pleas to one of many lesser included charges, perhaps a second degree assault or a disorderly conduct, and dismiss the gun charges.

Aaron Alexis and The War On Standards.  We often hear from the left that our criminal justice system is broken.  Part of what the left, including our Attorney General, means by this is that too many people are in jail, especially too many Blacks.  I take no position in this post about that claim.  But in the case of Aaron Alexis — the Navy Yard mass murderer — it looks like the criminal justice system's breakdown consists of its failure to incarcerate.

Leftists Just Can't Help But Ruin the World.  From the 1960s well into the 1980s, laws regarding criminal justice and self-defense were stacked heavily against law-abiding Americans.  Liberal judges routinely handed down minimal sentences after criminals had been convicted of heinous crimes.  Americans who had defended themselves against criminals using force, often in their own homes, faced severe prosecution for exercising their natural right to defend their loved ones, their homes and their property.  Crime rates soared and outrage built up as the legal system allowed criminal after criminal to walk free while acting in self-defense could ruin a law-abiding American's life.  Liberals did all of this in the name of "social justice," on a theory that the system is inherently racist, poverty causes crime, and society is ultimately to blame for criminals.

Crime and Punishment in a Free Society.  In England, the early kings recognized that the administration of justice could be a cash cow.  So they grabbed on and never let go.  As a result, the emphasis shifted to punishment (fines and imprisonment) and away from restitution (making victims or their heirs as whole as possible).  Liberty-minded people should regret this change.

The Death Of George Floyd and the unfair trial of Derek Chauvin:

Related topics on other nearby pages:
Race-based political opportunism
Lawyers
Black Lives Matter
Representative Maxine Waters
News media sensationalism and dishonesty
Emotional outbursts displace reason
Violence and hate speech come from the left
Violent black criminals
Video recordings of the police by onlookers
Video recordings made by the police themselves

Overview:
Political Activism, Institutional Failure, and Anti-Intellectualism in America.  Increasing its vulnerability to totalitarianism, the West has a tendency to melancholic self-torment that has weakened morality and social cohesion, and without warning, it reached a peak three years ago, prompted by controversial police business.  On the tarmac of a Minneapolis intersection and under the knee of an officer, a career criminal died, as upset bystanders filmed the incident.  Both the main officer and his colleagues were convicted in court, and it would seem that justice had thereby been served.  Even before the legal proceedings were over however, things unraveled.  Leftist news outlets and social media unanimously canonized the deceased.  Straight away, his death became the symbol of an alleged social phenomenon called "structural racism."  Posthumously, the 46-year-old man, a rapper wannabe, but without any real success in life, rose to fame, presented as the very epitome of a victim in the equally destructive and mendacious oppressor-oppressed narrative of our time.  Subsequently, riots broke out across the country.

It Still Matters That The George Floyd Prosecutions Were Corrupted By Racial Politics.  One way to understand how Democrat politics operate is to look back at the political corruption surrounding George Floyd's death.  On July 29, 2021, Peter Cahill, the presiding Minnesota State Court judge trying the four police officers indicted for George Floyd's death, ordered the release of the prosecutors' report detailing how Dr. Roger Mitchell, the then-medical examiner and Deputy Mayor for D.C., coerced the Hennepin County medical examiner, Dr. Andrew Baker.  The memo detailed Mitchell's threat to damage Baker's professional career with a critical op-ed in the Washington Post if Baker did not amend the language of his preliminary autopsy report by adding compression of the neck as a cause of death, something Baker had not believed was the case.  Doing so would make the death a homicide.  Baker's ultimate report, which he'd changed in response to Mitchell's political pressure, converted a death from natural causes into a justification for indicting four police officers for murder.

George Floyd Revisited Part I: Derek Chauvin Was Wrongfully Convicted.  On Monday, May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a man with a significant criminal record including a five-year sentence for an armed home invasion, entered a convenience store in downtown Minneapolis and made a purchase.  The clerk at Cup Foods called the police after examining the bill.  He believed it to be a counterfeit twenty.  Two Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) rookie officers — Alex Kueng, black, and Thomas Lane, white — responded to the call.  Floyd was in the driver's seat of a borrowed car when Lane tapped on the window and told Floyd he was under arrest.  Floyd's reaction to the officers, as seen on body cam footage, is bizarre.  Agitated and confused, he failed to cooperate.  After exiting his car, Floyd refused to be put in the squad car.  Derek Chauvin, senior MPD officer in the area, arrived after the arrest effort began and took charge.  Floyd continued to resist and cry out, claiming he couldn't breathe.  Unable to get the muscular Floyd into the squad car, the officers yielded to Floyd's request to lie down.  After Floyd was down on the pavement, he kicked Lane.  To control the still struggling Floyd, Chauvin used a prone restraint known as the Maximal Restraint Technique (MRT), an approved MPD protocol for resisting arrestees and prisoners.

Hilarious Black Comedian Gets The Entire Black Audience To Walk Out When He Makes Fun Of George Floyd.  In a display of black fragility, comedian David Lucas got all the blacks in the audience to walk out for his jokes about George Floyd.  Lucas said he would have never put his knee on Floyd's neck, he would have just shot him.  [Video clip]

The Truth About George Floyd's Death.  In a recent episode of "American Thought Leaders," host Jan Jekielek sits down with Emmy Award-winning reporter Liz Collin, author of "They're Lying:  The Media, the Left, and the Death of George Floyd" and producer of the new narrative-busting documentary, "The Fall of Minneapolis."  Ms. Collin breaks down what really happened the day George Floyd died, what the media left out, and what evidence was withheld at the trial.

What Really Happened to George Floyd?  It has been almost four years since George Floyd's death in police custody sparked riots in American cities and protests around the world.  Since then, the public, thanks to the reporting of mainstream journalists, has settled on a consensus about what happened to Floyd on the evening of May 25, 2020: officers were in the process of arresting Floyd for paying with counterfeit money at a convenience store when Officer Derek Chauvin, with conscious cruelty, subjected him to his "signature move" — a knee on the neck — cutting off his oxygen supply and murdering him.  Officers J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao, rather than intervene, aided and abetted Chauvin's crime.  If journalism is the first draft of history, then this draft is now due for a major revision.

The Scapegoating of Derek Chauvin, Pt. I.  On the day George Floyd died, May 25, 2020, Amy Sweasy, a prosecutor for the Hennepin County Attorney's Office with more than 25 years' experience, was assigned to work on the investigation and prosecution of Officers Chauvin, Thao, Kueng, and Lane.  But in early June 2020, Sweasy removed herself from the case due to "ethical concerns."  After she left, Minnesota's partisan Attorney General Keith Ellison filed new charges against Chauvin, increasing the lead count to second degree murder.  Sweasy later filed suit against her former employer for discrimination and retaliation unrelated to the Floyd matter.  The litigation is ongoing, but in August Sweasy's sworn deposition testimony was released.  At 313 pages, the transcript covers her final years as a prosecutor, and a significant portion of her testimony focuses on the tumultuous two weeks following Floyd's death.  It paints a picture of a prosecutor's office struggling under the weight of unfamiliar public scrutiny.

Ex-Minneapolis Cop:  Inmate Was Working for FBI When He Stabbed Derek Chauvin.  When it was revealed earlier this month that the inmate who stabbed Derek Chauvin was previously an FBI informant, numerous conservative pundits jumped to the conclusion that the U.S. government was purposely trying to Chauvin — the former Minneapolis police officer who was convicted of murder after George Floyd died of an overdose in his custody.  It turns out, some on the political left are also questioning the bizarre circumstances around Chauvin's stabbing.  The Antifa-friendly outlet Unicorn Riot interviewed a former Minneapolis police officer who believes that FBI informant John Turscak — who's serving a 30-year sentence for racketeering and conspiring to kill a rival in the prison-based gang — was working for the feds when he stabbed Chauvin 22 times in a prison law library.  The former police officer, Sarah Saarela — who also reportedly worked as a correctional officer at Minnesota's only women's prison in the 1990s — told Unicorn Riot that it first struck her as odd when Chauvin was sent to prison in Tuscon.

Derek Chauvin Released From Hospital, Sent Right Back to Where He Got Stabbed.  How many miscarriages of justice must one man endure?  Derek Chauvin, the convicted murderer of George Floyd who was recently stabbed 22 times by an FBI informant, is recovering, and has just been released from the hospital.  He has, however, been sent back to the same Arizona prison unit where he was stabbed, with no additional protection.  According to a Monday report from Rochester, Minnesota's KTSP, Chauvin's attorney Gregory Erickson said: "I had a telephone conference with Derek's family yesterday, and they confirmed that his medical condition has improved to the extent that he has been removed from the trauma care facility at a local Tucson hospital and returned to prison custody for his follow up care."  So much for the good news.  However:  "His family is very concerned about the facility's capacity to protect Derek from further harm.  They remain unassured that any changes have been made to the faulty procedures that allowed Derek's attack to occur in the first place."

Derek Chauvin's Attacker, John Turscak, Is a Former FBI Informant.  Derek Chauvin was assaulted in prison by John Turscak, an individual with a complicated past.  As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, federal prosecutors disclosed that 52-year-old John Turscak stabbed Derek Chauvin 22 times at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson.  The rapid response of correctional officers averted a more tragic outcome, as they intervened before Turscak could murder Chauvin.  After the attack, Chauvin required life-saving measures before being transported to the hospital.  Following this jailhouse stabbing, the FBI initiated an investigation.

Has Derek Chauvin's incarceration been turned into a death sentence?  By now, you all know that Derek Chauvin, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for killing George Floyd, sustained life-threatening injuries when he was attacked in an Arizona prison yesterday.  I can't help but think that this was the goal all along.  To state my position clearly, I've long believed that Derek Chauvin was innocent of the crime alleged, and that's true whether or not he is a nice person or was a good cop.  The undisputed facts show that the knee-on-the-shoulder technique Chauvin used on George Floyd — which came straight for his training handbook — does not kill.  Second, we just learned with certainty that the coroner found no evidence of asphyxiation and changed his initial, accurate report to placate the mob.  In fact, what likely killed Floyd was a combination of serious heart disease and massive amounts of illicit drugs.

Derek Chauvin's family, attorney say they've been kept in dark about prison stabbing.  It's been 24 hours and Derek Chauvin's family and attorney, as of Saturday afternoon, still had not been notified he was stabbed in prison on Friday, they told Alpha News.  According to a press release, the attack took place at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Tucson, Ariz., a medium-security federal prison on Friday around 12:30.  An Associated Press report claimed a source said Chauvin was stabbed by another inmate and seriously injured.  Meanwhile, states away, Chauvin's mother, Carolyn Pawlenty, knew nothing about any of it, she said.

Derek Chauvin stabbed in prison, seriously injured.  The former Minneapolis officer convicted of murder in George's Floyd's death has been stabbed by another inmate and was seriously injured, according to the Associated Press.  Chauvin was seriously injured in the attack at Federal Correctional Institution, Tucson, and prison employees performed "life-saving measures" before he was hospitalized, the Bureau of Prisons told the outlet without naming the inmate.

New film gives reel truth in the face of George Floyd lies.  It's a self-protective aspect of human nature to put aside painful memories, and that's what most of us have done about the murderous riots in the summer of 2020 that were sparked by George Floyd's death in Minneapolis.  But for the people of that fallen city, and for all the cops across the nation who were abandoned and betrayed by their feckless political leaders, the pain still burns bright.  It ought to burn for the rest of us, too, because we still are suffering the consequences, in the catastrophic breakdown of law and order nationwide.  We will continue to do so while the lies about George Floyd's death are left to fester.  A brilliant new crowdfunded documentary, "The Fall of Minneapolis," aims to remedy our collective amnesia about the events of May 25, 2020 — a time when the country was already half-mad from the ravages of COVID-19 and forced lockdowns, and when Democratic Party operatives, including candidates Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, seized on the "Defund the police" movement, in order to bring down President Donald Trump.

SCOTUS Turns Down Chauvin Appeal With No Comment; Justices Possibly Feared Riots for Doing the Right Thing.  It appears that the ballyhooed "conservative" U.S. Supreme Court isn't, and that unjustly convicted policeman Derek Chauvin will spend 22 years in prison for doing his job.  SCOTUS turned down Chauvin's appeal of his conviction for "murdering" career criminal and raging drug addict George Floyd.  Chauvin asked the court, which has a solid conservative majority, to review the decision of the Minnesota Court of Appeals to let his unjust conviction stand.  Instead, the court punted.  It won't hear the appeal.  And won't explain why.  One possible reason:  The justices feared the riots and burning cities that U.S. Representative Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) promised if Chauvin wasn't convicted.

Supreme Court Rejects Derek Chauvin's Appeal to Reconsider Conviction in George Floyd Case.  On Monday, the US Supreme Court rejected former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin's appeal to reconsider his conviction for second-degree murder in the killing of George Floyd.  The justices did not comment on their decision to leave in place state court rulings affirming Chauvin's conviction and 22 1/2-year sentence, San Diego Union-Tribune reported.  In October, attorneys representing Chauvin appealed to the Supreme Court to review his case.  This appeal was based on the refusal of a Minnesota trial court to change the venue of the trial and sequester the jury.  Chauvin argued that holding the trial in Minneapolis violated his right to a fair trial.  He argued this was due to extensive pretrial media coverage and the potential for violent protests and riots if he were found not guilty.

Ex-Cop Chauvin Appeals Murder Conviction for George Floyd, Citing Pathologist's Theory Jury Never Heard.  The former Minneapolis police officer who was convicted in the 2020 police-involved death of George Floyd has filed an appeal of his conviction, citing new evidence that the jury never saw.  Police officer Derek Chauvin, who was convicted in 2021, filed papers in court on Monday, saying that the evidence proves that he did not commit murder in Floyd's death, the Associated Press reported.  In his filing, the former cop said he would never have agreed to plead guilty if he had known about the theories of a Kansas pathologist who says that Floyd's physical condition was the principal cause of death, not the actions of the police.

New Documentary Film Pokes Holes in False George Floyd Narratives.  Asobering new documentary aims to debunk the false narratives surrounding the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the trial of Officer Derek Chauvin.  "The Fall of Minneapolis," produced by Alpha News journalist Liz Collin, also examines the tragic impacts of the Black Lives Matter riots, including the collapse of law and order, that continues to this day.  Before the George Floyd riots, Collin was a popular Emmy-award-winning news anchor for WCCO-TV in Minneapolis.  In 2020, she faced withering criticism over her marriage to Bob Kroll, then the head of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis.  Collin told talk show host Megyn Kelly on Wednesday that her whole professional world fell apart during that hyper-political time.  "The cancel culture came after me in full force and my husband as well, because of course the police union had to be to blame for all of this," Collin said.

