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:

A Philly man awarded $4.1 million by the city for an overturned murder conviction pleads guilty to killing a man for $1,200.  Shaurn Thomas, who was released from prison and paid $4.1 million by the city after serving 24 years for a murder he says he didn't commit, pleaded guilty Thursday to killing a man over a $1,200 drug debt.  Thomas, whose 1992 murder conviction was overturned in 2017, was convicted of third-degree murder and related crimes for fatally shooting 38-year-old Akeem Edwards last year.  That admission of guilt — by a millionaire who killed someone over a relatively paltry sum — means that the now 50-year-old Thomas, who has already spent half of his life behind bars, will now return there to live out much of what is left of it.

Almost Two Dozen George Soros Backed Prosecutors Have Been Removed From Office Since 2022.  A few years back, left wing billionaire George Soros went on a spending spree and got prosecutors elected all over America who then went to work doing the exact opposite of what prosecutors are supposed to do.  They were soft on crime, freed dangerous criminals without bail and refused to prosecute certain cases based on so-called social justice.  Once the public figured this out, these prosecutors started getting challenged for office or even voted out in recall elections.  Since 2022, almost two dozen of them have been kicked out of office, but it's no time to slow down.  They all must go.

Children carry out surge of contract killings as Swedish gangs exploit loophole in the law.  Fernando, a hitman for a Swedish narcotics gang, checks his phone as it pings with his latest orders:  collect the guns, go to the target's front door and fire until he runs out of bullets.  "Yeah, I understand brother," he replies casually.  He collects two pistols, a Kalashnikov rifle and an accomplice, before hurrying to their target in a suburb of Stockholm.  But this is no ordinary gang hit.  Fernando is 14, a teenage assassin who was playing a Fifa video game in his youth club when the orders arrived by text.  He is one among dozens of child contract killers in Sweden, recruited by gang middle-men on social media who pay as much as 150,000 kroner (£13,000) per job. [...] Swedish prosecutors and police say the use of children, many of them from an impoverished or foreign background, to commit murders on that scale is unprecedented.  One recent case involved a boy of just 11 years old.

We don't want revenge, we want justice.  We're seeing what happens when people break the law with impunity.  Those who commit smash-and-grab burglaries are given a slap on the wrist, when and if they're apprehended.  Stories of public figures committing blatant crimes flash across our screens and then fade into the ether.  Millions of illegals are welcomed into our country and many wreak havoc.  Meanwhile, grandmothers praying in front of abortion mills get sent to prison and government officials burst into people's homes and euthanize their pets.  Police departments, like our military, are having difficulty meeting recruitment goals as candidates have no wish to risk life, limb, and liberty for woke bureaucrats who don't have their back.  At one time our government was ostensibly composed of people who respected the Constitution and the rule of law.  Republicans campaign on being the party of law and order.  Yet the GOP has a fairly well-established pattern of summoning people to their committees to testify as to their actions, writing up lengthy reports and then... nothing happens.

America's Blue Bastions Have Crept Right Amid Rampant Crime And Homelessness.  America's most liberal cities and states have shifted their policies to the right in recent elections, as crime and homelessness remain large issues in Democratic strongholds.  Left-wing policies in blue states like California and Colorado and cities such as Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Oakland were rejected by voters last week, with voters passing anti-crime ballot measures and ousting liberal district attorneys and mayors.  Some of the policies voters supported include tougher drug penalties, harsher prosecution of criminals by district attorneys and more funding for law enforcement.  "I think people are realizing that it's not a good idea to cut millions upon millions of dollars from your local police department's budgets, [and] it's not a good idea to publish lists of crimes that you're no longer going to prosecute," Zack Smith, senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. "And so what you're seeing is politicians who formally supported those positions are starting to walk back some of their most radical previous policies."

Is California turning red?  Tuesday's elections in California will have been difficult for Democrats to stomach.  A staggering 40% of Californians voted for Donald Trump, with Republicans leading in several of the most competitive house districts.  Even in San Francisco, the uber-progressive mayor London Breed has been voted out.  No wonder, then, that Governor Gavin Newsom has already called for a special session in the legislature to "Trump-proof" certain policies such as abortion and immigration.  On the same day, California voters also endorsed a significant shift toward stricter law-enforcement measures, with 71% approving Proposition 36, a statewide ballot initiative aimed at imposing harsher penalties for repeat theft and crimes involving fentanyl.  In doing so, they effectively rolled back some of the state's more controversial "soft-on-crime" policies.

Blue City Blues.  In the wake of the George Floyd riots, some cities that appear on the "America's most dangerous" list have experimented with defunding their police departments to various degrees.  An interesting approach to reducing the crime rate is to stop reporting crimes to the FBI altogether, or to change felonies to misdemeanors.  California has famously declared that any retail theft under $950 is classed as a misdemeanor.  This has resulted in countless videos of people calmly walking out of stores with armfuls of merchandise.  As a result, that state is seeing vast numbers of retail store closures.  Some residential areas have become "food deserts" such that the locals must travel ever farther distances to purchase groceries.  The rising tide of commercial office closures in downtown San Francisco, combined with increasing rates of homelessness, open drug use, and crime, is resulting in noticeable neglect in that area.

Fatherless activities.  Californians overwhelmingly backed Prop. 36 to lengthen criminal sentences for certain theft and drug offenses, and to direct more people to drug treatment after convictions.  Voters' views changed on public safety after the COVID-19 pandemic.  It undoes some of the changes voters made with a 2014 ballot measure that turned certain nonviolent felonies into misdemeanors, effectively shortening prison sentences.  Amid the pandemic's visible changes to California, in its growing homeless encampments, its ransacked Nordstroms and its looted rail yards, critics of that previous initiative finally found the right climate to turn back the law.  [Video clip]

Kamala Harris's Democratic Betrayal.  There was a moment that occurred a few days before Election Day that few Americans heard about, but I doubt it would surprise them.  Kamala Harris was asked by a reporter how she would be voting on Proposition 36 in her home state of California.  Proposition 36 involved increasing certain penalties for drug and theft crimes.  Unless you've been living under a rock, you'll know that retail theft and open-air drug use have become high-profile issues in the Golden State.  Criminal-justice hawks and doves bitterly debated the issue, seeing it as a referendum on whether California would adopt tough-on-crime policies or continue to pursue a more reform-minded approach.  It was the perfect issue for Harris, who started her career in politics as San Francisco district attorney before rising to state attorney general.  If there's anything Harris knows, it's the debate over tradeoffs between punishment and rehabilitation, public safety and human rights.  And yet, rather than launching into a robust defense of the proposition, which would have helped her push back on Trumpian accusations that she is soft on crime, or attacking it, which would've been standing on principle against a measure some Californians regarded as draconian and excessive, Harris did the most Harris thing possible:  She dodged the question in an inartful way.

California's Prop 36 Passes, a Resounding Condemnation of the Soft-on-Crime Policies Destroying the State.  California has resoundingly voted "Yes" on Prop. 36, which reforms Prop. 47, a decades-old law that was supposed to usher in criminal justice reform but instead encouraged the escalation of crime.  Vice President and Democrat nominee Kamala Harris may have won the presidential race in the state, but by voting for Prop. 36, the citizens have rejected the policies she codified in place with her endorsement of Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón and her assistance in seeing Prop 47 passed when she served as California's Attorney General.

It's not just about a squirrel.  [Scroll down]  This after four years of more uneven application of the law.  For example, we've seen George Soros-backed district attorneys vow not to prosecute people for some crimes.  Some of those are victimless crimes, which doesn't bother me, but it also includes things like shoplifting, which is anything but victimless.  As a result, shoplifting got so bad and brazen in some places that many chains just shuttered locations because they couldn't make a profit.  It wasn't all that long ago that we were locked in our homes and told we couldn't go to church, to school, to visit our dying family in the hospital, to do anything except for approved activities, and even then, there were rules we were forced to follow.  All of that went out the window when a career criminal died at the hands of a police officer and mobs throughout the nation set fire to entire neighborhoods.  At that point, the deadly virus that was akin to ebola and the Black Death really wasn't that bad and people should totally be fine with rioters destroying communities.  Very few of them were arrested and even fewer were convicted over their actions during those riots.  But then people went on an unguided, unapproved tour of the Capitol and suddenly it was a threat to the very republic.

Harris Won't Say Where She Stands on California Ballot Measure to Reverse Soft-on-Crime Policies.  Vice President Kamala Harris will not reveal her position on a California ballot measure that would reverse soft-on-crime policies the state enacted a decade ago.  Harris, a former senator from California who began her career as a prosecutor, declined to answer when asked on Sunday whether she voted for Proposition 36, a ballot measure to strengthen punishments for certain drug and theft offenses.  "I'm not going to talk about the vote on that because honestly it's the Sunday before the election and I don't intend to create an endorsement one way or another around it," Harris said.

The Futile Quest for Equity.  [Scroll down]  The equity battle goes beyond decriminalization.  Many schools today no longer disproportionately punish blacks for misbehaving, regardless of their bad behavior, while adjusting test standards to eliminate gaps in academic performance.  If blacks and Hispanics cannot pass the tests to enter academically elite high schools, alter admissions standard to increase minority representation even if overall school quality declines.  Higher education has become equity obsessed so schools ignore test scores to "curate" a more physically diverse student body.  That a black admitted to Harvard struggles academically and would thrive at the less elite Boston University is irrelevant for equity champions.  The primary goal is outward appearances, not what is academically best for the overwhelmed black student.

Is It Bad Enough Yet?  In 2016 California AG [Kamala] Harris prosecuted whistleblower David Daleiden, who exposed Planned Parenthood's (PP) role in selling organs and body tissues from aborted children.  She ordered California DOJ agents to raid Daleiden's home and seize files and equipment he used to make his undercover videos.  Charges against Daleiden include recording the PP executives without their permission.  Selling aborted baby body parts isn't the problem, the problem is documenting and exposing the crime.  It's worth noting that PP has contributed heavily to Harris's campaigns.  Daleiden is reportedly still awaiting trial on the felony counts in San Francisco Superior Court while the PP staffers who are on video discussing the illegal sale of aborted baby body parts have not been charged.

The Futile Quest for Equity.  Being a pedestrian in New York City can be dangerous.  As one headline put it, "Last Years was Deadliest in NYC Streets in Nearly a Decade."  Reckless drivers killed 124 pedestrians, 50 motorcyclists, and 19 bike riders.  New York City has tried to reduce these fatalities with lower speed limits, cameras to catch those running red lights and clearly marked pedestrian safety zones.  Surprisingly, the city recently reversed course and eliminated the $250 fine for jaywalking or crossing against the signal.  Why invite more deaths and injuries?  According to city council member Mercedes Narcisse, "Laws that penalize common behaviors for everyday movement shouldn't exist, especially when they unfairly impact communities of color," and since in 2023, 90% of the issued tickets targeted black and Latino pedestrians. [...] This example is only one of many equity crusades.  The city has also relaxed enforcing the law against those not paying subway and bus fares since culprits were disproportionately black and Hispanic.

The Editor says...
Here's my proposed solution:  There will be no more citations for jaywalking; however, pedestrians will no longer have the right of way, and jaywalkers will no longer be permitted to bring civil litigation against anyone for injuries incurred while they were jaywalking.

Illegal Street Takeover Ends With A Car [Running Over] Several People.  The disturbing video was captured by a Kick streamer several feet away from where a black Dodge Charger was performing donuts around a group of people in the Lancaster neighborhood of Los Angeles on Thursday.  The video shows the Dodge Charger spinning around the group before suddenly losing control and plowing through the crowd.  The Dodge is then seen running over several people who were knocked to the ground before a large crowd surrounds it.  [Video clip]

Hidden Crisis: Violent Crime Rises 55% Under Biden-Harris as FBI Conceals Crime Real Stats.  With just nine days left before the election, it's crucial to understand the dangerous game the Biden-Harris regime is playing.  They, along with their willing accomplices in the mainstream media, are promoting a dangerous fiction:  that violent crime in America is declining.  Their friends at PolitiFact repeat the claim that we're witnessing the safest America in decades.  However, this couldn't be further from the truth.  The reality is that violent crime has surged, and the Biden-Harris administration has deployed blatant statistical manipulation to mask this grim reality.  Not long after taking office, Biden and Harris dismantled the FBI's reliable crime-reporting system, replacing it in 2021 with a new, "optional" system that allows local law enforcement agencies to choose whether they want to submit their crime data.  This intentional obfuscation has resulted in at least 6,000 jurisdictions — nearly 30% of the country — opting out of reporting crime statistics.  Among these areas are crime-ridden cities like New York and Los Angeles.  This isn't incompetence; this is a deliberate effort to craft a narrative where crime appears to be on the decline.  It's not.  Crime is skyrocketing.

Leftist Policies Have Increased Crime, Left First Responders at Highest Risk in Past 20 Years.  With violent crime on the rise, the past three years have been increasingly perilous for law enforcement officers.  In honor of National First Responders Day on Monday, it's important to protect the brave men and women preserving public safety by sounding the alarm on the policies of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, which have endangered law enforcement and created a high violent-crime rate, with murder rates peaking in 2022 and currently remaining higher than pre-COVID-19 levels.  The FBI stated that nearly 200 law enforcement officers were killed while on duty from 2021 to 2023, setting the highest rate for officers feloniously killed within a consecutive three-year period, compared with data from the past two decades.

Modern-day traitors betraying the American republic.  A Daily Signal September 1, 2024 report cites U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics stating that total crime (reported and unreported) in America has soared under the Biden-Harris administration.  Millions of Americans are being subjected to very high rates of crime due in large part to the criminal actions of over 400,000 illegal aliens (including violent gang members) known to have previous convictions, many for murder and sexual assault.  Democrats claim that they tried to protect America's borders in the Border Act of 2024 but were prevented by Republicans.  However, a close examination of the bill reveals that a prime reason for its defeat is that Democrat leaders would have the discretion to catch and release up to 5,000 inadmissible migrants per day amounting to almost two million illegal aliens per year with little or no vetting!

Harris/Biden deconstructing America: the Ferguson effect.  [Scroll down]  Blue state/city police forces have found recruiting almost impossible, and as a result have dramatically lowered their hiring and training standards.  Unfit applicants with DUIs, and all manner of other misdemeanor convictions, as well as alcohol and drug problems have been hired.  That hasn't worked out well.  DEI mandates have also ensured physically and psychologically unfit people have been given badges and guns.  Even the FBI has been forced to hire and retain people who can't meet minimum physical standards and can barely read or write.  As I recently noted in FBI Credibility?, D/s/c cities can't admit their crime policies are abject, dangerous failures, so they've stopped reporting crimes to the FBI, which following D/s/c mandates, inaccurately reports crime rates.  Even if honest reporting were done, the numbers would still be skewed.  In those blue cities, the police, badly understaffed, no longer respond to most 911 calls, write few reports, and as always, officers do as little as possible, hoping to eventually retire and get a pension without being prosecuted and jailed for doing their jobs.

Harris-Biden Crime Policies Endanger Americans.  An October 2 interim report from the House Judiciary examined the uptick in violent crime in recent years in "major American cities" and found that Biden-Harris policies have "endanger[ed ]Americans" and "made American communities less safe."  The Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance cited the "misguided and dangerous 'defund the police' movement," the downgrading of serious crimes by "rogue prosecutors," Democrat-run localities, and a failure to "prosecute firearms laws already on the books" as reasons for the "surge in violent crime."

Trump Is Right.  There Is an 'Enemy Within' the United States.  [Scroll down]  Other lies this election season include the idea that Donald Trump threatened to use the US military against his political opponents.  That one is so stupid that you really have to be Mika-level dumb to even try to sell it.  Trump was clearly talking about BLM/ANTIFA and the violence the political left happily embraces and encourages from their Brownshirts.  They take to the streets at every perceived injustice Democrats can manufacture, burning large parts of majority black cities before receding to their suburban sanctuaries to await the next manufactured outrage.  They rioted on inauguration day in 2017, assaulting people and burning property.  Arrests were made and charges were, after an acceptable amount of time had passed, dropped against everyone.  Why?  Because what good does going after your own people do?  They were needed throughout the Trump administration to riot over false claims of police brutality and junkie overdoses.  And they're ready to do it again.

Maybe I could get credit for time already served.
Criminals could serve sentences at home.  Criminals could serve sentences at home under house arrest as part of government plans to "reshape and redesign" punishments outside prison.  Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary, who is carrying out a sentencing review, is drawing up plans for a major expansion of community punishments as an alternative to jail, in which judges use technology to create virtual "prisons outside of prison".  Courts would have powers to enforce the virtual prisons through technology such as GPS tags, smart phones and special watches that remind offenders to attend meetings with probation officers, drug treatment courses and work placements.  They are likely to be modelled on the current home detention curfews (HDCs), under which prisoners can be freed six months before their scheduled release date to serve the rest of their sentences tagged and under curfew.  The prisoners are barred from leaving their home from, for example, 7pm to 7am — effectively placing them under "house arrest".

We Are Proven Correct.  For years now there has been a long-promoted talking point in the press that crimes have gone down in this country during the Biden years.  This claim has been in defiance of surges of violence in places like New York and D.C., the drugs and affiliated crimes with the mounting homeless problem in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and the ongoing reality of store chains closing locations due to perpetual shoplifting going unaddressed and unabated.  Yet the press has tried to sell us on the concept that things have been calming across the nation and that claims of criminality spreading is the result of Republican doom-saying for the sake of the election.  Much like the rosy fable of the economy being strong, despite the financial pains felt by so many, the press promise of a safer nation continues.  It was even a feature during the presidential debate when Donald Trump had to haggle over this, not with his opponent Kamala Harris, but with moderator David Muir.  It has all been a statistical ruse.

FBI credibility?  John R. Lott, the President of the Crime Prevention Research Center, drives Democrats/socialists/communist (D/s/cs) crazy.  He does it the old-fashioned way:  he does factual, honest, reproducible research about crime, guns and related issues and provides his data sets and methodology on request.  Anti-liberty/gun "researchers" like the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) don't do that. [...] A substantial number of law enforcement agencies no longer report crime statistics to the FBI.  Worse, among those not reporting are America's largest, most crime-ridden, D/s/c ruled cities.  This purposeful gaslighting of the American public has allowed D/s/cs to claim crime is down across America, and just in time for the election.  What a coincidence!