How George Floyd Actually Died.  [Scroll down]  To learn what did kill George Floyd, I have consulted with two physicians.  One, Dr. John Dale Dunn, is a veteran emergency physician and lawyer with expertise in cause of death matters.  The other, a pathologist at a major medical center with more than two decades of experience, I will call "Dr. Quincy."  Quincy requested anonymity given the safety concerns expressed by his wife.  She has reason to be cautious.  The use-of-force expert who testified on behalf of Derek Chauvin was rewarded for his courage by having a pig's head placed on his doorstep.  The doctor who testified on Chauvin's behalf had his entire career as a medical examiner investigated by the Maryland attorney general.  I have been consulting with Dunn for at least two years.  He has never shied from venturing his opinion publicly.  In fact, he recreated Derek Chauvin's hold on Floyd, using two men whose weight mirrored that of Chauvin and Floyd with no ill effect on the Floyd stand-in. "Derek Chauvin didn't kill Mr. Floyd," Dunn tells me.  "His bad heart did."  Baker knew this to be true as well.  As he testified at Chauvin's trial, Floyd had "very severe underlying heart disease."  I met with Quincy two weeks ago.  I asked Dunn if he would review Quincy's findings and give me an informed second opinion.  Like Quincy, Dunn is confident that Chauvin's "subdual" of Floyd — Baker's word — had nothing to do with Floyd's death.  He agrees with Quincy as well that the fentanyl in Floyd's system was a non-factor, but that the meth in his system might have been.

The Rise of Jacobin Justice.  The Scottsboro Boys got a fairer trial than the four Minneapolis police officers, two of them non-white, accused of murder in the death of chronic felon and drug-abuser George Floyd.  The case against the four officers was rigged from the beginning.  As she recently revealed in a deposition for a sexual harassment suit, prosecutor Amy Sweasy spoke with Hennepin County medical examiner Dr. Andrew Baker the day after Floyd's death.  "I called Dr. Baker early that morning to tell him about the case and to ask him if he would perform the autopsy on Mr. Floyd," said Sweasy.  "He called me later in the day on that Tuesday and he told me that there were no medical findings that showed any injury to the vital structures of Mr. Floyd's neck.  There were no medical indications of asphyxia or strangulation."  By the end of that day, with Minneapolis already in flames, Baker said to Sweasy, "Amy, what happens when the actual evidence doesn't match up with the public narrative that everyone's already decided on?  This is the kind of case that ends careers."

Fact check:  George Floyd wasn't murdered.  It is true that George Floyd died while in police custody, prompting the Marxists in BLM and the laughably named "Antifa" to hit the streets and foment chaos and destruction.  But Floyd wasn't murdered.  Tucker Carlson recently revealed that former Hennepin County prosecutor Amy Sweasy states that the medical examiner who autopsied George Floyd told her the next day that there "were no medical indications of asphyxia or strangulation."  No indications of asphyxia or strangulation.  Moreover, according to the autopsy report, Floyd had no life-threatening injuries, and his head and neck areas were normal.  What's more, he had a remarkable mix of toxic drugs in his system at the time of death, including fentanyl, norfentanyl, methamphetamine, marijuana, and morphine.  This in addition to a "severe, multifocal case of arteriosclerotic heart disease" and hypertensive heart disease.  This was no "homicide."  The Hennepin County press release, however, was loath to mention any of this.

Chauvin Did Not Murder George Floyd.  hanks to the release of depositions in a sexual harassment law suit, we now know just how thoroughly corrupt was the prosecution of former Minneapolis police offer Derek Chauvin and his three colleagues in the May 2020 death of George Floyd.  The depositions were taken this summer in response to a lawsuit filed by Amy Sweasy, a former Hennepin County prosecutor, against her then boss, former County Attorney Mike Freeman.  Sweasy alleges that Freeman engaged in sex discrimination and professional retaliation.  Whatever Freeman did or did not do to Sweasy, however, pales in comparison to what both of them and their colleagues did to the cops they prosecuted and the justice system they undermined.  "Did, in fact, a racist white cop actually murder a man named George Floyd, a civil rights leader in Minneapolis, on Memorial Day 2020," asked Tucker Carlson in Episode 32 of his Xwitter podcast on Friday.  After documenting just some of the consequences of the presumed murder, from decriminalizing theft to defunding the police, Carlson added, "The answer is, well, no.  He didn't murder George Floyd."

Obama's Racist Chickens Have Come Home to Roost.  Rather than elevate black people, the far left has created a situation where black crime is legal and white people are racist if they notice.  Shoplifting alone has gutted major cities, and most of the videos we see show black perps.  Some localities have made it illegal to try to stop thieves.  Businesses even fire employees for trying to stop criminals from stealing, to the point that the stores close and the workers lose their jobs.  Hundreds of businesses have left West Coast cities and taken their jobs with them.  Once flourishing cities like Seattle, San Francisco, and Portland are turning into ghost towns.  Crime, drugs, and tent cities have taken over, as planned by the Marxists looking to enslave us all. [...] This is what happens when lefty politicians convince black people they are "victims" and then make crime an entitlement.  Black crime is now acceptable.  What could go wrong?  The truly insidious move here is that someday a reckoning will occur.  Whether a patriotic president wins or globalists take over our nation, criminals, many of them black, who enjoyed surfing the Democrat-created crime wave will likely end up in prison, never realizing they were pawns.

Carlson: Belief George Floyd was murdered let 'small number of people' make big changes.  Americans were told "relentlessly" for three years that it was a fact that a racist white cop in Minneapolis murdered George Floyd.  Because that's the way seemingly everyone in the country believes it went down "a small group of people has been allowed to make massive changes to American society," Tucker Carlson said on his latest episode posted to X.  Those people, Carlson said, have decriminalized stealing, defunded police, added the Juneteenth federal holiday to the calendar, saw to it that white men are no longer hired in corporate America, and sent that cop, Derek Chauvin, to prison for more than 20 years.  The question, Carlson asked, is did Chauvin actually murder George Floyd.  "The answer is, well, no."

"The Whole George Floyd Story Was A Lie": Tucker Carlson.  Tucker Carlson just challenged one of the left's most sacred of cows — George Floyd, an ex-con who died with an elephant-dose of fentanyl in his system and a history of health issues, while in custody of Minneapolis police on May 25, 2020.  According to Carlson, we need to revisit certain popular narratives, including the circumstances surrounding Floyd's death — and in particular, inconsistencies between public perception - that Floyd died under the knee of former officer Derek Chauvin, who's currently serving more than 40 years in state and federal sentences.  "Did, for example, a racist white cop actually murder a man called George Floyd, a civil rights leader in Minneapolis on Memorial Day of 2020? Now we've been told that that happened, told it relentlessly for more than three years," Carlson says, adding "But the question is, did he [Derek Chauvin] actually murder George Floyd?  And the answer is, well, no, he didn't murder George Floyd, and we're not guessing about that; we know it conclusively thanks to a new court case now underway in Hennepin County, Minnesota."

Minneapolis's prosecutors always knew George Floyd died of natural causes.  A former Hennepin County, Minnesota, prosecutor is suing her employer, alleging that she was a victim of sex discrimination and retaliation.  That's par for the course.  Hennepin County is entirely Democrat, and Democrats don't always feel obligated to follow their loudly stated rules.  The reason Amy Sweasy's lawsuit matters to us is because George Floyd died in Hennepin County, and depositions in Sweasy's case make it very clear that the prosecutors always knew that Derek Chauvin and the other three police did not kill George Floyd.

Flee the Minneapolis Police Department.  The entire world changed in the aftermath of the George Floyd incident but what has been ignored by virtually everyone are the lies, deception, and utter destruction of the police department in the months that followed by the very leaders within the police department and the city.  I discussed much of this in a previous article but much of the destructive aftermath of the incident was directly caused from leaders, that knew the facts, but refused to reveal them.  The narrative that was originally (and continues) to be pushed by Minneapolis leaders (and adopted by 99.99% of the world) was that racist cops murdered George Floyd in broad daylight by choking him to death with cameras all around.  But to anyone that utilized logic in their frontal lobe, there was always something strange about that narrative.
  [#1]   Why was Floyd struggling to breathe long before the officers arrived?
  [#2]   What role did lethal amounts of fentanyl mixed with methamphetamine and severe coronary blockage have to do with his death?
  [#3]   If the autopsy showed no trauma on the body including no strangulation or asphyxiation, how did this supposed murder happen?
  [#4]   Why did the coroner originally say that Floyd died from an overdose and was then omitted from testifying?
  [#5]   Why did the police department not release the body camera footage, going against well established protocol?
  [#6]   Finally, did the officers involved, including the minority officers, really believe (intent) that they were murdering someone on the street for all to see and it would be a good career move or were they simply following an established policy/training protocol that had been utilized many times before and endorsed by agency leaders?

An appeal in the George Floyd case could spark a new round in the national conversation on race..  Last week it was announced that Derek Chauvin, the police officer convicted of the murder of George Floyd, intends to appeal his case to the Supreme Court, after his state conviction was upheld by the Minnesota Court of Appeals and the Minnesota Supreme Court declined to hear a further appeal.  Chauvin believes he was not given a fair trial, in large part because the judge in the original case decided not to move the trial out of Minneapolis after the unprecedented racial riots and media coverage that followed the death of George Floyd.  "The primary issue on this appeal," said Chauvin's lawyer, William Mohrman, before the Court of Appeals, "is whether a criminal defendant can get a fair trial consistent with constitutional requirements in a courthouse surrounded by concrete block, barbed wire, two armored personnel carriers, and a squad of National Guard troops, all of which or whom are there for one purpose:  in the event that the jury acquits the defendant."

Derek Chauvin Did Not Receive A Fair Trial, But Minnesota Supreme Court Will Not Hear His Appeal.  Derek Chauvin did not get a fair trial for the killing of George Floyd.  As the liberals like to say, "period, full stop."  We have covered this many times based on what actually happened in the trial, as opposed to the media coverage which was mostly dishonest.  Much like the Michael Brown "hands up, don't shoot" narrative was false, so too was the narrative that Chauvin kept his knee on George Floyd's neck "for 9 minutes."  The video doesn't show that, and that wasn't even the prosecution theory of guilt — Chauvin did have his knee on Floyd's neck for a time, but mostly on the upper back and shoulder.  The prosecution medical evidence of death was positional asphyxia, that the pressure on Floyd's back while face down in the prone position made it impossible for Floyd to inhale, leading to death.

Derek Chauvin Files Appeal in Minnesota Supreme Court Over George Floyd Murder Conviction.  Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has filed an appeal in the Minnesota Supreme Court over his second-degree murder conviction for the death of George Floyd.  Floyd's 2020 death while in police custody sparked violent and deadly riots nationwide.  Chauvin had kneeled on Floyd's neck for over three minutes as he resisted arrest, resulting in his death by asphyxiation on May 25, 2020[.]  Chauvin's lawyers are now asking the state's highest court to review the lower court's ruling that the district court "did not abuse its discretion" by declining to transfer venues, delay the trial or sequester the jury amid "pervasive pretrial publicity and community violence," according to a report from The Hill.  The former police officer's representation is also asking for a review of whether or not police can be convicted of unintentional murder if there was no "subjective intent" to use unreasonable force.  Last month, the Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld Chauvin's conviction and rejected this argument.

The Chauvin Appeal Ruling.  My friend Bill Mohrmann is representing Derek Chauvin on appeal of his conviction for the murder of George Floyd.  Former Acting Solicitor General of the United States Neal Katyal is representing the State of Minnesota.  It's something of a David and Goliath matchup.  The Minnesota Court of Appeals was the first stop.  The court held oral argument before a panel of three judges this past January. [...] The principal issue on appeal was that pretrial publicity and related riots required a change of venue — that they precluded a fair trial in violation of the Sixth Amendment.  As we noted repeatedly during trial, the martial security that protected the courthouse graphically represented the issue.  So did the anticipation of riots in the event of an acquittal.  The 24-story Hennepin County Government Center was closed to everything but the trial for reasons of security.  Barricades and secure fencing topped with concertina wire surrounded the perimeter.  The massive building was off limits to nearly everyone who wasn't involved in the trial.  The building was locked down and everyone — and I do mean everyone — knew why.

Derek Chauvin Sentenced to 20 Years, 5 Months For Violating George Floyd's Civil Rights.  Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on Thursday was sentenced to 20 years and 5 months for violating George Floyd's civil rights.  George Floyd died in spring 2020 after Chauvin knelt on his neck for 8 minutes during an arrest.

U.S. v. Tou Thao:  The Verdicts.  After deliberating 13 hours over the past two days, the jury reached verdicts in the federal trial of the three former Minneapolis police officers — the officers other than Derek Chauvin, who pleaded guilty — charged with violating the civil rights of George Floyd in the arrest that resulted in his death.  The jury found Tou Thao and Alexander Kueng guilty on each of the two counts against them and found Thomas Lane guilty on the one count against him.  The jury also found that the violations contributed to Floyd's death, which will aggravate the sentences.

The Fight for Civic Nationalism.  Civic nationalism is the argument that a country can be organized around a set of ideas, rather than people and land.  The citizens, rather than connected by blood and history, are connected by ideas.  In the case of America, the organizing ideas are in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  Civic nationalism, to a great degree, is a reaction to the internationalism of Western ruling elites who are post-national.  The post-nationalists want to eliminate borders and the national sovereignty.  In their place will be international organizations, corporate agreements, and the administrative state.  Civic nationalism is an effort to confront this old enemy of civilization with a nationalism free of past baggage.  The first test was a major failure.  Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police office charged with the murder of George Floyd, was railroaded by the system and is now facing what amounts to life in prison.  Whatever rules he may have broken, he did not intentionally kill the drug addict George Floyd.  The rules of society so important to civic nationalists were no match for the left-wing lynch mob.

Justice Devolves Into Vengeance in the Derek Chauvin Case as the Minnesota Supreme Court Denies Him Legal Counsel for His Appeal.  There are few things more disgusting than when the judicial branch joins in with a vendetta against a defendant because of the political climate.  In April, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree murder, second-degree manslaughter, and third-degree murder in the death of George Floyd.  I'm not a fan of police brutality, but what happened to Chauvin at the hands of his own department and the local judiciary was nothing short of using one man as a human sacrifice to appease the mob.  The decision to keep the trial in Minneapolis in view of the existing riots and the recent memory of the Rodney King affair was indefensible.  One alternate juror admitted to fearing for what would happen to him if he voted to acquit.