The Cloward-Piven strategy and its implications for criminal justice.  The core principle of the Cloward-Piven strategy is to create a societal crisis and use it as leverage for communist reforms.  Although the theory focused on welfare, it is increasingly evident that these principles have been applied in other systems, including criminal justice.  Cloward is now dead, but Piven is still alive, continuing to spew communist propaganda.  We can see how the systemic overload theories and their effects have extended beyond social services, manifesting in crime-ridden communities, overcrowded prisons, overwhelmed courts, and understaffed and underfunded police departments.  Policies like mandatory minimums and the "War on Drugs" led to prison overpopulation, overwhelming the correctional systems, and challenging state and local budgets and infrastructure.  Fast forward to today, where DEI practices, illegal immigration (open borders), defunding the police, bail reform, police reform, decarceration in favor of mental health diversion programs, and abolitionist rhetoric caused staffing issues, overwhelming police officers and tying their hands, forcing them to operate in unnecessary high-risk environments such as civil unrest and riots while simultaneously pushing law enforcement agencies to rely on reactive rather than proactive measures, allowing crime to fester.

NYPD Admits Armed Migrant Kids From Gov't-Funded Roosevelt Hotel Terrorizing Times Square.  The Biden-Harris administration misled the public with phony FBI crime statistics, pushing the narrative that far-left policies were actually making America safer.  Weeks later, those numbers were "revised," revealing a shocking truth: a 2.1% decrease in US violent crime in 2022 was actually a 4.5% increase!  What a stunning revision -- and not so shocking for readers. [...] This brings us to the current crime crisis spreading across certain New York City boroughs, like stage four cancer, where armed illegal alien kids are brazenly robbing citizens and tourists alike.  "We're talking 20 individuals arrested a total of 50 times... and we have a mix-match of crimes embedded in those.  We have anywhere from snatches to what I call wolfpack robberies, where anywhere between five and 15 individuals surround tourists and take their property.  We have gunpoint robberies, knifepoint robberies.  And these individuals are out, and it's concerning," NYPD Detective Bureau Asst. Chief Jason Savino told Fox News on Tuesday, adding these kids are connected with Venezuela's dangerous Tren de Aragua prison gang.

The Great Chicago Train Robbery offers more proof of the city's decline and fall.  On Friday evening, at least 30 thugs looted Union Pacific rail cars in Chicago's Austin neighborhood on the West Side.  The city's leftist mayor, Brandon Johnson, who lives in Austin, was in London in advance of Sunday's Chicago Bears game against the Jacksonville Jaguars.  Although he later backed away, slightly, from his statement, in 2020 "Branjo" called defunding the police "a political goal."  [Tweet with video clip]  As you'll see, the looters are so casual in these videos as they unload the U.P. freight cars, it's as if they calmly enjoying a visit to a suburban pick-your-own pumpkin patch.  They're not hiding their faces; they're not covering up their licence plates.  One enterprising criminal even brought a cargo truck to speed their 100-percent discounts along.  The mass thievery was so vast that commuter rail traffic on those rail lines was suspended for hours.  Society is rotting in Chicago — as well as suburban Cook County, because we have had a pro-criminal George Soros-funded so-called prosecutor, Democrat Kim Foxx, lackadaisically enforcing the law for that last eight years.  Thankfully, she'll be out of office in two months.

Tren de Aragua crew at NYC migrant shelter targets Times Square.  A brutal crew of baby-faced Tren de Aragua migrant gangbangers at a city-funded Manhattan shelter are pulling off armed robberies in Times Square — and they're getting away with it, officials and sources said.  Nearly two dozen young migrant thugs, some as young as 11 years old, are part of a dangerous asylum-seeking brat pack that has graduated from purse snatchings to gunpoint heists targeting New Yorkers and tourists alike, a top NYPD official told The [New York] Post.  But they're managing to stay out of jail because of their ages and the Empire State's lenient criminal justice laws, Detective Bureau Assistant Chief Jason Savino said.

Nutcase Jasmine Crockett Says It's Not Migrant Gangs That Are Taking Over Cities But Rather, MAGA Gangs.  Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett says it's not migrant gangs that are taking over cities but the "MAGA gang," and that migrants are culturally enriching America and making the economy strong.  [Video clip]

Democrat Rep. Goes on Bizarre Rant About White Supremacist MAGA Gangs Committing Crimes in Major Cities.  Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), who is still auditioning to become the next AOC, went on an unhinged rant during an appearance on MSNBC, claiming the streets of Springfield, Ohio, are being overrun by gangs of MAGA white supremacists or something.  On Saturday's episode of "Velshi," Crockett, who is also the Harris-Walz campaign's co-chair, claimed that former President Donald Trump and "his minions" are somehow responsible for the problems in Springfield, which garnered national attention due to the impact of a deluge of migrants coming into the city. [...] The lawmaker referenced widespread complaints about crime in major cities, especially those committed by gangs. "[Trump] said that we've got these cities and these towns that are being overrun by gangs and the crime out of control.  I absolutely agree with that.  And guess what?  It is the MAGA gang, it is the white supremacists that have decided to descend upon places such as Springfield, OH," she bloviated.

The Editor says...
[#1] I regret to admit that Ms. Crockett is my "representative" in Congress, despite my best efforts.  [#2]  There is widespread violent crime in this country, especially in cities that have been run by socialist Democrats for the last several decades.  The problem is not right-wing rednecks.  The problem is black violent crime.

Cook County Prosecutor Declines to Charge Migrant in Death of Teen.  A migrant from Colombia arrested on first-degree murder charges in Chicago won't face prosecution for the death of a 17-year-old girl after Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx declined to file charges, claiming there's not enough evidence to bring the case to trial.  As Fox News reports, 19-year-old Juan David Ramirez-Olivo is alleged to have shot 17-year-old Stephanie Lopez Ramirez when his illegally-acquired gun went off in an apartment.  While officers arrested Ramirez-Olivo on first-degree murder charges, they ultimately presented Foxx's office with evidence pointing to a lesser charge, but even those charges were rejected.

Six minors arrested after three armed robberies, two crashes on highway in Minneapolis.  The ages of alleged criminals in Governor Tim Walz's socialist utopia of Minneapolis may be dropping considerably as police busted six children who went on a dangerous crime spree.  Three boys who were 11, 12, and 13 years old and three girls ranging in age from 12 to 14 were arrested on Tuesday for three armed robberies and were also involved in two car crashes on Interstate 94 according to KMSP-TV.  The media outlet reported that the police responded to calls at approximately 11:30 a.m. concerning an armed robbery in the 5100 block of 41st Avenue South as well as another one in the 3400 block of Bloomington Avenue.  "During the second incident, shots were fired at the victim from one of the vehicles involved, police said.  No one was hit by gunfire," the media outlet added.

State of the Los Angeles DA Race — George Gascón Faces Likely Ouster.  After the news Tuesday, the disastrous George Gascón experiment in Los Angeles is almost certainly coming to an end on November 5.  A shocking poll showing a 30-point lead for challenger Nathan Hochman came out Tuesday morning, and a debate between the candidates Tuesday evening showed an incumbent playing defense.  Rampant burglaries, repeat offending murderers, reconsidering a lighter sentence for the Menendez brothers — none of the topics discussed were good for an elected District Attorney who has presided over a tumultuous period at the largest local prosecutor agency in the country.  Gascón's main defense on the campaign trail is to parrot garbage-in, garbage-out crime numbers that come from the politicized criminal justice realm.  He also attempts to paint Hochman as a Republican claiming to be an Independent.  In today's debate though, Gascón had to acknowledge that Los Angeles has gotten so bad that the whole county is either being victimized by crime or "fearful" it is coming.

A 10-Year-Old With An Insane Criminal Record Is Arrested For Stealing A Car.  A 10-year-old boy with an INSANE criminal record was arrested for stealing a car and recklessly driving it through a crowded playground.  This happened on September 20, 2024, near Nellie Stone Johnson School in Minneapolis.  This incident was not his first; he has a notable criminal history.  Since May 2023, he has at least 30 police entries and has been arrested twice for auto theft-related crimes.  [Video clip]

3-Time Convicted Violent Criminal Repeatedly Threatened to Kidnap and Kill Judge Cannon and Her Family.  A three-time convicted violent criminal repeatedly threatened to kidnap and kill Judge Aileen Cannon and her family but the Biden-Harris DOJ waited FOUR MONTHS to bring charges and arrest him.  Aileen Cannon is a Trump-appointed judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida.  Judge Cannon was assigned to Jack Smith's classified documents case against President Trump.  Eric Rennert, 65, of Illinois, is facing six federal charges and the indictment accuses him of communicating interstate threats and threatening to kidnap, injure, and murder a federal judge.