Minnesota Supreme Court:  No Public Defender for Chauvin's Apeal.  Derek Chauvin, the cop wrongly convicted of "murdering" drug addict and career criminal George Floyd, will not get a public defender to appeal his convictions.  On Thursday [10/7/2021], the Minnesota Supreme Court denied his appeal of a ruling from the office of public defenders that rejected a request for the taxpayer-supported defense.  The high court said Chauvin did not prove he was indigent; i.e., that he could not pay to defend himself despite a filing that appears to show exactly that.  Except for retirement accounts, the imprisoned ex-cop is broke and almost $150,000 in debt, not counting money owed to Minnesota and the Internal Revenue Service.  Thus, even if Chauvin's appeal succeeds, the legal battle and prison time might leave him penniless.

Derek Chauvin intends to appeal George Floyd murder conviction.  Derek Chauvin plans to appeal his conviction and sentence for the murder of George Floyd — arguing the judge abused his discretion in critical points in the case, according to documents filed Thursday [9/23/2021].  The former Minneapolis police officer said in the court filing that he intends to appeal on 14 grounds.  One claim made by Chauvin in the notice to appeal is that Judge Peter Cahill abused his discretion by denying him a request to move the trial out of Hennepin County because of pretrial publicity.  Chauvin, 45, also claimed Cahill abused his discretion when he denied requests to postpone the trial or grant a new one — and when he rejected a request to sequester the jury for the duration of the trial.

Fentanyl: lethal to everyone except for George Floyd.  There have been an estimated 93,000 drug overdose deaths in 2020 with fentanyl being a key participant.  By 2018 fentanyl had become the "drug most often involved in fatal overdoses across the United States."  Fentanyl kills in small amounts.  Unless, of course, you are George Floyd.  George Floyd had a blood level of 11 ng/ml when he died.  Prosecutors had a field day gaslighting the jury about fentanyl levels.  They spoke of Floyd having fentanyl "tolerance" because of his long term abuse of the substance.  What they deflected away from the jury was the effect of this level of fentanyl combined with Floyd's severe cardiovascular disease.  A defense witness had it right:  ["]Dr Fowler listed a multitude of potential factors:  Mr Floyd's narrowed arteries; his enlarged heart; his high blood pressure; his drug use; the stress of his restraint; the vehicle exhaust; and a tumour or growth in his lower abdomen that can sometimes play a role in high blood pressure by releasing 'fight-or-flight' hormones.["]  Floyd had a 75 percent blockage in his left anterior descending artery and 90 percent blockage in his right coronary artery.  He was a walking time bomb.  Fentanyl was the last straw.

Stunning! New Floyd Case Exhibit Confirms Witness Coercion.  On July 29, District Court Judge Peter Cahill, the presiding judge in the trials of the four Minneapolis police officers indicted for the death of George Floyd, ordered the release of an exhibit memorandum that reveals a miscarriage of justice and criminal coercion of a witness.  Dr. Roger Mitchell, the former deputy mayor and medical examiner of the District of Columbia and now the Chief of Pathology at Howard University Medical School, a traditional Black medical school, boldly intimidated and coerced Hennepin County Medical Examiner Dr. Andrew Baker into changing critical conclusory language in his autopsy report on the death of George Floyd.  The exhibit is a written summary of Mitchell's commentary and some admissions of coercion that he volunteered to Minnesota Attorney General Office prosecutors in November 2020.

Chauvin trial cost Hennepin County $3.7 million.  Hennepin County spent $3.7 million on the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, according to documents obtained by The Center Square via the Freedom of Information Act.  Securing the Hennepin County courthouse was the second-largest expense — $773,412 paying for barbed wire, razor fencing, barricades, and boarding up windows.  The most significant expense was employee overtime costing $1.1 million.  Other expenses included:  A leased drone detection equipment cost $18,000.  Food costs ate up $18,893.  Van rental for jury transport: $21,905.  Supplies cost $12,958.

America's Dreyfus Affair unfolds in Minneapolis.  George Floyd, a thug by any standard, who had just committed another crime (passing fake bills), and who was hopped up on three illegal substances, violently resisted arrest.  Chauvin restrained him in textbook form.  John Dale Dunn shows irrefutably, based on uncontroverted evidence, that Floyd's system couldn't handle the drugs, his obesity, his advanced heart disease, and the stress he was experiencing.  The result was that a fatal heart arrhythmia, not Chauvin, killed Floyd.  Nevertheless, to sate the mob's race-based bloodlust, Chauvin faced a kangaroo court that a judge, afraid of the mob, helmed.  Now, Chauvin's sentenced to 22½ years in prison — assuming he's not killed or driven insane by being kept "safe" in solitary confinement.  This isn't justice.  This isn't due process.  And this surely isn't America.

Former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin Sentenced to 22½ years in Death of George Floyd.  Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was sentenced today to 22½ years in prison after being found guilty in the 2020 murder of George Floyd.  Prior to the sentencing Derek Chauvin made a brief, and seemingly cryptic, statement.

Derek Chauvin Sentenced to 22 Years in Prison for Murder of George Floyd.  Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who killed George Floyd during his arrest in Minneapolis last year, was sentenced to 22 years in prison on Friday [6/25/2021].  Chauvin was found guilty in April of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. [...] Just ahead of the hearing, Chauvin's post-verdict motion for a new trial was denied by Hennepin County District Court Judge Peter Cahill.  Cahill ruled on Thursday night that Chauvin "failed to demonstrate ... the Court abused its discretion or committed error such that Defendant was deprived of his constitutional right to a fair trial."  The judge said that Chauvin failed to demonstrate prosecutorial or juror misconduct.  Chauvin's attorneys had argued that "errors, abuses of discretion, prosecutorial and jury misconduct" made the trial unfair.

Derek Chauvin Did Not Murder George Floyd.  George Floyd's death one year ago caused a national level of rioting and vandalism and even deaths.  It also put something called "excited delirium" in the spotlight.  George Parry at The American Spectator, Andrea Widburg at American Thinker, and Jack Cashill (at both venues) all have written insightfully about the political, scientific, and legal issues related to the death of Mr. Floyd and the prosecution of Officer Chauvin.  The bottom line, if one seriously considers the medical evidence, is that Derek Chauvin did not murder George Floyd.  I have done a video demonstration with two male subjects that shows that there is no way that Officer Chauvin killed Mr. Floyd with the same prone restraint seen in the video of Mr. Floyd's restraint and death.  My analysis of the events is that the combination of drugs, excitement, exertion, and a bad heart caused Mr. Floyd to die from cardiac arrest — just like a man who dies shoveling snow.

AG Ellison Seeks Comments From Community Leading Into Derek Chauvin's Sentencing.  In an unusual move, the Minnesota attorney general is asking the public to submit impact statements ahead of Derek Chauvin's sentencing on murder charges Friday.  It's been two months since Chauvin was convicted on all counts for murdering George Floyd.  While victim impact statements are common during sentencing, comments from the community are not.

Evidence Mounts — Chauvin Did Not Murder Floyd.  In his motion for a new trial, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, through his attorney Eric Nelson, made an obvious point.  Quoting case law, Nelson reminded the court of "the prosecutor's inherently unique role in the criminal justice system, which mandates that the prosecutor not act as a zealous advocate for criminal punishment, but as the representative of the people in an effort to seek justice."  Had the State prosecutors set out to honor this mandate and seek justice, they would not have presented the medical evidence they did.  In fact, they would not have charged Derek Chauvin with second-degree murder or charged his colleagues as accomplices.  If justice were the goal, prosecutors would have taken two critical steps to assure that the medical testimony supported the charge of murder.  The first was to run a controlled experiment to see if Chauvin's actions could possibly have resulted in the death of George Floyd.  The second was to make the court and the defense aware of the potential compromise of its star medical witness, Hennepin County Medical Examiner Dr. Andrew Baker.

Why Has the Right Let the Floyd Cops Fry?  Last Wednesday, the attorneys for former Minneapolis police officer Tou Thao filed a motion that should have been headline news on the right side of the internet.  Spoiler alert: it wasn't.  No surprise.  For the past year, conservative media and political leaders have been shockingly quiet about the flagrant assaults on due process surrounding the death of George Floyd. [...] Thao was Derek Chauvin's partner.  A nine-year veteran of the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD), Thao is the son of Hmong parents who fled the communists in Southeast Asia only to find the commies' ideological heirs dictating justice in the riotous streets of Minneapolis.  On the fateful night of May 25, 2020, Thao unknowingly helped trigger those mobs.  While Chauvin and two rookie officers, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane, struggled with the huge and aggressively intoxicated Floyd, Thao — in the anodyne prose of the State complaint — "became concerned about a number of citizens who had gathered and were watching the officers subdue Mr. Floyd, and potential traffic concerns, and so the defendant stood between those citizens and the three officers."

The New Secession Crisis: The Democrats have already left the Union.  The Democrats have already seceded from America's historic conception of nationhood in many respects: [...] THEY have corrupted our jury system — with Representative Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Joe Biden flagrantly involving themselves in a local jury trial.  The specter of mob violence hung over the Derrick Chauvin trial, as was clearly evident from the juror who spoke on the record, while other jurors blatantly broke their oaths of impartiality to obtain the required verdict.

Fired for criticism of Black crime.  [Scroll down]  Of course, this controversy originates with the death of George Floyd.  George Floyd has been described as a "hip hop artist."  The world has been deprived of this budding Beethoven.  His fellow Houston rapper Cal Wayne said "Floyd was a 'gentle giant' and well-known in Houston's rap culture as being a friendly guy."  He had some problems in Houston and had moved to Minneapolis to "turn his life around."  Like any cult figurehead, his minor blemishes have been scrubbed.  Mr. Nice Guy Floyd spent five years in prison for an armed robbery.  The Bellevue Union Chief, Bob Kroll wrote his followers on Twitter, "What is not being told is the violent criminal history of George Floyd.  The media will not air this."  The robbery does not reflect well on this nice guy image.  He allegedly broke into a woman's house.  According to the British Daily Mail, Floyd, "pressed a pistol to the pregnant woman's stomach and forced his way into the house."  The Courier Daily reported that Floyd intended to start a peaceful life but the decision "to change" ended up costing his life.  Floyd's "change" does not appear to have been significant.  Attempting to pass counterfeit money, Fentanyl abuse and resisting arrest are not an indication of reform.

On the anniversary of George Floyd's death, the left celebrates and hopes for more.  About a year ago, a cop arrested, handcuffed and foolishly killed a violent career criminal, drug addict, thief, robber and ex-con named George Floyd who was high on fentanyl and methamphetamine.  Last week on the anniversary of Floyd's death, the left marked the day.  Not with mournful candlelight vigils as civilized people might, but by celebrating in the usual Third World way by shooting guns into the air, into windows and into other people.  The left lives for these tragedies.  It gives them an excuse to go out rioting, and they did.  Not because they [care] about Floyd, but because they like to riot.  They like to riot because they hate America.  To the extent the rioters bothered with words, they couched much of their violence last year in anti-Trump rhetoric.  For that, the media of course cheered them on.

America can do better for heroes than George Floyd.  Let's state the obvious — George Floyd should not be a national hero.  Despite the love of his family for him and the fawning praise of his life by third parties, George Floyd was a drug abuser, drug dealer and violent offender with a long criminal history, including a felony conviction in 2009 for assault and armed robbery of a pregnant woman for which he spent five years in prison.  He also had at least seven other convictions ranging from possession and theft of a controlled substance, firearms robbery, cocaine possession, and trespassing on private property.  By any definition, he is not a role model and should not be praised by our President or anyone commenting on his treatment by the police.  On the day of his death, George Floyd was attempting to pass a counterfeit $20 bill at a local grocery store, prompting a police response.  Later toxicology reports confirmed he had numerous controlled substances in his system. [...] George Floyd's actions on the day of his death indicate that he was not positively changing his life following his release from prison in 2014, but was continuing in his criminal ways.  That's just a fact.

A Legal System Corrupted.  As if the travesty of the Chauvin trial were insufficient, the Department of Justice has weighed in with a criminal case charging him with violating Floyd's civil rights. (No claim was ever made by Minnesota prosecutors that Chauvin's conduct had been racist or that he was racist.  It's just a virtue signaling pile-on, in my view.  A pile-on to curry favor and career advancement.)  One of the other officers involved in the incident, Thou Thao, filed an interesting pleading this week.  He seeks the removal of the Minnesota attorney general from the prosecution of his case.  If the facts he alleges are true, this is the minimal remedy for prosecution misconduct he alleges.  He contends that the Hennepin County Coroner Dr. Andrew Baker, who is the only person who performed an autopsy on George Floyd, found that it "revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation" but that he was coerced by Dr. Roger Mitchell, former medical examiner of Washington, D.C., into changing his report, which three days later said the cause of death was "cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdural, restraint and neck compression," a finding at odds with his original post-autopsy report.  Dr. Mitchell seems to have considered himself part of the prosecution, threatening to attack Dr. Baker in the pages of the Washington Post if he stuck with his original report.

Attorneys file motion stating medical examiner was coerced to say George Floyd died of asphyxia.  On Wednesday, May 12th, attorneys for former Minneapolis Police Officer Tou Thao filed a motion asking the court to sanction prosecutors for failing to disclose information about the coercion of a specific witness.  According to reports, Bob Paule, one of Thao's attorneys claimed that the Hennepin County medical examiner, Dr. Andrew Baker, was coerced to include "neck compression" in his findings and that the prosecutors knew of it.  The motion also asked the judge to kick the attorney general off of the case for prosecutorial misconduct.  Reportedly, activity had picked up for the impending joint trial this coming August of former Minneapolis Police Officers J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Thao.  The day after that motion was filed, Thursday, May 13th, the judge made the decision to delay the officers' trial until March of 2022.

Floyd Defendant Accuses State of 'Prosecutorial Misconduct'.  Tou Thao, one of the four Minneapolis police officers charged in the "murder" of George Floyd, filed a motion on Wednesday accusing the State of Minnesota with "prosecutorial misconduct stemming from witness coercion." If Thao's accusations are true, and they certainly seem to be, the State has allowed this trial to drift irredeemably far into the brave new world of mob rule.  The charges center on the testimony of Dr. Andrew Baker, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner.  Baker conducted an autopsy on Floyd on May 26, 2020, the day after Floyd's death.  As yet unaware of the politics of the case, Baker reported his findings honestly, namely that "[t]he autopsy revealed no physical evidence suggesting that Mr. Floyd died of asphyxiation.  Mr. Floyd did not exhibit signs of petechiae, damage to his airways or thyroid, brain bleeding, bone injuries, or internal bruising."  Three days later, the State filed its initial complaint against Derek Chauvin.  According to the complaint, quoted by Thao, "The full report of the ME is pending but the ME has made the preliminary findings.  The autopsy revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation."  It appears that prosecutors came quickly to the realization that without a charge of asphyxia, they could not accuse Chauvin of Murder-2nd Degree.