Helene and the totalitarian urge.  [Scroll down]  Sadly, we live in a Twilight Zone where, particularly in blue states, citizens are more likely to be prosecuted than the predators that force them to shoot.  Even when a hurricane instantly reduces Americans to a state of nature, they can't be certain government won't arrest them for legitimately protecting their lives and property from bands of feral looters.  As appalled Americans know, this state of nature exists in blue states where gangs, sometimes numbering in the hundreds, loot jewelry and other stores in broad daylight.  Security guards, and the police, simply stand by knowing if they use any force against criminals, and worse, should they shoot one, they'll be in jail and ruined while looters never see the inside of a cell.  With each theft, the foundations of civilization are chipped away.  What are citizens, whose lives have been overturned, who stand, trying to protect what few possessions they have left, to do?  There are no communications, no water, little or no food.  The roads and bridges are out, and even if they could call the police, the police aren't coming.  The minutes — under ideal circumstances — it would normally take for a police response, are now days, even weeks.

[Black] 8-Time Felon Accused Of Murdering An 80-Year-Old [White] Lady Has Been Found Incompetent To Stand Trail.  Jahmed Haynes, 48, is charged with first-degree murder, assault, and animal cruelty in the death of 80--year-old Ruth Dalton.  Dalton and her dog were killed during an Aug. 21 carjacking.  Haynes attacked Dalton and a witness before dragging her with the car as he fled.  [Video clip]

Economic Collapse In Slow Motion.  The commercial real estate market is in the doldrums across much of the U.S., but it is especially bad in some places.  Like Minneapolis. [...] Why are Minneapolis's problems so acute?  Because of crime.  Formerly a low-crime city, the George Floyd riots and accompanying attacks on law enforcement have caused a dramatic increase in the rate of serious crime.  That has caused businesses, as well as individuals, to avoid the city.  With leases continuing to expire, there is no reason to think the downward trends have bottomed out.  The City of Minneapolis, meanwhile, is exploring ways of redeveloping George Floyd Square in a manner that will, in the mayor's words, "honor the life of George Floyd, and point toward a more equitable future."  Somehow, I don't think that is the focus that the city needs if it is to recover economically.

Trump Brings Receipts Showing Crime Is Actually Way UP Under Kamala Harris.  Many will recall the moment when ABC moderator David Muir interrupted Donald Trump to fact-check him in real time, claiming the FBI reported that crime was actually falling, which was contrary to the former president's point. [...] In a Trump-Vance campaign email Monday, the GOP nominee struck back and released statistics that he says show a large increase in crime during the Biden-Harris regime. [...] If you're missing data from Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, and New Orleans, hoo boy, you're not counting a whole lot of crime, as anyone who lives in one of those cities can tell you.

Indiana judge rules prison must provide transgender surgery for inmate who killed baby.  A federal judge has ruled that it would be unconstitutional for an Indiana prison to deny a transgender inmate sex reassignment surgery following the inmate's lawsuit against the facility.  The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued the Indiana Department of Corrections last year on behalf of a transgender inmate, Jonathan C. Richardson, also known as Autumn Cordellionè, who was convicted of strangling his 11-month-old stepdaughter to death in 2001.  Indiana law, however, prohibits the Department of Corrections from using taxpayer dollars to fund sex reassignment surgeries for inmates.  However, the ACLU argues in the lawsuit, filed on Aug. 28, 2023, that the law is a violation of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of "cruel and unusual punishment."

What A Massive Hellhole Philly Is.  This looks like the opening scene from a dystopian, end-of-times type of movie.  [Video clip]

US Soldier Who Deserted to North Korea Released After Guilty Plea.  You may recall that story from last year of Travis King, the US soldier who deserted his unit while stationed in South Korea and fled across the border to North Korea.  There, he was immediately taken into custody by the North Koreans and detained for questioning.  He was later released and allowed to return across the border where he was arrested by the US military and charged with a list of various crimes.  Now his story seems to have reached an end that is probably just as unconventional as the rest of his journey.  He went to court yesterday and was found guilty on five different charges, but he won't be spending any additional time behind bars.  King was sentenced to time served and will be released to return home.  So was this a fair amount of punishment fitting his crimes?

Outcry Erupts as California Prepares to Release 'Pillowcase Rapist' Who Terrorized Dozens of Women.  At some point, Americans must recognize that the people who run their institutions care nothing for their interests.  According to KTLA in Los Angeles, local officials have protested a decision to release a violent serial rapist into the Los Angeles County community of Juniper Hills.  Meanwhile, concerned residents of the nearby city of Palmdale, nestled in California's Antelope Valley, have also objected to the planned placement of 73-year-old Christopher Hubbart, known as the "Pillowcase Rapist," so near to their homes.  On Monday, Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger set forth her objections in a letter to Judge Robert S. Harrison of the Los Angeles County Superior Court, which has jurisdiction over the placement site.

ABC's Trump fact check blows up.  At one time, the FBI's annual Uniform Crime Report (UCR) was the gold standard of crime statistics, but that hasn't been true for a very long time, and during the Harris/Biden years, the FBI's reporting has become purposely inaccurate.  Part of the reason for this is the success of "Defund the Police" lunacy.  Particularly in blue cities, cutting police budgets has created a crime doom loop.  Wages comprise most of any police budget.  Cut the budget, and officers are fired.  Firing officers for political reasons makes recruiting qualified candidates virtually impossible.  It also causes officers who can retire to pull the pin, and forces others to flee to states where police officers are allowed to do their jobs.  Stuck with DEI mandates and few or no qualified candidates, blue city police forces dramatically reduce hiring standards, accepting even people with drug and alcohol abuse histories and criminal records.  The officers that remain are grossly overworked and have high incidences of illness and stress.

The Haitian Horror Story No One's Talking About.  In the early hours of December 1, 2023, at around 5:40 a.m., a Haitian national ran down 71-year-old Kathy Lynn Heaton, a Springfield grandmother known affectionately as "Mawmaw" by her beloved, in the quaint Midwestern community.  The collision killed her, but the driver got off scot-free.

The Media's Criminal Misreporting on Crime.  'President Trump, as you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is coming down in this country."  That was ABC News' David Muir "fact checking" Donald Trump during his debate with Kamala Harris.  Two days later, the Bureau of Justice Statistics released the results of its national crime victimization survey, which showed that the number of victims of violent crime was 41% higher in 2023 than in 2020.  There were almost 170,000 more rapes, 300,000 more robberies, 1.4 million more assaults, 300,000 more claims of domestic violence, and almost 400,000 more crimes with a violent weapon.

[Black Woman] Who Stabbed A Random 3-Year-Old [White] Boy To Death Is Found Incompetent To Stand Trial.  Judge finds woman accused of stabbing a 3-year-old boy to death and injuring his mother outside an Ohio supermarket incompetent to stand trial.  Judge John Russo ruled that Bionca Ellis, 33, from Cleveland, will remain hospitalized indefinitely and could eventually stand trial if she improves.  Ellis allegedly attacked Julian Wood, 3, and his mother, Margot Wood, at a Giant Eagle grocery store in North Olmsted on June 3.  She followed the Woods into the parking lot and, in a swift attack, stabbed Julian twice before walking away.  Julian later died at the hospital.  [Video clip]

The Illegal Haitian That Killed A Grandma With His Car In Springfield Ohio Won't Face Charges.  The illegal Haitian who struck and killed a 71-year-old Springfield, Ohio resident while she was collecting her garbage cans, will not face charges.  Kathy Heaton, a 71-year-old resident of Springfield, Ohio, was struck and killed by a car driven by a Haitian illegal a day after her 71st birthday.  "It was around 5:40 in the morning.  The trash had come early that day and we think that's what probably woke her up," Kathy's daughter-in-law said.  The impact was so severe that her socks were left on the pavement, and debris and clumps of hair were found on the car's windshield.  [Video clip]

Woman Accused of Attempted Murder on Chicago Train Released on Electronic Monitoring.  Despite a recent ruling by a federal judge, concealed carry is still prohibited for most folks on the buses and trains run by the Chicago Transit Authority (the named plaintiffs in the case are the lone exception, at least for the time being). And despite the prohibition on carrying guns, knives, or any other weapons on public transportation, riders continue to be targeted by violent criminals who pay no mind to the CTA's policy.

Man charged with murder of AZ cop was arrested last year, but charges were never filed.  A man now charged with murdering an Arizona police officer while on parole was arrested on a potential felony and misdemeanor charge just last year, but the charges were never filed and the 2023 case reportedly "disappeared from the public record," per a local outlet.  Saul Bal, 41, is accused of shooting two Phoenix police officers, resulting in the death of 29-year-old Zane Coolidge, who had served on the force for five years.  Bal now faces a first-degree murder charge along with several other charges.  At his initial court appearance, attorneys argued that he posed an extreme danger to the community, according to Fox 10 Phoenix.

Men believed to be Tren de Aragua members released on $1,000 bond in Aurora.  Two suspected members of a violent Venezuelan prison gang even more hardcore than MS-13 have been released on bond.  The two suspected Tren de Aragua gang members — Dixon Azuaje-Perez, 20, and Nixon Azuaje-Perez, 19 — were released by the Aurora, Colorado Police Department after posting a $1,000 bond.  The police released the two despite the crimes they allegedly committed and despite U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement having requested that they detain the pair, as confirmed by the New York Post.  According to the Aurora Police Department, the two were involved with an attempted murder that occurred in late July.  To be clear, the murder itself was committed by another Tren de Aragua gang member.