Three minutes to prison.  In Minnesota, second-degree murder is unintentional death in the commission of a felony.  What was Officer Chauvin's felony?  The felony was kneeling too long on Mr. Floyd's back.  The initial kneel was a prescribed tactic from the Minneapolis police handbook; when did it turn from a prescribed tactic into a felony?  After one minute?  After five minutes?  After seven minutes and thirty seconds, when Mr. Floyd expired?  Officer Chauvin was a 19-year veteran of the Minneapolis police force.  To put that in perspective, he was an officer for approximately 2,280,000 minutes.  He held George Floyd down for approximately three minutes too long.  Expecting police officers to make exquisite timing decisions while trying to keep a muscular, combative suspect, who, by the way, was more than 80 pounds heavier than Officer Chauvin, subdued is asking a lot of ordinary humans.

When Pundits Express Joy at Derek Chauvin's Conviction.  [Scroll down]  In a nation of laws, a jury renders its verdict not to satiate the bloodlust of an angry mob.  The maxim fiat justitia ruat coelum ("let justice be done though the heavens may fall") is not mere pedantry.  Courts, exercising their criminal jurisdiction, have one job:  to look back upon what already occurred and to determine guilt or innocence, the just consequences of completed actions.  It is the Legislature that looks forward and determines what measures will advantage or disadvantage the society.  The day that men are convicted because the verdict will accomplish a grand public purpose, or avoid a public threat, is the day that we dispense with due process of law.  Criminal due process comprises procedures that must be followed if a trial's result is to have validity.  For what distinguishes a legitimate trial from a lynching if not a series of procedures and procedural safeguards that occur in the former?  Obviously, the difference is not that the victims of lynching are always innocent.  The crime may be committed before a multitude, or on film, or on live television and still the strictures of the Sixth Amendment, the most fundamental code of criminal due process in the United States, apply.  It begins, "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed" (emphasis supplied).

Chauvin, Three Fellow Officers Indicted on Federal Civil Rights Charges in Floyd Case.  A federal grand jury indicted four former officers on civil rights charges in the death of Minneapolis resident George Floyd, according to an indictment released on Friday [5/7/2021].  Derek Chauvin, Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng, and Tou Thao were indicted together for violating Floyd's right to freedom from unreasonable seizure and excessive force, and failure to provide medical care to Floyd during his arrest.  Chauvin was convicted of murder last month, a year after video emerged of Chauvin pinning Floyd to the ground during his arrest until after he lost consciousness.  The three other officers also took part in Floyd's arrest.

Federal grand jury charges 4 former Minneapolis cops with violating George Floyd's civil rights — Chauvin also charged in teen arrest.  A federal grand jury has indicted Derek Chauvin and three other former Minneapolis police officers for violating the civil rights of George Floyd, the Black man whose videotaped death last May during an arrest sparked nationwide protests and demands for the reform of police departments.  Chauvin separately was charged in another federal indictment with violating the civil rights of a 14-year-old Minneapolis boy during a September 2017 arrest by holding the boy by the neck and hitting him multiple times in the head with a flashlight "without legal justification."  The new criminal charges revealed Friday [5/7/2021] come nearly three weeks after Chauvin was convicted at a state trial of murder and manslaughter in the death of Floyd, and three months before the other ex-officers are due to face another state trial for his death.

Black officer:  The media-driven false narrative about police shootings is making America more violent.  The current war on police is empowering criminals and making the country more violent, while forcing current officers to reconsider their career and which is impacting recruitment of new officers.  That is the warning from a black police officer who was interviewed for an article in The Federalist.  The officer, who chose to remain anonymous for fear of retribution weighed in on a number of issues facing police officers in the post-George Floyd world.

Black Cop:  Lies About 'Institutional Racism' Are Making America More Violent.  [Scroll down]  [Q] Do you think Chauvin got a fair trial?  [A] No.  [Q] Why wasn't it fair?  [A] It seemed everybody made up their mind about his guilt before the trial.  In addition, the jury wasn't sequestered and so they saw the biased coverage and were likely influenced by that coverage or seeing riots and threats of riots around the country.  That's going to put a lot of pressure on the jury to come to a certain decision.  A jury is supposed to make its determination based on the subject matter and expert witnesses, not go home and watch the news and form their opinions that way.  So no, it wasn't fair.

Derek Chauvin's Attorney Files Motion For New Trial.  Attorney Eric Nelson has filed a motion for a new trial for former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who was convicted of murdering George Floyd last month.  Nelson claims the court violated Chauvin's constitutional rights for several reasons, including not allowing the trial to move outside of Hennepin County, and not sequestering the jury the entire time.  He also says the jury committed misconduct, and wants a hearing to throw out the verdict.  Attorney Joe Tamburino, who is not affiliated with Chauvin's case, said the odds of him getting a new trial are "very low."

Derek Chauvin Requests New Trial, Alleges Jury Misconduct.  Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who was convicted last month of killing George Floyd, filed an appeal for a new trial on Tuesday [5/4/2021].  The request, filed by Chauvin's attorney Eric Nelson, alleges that the former police officer's ability to have a fair trial was affected by pretrial publicity.  It also claims that the court abused its discretion by refusing to grant requests for a change in venue outside of Minneapolis and a new trial.

Legal Experts Flag Failure of Chauvin Juror to Disclose Attending Rally With Floyd's Relatives.  A juror in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer found guilty in the 2020 death of George Floyd, failed to disclose that he attended an event attended by Floyd's relatives last year, raising questions of impartiality, according to legal experts.  Floyd stopped breathing while being pinned to the ground by Chauvin following an arrest for alleged use of counterfeit money in Cup Foods in Minneapolis in May last year.  A jury convicted Chauvin of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter after closing arguments concluded on April 19.  One of the 12 jurors who deliberated at the trial, Brandon Mitchell, a 31-year-old high school basketball coach who has identified himself, told news outlets in Minneapolis that on Aug. 28 last year, he attended a march in Washington where Floyd's siblings were present.

Chauvin juror defends attending anti-cop protest as expert warns it could be used to overturn murder conviction.  A juror in the Derek Chauvin trial has defended attending an anti-police protest as an expert warns it could be used to overturn the murder conviction.  Brandon Mitchell was one of the 12 jurors who convicted ex-Minneapolis cop Chauvin of second and third-degree murder and manslaughter over the killing of George Floyd.  Social media images have emerged of Mitchell attending a August 28 protest, at which Floyd's relatives spoke, while wearing a t-shirt with the words 'GET YOUR KNEE OFF OUR NECKS' on the front.  The 31-year-old black man is seen standing with two cousins and wearing the T-shirt in question.  The photo has recently recirculated online, the Star Tribune reported.  He has acknowledged being at the event, according to Daily Mail reports, but has said he doesn't recall wearing or owning the shirt.

Chauvin juror wore BLM shirt in 2020, now says people should join juries 'to spark some change'.  The impartiality of one of the jurors who convicted Derek Chauvin on all charges now is highly questionable, thanks to discovery of a (now deleted) tweet from August last year and his own words in an interview one week ago, April 27. [...] The juror, whose name is Brandon Mitchell and whose juror number was 52, may have perjured himself during the voir dire examination of his suitability for the jury by claiming little knowledge of the case.

Uh oh.  Chauvin juror seen in picture wearing BLM hat and George Floyd shirt.  As we worked our way through the trial of Derek Chauvin in the killing of George Floyd, the voir dire process nearly drew as much attention as the trial itself.  Given the wall-to-wall coverage the entire saga generated in news reports across the nation, finding more than a dozen people who were sincerely unbiased and (hopefully) not all that familiar with the story was always going to be a challenge.  There were also concerns from BLM supporters that there would be (presumably racist) white jurors who would hold out for a deadlocked jury.  In the end, however, they seated the required number of people.  But were all of the jurors honest about their positions while being questioned by the prosecution and the defense?  That's the question that's being raised this week.  One of the jurors who has since gone public, Brandon Mitchell (formerly known as Juror #52), has shown up on social media sporting some apparel and offering quotes indicating that he was not only far more familiar with the case than he had let on, but most definitely had a position as to what had happened.  Given the answers that Mitchell provided during questioning, this could call the entire validity of the trial into question.

Juror in Chauvin Trial Makes Potentially Problematic Statements on Morning Show.  There are questions now being raised about Juror #52 in the Derek Chauvin trial, reportedly Brandon Mitchell.  Mitchell has now come forward and given interviews on several shows.  Speaking to the "Get Up!  Mornings" show with Erica Campbell on April 27, Mitchell spoke about his experience on the jury.  During the interview, Campbell said that many people aren't all that eager to do jury duty.  She asked him about what message he would leave people about "saying yes to jury duty?"  That's when Mitchell said something that could be problematic and potentially raise an issue on appeal. [...]

Prosecutors seek higher sentence for Chauvin in Floyd death.  Prosecutors are asking a judge to give Derek Chauvin a more severe penalty than state guidelines call for when he is sentenced in June for George Floyd's death, arguing in court documents filed Friday that Floyd was particularly vulnerable and that Chauvin abused his authority as a police officer.

Biden's DOJ Plotted Political Stunt Courthouse Arrest of George Floyd Cop.  The Obama DOJ is back and that means pushing black supremacist politics and going after the police.  But even by Obama standards, a political stunt like a courthouse arrest of the cop who was on the scene when George Floyd died of a drug overdose is really something. [...] Arresting Chauvin at the courthouse was a publicity stunt.  Chauvin wasn't going to fly to Brazil even if he were exonerated.  But you just know the Obama DOJ people plotting this had been coordinating with CNN to have the cameras running on the scene.

Feds plan to indict Chauvin, other three ex-officers on civil rights charges.  Leading up to Derek Chauvin's murder trial, Justice Department officials had spent months gathering evidence to indict the ex-Minneapolis police officer on federal police brutality charges, but they feared the publicity frenzy could disrupt the state's case.  So they came up with a contingency plan:  If Chauvin were found not guilty on all counts or the case ended in a mistrial, they would arrest him at the courthouse, according to sources familiar with the planning discussions.  The backup plan would not be necessary.  On April 20, the jury found Chauvin guilty on all three murder and manslaughter counts, sending him to the state's most secure lockdown facility to await sentencing, and avoiding the riots many feared could engulf the city once again.

First Juror in Derek Chauvin's Trial Speaks Out After Guilty Verdict.  The jury that found former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin guilty in the death of George Floyd was at peace with their verdict, according to the first juror who deliberated at the trial to reveal his identity and speak publicly about the experience. [...] Last week, the jury found Chauvin guilty of second- and third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in Floyd's death outside a convenience store in Minneapolis last Memorial Day.  After closing arguments concluded on April 19, jurors reached their verdict the following day, after about eight hours of deliberations.  According to Mitchell, who is black, most of the jury was in agreement nearly immediately on convicting Chauvin.  But at least one juror wanted to slow down and consider things carefully.

How the Left Turned Chauvin Into a Racist Killer.  Although he made up his mind before jury did, President Joe Biden quickly went public once he learned that the Minneapolis jury had, in fact, convicted former police officer Derek Chauvin on all charges.  "It was a murder in the full light of day, and it ripped the blinders off for the whole world to see the systemic racism the vice president just referred to — the systemic racism that is a stain on our nation's soul."  So said the only president to have given a eulogy at the funeral of an Exalted Klan Cyclops, and that just 10 years before Floyd's death.  The comments by Biden, endorsed by the media, frame the Overton window on George Floyd's death and Derek Chauvin's verdict.  The only acceptable public opinion is that Chauvin intentionally caused Floyd's death.  If proof were needed, former NFL great Brett Favre was tarred and feathered on Twitter for haplessly suggesting otherwise.

A Long and Sordid History of Crowds Threatening Violence in the Event of a Jury Acquittal.  It does not matter to due process whether the crowd is right or wrong, Black or white, well-intentioned or malevolent.  Nor does it matter whether the defendant is guilty, innocent or somewhere in between.  Oliver Wendell Holmes correctly pointed out: due process simply cannot be achieved for any defendant in the presence of hostile crowds ready for violence if a verdict of not guilty is rendered.  Every police chief and mayor of a large city understood that a verdict of not guilty for George Floyd's murder would result in demonstrations and perhaps violence.  They, along with the president, understandably prayed for the right verdict — which they defined as a conviction for murder regardless of whether the evidence supported that result, rather than a verdict of manslaughter, which the evidence clearly did support.  Like Oliver Wendell Holmes, every American should "very seriously doubt" if Chauvin had "due process of law."  He may well be guilty of at least manslaughter, but the process by which he was convicted was fatally flawed, in the same way that the process was flawed in the Leo Frank, Sam Sheppard and other cases.

Derek Chauvin Did Nothing Wrong.  [Scroll down]  It was stupid enough when people tried the "but why didn't he just hold him?" nonsense in reference to the 160-pound Trayvon Martin nearly a decade ago.  It is downright absurd to think that 140-pound Derek Chauvin could have controlled the muscular, 6' 4", 230-pound George Floyd with a magical, civil-looking application of force while a circling crowed threatened him with violence.  When Floyd continued resisting arrest after being placed in handcuffs, Chauvin didn't beat him with a baton.  He didn't taze him.  He didn't put in him a chokehold.  He put one knee on what the prosecution is now optimistically calling Floyd's "neck area" and waited for the ambulance to come save Floyd's life in a "load and scoot" operation to avoid crowd interference.  The worst that could be said is that he didn't simply let Floyd go because he was still complaining about being unable to breath[e], just as he had been since the beginning of the encounter.  The state's case so far boils down to a collection of experts equating that to murder.

The bigotry of no expectations.  Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., who has a long and inglorious history of justifying mass violence dating back to the Rodney King riots — she termed them the "Los Angeles Uprising" — has now suggested that if Chauvin is convicted for manslaughter but not murder, protesters should get "more confrontational."  It's hard to imagine Black Lives Matter protesters becoming more confrontational than they were last summer, when BLM-associated riots did an estimated $2 billion in property damage.  But a congresswoman can dream.  And her Democratic allies can back her up:  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi D-Calif., said that Waters should not apologize for her comments, despite the judge in Chauvin's case positing the possibility of a mistrial on appeal thanks to Waters' jury intimidation.  The media, too, have turned up the temperature.  The establishment media have treated Chauvin's defense as an annoyance, or even an outrage; they've suggested that any rational jury should quickly convict Chauvin on all charges.

The Derek Chauvin trial is an ill omen for America.  Derek Chauvin has been found guilty on all counts by a jury — two counts of murder and one count of manslaughter.  Barack Hussein Obama celebrated the verdict, saying, "the jury did the right thing."  The jury might very well have done the right thing, had the mob not interfered.  Derek Chauvin did not get a fair trial.  The upshot of the mobs' threats to riot and the enormous pressure from prominent Democrats to ensure a guilty verdict ensured that no justice could be served.  Derek Chauvin was sentenced by the mob, rather than the law.  The Derek Chauvin trial isn't about Derek Chauvin, but about the proliferation of mob justice sweeping across America today.  This same plague swept across America in 1838, when Abraham Lincoln was only a 28 year old Illinois State House representative.

St. George Floyd And Biden's Anti-White Regime — Enabled By Ethnomasochism.  The most parsimonious explanation for the jury's verdict: fear.  Given the hullabaloo surrounding the trial — of which Judge Cahill made sure they were well aware — the jurors voted to not have their homes burned and their family members lynched.  In a society under the rule of law, that would not have been something they would need to worry about.  In such a society, the municipal, state, and federal authorities would have gone to any necessary trouble and expense to preserve the jurors' safety, up to and including giving them aliases and parking them in witness protection programs in Malibu on generous lifetime pensions.  Those authorities, in the interest of maintaining impartial justice, would also have hunted down and prosecuted any persons promoting, or even just suggesting, violent retribution against the jurors.  But we don't live in that kind of society, and I'm sure the jurors know it.  The mobs demanding guilty verdicts and threatening violence, arson, and looting if there was any other outcome, have the full support of the public authorities — municipal, state, and federal.

Dems are out to destroy a Chauvin defense witness's life and reputation.  George Floyd had a lethal dose of fentanyl in his body.  His post-mortem blood oxygen level was a robust 98%, despite significant heart disease.  He was complaining that he couldn't breathe long before the police, following a violent struggle, got him to the ground in the Minneapolis-approved position for excited delirium.  Accurate, previously unseen footage showed that Officer Chauvin's knee was on Floyd's shoulders, not his neck.  Oh, and an alternate juror said that she was afraid the mob would go after her for a non-guilty verdict.  On these and other facts, the prosecution got a guilty verdict.  Armed with it, the Democrats are now working to destroy a former medical who dared to testify in Chauvin's favor.

Stop Lying About the Derek Chauvin Trial.  Here's what really happened at the Derek Chauvin trial:  A guilty man was railroaded.  I'm no fan of that former police officer.  He's clearly a bad guy, a bully.  When he had his knee on George Floyd's neck, he passed the line no cop should ever pass.  On the other hand, George Floyd was no hero.  He was a lifelong criminal.  When he died, he had just committed a crime and resisted arrest, and his body was filled with fentanyl.  I have no sympathy for criminals, or drug addicts.  And I always support cops.  I appreciate the courage it takes to do their job.  I think cops are heroes.  So, it pains me to say that Derek Chauvin went too far that day.  But stop lying.  Stop saying, "justice was done."  Stop calling it a fair trial.  It was more like a Soviet show trial.  There was nothing fair about it.  The verdict was clearly determined by the Black Lives Matter movement and the liberal media before the trial ever started.  It wasn't based on justice; it was based on mob justice.

Sign at George Floyd Square gives list of special orders for white visitors.  The square where George Floyd was murdered by ex-Minnesota cop Derek Chauvin now has a sign with special rules for white people.  The placard at the entrance of George Floyd Square in Minnesota calls it "a sacred space for community, public grief, and protest," telling visitors to "honor the space as a place to connect and grieve as caring humans."  But most of the instructions are listed under five orders "for white people in particular."  "Decenter yourself and come to listen, learn, mourn, and witness," the first bullet points reads, adding, "Remember you are here to support, not to be supported."  "Be mindful of whether your volume, pace, and movements are supporting or undermining your efforts to decenter yourself," the second orders says.

The Editor says...
George Floyd might be alive today if he had "decentered" himself a few years ago.

Chauvin Trial Juror Says She Feared Intimidation at Her Home, Riots If Verdict Wasn't Accepted.  During an interview with KARE 11 a juror for the trial of ex-Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin, who ultimately found out she was an alternate, expressed concern about being called for the job because she "didn't want to see rioting again" and was scared people would show up at her home if they were unhappy with a particular verdict. [...] Despite a fear of riots, Christensen still believes Chauvin was guilty on all three charges of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the death of George Floyd.  This was the verdict the jury unanimously handed down Tuesday afternoon.

Black business owners at George Floyd Square pleading for help as crime spikes and revenue plummets.  Black-owned businesses surrounding the area where George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis last year say they are in desperate need of help from police.  Black merchants operating on the corner of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, known as George Floyd Square, are struggling to stay open due to rampant crime and say police have blocked off the intersection, creating a dangerous autonomous zone, according to the New York Post.  "The city left me in danger," the owner of Smoke in the Pit said Thursday, two days after Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder for Floyd's death.  "They locked us up on here and left us behind."  Several stores on the block are boarded up, and the New York Post reported that many owners and workers were afraid to comment about the dire situation due to fear of reprisal.

Chauvin trial jury panel member admits being intimidated.  One member of the jury panel that heard the case against Derek Chauvin has admitted to being intimidated.  The jury panel on which she sat found him guilty on all charges (second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter) with only a few hours' deliberation in a complex, technical case.  During its deliberations, the jurors asked no questions and sought no evidence to review. [...] There can be little doubt that Chauvin did not receive a fair trial, given the personal fears members of the jury inevitably felt after watching Minneapolis partially destroyed in rioting, after the local newspaper, the StarTribune, shamefully published biographical information that made identification of jurors possible even without naming them, and after the presumed home of an expert witness for the defense was smeared in pig's blood.  Will any appellate court have the guts to declare a mistrial?  I rather doubt it, including even the United States Supreme Court.

'I Didn't Want to Go Through the Rioting': Juror in Chauvin Trial Makes Stunning Admission over 'Guilty' Verdict.  On Tuesday, a jury found Derek Chauvin guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in a case that had sparked nationwide riots:  The death of George Floyd.  During the course of the trial, Judge Peter Cahill mentioned that the court case was getting dangerously close to mistrial.  A new interview with an alternate juror named Lisa Christensen, who lives in Brooklyn Center, provides new insight into the courtroom dynamics.

Why Chauvin Verdict Disappointed Democrats.  Tuesday afternoon the Democrats and the Left at large got exactly what they said they wanted from the trial of Derek Chauvin.  The jury found him guilty of all three counts — second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter — with which he had been charged in the death of George Floyd.  Yet prominent Democrats who commented on the verdict seemed slightly bewildered and disappointed.  Their collective response was captured in this statement from Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison:  "I would not call today's verdict justice, because justice implies restoration."  This is an odd assertion coming from the man who orchestrated Chauvin's prosecution and secured an unequivocal conviction.

There's No Way Americans Can Trust The Jury's Chauvin Verdict.  A Minnesota jury has found former police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter.  This means they claim to have concluded that they unanimously believe beyond a reasonable doubt that Chauvin caused Floyd's death.  Given the circumstances of the trial, however, it's extremely hard to believe the jury was solely concerned with either truth or justice.  It's extremely hard, if not impossible, for any thinking person not to have a reasonable doubt about the outcome.  We know the judge in the case refused to sequester jurors from media coverage and outside influences during the trial, and that the pressure conveyed to them was beyond intense.  It was made perfectly clear to them that the nation would be engulfed in flames if they expressed they did in fact have a reasonable doubt over whether Floyd's death was Chauvin's fault.

A Troubled Rule of Law.  America's cities did not burn last night.  But the terrified preparations in Minneapolis and elsewhere in anticipation of the George Floyd verdict — the razor wire and barricades around government buildings, the activation of the National Guard, the declaration in Minnesota of a "peacetime emergency," the fortified police presence, the curfews, the cancellation of school, the boarded up businesses — raise serious questions about the rule of law in the United States.  Had the jury failed to convict Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin on all three counts of murder and manslaughter, the ensuing riots would likely have made the conflagrations of 2020 look like a Girl Scout campfire.  This likely outcome was evident long before Congresswoman Maxine Waters encouraged such violence over the weekend.  Last year's precedent, the ensuing 12 months of wildly inaccurate rhetoric about white supremacy, and the recent looting in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, over a fatal police shooting made such rioting a virtual certainty.  That inflammatory rhetoric poured forth from every institution in the country — from the presidency, Congress, corporations, law firms, banks, tech companies, academia, and the public school system.  The mainstream media pounded home the narrative about unchanging black oppression.

This Trial Was A Disgrace.  What happened here?  Well, they piled appellate issue on the appellate issue in a towering pile of errors that would, by all rights, lead a real court of appeals to toss this case back for a retrial.  The judge refused to change the venue.  He made the case be tried in a city whose inhabitants set it aflame.  Seems legit.  The judge refused to sequester the jury, making them pinkie swear to ignore the Class 5 hurricane of media attention.  That'll work.  The city council decided to settle the wrongful death case right during the trial.  What a coinkydink.  Minneapolis's goofy mayor demanded a conviction.  Great.  Minnesota's governor did too.  Awesome[.]  The loathsome Maxine Waters — as part of the Army, I had to help clean up the mess she made in 1992 in LA with her "No justice, no peace" incitement — decided to encourage violence if her preferred verdict didn't come down.  Spectacular.  The leftist scumbags did their part, splashing pig's blood on the house of someone they thought had been a defense witness for the crime of giving testimony the mob disliked.  Nothing to see here.  And the media did its part, ensuring that the jurors knew they'd be doxed if they got it "wrong" (and praised if they got it "right").  Oh, the media didn't say it expressly — but the media still made it clear.

Thanks, Derek Chauvin Jurors!  You're Safe Now.  We Aren't.  The prosecutors must feel great!  All it took was threatening the jurors with riots and personal destruction to get the verdict they wanted.  Real Ciceros, these guys.  Chauvin was forced to flee his home last year, which naturally had been vandalized, requiring constant police presence.  Barricades have recently been erected around the home of officer Kim Potter, who accidentally shot escaping violent gun offender Daunte Wright last week.  The day before Chauvin's case went to the jury, a defense witness — a witness! — had his former home in California vandalized with pigs' blood and a pig's head.  So I'm sure the jurors reached their verdict purely based on the evidence, after a careful weighing of both sides in the Anglo-Saxon tradition.  We're told that this is only the beginning, big changes are in the air.  Does that mean every case against a cop will come with threats of mob violence?

Fox News' Gutfeld:  Chauvin Verdict Was Extortion by the Left-Wing Mob.  Derek Chauvin and George Floyd sparked a summer of unrest in 2020.  Chauvin was a former Minneapolis police officer at the center of the infamous video that led to months of mayhem, unrest, looting, arson, and vandalism.  Chauvin was charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter.  He was found guilty on all counts today.  Yet was he overcharged.  Should the trial have been moved to a different venue?  We had elected officials including the president of the United States weighing in on the matter, something that was verboten in the past.  Businesses were boarding up in anticipation of whatever may come.  Did the former officer get a fair trial?

The Chauvin Appeal:  How The Comments Of The Court & The Prosecutors Could Raise Challenges Going Forward.  There will likely be an array of conventional appellate issues from the elements of the murder counts to the sufficiency of the evidence.  Obviously, any appeal will wait until after sentencing, which will take many weeks.  However, two issues were highlighted on the final day which could play a role in the appeal.  The first on the denial of a venue change and the sequestering of the jury is very difficult make work on appeal.  However, there are strong arguments to be made in this case.  I believe Judge Cahill should have granted the venue change and also sequestered this jury.  It is not clear if the court polled the jury on trial coverage, particularly after the inflammatory remarks of Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Cal.). However, there are credible grounds for challenging how this jury may have been influenced by the saturation of coverage of the trial as well as rioting in the area.

Alan Dershowitz says Chauvin verdict 'should be reversed,' citing outside 'threats and intimidation' toward jury.  Lawyer Alan Dershowitz said Derek Chauvin's guilty verdict in the death of George Floyd "should be reversed on appeal" because of "threats" from outside influences, such as Rep. Maxine Waters.  "Well, first, what was done to George Floyd by officer Chauvin was inexcusable, morally, but the verdict is very questionable because of the outside influences of people like Al Sharpton and people like Maxine Waters," he told Newsmax in an interview on Tuesday [4/20/2021].  "Their threats and intimidation and hanging the Sword of Damocles over the jury and basically saying, 'If you don't convict on the murder charge and all the charges, the cities will burn, the country will be destroyed,' seeped into the jury room because the judge made a terrible mistake by not sequestering the jury," he said.

Biden's statement following the Chauvin verdict was disgraceful.  [Scroll down]  Inciting racial hatred is central to this third act and Biden, who studied at the feet of the hate-filled White segregationists in the early 1970s, is proving to be an adept hate-filled Black segregationist in the 2020s.  From his first day in office, Biden's focus on "equity" has had nothing to do with the Constitution's promise that all Americans are entitled to equal treatment under the law.  Instead, Biden is willing to use the full force of the federal government to resegregate America.  If one understands Biden's background and his decades of hate-filled racial radicalism as a path to power, it's easy to understand the slanderously anti-American statement he made after a jury that had been intimidated in every way possible found Derek Chauvin guilty of a variety of murder charges against a lifelong, often violent, felon in the process of dying from a massive overdose of illegal drugs.  Here are just the libels that Biden uttered against America and Americans in the first two minutes of his statement: [...]

TV Networks Skip White Lady Pelosi Thanking Black Man Floyd for Dying.  In a bizarre Tuesday [4/20/2021] press conference following the guilty verdict of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the murder of George Floyd, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) thanked Floyd for "sacrificing" his life (as though it was his choice) and crying out for mother.  It was a disgusting display that went completely unmentioned by the evening newscasts of ABC, CBS, and NBC, though ABC's World News Tonight was busy falsely claiming Republicans were against police reform.  Fortunately, Fox News Prime Time rotational host and Federalist co-founder Ben Domenech wasn't going to let Pelosi's gross exploitation of Floyd's death slide.  "[I]t seems to me that the way the totalitarian left approaches these issues, they are designed — their whole approach is designed to permit racial outrage, to create division, and then exploit it for political purposes," he said to Fox News contributor Tammy Bruce [...].

Joe Biden Reacts to Chauvin Verdict and Describes a World That Doesn't Exist — Except Where Democrats Rule.  [Scroll down]  The most insane reaction to the [Derek Chauvin / George Floyd] verdict belongs to Nancy Pelosi, who literally thanked George Floyd for getting murdered.  As if he intended to get killed that day.  As if his murder has led to some sort of good outcome.  More than two dozen Americans, mostly minorities, were killed in the riots that followed his death.  Rioters did billions of dollars of damage to cities all over the country.  Our national fabric has been torn asunder, and Pelosi has done precisely nothing to bring it back together.  She divides at every single opportunity.  It's long past time for the divisive, always enraged Pelosi to depart the political scene.