Kamala Wanted To Give Drug Dealers Three Arrests Before Charging Them — Cops Shut Her Down.  As District Attorney of San Francisco, Kamala Harris proposed a program for drug dealers that would have allowed criminals to only be charged for selling narcotics on their third arrest.  San Francisco's chief of police at the time sent an October 24, 2005 letter to Harris declining to participate in the program, "Operation Safe Streets," according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Daily Wire.  "This proposal asks us not to arrest, but instead detain and release observed narcotics sales suspects pursuant to Penal Code Section 849(b) P.C.  When the same suspect is arrested the third time for narcotics sales, your office would then charge all three counts," wrote Heather Fong, who served as police chief until 2009.  The revelation comes as Harris attempts to campaign as a tough-on-crime, law-and-order prosecutor, touting her past record and describing herself as someone who "took on perpetrators of all kinds — predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain."

German Gov. to Foreign Criminals:  Rape a 14-Year-Old; Get €1000 To Start A New Life.  Last week, the German government, led by social democrat Olaf Scholz, deported 28 convicted criminals to Kabul.  Among them was a rejected asylum-seeker who took part in the brutal and cunning gang rape of a 14-year-old girl.  According to the German mainstream media, each of the deported criminals, including the gang rapist, was given 1000 Euros in cash to help start a new life back home in Afghanistan.  This is civilizational decline in action.  It's essentially a new Danegeld, one that sees Taxpayer's money paid out by a morally adrift leftist system that prostrates itself in front of child-raping criminals for fear of being thought of as 'racist,' 'uncaring,' and 'impolite."

12-Year-Old Has Broken Into 5 Car Dealerships, Police Can't Charge Him Because He's A Minor.  [A] 12-year-old boy is accused of targeting five dealerships in Montgomery County, including Audi and BMW in Rockville.  According to reports each time police have caught the boy, they have had to drop him off at home in D.C.  Police couldn't hold him due to a Maryland juvenile justice law preventing kids under 13 from being charged with property crimes.  [Video clip]

Here's The Real Story Of How America's Squatter Epidemic All Began.  There's a squatter epidemic taking place in cities across America.  With lax eviction laws and back-logged court systems, blue cities have empowered a whole cottage industry of housing crime.  Professional squatters use fake leases to turn nice properties into trap houses.  Often, they turn to violence to keep the owners off "their" property.  And good luck getting an eviction, which can take years to rule on let alone enforce.  If squatters can show they've resided in a property for as little as 30 days, it's almost impossible to get them out.  From the smallest apartment to the grandest estate, no one is immune.  How did we get here?

The politics of police defunding.  The "defund the police" campaign that started over four years ago has done catastrophic damage to our country.  In the wake of said campaign, a number of politicians — including President Joe Biden — have pushed for the removal of funds from police forces, diverting them elsewhere in an effort to "teach a lesson," as it were.  However, the real lesson came in the backfire of the campaign.  Thousands of officers, particularly in New York, have left their posts as a result of the lack of support and many still believe that, even in the aftermath of this with a massive increase in crime, it's still the "right move" when it comes to the concerns of their community.  Tell that to Oakland.  The California city has seen a massive number of criminal acts over the past few days, including shootings and a hit-and-run incident, along with robberies and much more.

Prisoners to be freed after serving a fifth of their sentence.  Prisoners are set to be freed after serving as little as 20 percent of their sentences under the Government's early release scheme.  They will be freed under an electronic tagging scheme that allows them to spend up to six months under curfew in their homes that they would otherwise have spent in jail.  They are currently entitled to be released on tags as little as 25 per cent of the way through their sentences but, because of the early release scheme due to start on Sept 10, it has been recalculated down to 20 per cent.  It means burglars, thieves, fraudsters and even some people convicted in the riots who are serving fixed-term sentences of under two years could be freed on tags a fifth of the way through their sentences.

San Francisco Residents Sue the City Over Rampant Prostitution.  About 18 months ago, residents on Capp Street in San Francisco were complaining loudly about prostitution in their neighborhood.  As with everything else in San Francisco, this problem became complicated at least partly because progressive politics were involved.  On the one hand, residents were fed up with the hookers and their violent pimps making their neighborhood unlivable.  On the other hand, everyone in SF has been trained to believe that there's nothing wrong with "sex work."  So you literally had people on one hand watching underage girls on the street and women being beaten by pimps.  And on the other hand, no one wanted to say it was wrong per se.  In fact, a San Francisco Supervisor named Hillary Ronen suggested the solution to the problem was legalizing prostitution.  How this was supposed to reduce demand and violence against women and neighbors wasn't clear.

Law enforcement collapse masks rising crime rates.  Law enforcement in the United States has collapsed.  Americans in many parts of the country see that products at CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart stores are behind plexiglass, that you must call a clerk to unlock the glass and then wait while you read and examine the different packages.  People know these companies have no choice.  Americans know that crime is rising, but the true collapse in law enforcement, particularly in large cities, is without precedent.  A Gallup survey last November showed that 92% of Republicans and even 58% of Democrats believed that crime was rising.  In a series of surveys from March 2023 to April 2024, Rasmussen Reports finds a remarkably constant percentage of Americans who believe that violent crime is getting worse — 60% to 61%. Roughly four times as many people think violent crime is rising rather than getting better.

Kamala Harris once compared policing to lynching and Jim Crow.  Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris — who eagerly describes herself as a prosecutor running against "felon" Donald Trump — likened law enforcement in America to lynching and Jim Crow restrictions during the height of racial unrest in mid-2020.  "When we say that America has a history of systemic racism, we mean that from slavery, Jim Crow laws, lynchings, and policing, our institutions have done violence to black Americans," Harris, then a senator from California, said during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on "Police Use of Force and Community Relations" in June of that year, weeks after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.  "And it has caused black Americans to be treated as less than human across time, place, and institution," Harris, now 59, added before calling for the elimination of "systemic racism."

Kamala's Legacy in California Is Unraveling.  Kamala Harris might look competitive in national polls, but California voters are poised to undo one of the most important aspects of her legacy in the Golden State.  Aside from her refusal to cooperate with federal immigration authorities as the district attorney of San Francisco and later as the attorney general of California — running sanctuary, or de facto running secessionist entities — Harris's most consequential act in California leadership was her contribution to passing of Proposition 47 in 2014.  The law is widely credited with the social collapse of once lovely cities like San Francisco.  Passed with nearly 60% voter support, the initiative reclassified many felonies as misdemeanors, such as, most notoriously, theft of under $950, including repeat offenses.  This shift created the now familiar spectacle of thieves leisurely walking into stores and picking up $949 of merchandise — and then doing it again and again, in the plain view of bored security guards.

Violent offenders let off if they say sorry.  Police are increasingly letting knife and sex offenders escape prosecution if they say sorry, The Telegraph can reveal.  More than 147,000 people accused of offences including sex crimes, violence and weapons possession were given community resolutions in the year to March instead of being prosecuted.  Such resolutions do not result in a criminal record.  Police guidance says community resolutions should be restricted to low-level crimes, with offenders required to apologise to the victim, accept "responsibility" for their crime and offer some form of recompense.  But the resolutions, which are issued at the discretion of individual officers, have increased by 40 percent since 2019 — when 102,574 were recorded — and are now nearly twice as likely as a criminal charge, according to an analysis of Ministry of Justice data.

And People In California Are Wondering Why All The Big Chains Are Closing Down Or Moving.  Stop complaining about the prices of goods, California.  Apparently, in your state, a lot of things are free.  [Video clip]

As San Francisco DA Kamala Harris Chose To Not Seek The Death Penalty Against A Cop Killer.  Kamala Harris was elected to the office of District Attorney for San Francisco in the December 2003 run-off between her and her boss, then DA Terrance Hallinan.  In the non-partisan November 2003 election for the office, Hallinan had finished first in a 3-candidate field with 36%; Harris second with 34%; and Bill Fazio third with 30%.  Bill Fazio was a career prosecutor in the DA's Office, and one of its most successful homicide prosecutors.  He had run against Hallinan in 1999, and a poll conducted by the union representing San Francisco Police Officers showed Fazio with 98% support over Hallinan.  Harris was an almost complete unknown.  She had been a prosecutor in the SF DA's office for only two years before quitting to join the San Francisco City Attorney's Office.  But Willie Brown was the Mayor of San Francisco, and he brought his political machine to the race to support her.

NYC Thugs Let Free After Beating 82-Year-Old Woman.  Our Democrat rulers are for all intents and purposes at war with us — not just in a metaphysical sense; the violence is quite real.  Look what they have inflicted in places where they have consolidated total control like New York:  ["]Two brutes accused of randomly pummeling an 82-year-old woman on a Bronx street have been released without bail — even though the violent pair has a combined 18 prior arrests...  William Ballinger and Tammie Moore — both of whom have lengthy rap sheets — were busted by cops last week and charged with second-and third-degree assault for the vicious Aug. 2 attack on the elderly home health aide in Olinville, police said.["]  The police needn't have bothered making the arrest.  The liberals in charge let the criminals go free.