Nancy Pelosi Celebrates Chauvin Guilty Verdict by Thanking George Floyd for Dying.  Lebron James "was crying," Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison was ebullient, and Senator Tim Scott got some facts wrong, but nobody had a stranger reaction to the guilty verdicts in the Derek Chauvin trial than Nancy Pelosi.  The Speaker of the House quickly arranged a presser outside on Capitol Hill after the guilty verdicts were read on Tuesday afternoon [4/20/2021].  Members of Congress were arrayed behind Pelosi as the House Speaker looked prayerfully up to the sky and, in a voice muffled by her mask, said in her treacly way:  ["]Thank you, George Floyd, for sacrificing your life for justice.  Your name will become synonymous with justice.["]

"Thank you George Floyd for Sacrificing Your Life for Justice!" — Nancy Pelosi Spouts Off Outrageous Nonsense after Derek Chauvin Verdict.  The Democrats from the House of Representatives led by Nancy Pelosi held a presser outside the US Capitol after the Derek Chauvin verdict was announced.  Speaker Pelosi and other Representatives held a presser at the Capital [sic].  [Video clip]

Ted Cruz Says Biden's Comments on Chauvin Verdict 'Grounds for a Mistrial'.  Texas Senator Ted Cruz weighed-in Wednesday on President Biden's comments surrounding the guilty verdict of Derek Chauvin; saying the Commander-in-Chief's rhetoric could be "grounds for a mistrial."  "I waited until the jury was sequestered and I called the Floyd Family," said the President.  "I'm praying the verdict is the right verdict.  I think it's overwhelming, in my view.  I wouldn't say that unless the jury was sequestered, now that they can't hear me say that," he added.  "Joe Biden decides that Maxine Waters shouldn't be the only politician foolishly providing grounds for a mistrial or a possible basis on appeal to challenge any guilty conviction," posted Cruz on Twitter.

Tomi Lahren faces online mob after being dragged as racist over verdict response.  Fox News conservative commentator Tomi Lahren triggered an online mob of far-left zealots Tuesday when she noted on Twitter that, with former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin having been convicted in the death of criminal suspect George Floyd, Black Lives Matter extremists have no reason to riot anymore.  "You got your justice so I'd assume there will be peace in Minneapolis tonight?  No rioting?  No looting?  No harassing officers?  Is the Foot Locker safe tonight?  Should be, right?  Justice, right?  No need to steal in the name of George Floyd anymore, right?" she tweeted immediately following the reading of Chauvin's verdict.

Blacks At Floyd Memorial Want To Burn Down City No Matter What, One Hints Towards Killing Whites.  Radical black BLM supporters in attendance at A George Floyd's memorial in Minneapolis were asked about their thoughts on police, civil war and how they felt whites should be treated.  What follows is a collection of shockingly honest words from people who are actively looking to tear the country apart for no reason other than racism against white people, which despite what CNN would have you believe isn't really that big of an issue anymore as many races work happily together every day around the nation.  "Burn the whole city down, what does it matter?" one of the women asked.  "I say burn the city down, y'know?  So they can see that we're here," another woman asserted.  One person said that Derek Chauvin should not have received a trial at all.

'We Don't Want You Here!' BLM Protesters Harass NYC Diners After Chauvin's Guilty Verdicts.  BLM protesters harassed diners in New York City during a march that started after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty on Tuesday of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter in the death of George Floyd.  The march began in Brooklyn with protesters chanting, "Whose streets?  Our streets!"  [Video clip]

Dems have abandoned all principle by telegraphing approval of some rioting.  Are some riots good and others unacceptable?  Surely not.  Those who destroy property and commit assaults, whether against law enforcers or civilians, ought to be punished, no matter the cause they claim to support.  But today's liberals reject this fair, universal standard.  Some riots deserve legal protection, they insist, while others must be harshly repressed.  It all depends on the politics of the rioters.  Some, such as the excitable Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), are cheering the prospect of another round of Black Lives Matter riots, er, "peaceful protests," if the Derek Chauvin trial doesn't go their way.  They're also up in arms about a new Florida law that strengthens punishment for those who take to the streets to commit violence.

Witness Intimidation, Racial Antagonists Throw Blood and Pig Head on Former Residence of Defense Witness in Derek Chauvin Trial.  As the closing arguments of the Derek Chauvin trial wrap up today those who want to advance racial hatred attempt to intimidate a prior defense witness.  Former police training officer Barry Brodd testified for the defense.  His former home in Santa Rosa, California, was attacked Sunday with a pigs head left on the blood-splattered front porch.  Fortunately Mr. Brodd had previously moved away from that location, but the current owner was obviously mortified.  The far-left is once again using every resource to trigger violence and hatred around this case.  Without a doubt the activists inside Obama's Chicago network are coordinating the effort.  They have been exploiting the death of George Floyd for maximum political value and antagonism from the outset.

Peaceful Protesters?  BLM Incites Crowd To 'Get Blood On Their Hands'.  With the scent of mayhem over the George Floyd murder trial verdict already in the air, Black Lives Matter is preparing to take to the streets for another round of rioting, looting, and mayhem that could result in bloodshed.  On Friday [4/16/2021], BLM activists and their Antifa allies took to the streets to denounce the police and to warm up for the violence that will be unleashed if the jury delivers anything less than a second-degree murder verdict against ex-cop Derek Chauvin.  In one of the rallies that were held across the country, a young activist speaking at Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington D.C. made it clear that there will be hell to pay for white America and issued a call for what sounded like a violent revolution.

Maxine Waters Makes Inciting Comments, Goes All in With Rashida Tlaib on the Anti-Police Rhetoric.  Rep. Maxine Waters (Delusional-CA) joined a protest action in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, last night [4/17/2021] and made inflammatory comments, saying that people needed to "stay in the streets" and be "confrontational" if Derek Chauvin, the police officer on trial for George Floyd's death, is not convicted of first degree murder.  [Video clip]  Now, of course, this is completely irresponsible for a sitting member of the House to be encouraging "confrontation," especially when things are already at a fever pitch.  If she had been a Republican and said this, she'd probably already be accused of "insurrection."  If she had been President Donald Trump, she'd already be impeached.

Marjorie Taylor Greene Says She Will Introduce Resolution to Expel Maxine Waters From Congress.  Freshman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said Sunday [4/18/2021] that she plans to introduce a resolution calling on Congress to expel sixteen-term Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) over incendiary remarks Waters made at an anti-police protest in Brooklyn City, Minnesota late Saturday night.  Waters was recorded on video demanding a guilty verdict from the jury in the Derek Chauvin trial and urged protesters to "get more confrontational."

Republicans blast Rep. Maxine Waters over protest comments.  A chorus of Republicans blasted Rep. Maxine Waters Sunday [4/18/2021] for telling angry protesters to "stay in the streets" and "get more confrontational" during the seven-straight night of unrest in Minnesota — saying the California Democrat's fiery comments could incite violence in a state already on edge.  Waters stood alongside demonstrators in Brooklyn Center early Sunday morning, breaking a curfew set by police, to encourage them to make their voices heard following the fatal police shooting of Daunte Wright and ahead of as closing arguments in the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin for the death of George Floyd.  "We've got to stay in the streets, and we've got to demand justice," she urged the crowd, who earlier had been chanting:  "No good cops in a racist system!" "[...]!" and "No justice, no peace!"  "We're looking for a guilty verdict" in the Chauvin case, Waters said.  "And if we don't, we cannot go away, we've got to get more confrontational."

Impeach and remove Maxine Waters.  In supporting the second impeachment of President Trump, California Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters said he was "inciting" his followers, and was "trying to create a Civil War."  By her own standards, Maxine Waters should be impeached and removed.  On Sunday [4/18/2021] in Minnesota, Waters, breaking the law by violating curfew (because "she didn't agree with it") said that if ex-police officer Derek Chauvin is not found guilty of murdering George Floyd, "We've got to get more confrontational."  There's been rioting, looting, graffiti — what did Waters mean by "more confrontational?" In Portland, they set fire to an Apple store.  They're trying to take over government buildings.  This isn't the first time Waters has incited her supporters.  In 2018, she told them to harass Trump administration officials.  "Let's make sure we show up wherever we have to show up.  And if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd.  And you push back on them.  And you tell them they're not welcome anymore, anywhere," she said.

Calls For Maxine Waters to Be Immediately Arrested Grow After She "Incited Riots".  Maxine Water, like all Dems, is hell-bent on tearing this nation apart in the twisted name of "justice."  Mad Max took to the streets of Minneapolis, wearing a mask, and a massive plexiglass faceguard (wasn't she vaccinated?) and whipped the crowd up into [a] frenzy, and basically told them to "burn it all down" if Derek Chauvin isn't convicted of the first-degree murder of George Floyd. [...] A sitting US Congresswoman is actually encouraging rioting and looting if our justice doesn't convict Chauvin.

Maxine Waters tells Minnesota BLM protesters 'to get more confrontational' one day after violent anti-police clashes erupted across US.  California Representative Maxine Waters joined protesters in Minnesota as demonstrations entered a seventh night on Saturday after the death of Daunte Wright.  Waters told the protesters at Brooklyn Center that she will fight for justice on their behalf and urged them to 'to get more confrontational' — just one day after protests descended into violence.  'I am not happy that we have talked about police reform for so long,' Waters said. 'We're looking for a guilty verdict,' she added in regards to the Derek Chauvin trial.  'If we don't, we cannot go away.'

Maxine Waters:  Derek Chauvin Must Be 'Guilty, Guilty, Guilty' or We Take to the Streets.  Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) joined demonstrators Saturday evening outside the police station in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, and told Americans to take to the streets unless Derek Chauvin is convicted for murder in the death of George Floyd.  Waters joined protesters who are angry over the shooting of Daunte Wright, 20, as he fled arrest after a traffic stop earlier this month. [...] The incident was followed by protests and riots, just as the Chauvin trial was taking place several miles away.  "We're looking for a guilty verdict," Waters said.  "And we're looking to see if all of the talk that took place and has been taking place after they saw what happened to George Floyd, if nothing does not happen, then we know that we've got to not only stay in the street, but we've got to fight for justice," she said.

Black's Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition, page 762.

BLM Activists Suggest We Should 'Start Killing' All White People.  A shocking interview from the George Floyd memorial in Minneapolis reveals how many Black Americans think about White people in the US.  During the collection of interviews, journalist and filmmaker Ami Horowitz asked several people who were attending the memorial about their thoughts on burning the city down and using violence against white people.  The responses may be shocking but not surprising to those who have been paying attention.  "Burn the whole city down, what does it matter?" one of the women asked.  "I say burn the city down, y'know?  So they can see that we're here," another woman said.  One of the women went on to say that Derek Chauvin should not have received a trial at all, and should have just been sent right to jail for life.

The Editor says...
Yes, there was one party involved in this mess who should have been sent to jail for life, and it wasn't Derek Chauvin.

Chauvin called a 'serial murderer' on CNN, baffled hosts scramble to clarify.  CNN Newsroom hosts scrambled to save their segment on Tuesday [4/20/2021] after a guest called former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin a "serial murderer."  "We talk a lot.  It's a network," host Victor Blackwell said to Minneapolis activist Leslie E. Redmond.  "What is the conversation that we are not having that we should be?"  Redmond, former president of the Minneapolis NAACP, replied, "You know, Chauvin, who is a serial murderer, just so we're clear, he's murdered numerous people in Minneapolis.  He's part of a bigger system.  When he's held accountable, he'll be the first white male officer held accountable for murdering a black person in the state of Minnesota."

The Message of the Chauvin Verdict.  There is cause for concern about whether [Derek] Chauvin received a fair trial, an issue that is separate from the strength of the evidence, and one that the trial judge, Peter Cahill, acknowledged just after the jury retired to begin deliberating late Monday afternoon.  By then, the notoriously irresponsible congresswoman, Maxine Waters, had threatened unrest unless the jury returned a verdict of "guilty, guilty, guilty."  President Biden, who scorched his predecessor for unhinged commentary about pending cases, piled on Tuesday, observing that he was "praying" for a conviction.  The defense complained from the start that Chauvin could not get a fair trial in Hennepin County; and as if to prove its point, the City of Minneapolis paid the Floyd family a $27 million settlement in the middle of jury selection.

Barack and Michelle Obama Call for 'True Justice' After Derek Chauvin Verdict.  Former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama reacted Tuesday to the guilty verdict announced by the jury in the Derek Chauvin trial for the death of George Floyd.  The Obamas said the jury "did the right thing" after the trial but said full justice had yet to be achieved.  "We know that true justice is about much more than a single verdict in a single trial," the statement read.  The jury found Chauvin guilty on all three charges of killing George Floyd; second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter.  The former president and first lady said the death of George Floyd and the protests and movements that followed were a sign justice had not been reached for black Americans.

The Editor says...
[#1] George Floyd was only one black guy.  He does not represent all black Americans.  [#2] George Floyd was already dying of a self-inflicted drug overdose when the cops arrived.  He brought all of his troubles upon himself.  [#3] When "justice [has] been reached for black Americans, many more of them will be in prison.

Derek Chauvin may be guilty, but Waters and Biden made sure this will drag on in appeal.  Remember when the Left used to go ballistic over President Trump's propensity to lob rhetorical bombs into pending investigations and prosecutions?  Good times, good times.  Well, Trump is gone and, mirabile dictu, and we're beginning to notice that the Left's provocateurs are ... lobbing rhetorical bombs into the most consequential prosecution in the nation — the murder trial of Derek Chauvin in the George Floyd case.  Indeed, it is worse than that.  For all the downsides of his unhinged commentary, Trump never took matters to the point of jury intimidation, as the preternaturally unhinged Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters did over the weekend.  The jury may have returned a verdict Tuesday, finding him guilty of all charges.  But as the judge noted Monday, Waters' inflammatory language offered Chauvin grounds for appeal.  Because of her, this isn't over.

The Chauvin Trial Verdict Is In:  Due Process iIn America Has Been Sentenced To Death.  The list of tragedies resulting from the death of George Floyd last year is extensive.  The most obvious is, of course, the demise of Floyd himself; a 46-year old man who'd previously shown promise as a musician and athlete, but who became plagued by demons and ultimately died after a dreadful series of events.  There are others, however... many, many others.  There were 25 people who died in the mostly-peaceful Black Lives Matter/Antifa riots that followed Floyd's passing.  There was as much as $2 billion worth of property damage caused by those riots, as hundreds of small business owners saw their lives' work destroyed in the flash of a Molotov cocktail.  But based on yesterday's verdict convicting Derek Chauvin on all charges and the recent events leading up to that verdict, the most significant casualty of the George Floyd affair, and one which may have the most long-lasting impact on our society, is the decision by many on the left, including elected public officials at the highest levels of government, to blatantly disregard and attack due process.