Starmer's Red Dawn.  Operation Early Dawn, announced this week, will involve keeping prisoners waiting for court appearances in police cells for longer to make room for the nearly 1000 'far-Right' protesters arrested in the wake of the protests and riots on August 3rd this year.  This comes on top of over 5000 prisoners being released almost as soon as the Labour Government assumed power to ease overcrowding in prison.  Referred to by one writer as 'crime and no punishment', reference was made at that time by the Justice Secretary with the quintessentially English name of Shaban Mahmood to the 'inevitable' overcrowding by September.  Conspiracy theories ought to be avoided, but I cannot be alone in thinking that the Government was preparing for August 3rd.

Prison works — if Labour abandons this principle our streets will descend into chaos.  I know that it is hard to believe it sometimes, but crime has actually fallen over the last decade, by about 50 percent on a like for like basis.  No, I'm not joking; I'm quoting the Office for National Statistics.  Indeed, the Chief Inspector of Policing himself said last year, that "England and Wales are arguably safer than they have ever been".  The Conservatives left Labour with a record number of police officers — an achievement which I was proud to deliver during my time as Home Secretary.  But given the weekly news about another violent attack and the Summer of Discontent that we have seen across the country, I realise that these statistics are of little solace.  Touring the country as Home Secretary, meeting senior police chiefs and rank and file officers alike, mothers of murdered children, rape survivors and even those who had had their mobile phone or bicycle stolen, I got the overwhelming impression that the public were crying out for more justice.

The DNC's proposed platform is a bizarre document.  [Scroll down]  On guns, the Democrats blame Trump for 2020's crime surge, ignoring that it took place in Democrat cities rife with BLM, Antifa, and the Defund the Police movement.  They promise to mandate universal background checks and ban "assault weapons" and "high-capacity magazines."  "Assault weapons" are imaginary weapons, but magazines are real, and their size should never be something for the government to decide.  Police officers will be surprised to learn that the Democrat party loves and supports them.  The DNC's anti-crime program is focused not on punishing crimes to keep communities safe but on protecting criminals.

Former New York Cop Who Raped A 13-Year-Old Gets Only 10 Weekends In Prison.  40-year-old Shawn Jordan admitted to assaulting the girl in 2022 while serving on the Rochester Police Department force.  Investigators say Jordan forcibly raped the girl and touched her on a separate occasion.  In a separate incident, Jordan exposed himself to a 16-year-old on a Facebook video chat while wearing his police uniform.  Jordan pleaded guilty to 2nd-degree rape and forcible touching in March.  [Video clip]

Crime rate gaslighting.  Were one to listen to the Democrat/socialist/communist (D/s/c) media, one would rejoice at the dramatic drop in crime in America's blue, D/s/c ruled cities under the enlightened Harris/Biden Administration.  However, residents of those cities, aren't rejoicing, quite the opposite. [...] For years now, police agencies across the country — more than 50% — have declined to report crime statistics to the FBI, once the gold standard for such things, but no longer.  Part of the problem is defunded police agencies, lacking manpower and unable to recruit, don't have the time and manpower for that kind of paperwork.  Many can't even respond to most 911 calls.  This is particularly true for major, blue state cities.  But for those cities particularly, there is a more important issue:  politics.  D/s/c politicians are loath to admit crime is running out of control in their cities, so they simply don't report it.  They lie.  No reports, dramatically decreasing crime.  And police officers, knowing their prosecutors are more likely to prosecute them than criminals, do as little as possible, particularly in high crime areas.  No reports; no crime.

Soros prosecutors must promise never to enforce laws leftists don't like.  Before George Soros came along, most people assumed that elected prosecutors were committed to law and order and deviated from that principle only through either incompetence or graft (think:  Chicago).  The rise of the Soros prosecutors, however, introduced a whole new element to local prosecutors:  Ideologically driven racist Democrat prosecutors who don't want to follow laws with which they disagree.  The last time America saw this was in the post-Reconstruction South when racist Democrat prosecutors also refused to apply laws with which they disagreed.  It turns out, though, that the situation with ideologically corrupt prosecutors is even worse than we realize.

California Democrats Revive Legislation Allowing Murderers Sentenced to Life to Be Released Early.  On Monday, California Democrat Assemblymember Ash Kalra brought a bill that would allow convicted murderers who were sentenced to life in prison to petition for early release back to life.  Senate Bill 94, which had been put on the "inactive file" by Kalra just over a year ago, would apply to those sentenced prior to 1990 and have served at least 25 years of their life sentence.  The bill would not apply to those who were convicted of the murder of a police officer or were serial killers.  The bill was taken out of the inactive file without discussion by the Assembly and will now be taken up for consideration again and sent through the process of being debated and voted on during this legislative session.  The bill, originally introduced in January 2023, immediately received fierce criticism from crime victims and victims' rights organizations.  The bill was passed through the State Senate in May of last year on a mostly partisan split, with only four Democrats voting against the bill.

The Editor says...
One of the selling points for the elimination of the death penalty was that the people on Death Row would have their sentences changed to life without parole, and would never ever be released from prison.  Do not ever believe anything a socialist Democrat says.

The Remarkable Transformation of Kamala Harris.  When William McKay killed Riverside Deputy Sheriff Isaiah Cordero during a traffic stop, the three-strike convicted felon was not in custody because of Harris's reduced bail rule, despite having been convicted of three previous violent crimes.  Reduced (or no) bail policy along with charge reductions (from felonies to misdemeanors), and no crime at all if theft, viz., shoplifting, less than $950 — these were all elements of Harris's pro-crime posture when she was District Attorney of San Francisco (2003-2010).  Her policies turned one of the most popular travel destinations into a dangerous, crime-, garbage-, and needle-infested, homeless dominated "unlivable hellhole."  She extended her pro-crime approach, adding defund the police, to all of California when she became that state's Attorney General (2010-2017).  Illegal immigration into the Golden State soared under her watch.  Between the open border and Harris's pro-crime attitude, gang violence in general, and particularly murders in Los Angeles, reached new highs.

Tell us More About Those Falling Crime Rates in Los Angeles.  One of the themes that Kamala Harris's campaign team seems to be pushing in the early going is her record as a prosecutor in California.  That sounds rather bizarre, but at least at the surface level it sort of makes sense. [...] So how are things going in Harris's home state of California?  Let's check in with the LAPD to find out.  The murder rate has decreased slightly over the past year, which is certainly welcome news.  But the same can't be said for many other types of crime, particularly retail theft.  One high-end shoe store in LA found that out the hard way this week.  As CBS News reports, Rich LA, a clothing and shoe store on West Century Boulevard that had only opened two months ago was robbed on Friday morning.  A gang of thieves cut through the metal security barrier, smashed out the windows and emptied the store of $80,000 in merchandise and another $20,000 in cash from the safe.

Tim Walz: Soft on Crime.  By this time, pretty much everyone knows that Minnesota has become a high-crime state on Tim Walz's watch.  That is due in large part to his freezing up for four days during the George Floyd riots, and to his generally anti-law enforcement attitudes.  But there is more to it than that.  Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison took office in January 2019.  They immediately embarked on a pro-crime, anti-law enforcement agenda that has dramatically reduced the rate of incarceration in Minnesota.  Not surprisingly, the rate of violent crime has correspondingly increased.

Women's Issues' and the 2024 Election.  [Scroll down]  Our cities and suburbs are undergoing a severe explosion of crime, from robbery to rape to other physical attacks.  This puts employees of retail establishments — who are frequently female — at particular risk.  It puts commuters, walkers, joggers — who are frequently female — at particular risk.  And it puts tenants or homeowners who live alone, especially women living in apartments and public housing, and old widows living in their homes alone, at particular risk.  Crime is a women's issue.  The mugger, carjacker, home invader, rapist, or convenience store robber who might have second thoughts before attacking a potential male will likely think of the female pedestrian, driver, jogger, or store clerk as an easier target.  Voters deserve to know whether the candidate supports prosecuting and jailing criminals, or setting criminals free.  They deserve to know whether the candidate supports the wholesale emptying of prisons and the defunding the police, or keeping our jails and police forces operating at full strength.

Shoplifting rose 24% this year, no end in sight.  Shoplifting has soared in the U.S. in 2024, forcing many stores to leave cities and continuing a trend in recent years.  Shoplifting has risen 24% in the first half of 2024 alone, according to newly released data from the Council on Criminal Justice.  The White House cited the CCJ's data to boast a drop in violent crime so far this year, but a closer look at the data showed that while violent crime has declined, shoplifting continues to rise.  CCJ studied 23 U.S. cities.

Bullies filmed stomping boy, 17, to death are handed outrageously-lenient plea deal, leaving victim's mother distraught.  A grieving Las Vegas mother has been left 'dumbfounded and in shock' after four bullies who were caught on camera beating her son to death accepted plea deals.  Melissa Ready lost her son Jonathan Lewis, 17, after he was attacked by a group of teens and stomped to the point of unconsciousness, before dying a week later.  Dontral Beaver, 16, Damian Hernandez, 18, Treavion Randolph, 16, and Gianni Robinson all stood accused of his murder after being charged as adults in January.  On Thursday, it was announced that they all accepted a plea deal that will allow them to plead guilty as juveniles to manslaughter.