Chauvin's Conviction Will Never Be Enough For A Democratic Party Bent On Destruction.  The law has spoken.  On Tuesday, a jury found former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin guilty on counts of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and the second-degree manslaughter of George Floyd.  After weeks of lawmakers and commentators chiming in and expressing a desire for Chauvin to be convicted, this wish has finally been granted, barring a retrial.  Yet the jury's decision will not be enough for the left.  It never was meant to be.  To Democrats, Chauvin represents a systemic racism woven into the fabric of the United States — white supremacy that can only be quelled by restructuring the entire American system.  The case's coverage was rarely truly about Chauvin, Floyd, or what really occurred on May 25, 2020.  The left molded it into yet another example it claims proves black people are categorically murdered by American police.  Still, data from 2017 to 2021 shows police shot whites to death in higher numbers, and regardless there is no proof that recent police shootings of black people have been racially motivated.  Vice President Kamala Harris said this loud on behalf of the race-obsessed Democratic Party after the verdict came in.

Attorney General Merrick Garland to announce probe of Minneapolis police department after Chauvin conviction.  Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday [4/21/2021] announced that the Department of Justice is launching an investigation into the practices of the Minneapolis Police Department.  "The investigation I am announcing today will assess whether the Minneapolis Police Department engages in a pattern or practice of using excessive force, including during protests," Garland said during a news conference.  The announcement came one day after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted by a jury in the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, who was killed in custody last year.  Video of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd for more than nine minutes while the handcuffed man struggled to breathe sparked protests around the country.  Garland said the investigation will also examine whether the department's treatment of individuals with behavioral health disabilities is lawful.  He said the department had already begun outreach to the local community.

Chauvin Guilty Verdict Completes the Total Collapse of Law, Order, and Due Process in Biden's America.  Barring a miracle in the appeals process, Chauvin will spend decades if not the rest of his life in prison.  It's unfair and unjust, the greatest travesty of the criminal courts since O.J. Simpson went free two and a half decades ago.  Mob rule has taken over in America, which means that law and order is dead, and the Constitutional right to due process has been shredded beyond recognition.  It's not so much that the left-wing mob knows that it can tamper with judges and juries with impunity.  Rather, the mob is incited to tamper with juries and judges by the press arm of the Global American Empire, with the full weight and backing of the ruling class governing establishment of the Global American Empire.  If there is any bright spot to what happened today, it is this:  Americans should be completely purged of the illusion that a fair and just system still exists that will protect them from the predations of the Globalist American Empire.  There is no fair system of "law and order" in America.  There is only the arbitrary application of power for political purposes.

Biden: Say, that evidence against Chauvin looks "overwhelming," huh?  Biden excuses this by noting that he didn't say anything until the jury went into sequestration.  Well, that's just grand, but the jury isn't the biggest public safety issue here.  Crowds are gathering and protests increasing as the jury deliberates — the jury that actually sat through the evidence, testimony, and arguments, by the way, which doesn't include one Joseph Robinette Biden.  By claiming that the evidence was "overwhelming" and insinuating that the "right verdict" would follow his assessment of the case, Biden's hiking expectations on the streets of the Twin Cities even higher than they already are.  What happens if the jury thinks the evidence isn't quite so overwhelming?  Or if their version of the "right verdict" doesn't match the expectations set by Biden?  This place will explode already in that circumstance, but having the president of the United States set those expectations will make it much worse if the results are disappointing to those crowds.  Plus, what happens if the jury hangs?  Or if an appellate court finds a reason to throw out any verdict and order a new trial?  Thanks to Biden and Maxine Waters, the chances of holding a fair second trial in the Twin Cities will be next to nil.

AOC Gives up the Democrats' Long Game With Reaction to Derek Chauvin Verdict.  [Scroll down]  There is a "long game" associated with calls for "justice," and that "long game" involves radical policy changes that include disarming citizens and law enforcement and, if they can intimidate public figures enough, defunding the police and putting crime "solutions" in the hands of supposed "community leaders."  It's a gigantic bowl of dumb that had disastrous consequences in Democrat-run cities like Minneapolis last year, where all the negative talk about the local PD from public officials as well as the city council's vote to begin the process of defunding the police in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd contributed to a 21% violent crime spike.

What it will look like for us if history repeats itself.  With but minor changes adapting it to the situation, the Derek Chauvin trial is reprising the George Zimmerman  dramatic production  trial.  Chauvin plugs in as Zimmerman, while George Floyd takes Trayvon Martin's place.  We're wearily familiar with the script; there will be riots no matter what's decided, with the same people rioting.  The lamestream media will pronounce Chauvin guilty with minimal regard for evidence, law, or common sense.  In the court of public opinion, Chauvin will ultimately be judged not on what he actually did, but on the narrative that somebody white has to pay for George Floyd's death.  Meanwhile, Minneapolis police shot and killed another black lawbreaker Sunday, bringing BLM rioters into the streets again.  These had been waiting for a spark to ignite another conflagration.  They probably were anticipating the decision in the Chauvin case, but pretty much any old spark would have served the purpose.

Biden & Harris Rail Against Criminal Justice System They Helped Create.  In a joint speech delivered from the White House Tuesday evening [4/20/2021], President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris responded to the guilty verdict reached in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.  Speaking first, Vice President Harris remarked that "Today we feel a sigh of relief," adding that "a measure of justice isn't the same as equal justice," before stating "we still must reform the system."  [Tweet]  And Vice President Harris knows the system.  The former San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general had her record within the system laid bare by then-Rep. Tulsi Gabbard during a 2020 Democratic primary debate.  [Tweet]  Failing to mention her own work on behalf of the system, Harris invoked her work on the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, alongside Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Representative Karen Bass (D-CA).  "America has a long history of systemic racism," stated Harris.  "Black Americans and black men, in particular, have been treated throughout the course of our history as less than human."  Criminal justice reform is, of course, a relatively new pastime for the Vice President.

Chauvin defense attorney asks for a mistrial, citing prosecutorial misconduct, publicity.  The attorney representing former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin asked the court to declare a mistrial, citing prosecutorial misconduct and ongoing comments from public officials they feel will influence the jury's decision.  Shortly after jurors began deliberations, defense attorney Eric Nelson argued that special prosecutor Jerry Blackwell's characterization of his closing argument laid the grounds for a mistrial.  Nelson recited several instances where Blackwell told jurors the defense had created "stories" or were "shading" the truth of what happened on May 25, 2020.  "I do believe that it constitutes ... prosecutorial misconduct," Nelson said.

A former Minneapolis police officer said he quit days before the Derek Chauvin trial because he thinks protesters will 'burn the city down' no matter the case's outcome.  A former Minneapolis police officer who quit the department days before the start of Derek Chauvin's trial said he did so fearing there would be riots in the city no matter the outcome.  The officer, a former sergeant, spoke on the condition that he not be named, but his identity is known to Insider.  The former officer said he was up for retirement soon and worried about his safety in what he predicts will be "riots and more destruction" when the jury reaches a verdict, which could happen this month.  Chauvin's trial in Minneapolis began March 29.  "If Minnesota had the death penalty and Chauvin got it, people in Minneapolis are still going to riot," the officer said.  "They're still going to burn the city down."

Riots following police shooting in Minneapolis suburb make a fair trial for Chauvin impossible.  The National Guard has been called out to control rioting in the wake of a police shooting in the northern Minneapolis lower-middle-class suburb of Brooklyn Center (whose Caucasian population is 44.5% according to Census Bureau estimates).  Rioters behaved with a hair trigger response, with at least one shot fired into the police station, and looting reported locally and many miles distant, on Lake Street in Minneapolis, which received the brunt of the riot, looting, and arson damage following the drug overdose death of George Floyd while in police custody.

Biden Ignores Chauvin Trial Judge's Admonishment About Jury Intimidation And Tampering From Politicians.  President Joe Biden ignored Judge Peter Cahill's request that politicians not publicly discuss the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin when he announced Tuesday that he had spoken with the family of George Floyd and that he is "praying the verdict is the right verdict."  "It's overwhelming, in my view," Biden said on Tuesday [4/20/2021].  "I wouldn't say that unless the jury was sequestered."  While the Democrat president said he wasn't originally planning on making knowledge of his conversation public, he said the meeting was mostly "personal."  "I can only imagine the pressure and anxiety they are feeling and so I waited till the jury was sequestered and I called," Biden said.  "I wasn't going to say anything ... they are a good family and they're calling for peace and tranquility, no matter what that verdict."

Trying To Pay Off Looters — Video Reveal Free Money Give Away To BLM Rioters Following The Derek Chauvin Trial.  A jury has found a former police officer guilty of murder over the death of African-American George Floyd on a Minneapolis street last year.  Chauvin was found guilty on three charges:  second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and manslaughter.  He will remain in custody until he is sentenced and could spend decades in jail.  However, before the decision was made there was a huge tension in Minneapolis where a mob of BLM extremists in Minneapolis has been caught on tape chanting "if George don't get it / burn it down" ahead of the verdict in the trial of Minnesota cop Derek Chauvin, in yet more evidence that the modern left is fundamentally opposed to the rights of due process and the rule of law.

An obvious attempt to interfere with the judicial system, intimidate the jury, and/or incite a riot:
Black Lives Matter Activist Warns "All Hell Will Break Loose" If Officer Chauvin Is Not Convicted in George Floyd Death.  Black Lives Matter activist Maya Echols, who is also a signed model with IMG Worldwide, warned in a recent Tik-Tok video that "cities will burn" if Police Officer Derek Chauvin is not convicted in the death of drug addict and thief George Floyd. [...] The autopsy report found that George Floyd had meth, fentanyl, cannabinoids and morphine in his system when he die.  Floyd was also COVID positive.

Derek Chauvin Found Guilty Of Murder In Death Of George Floyd.  Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter on Tuesday in the death of George Floyd.  The jury deliberated for four hours on Monday and seven and a half hours on Tuesday before reaching a verdict, according to CNN.  It was allowed to consider all three charges against Chauvin and returned a guilty verdict on all three.  The judge in Chauvin's trial declined to sequester the jury during oral arguments, a practice sometimes used in cases that garner significant public interest.  Multiple Democratic politicians weighed in on the case, including President Joe Biden and California Rep. Maxine Waters.  Waters told protesters that they had to "to get more confrontational" if Chauvin was not convicted of murder in Floyd's death.  Waters' comments earned a rebuke from Judge Peter Cahill, who said that her comments "may have given [Chauvin's defense] something on appeal that may result in this whole trial being overturned."

The Public Deserves To Know If The Chauvin Verdict Was Based On Fear Of Riots.  Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty Tuesday of all counts against him in the death of George Floyd.  It's possible that the jurors believed that the evidence showed he is truly guilty of a pair of murder charges and one count of manslaughter.  But what if they convicted him simply to avoid riots?  Unless the jurors agree to talk about their deliberations and share their inner thoughts, we'll never know if they surrendered to the mob and convicted a man whose guilt they had doubts about.  So we're left to always wonder.

Dershowitz: Derek Chauvin Conviction Should Be Reversed on Appeal.  Renowned defense attorney and Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Tuesday that the conviction of former Minneapolis, Minnesota, police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd should be overturned on appeal because of the public intimidation of the jury and the judge's refusal to sequester the jury.  Dershowitz noted the "outside influence" of people like Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), who encouraged unrest at a protest on Saturday night in nearby Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, if there was no murder conviction in the case.

The Real Tragedy of the George Floyd and Daunte Wright Stories.  America is on the verge of anarchy.  Every time police kill a Black man, the community finds itself on the edge and the nation wonders if an inferno is about to erupt.  This reality dovetailed with a meme I saw a few days ago:  "The Biggest Change Since Rodney King is the Video Quality."  While video quality has improved, one thing that hasn't changed is negative outcomes from resisting arrest.  Some of the names Americans know that demonstrate this include George Floyd, Daunte Wright, Rayshard Brooks, and Michael Brown.  If the media were being honest, they would characterize these encounters as what they were:  Black men killed while resisting arrest.  In every one of these cases and many others, the men who ended up dead resisted arrest, sometimes violently.

Protesters call for justice in Floyd death after opening statements made in Chauvin trial.  Groups calling for justice for George Floyd Marched in downtown Minneapolis Monday night [3/29/2021].  They say they will be protesting during key parts of the trial.  On Monday, lawyers in the trial of Derek Chauvin — the former Minneapolis police officer charged in the death of Floyd — made their opening statements.  "We're not asking for justice," Del Shea Perry said.  "We're demanding it."

The Editor says...
A noisy crowd outside the courthouse demanding a criminal conviction, as the trial has just begun, is almost exactly the same as a lynch mob.  The clear implication here is that rioting will break out if there is an acquittal.

The trial of Derek Chauvin has unleashed the dogs of thuggery and revolution.  The primary lesson the militant left will take away from the Chauvin trial is not that he was found guilty but that their tactics work.  Their willingness to use violence, looting, intimidation and threats has succeeded beyond their wildest dreams as they watched a judge and jury succumb to their threats and history of belligerence.  Further, the elected members of the Democrat party as well as the Democrat media and the bulk of the ruling elites refused to criticize their tactics and in fact defended them and regurgitated their talking points as if they were trained seals. [...] The militant left now knows that they control the Democrat party and believe that there is no one in the party or among the ruling elites that will stand up to their demands.  The federal and state judiciaries, which was to be the bulwark against radicalism and tyranny, has, thus far, succumbed to their intimidation tactics.  The Republican Party hierarchy, still in the throes of its hangover from the days of Romney, Bush and McCain, remains mute and stupefied on the sidelines.

Derek Chauvin Found Guilty Of Murder In Death Of George Floyd.  Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter on Tuesday in the death of George Floyd.  The jury deliberated for four hours on Monday and seven and a half hours on Tuesday [4/20/2021] before reaching a verdict, according to CNN.  It was allowed to consider all three charges against Chauvin and returned a guilty verdict on all three.

The Prosecution Did Not Even Address The Video Clip From Chauvins's Lawyer Where Floyd Said "I Ate Too Many Drugs".  The trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis officer charged in George Floyd's death, is continuing Wednesday [4/7/2021] after the prosecution this week has called a parade of Minneapolis police officials to the stand who have condemned Chauvin's use of force as excessive.  Instead of closing ranks to protect a fellow officer behind the so-called "blue wall of silence," some of the most experienced members of the Minneapolis force, including Chief Medaria Arradondo himself, have testified against Chauvin.

Minneapolis vs. the Evidence.  Apparently, no one is watching the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer on trial for the murder of George Floyd.  Otherwise, the media couldn't get away with their spectacular lying to the public about how the prosecution is killing it.  It's quite the opposite.  In fact, in less than a week, the prosecution's theory of the crime has subtly shifted from MURDER! to "failed to provide what we would say, in retrospect, would be a full and complete duty of care during the one- to three-minute interval between Floyd's resisting the police to his dying, as a hostile crowd screamed obscenities at the police officers."  The defense hasn't even begun to make its case, but the prosecution's witnesses keep helping Chauvin.