Illegal Jordanian migrants who 'tried to breach' Quantico base allowed to walk free after posting bail.  The two illegal Jordanian migrants who are charged with trying to breach Marine Corps Base Quantico in May posted thousands of dollars in bail and were allowed to leave federal custody, The [New York] Post can exclusively reveal.  Hasan Yousef Hamdan, 32, and Mohammad Khair Dabous, 28, were released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention despite their immigration status — Hamdan had crossed into the country illegally in April and Dabous had overstayed his student visa and is subject to removal proceedings, law enforcement sources told The Post.  They were arrested on May 3 for trespassing onto the military installation and handed over to ICE officers because of their immigration statuses.

Men Here Illegally Assault Cops & Get Right Out Without Bail.  Two illegal foreigners attacked two of New York's finest, and they're back on the street.  The Manhattan prosecutors cut them loose without bail.  Brian Joseph, 24, and Jose Gonzalez, 19, were arrested Sunday after fighting with cops on traffic patrol at about 9:50 PM.  They beat one officer, hurled a moped at the other, and when they were hauled into court, they were immediately released on their own recognizance.  That's a great message to send, especially to these new thugs coming in from foreign countries.  Many of them are gang members.  One angry officer said it's allowing "an open war on cops.  Today, they bite and kick a cop, and tomorrow, they take a shot at cops."

In England:
Shoplifting at record high as thieves 'operate without fear'.  Shoplifting has reached its highest level since records began as thieves operate "without fear of apprehension".  The number of shoplifting offences recorded by police in England and Wales is up 30 percent compared with last year, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported.  The organisation also reported a 40 percent rise "thefts from the person", such as snatch thefts and pick-pocketing.  A total of 443,995 shoplifting offences were logged by forces in the year to March 2024 — the highest since records began in the year to March 2003.  Shoplifting levels had already reached a 20-year high earlier this year.

California: Groups Of Thugs Are Raiding Homes And Cars In The Suburbs.  Thieves were caught on camera breaking into at least 8 cars, 5 garages, and several homes.  Thieves targeted a neighborhood in the East Bay,[California] stealing garage openers from cars and breaking into homes.  Surveillance footage shows the group breaking into cars, garages, and homes, driving a white Honda Accord around 7 a.m. on Sunday.  In one instance, the thieves entered a home with a woman and children inside, but the woman chased them out after they tried to steal her car.  [Video clip]

San Francisco's downtown Saks Fifth Avenue bans window shoppers from coming inside.  San Francisco has suffered another blow as one of the most luxurious department stores downtown is banning window shoppers.  Saks Fifth Avenue in Union Square has decided to change its customer experience by moving to 'appointment-only' this summer, according to KRON4.  Locals will have to pre-book appointments at the store located on 384 Post Street from August 28.

The Fall of Oakland.  Around 4:30 a.m. on July 5, dozens of people broke through the front door of a 76 gas station mini-mart near Oakland's international airport.  For about 40 minutes, the mob casually looted tens of thousands of dollars of merchandise and stole $22,000 in cash from the ATM.  The sole employee working the window ran away, called the police, and was told to file an online report.  It reportedly took cops nine hours to finally arrive on the scene.  Earlier, on Juneteenth, 14 people were shot and injured in a gunfight by Lake Merritt, Oakland's equivalent of Central Park.  One of the victims was walking toward a Korean restaurant when a man strode up and shot him in the hand and in each thigh for no apparent reason.  As the victim lay bleeding on the sidewalk, another stranger stole his phone. [...] Even the nonviolent crimes reflect that video game-like absurdity.  In January, about two blocks away from the 76 station, thieves hooked an outdoor Bank of America ATM to a van, tore it from the wall, and dragged it down the street.  It was the second ATM in the area to be stolen just that morning.

The Editor says...
Removing an ATM with a van and a chain is not a non-violent crime.

Keir Starmer could let out 40,000 inmates early to ease prisons crisis.  Sir Keir Starmer is expected to authorise emergency measures this week to automatically release criminals less than halfway through their sentence in an attempt to tackle the prisons crisis.  There are fewer than 700 spaces left in men's jails in England and Wales, The Times has been told, before a critical week in the prisons overcrowding crisis.  A Ministry of Justice (MoJ) source said "the immediate crisis is quite severe" after the general election stalled its ability to free up more space over the past six weeks.

If criminals are everywhere, blame the bystanders.
San Francisco to fight crime by ordering Tenderloin businesses to close earlier.  The San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a measure to impose a curfew on businesses in the city's Tenderloin District over concerns that open businesses are hotspots for crime, drug dealing and drug use.  The legislation also noted how the city's police officers are typically outnumbered by large groups of "people engaged in illegal activity," suggesting crime in the area's disarray has grown past law enforcement's ability to control.  "Large groups of people engaged in drug sales and use in the Tenderloin Public Safety Area generally form and congregate in the vicinity of retail businesses selling food and tobacco products that are open to the public during those hours," wrote Mayor London Breed in her legislation submitted to the Board of Supervisors.

Kamala's Legacies.  As California's attorney general in 2014, Harris named a proposition that changed thefts of property valued under $950 from felonies to misdemeanors.  Harris called it the "Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act" but failed to explain how legalizing crime made schools and neighborhoods safer.  She has claimed she took no position on the act, but the ballot language has exposed that falsehood.  Proposition 47 launched a crime wave across the state, with 31,322 vehicle break-ins in San Francisco alone in 2017, a 24-percent increase from the previous year.  The measure empowered criminals to break into vehicles in broad daylight with bystanders present.  The arrest rate in San Francisco, where Harris previously served as district attorney, was less than two percent, and under Proposition 47 criminals could expect at the most a citation.  The consequences of the pro-crime measure were obvious to all but the willfully blind, but the attorney general kept on the quiet side.

L.A. robber stole Rolex, got no-prison deal from D.A. Now he's accused of killing tourist at mall.  The alleged leader of an armed robbery crew charged with killing a New Zealand tourist last week outside Newport Beach's Fashion Island mall had been placed on probation for stealing a Rolex at gunpoint in Santa Monica.  He avoided prison time in that case after Los Angeles County prosecutors agreed to a three-year suspended sentence, according to interviews and records reviewed by The [L.A.] Times.  Leroy Ernest McCrary, 26, now faces a special circumstances murder charge that could carry the death penalty after authorities allege he ran over Patricia "Trish" McKay, 68, during a July 2 robbery attempt.

New York Times Columnist Says What Other Leftists Are Thinking but Don't Dare Say.  Let me tell you about far leftists.  They are different from you and me.  If ordinary people publicly threatened to assassinate the president or a presidential candidate or wished that someone else would do so, those people would have to answer to the law.  But leftists?  Even when they show the world how low they really are, they still think that they are better than we are, and with good reason:  no matter how criminal their deeds or words are, they suffer no consequences.  They are different.  New York Times columnist John McWhorter has shown us this again recently by wishing someone would assassinate Donald Trump.  Has he been arrested?  Lost his job?  Been publicly repudiated by his friends?  Come on, man!

California: Delivery Drivers [are] Now Being Accompanied By Armed Guards Due To "Crime Concerns".  Things have gotten so utopian in the state of California, delivery drivers are being accompanied by armed guards due to "crime concerns" while out making deliveries.  One company, Core Mart, has started hiring the guards to escort its drivers.  Which means that somewhere, in a board room, it likely made more financial sense to pay for all new security staff than it did to continue to allow drivers to get robbed (and inventory lost) as was happening prior.

Authorities Are Literally Losing Control Of The Streets As America's Societal Collapse Accelerates.  In a civilized society, authorities are able to maintain at least a basic level of law and order in the streets most of the time.  Unfortunately, at this point it is up for debate whether the United States is still a "civilized society" or not.  The chaos in our streets never seems to end, and those that are in charge of running things don't seem to be able to regain control.  The theft, violence and mayhem that we are witnessing in our major cities is being fueled by the worst homelessness crisis in our entire history, the worst drug crisis in our entire history, and the worst migration crisis in our entire history.  If authorities cannot control our streets now, what is going to happen once our societal collapse reaches a much more advanced stage?

In Oakland, the crime chaos gets worse.  In most crime-infested blue cities, officials make at least the pretense of caring about law and order.  Sometimes they even take temporary or sporadic action in response to particularly egregious events, hoping to placate the public until the next blow-up.  Not so, Oakland, where crime appears to be getting worse.  In Oakland, the mayor is being recalled by the voters as well as under investigation for corruption by the FBI, and the district attorney is also facing a recall.  But even with that kind of lit-fire under officialdom, they aren't even trying.