Ann Coulter explains the status of the Derek Chauvin trial.  George Floyd, a convicted violent felon, passed a fake $20 bill.  When the police arrived, Floyd was clearly under the influence and complaining that he couldn't breathe.  The police tried to get him into the back of their car, at which point he went wild.  Concluding that Floyd was suffering from excited delirium (i.e., a probably drug overdose), Derek Chauvin restrained Floyd in textbook fashion, by placing him on his stomach with Chauvin's knee across Floyd's shoulder.  The police also called 911 for a paramedic.  While all this was going on a crowd gathered, filming what was happening and hurling angry, threatening imprecations at the police.  Then Floyd died.  You know the rest:  America caught on fire; Black Lives Matter got in the driver's seat of the American political, social, and economic establishment; every white person who wasn't bowing to the mob became a racist; Trump was driven from office; and we now have an administration dedicated to "equity," which means enshrining racism into federal law and regulations, something that's highly unconstitutional but our quisling Supreme Court probably won't care.  Meanwhile, the coroner's report established that Chauvin didn't die from suffocation, but from a massive Fentanyl overdose (on top of the other drugs in his system).  Nevertheless, the BLM mob wanted blood.  That's how Chauvin ended up being tried for murdering a man who died from an overdose.

Chauvin's Attorney Showed Police Bodycam Side-By-Side With The Facebook Video The Knee Appears To Be On Floyd's Shoulder Blade.  Moments after George Floyd was taken away in an ambulance last May, former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin was confronted by a witness who took issue with Chauvin's allegedly kneeling on Floyd's neck.  "That's one person's opinion," Chauvin responded as he got into his squad car.  "We had to control this guy because he's a sizable guy.  It looks like he's probably on something."  Jurors in the murder trial of former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin have heard testimony from 11 witnesses so far who have recounted the death of George Floyd over the last three days.

Chauvin defense docs:  Floyd had "fatal level" of fentanyl in his system — but does it matter?  Could an alternate theory of the death of George Floyd introduce enough reasonable doubt to acquit Derek Chauvin?  Or, perhaps, at least keep him from getting convicted on the murder charges?  The defense certainly hope it does, and has already submitted documents to the court arguing that Floyd died of a fentanyl overdose.  The local NBC affiliate in Minneapolis covered the medical examiner's report that noted a "fatal level" of the drug in Floyd's system, but the report isn't entirely good news for the defense either:  [Video clip]

George Floyd appeared 'high' when he handed over fake $20 bill with twitchy hands and had 'had difficulty forming words', worker testifies.  New video of George Floyd inside a Minneapolis convenience store moments before his death was played in court today at Derek Chauvin's murder trial as a witness said that his hands were shaking, he was unable to make conversation and he appeared to be under the influence of drugs.  Cup Foods clerk Christopher Martin, who was working on May 25, 2020, took the stand on Wednesday to testify about how staff called the cops on Floyd because they believed he used a counterfeit $20 bill.  Looking back, Martin said he wished he'd never raised alarm about the bill because he believes Floyd might still be alive if he hadn't, telling the court:  'This could have been avoided.'

The Defense Presents Photos Taken At Different Angles, They Appear To Show Derek Chauvin's Knee Was Actually On George Floyd's Back.  Moments after George Floyd was taken away in an ambulance last May, former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin was confronted by a witness who took issue with Chauvin's allegedly kneeling on Floyd's neck.  "That's one person's opinion," Chauvin responded as he got into his squad car.  "We had to control this guy because he's a sizable guy.  It looks like he's probably on something."  Jurors in the murder trial of former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin have heard testimony from 11 witnesses so far who have recounted the death of George Floyd over the last three days.

George Floyd may have taken Percocet during fatal arrest: defense.  George Floyd popped "what are thought to be two Percocet pills" before his fatal encounter with police, the lawyer for ex-Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin said at his murder trial Monday [3/29/2021].  Defense lawyer Eric Nelson said during opening arguments that Floyd's pals told police that they had trouble waking him up after he took the drugs on May 25, 2020, the day he died while in police custody.  "Mr. Floyd's friends will explain that Mr. Floyd fell asleep in the car and that they couldn't wake him up to get going," Nelson told the jury.  "They thought police might be coming."  "They kept trying to wake him up," he said.  "In fact, one of these friends, Shawanda Hill, called her daughter, Shakira Prince, to come and pick her up because they couldn't keep Mr. Floyd awake."

Prosecution in George Floyd case asks to reinstate third-degree murder charge against Chauvin.  The prosecution in the George Floyd case filed a motion Thursday to reinstate the third-degree murder charge against former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.  The motion asks Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill to reinstate the third-degree murder charge against Chauvin or to file an amended complaint that includes third-degree murder, citing new legal precedent set in former Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor's appeal in his own case.

The Editor says...
Has the evidence changed?  This sounds like blatantly political prosecution.

Second-degree murder, manslaughter charges upheld against Derek Chauvin.  A judge upheld the second-degree murder and manslaughter charges Thursday against former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in connection to the death of George Floyd in May.  Hennepin County Judge Peter A. Cahill granted part of the defense's motion and dropped the third-degree murder charge against Chauvin.  Cahill also denied motions to dismiss the charges against the other three officers present when Chauvin was captured on video pressing his knee onto a handcuffed Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes before his death in custody.

Officer charged in George Floyd's death argues drug overdose killed him, not knee on neck.  A defense attorney for the fired Minneapolis police officer charged with murder in connection with the death of George Floyd is asking a judge to drop all charges, arguing the 46-year-old man's death was allegedly from a drug overdose and not caused by the officer planting his knee in the back of Floyd's neck.  Defense attorney Eric J. Nelson filed the motion in Hennepin County, Minnesota, District Court on Friday, claiming prosecutors have failed to show probable cause for charging Derek Chauvin with second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.  Chauvin has pleaded not guilty to the charges.  Nelson contends Chauvin acted on his training from the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) in the use of a "Maximal Restraint Technique" and did so out of concern that Floyd might harm himself or the officers struggling to arrest him.

George Floyd Died of Health Complications from a Fentanyl Overdose — He Was Not Murdered By Minneapolis Police.  Don't be misled by the headline.  Derek Chauvin had his knee across the neck of George Floyd.  The police did not find George Floyd in an alley with a needle in his arm.  But Derek Chauvin did not cut off George Floyd's oxygen supply.  Derek Chauvin's knee caused no trauma to George Floyd's airway.  Derek Chauvin may have caused George Floyd to lose consciousness.  But the medical cause of George Floyd's death was cardiopulmonary arrest due to pulmonary edema resulting from acute Fentanyl toxicity. [...] Floyd died in police custody on May 25.  The Memo is dated June 1.  The Attorney General for the State of Minnesota filed second-degree murder charges on June 3, after Democrat Minnesota Governor Tim Walz asked Ellison to lead the prosecution team.  This document was filed in the District Court of Minnesota on Tuesday, August 25.  It has been hidden from the public for nearly three months.

Hennepin County Medical Examiner Initially Said George Floyd Had Fatal Level of Fentanyl in His System.  Newly released evidence filed in the case against the four former Minneapolis Police officers accused of murdering George Floyd indicate that a "fatal level" of fentanyl was found in Floyd's blood, suggesting that he died of an overdose, not asphyxiation.  The toxicology report also found Methamphetamine, Norfentanyl, and 4-ANPP in Floyd's bloodstream.

Minnesota v. Derek Chauvin et al:  The Prosecution's Dirty Little Secret.  [Scroll down]  So there they were, staring at the just-received and damning toxicology report that blew to smithereens the whole prosecution theory that the police had killed Floyd.  To their undoubted dismay, Dr. Baker, the chief medical examiner, had to concede that at 11 ng/mL, Floyd had "a fatal level of fentanyl under normal circumstances."  He also conceded that the fentanyl overdose "can cause pulmonary edema," a frothy fluid build-up in the lungs that was evidenced by the finding at autopsy that Floyd's lungs weighed two to three times normal weight.  This is consistent with Officer Kueng's observation at the scene that Floyd was foaming at the mouth and, as found at autopsy, that his lungs were "diffusely congested and edematous."  In other words, like a drowned man, Floyd's lungs were filled with fluid.  And that was the obvious and inescapable reason why Floyd kept shouting over and over again that he couldn't breathe even when he was upright and mobile.  The memorandum ends with Dr. Baker's devastating conclusion that "if Floyd had been found dead in his home (or anywhere else) and there were no other contributing factors he [Dr. Baker] would conclude that it was an overdose death."

Second Former Minneapolis Police Officer Pushes For Dropped Charges In Floyd Case, Citing No Probable Cause.  A second former Minneapolis police officer facing charges in the May 25 death of George Floyd is pushing to have charges against him dismissed, arguing that body camera footage shows a lack of probable cause, numerous sources reported.  Tou Thou's defense attorney Robert Paule filed a motion Wednesday [7/29/2020] asking for the aiding and abetting manslaughter charges against him to be dismissed.  Paule argues that the State has the burden of showing that Thao "knew former officer Derek Chauvin and others were going to commit a crime and ... intended his presence or actions to further the commission of that crime," KARE 11 reported, which would establish probable cause.

George Floyd and Officer Chauvin worked at the same restaurant together for seventeen years.  'They were coworkers for a very long time.'  [Video clip]

Autopsy reveals George Floyd didn't die of asphyxia or strangulation.  A new finding by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's office is not going to sit well with folks clamoring for charges against former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin to be upgraded from third-degree murder.  According to statement of probable cause filed with the Fourth District Court, the autopsy performed on George Floyd on Tuesday indicates "no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation."

Complaint: Autopsy reveals nothing to support strangulation as cause of George Floyd's death.  The white Minneapolis police officer who knelt on George Floyd's neck was arrested and charged with murder Friday [5/29/2020].  Derek Chauvin, 44, was charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the case.  "What Minnesota had said in this initial charging is the officer did not have premeditation, he did not go into this incident desiring to kill this victim," explained Jacksonville attorney Gene Nichols.

Asphyxiation not the cause of George Floyd's death:  Autopsy.  George Floyd died Monday from a combination of preexisting health conditions exacerbated by being held down by Minneapolis officers, not from strangulation or asphyxiation, based on the medical examiner's initial report.  Preliminary findings from a Tuesday autopsy conducted by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner found "no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxiation or strangulation," according to the criminal complaint filed Friday against former officer Derek Michael Chauvin.  "Mr. Floyd had underlying health conditions including coronary artery disease and hypertensive heart disease," said the complaint from the Hennepin County Attorney.  "The combined effects of Mr. Floyd being restrained by police, his underlying health conditions and any potential intoxicants in his system likely contributed to his death."

George's Floyd's preliminary autopsy raises the question:  Was this another rush to judgement?  Almost totally absent from the mainstream news Friday [5/29/2020], as the violent insurrection in the wake of George Floyd's death spread to cities nationwide, were the preliminary results of his autopsy.  The report was part of the arrest warrant for Derek Michael Chauvin, the disgraced former Minneapolis police officer who was taken into custody on Friday afternoon and charged with the third-degree murder of Floyd while he was in police custody last Monday evening.  The brief mention of the autopsy suggests that the case against Chauvin, and possibly his three colleagues assuming they too will eventually be charged, for being totally responsible for the death of Floyd may not be as cut and dried as previously thought.

At Long Last, Minnesota Officials Arrest Derek Chauvin.  Two days too late, news broke late this morning that Minnesota officials finally decided to arrest Derek Chauvin, the dirty cop who killed George Floyd earlier this week.  Had the arrest been made on Wednesday, many Minneapolis/St. Paul businesses that have been burned in the meantime might still be open for business.

The Feds Chose an Odd Time to Remove Protection Around Antifa's Favorite Riot Target in Portland.  The Department of Homeland Security has chosen a most odd time to take down the F-word and ACAB-festooned fencing and jersey barriers protecting the federal courthouse in Portland.  Last May, after a fentanyl-addled George Floyd was held down for an agonizingly long time (nine minutes) under the knee of Officer Derek Chauvin, riots broke out in his name, at first in Minneapolis and then across the country, especially in "woke" Portland.  Fast forward to now, when Chauvin's trial is underway.  Minneapolis has spent $1 million to secure buildings already trashed in last year's rioting and looting.  But Portland, where arguably the worst of the George Floyd riots occurred, is going in the other direction.  Floyd was busted for trying to pass a forged $20 bill to buy some cigarettes.  It was far from Floyd's first problem with cops, but it was his last.  His death touched off a conflagration in Minneapolis and the rioting and looting followed in Los Angeles, Louisville, Denver, Memphis, Seattle, and several other places, and, of course, the ground-zero of Wokistan — Portland, Oregon.

George Floyd autopsy found 'no physical findings...of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation'.  The Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office said Friday [5/29/2020] that it found no evidence of strangulation in its autopsy of George Floyd, the Minneapolis resident who died after a police officer put his knee on a handcuffed Floyd's neck.  Floyd's death on Monday has touched off a series of violent, destructive riots in Minneapolis and St. Paul.  The four officers involved in pinning him down during the altercation have been fired; Derek Chauvin, the officer whose knee was on Floyd's neck during the arrest, has been arrested and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.  In a criminal complaint filed against Chauvin, the state asserts that the officer "caused the death of George Floyd by his culpable negligence," though it stops short at claiming that it was Chauvin's knee on Floyd's neck that directly caused the latter's death.

Officer who knelt on George Floyd's neck during fatal arrest charged with murder.  The Minneapolis police officer who was kneeling on George Floyd's neck during the arrest that would lead to Floyd's death has been arrested and charged with murder, city officials reported Friday [5/29/2020].  Minnesota Department of Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington confirmed that Derek Chauvin, one of the four police officers fired after the incident that ended with Floyd dead, was arrested by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension on Friday.  Following the arrest, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said Chauvin has been charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.

Violent Rioters Breach Ohio Statehouse, Breaking Windows and Entering Building to Protest Death of George Floyd.  Protests and riots are ongoing in several cities around the U.S., including Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., Memphis, Tenn., Louisville, Ky., Denver, Colo., Los Angeles Calif., and Columbus, Ohio.  The Statehouse in Columbus came under attack, with rioters breaking windows and some entering the building.  There are unconfirmed reports that the protesters damaged the interior of the building.  [Several video clips]  Authorities wasted no time breaking up the attack on the Statehouse, sending in the SWAT team to disburse the crowd.  Officers used a loudspeaker to announce that an emergency had been declared and ordered protesters to leave the area.

Black Small Business Owner Filmed Crying After Rioters Loot and Destroy His Business.  The rioting went on late into the night Thursday in Minneapolis, stretching into early Friday morning with protesters stealing and torching several U.S. Postal Service vans to protest the death in police custody of George Floyd on Monday.  The mob damaged or destroyed 130 businesses in Minneapolis this week. [...] This black small business owner as seen crying after looters destroyed his sports bar.