Chicago's Mayor Blames Richard Nixon For The Out Of Control Shootings In His City.  Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson blames Richard Nixon after over 100 people were shot, 17 fatally, during the July 4th weekend.  "...We had a chance 60 years ago to get at the root causes, and people mocked President Johnson, and we ended up with Richard Nixon..."  At least 100 people were shot, 17 fatally, during the July 4th weekend in Mayor Brandon Johnson's Chicago.  [Video clip]

Above the law:  No jail time for 'genderfluid' ex-Biden regime panty thief.  Former Department of Energy official Sam Brinton received little more than a slap on the wrist for stealing a fashion designer's luggage in 2018.  Despite being charged with grand larceny, a felony carrying a potential sentence of up to 20 years in lockup, Brinton reportedly ended up taking a plea deal that allowed him to plead guilty to petit larceny, a misdemeanor.  The charges stemmed from a theft of Tasmanian fashion designer Asya Khamsin's luggage at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, after which it is claimed that Brinton publically wore some of the "custom" outfits she had within the luggage.  Prosecutors reportedly decided at the Arlington General District Court last week that Brinton would be avoiding jail time, instead opting to slap him with 50 hours of community service assisting the elderly, mandatory mental health treatment, and having him write an apology letter to his victim.

Littered With Lies.  When it comes to the most important moral issues of our time, few entities have been on the wrong side of the truth more often than has the Democrat Party and their apologists. [...] The Left's lies on police and crime have led to pervasive and enduring lawlessness in numerous American cities.  Of course, this resulted from the widespread effort to "defund the police" in Democrat-controlled cities and states.  Because the Left can't tell the truth about crime, Democrat-run cities are also littered with the homeless, squatters, and drug users to the point that millions of Americans are fleeing these liberal hellholes.

Adding Insult to Injury in San Francisco.  What happens in San Francisco if your insurance drops you because crime is out of control and your store is broken into for the fourth time?  You get a notice from the city that you better fix up your store before they come after you.  [Advertisement]  [Video clip]  Robbed by the criminals and financially raped by the city.  It's a perfect example of how the government prefers to police the law-abiding and ignore the criminals.  After all, criminals are dangerous and will fight back.

Thug brutally beats older, smaller deli worker — and keeps kicking victim's bloody face even after he's motionless on floor.  A male was caught on surveillance video brutally beating a much older and significantly smaller deli worker in New York City earlier this month — and the clip actually shows the attacker continuing to kick the victim's bloody face even after he's motionless and crumpled on the floor, apparently out cold.  You can view surveillance video of the attack at the Queens deli [elsew]here.  The deeply disturbing clip shows the attacker punching the victim at least 11 times — and kicking him in the face and head at least 13 times.  Perhaps worst of all is that after the attacker's third kick, the victim appeared motionless and unconscious; so the final 10 kicks to the victim's progressively bloody face likely happened after he was already out cold and totally defenseless.

Florida family pulls teen from California college after losing thousands in car robbery.  A Florida family is no longer sending their teen to a California college after their car was "bipped" when they moved their son into his dorm on Saturday, costing them thousands of dollars in lost belongings and important personal documents.  Rhomel Crossman had just graduated from a Florida high school and was slated to attend Lincoln University in downtown Oakland this fall — but after his family was robbed, they told KTVU FOX 2 San Francisco they intend to rescind his enrollment.  "In Oakland, California, you just gotta be careful," Crossman's mother, Nerissa Murray Watson, told the outlet.  "Everything is totally gone."

Family Pulls Son From College in California After Their Car is Robbed While Moving Him Into Dorm.  These folks were moving their son into a dorm, and thieves smashed the windows of their rental car and took pretty much everything.  This happened in Oakland, of course.

No one's above the law?  DA Bragg drops charges on most Columbia rioters.  In what was described by a member of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York as "turnstile justice," charges have been dropped against nearly all the protesters who stormed Columbia University's campus during heated anti-Israel demonstrations.  "District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office dismissed cases against 31 of 46 people charged with trespassing in the Ivy League school's Hamilton Hall after a dramatic April 30 NYPD raid rounded up protesters on the Morningside Heights campus," the New York Post reported.  And while prosecutors reportedly cited a lack of evidence, the dropping of charges is par for the course when it comes to most left-wing protests.  It is also the latest example of a two-tiered system of justice in America where those supporting the right cause receive little more than a slap on the wrist — if that.  On the other hand, protesting an abortion clinic could result in spending years behind bars.

The Only Crimes Are Political Now.  On Wednesday, three teens were arrested for riding e-scooters over an LGBTQ 'Pride' mural painted on a crosswalk in Spokane, Washington.  One of the teens was charged with a first degree felony and bail was set at $15,000.  On Saturday, in another Washington thousands of miles away, Hamas supporters rioted near the White House.  They threw bottles at a park ranger and vandalized national monuments with graffiti reading "Death to America".  Islamic terrorist supporters waved banners and held up signs in support of Hamas.  One man in a Hamas headband brandished a bloody Biden mask.  Two Park Police officers were injured in the pro-Hamas violence, but not one arrest was made.  Not a single arrest for the assault on a federal employee (1-20 years in prison), the vandalism of national monuments (10 years in prison) or the support for a terrorist organization (20 years in prison).  If only they had done some donuts on a 'Pride' mural, they might be in jail now.

California Jewelry Store Looted In Broad Daylight.  At what point do California voters finally realize that their Democratic Party leaders have abandoned trying to enforce the rule of law and shout "Enough!"?  The latest example of California's decline into a lawless state is a bold daylight robbery where 20 masked intruders looted a Sunnyvale jewelry store in broad daylight.

Canada: Crime Is Up, Fewer Gun Ranges Since Trudeau's Gun Grab.  In Canada, a ban on more than 1,500 firearm makes, models and variants, together with a mandatory government confiscation ("buyback") requirement, was imposed by Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over four years ago.  Contrary to the representations as to the inherent deadliness of these guns and the urgency of ensuring these dangerous weapons were no longer available to ordinary citizens, the government had no plan on how to implement the law (and all indications are that it still doesn't).  The ban and buyback were coupled with an amnesty period, extended to October 2025, to protect owners of formerly lawful firearms from criminal liability for possessing them until the confiscation requirement was operational. [...] The government assurances, like its misleading terminology, were meaningless.  The ban included ordinary semiautomatic rifles and shotguns used by responsible hunters, trappers, farmers, sport shooters and Indigenous Canadians.

California Applies Broken Windows Theory in Reverse.  Thanks go to the erstwhile Golden State for warning us what we have to look forward to if we do not pry Democrats from power and reject leftism root and branch:  [Tweet with video clip]  Shoplifting is effectively legal in California.  Smashing through the front of a store so as to loot it is still against the law (until such law is found to have a disparate impact on Persons of Preferred Pigmentation), but by now it hardly matters.  By encouraging low-level crime, California has thrown the broken windows theory into reverse and then into overdrive.

Retired NYPD Inspector Blasts FBI's Crime Stats.  Retired New York Police Department (NYPD) inspector Paul Mauro called out Wednesday on Fox News the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) recent statistics claiming there's been a decrease in crime across the United States.  Mauro appeared on "Jesse Watters Primetime" to discuss the release of the FBI's new stats claiming that the rate of violent and property crimes have significantly dropped within the first three months of 2024 compared to the same time last year.  Following a highlight of recent incidents within major cities, Fox host Jesse Watters questioned Mauro if the crime rates are actually down. [...]  [Video clip]  "The NYPD and the FBI murder numbers for this year are different by 44%. And what an accident, it looks like the New York City number is a little bit higher than the FBI is telling you.  By the way, they use the same definition so it's not like the devil is in the details, it's the same murder definition, they're off by 44%.  You can't trust these numbers and just consider this, the videos you just showed, most of what you just showed would not be captured in any of the crime numbers that were here," Mauro said.

California Democrats at Odds With Cops, Businesses Over Bid to Curb Massive Retail Theft.  It's nice to be a criminal in California and know that Democrats in the state legislature have your back.  There's a looting crisis in California.  It's so bad that some people are refusing to shop in brick-and-mortar stores anymore.  Stores are being redesigned to try and protect stock from the rapacious hands of organized gangs of looters.  The problem is Proposition 47.  Passed in 2014, it was meant to reduce the jail population, which Democrats believe is far more important than actually putting criminals inside of jails.  The ballot measure made it a felony to shoplift only if the amount taken exceeded $950. It's a bogus number.  In fact, police (rightly) don't devote a lot of resources to finding and prosecuting individual shoplifters.  But criminals saw it as a license to steal.  The recent looting incidents involving dozens of young offenders taking tens of thousands of dollars in merchandise have all sides in the debate saying that something must be done.

Affluenza strikes again.
Angie Harmon's daughter, 18, freed without bail after allegedly breaking into bar, stealing hundreds of dollars worth of booze: report.  Avery Sehorn, daughter of actress Angie Harmon and NFL star Jason Sehorn, was freed from jail without bail after she was busted for breaking into a bar and stealing hundreds of dollars worth of booze, according to a report.  Sehorn, 18, and two 17-year-old boys, was arrested just days after graduating high school for allegedly sneaking through the back door of the World Night Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, and chugging liquor as they hid behind a bar.  After she was detained, she was released after making a "written promise to appear" at her June 18 hearing at the Mecklenburg County Courthouse rather than pay a bond, according to court documents reviewed by The Daily Mail.  There were no additional conditions for her release.

The Editor says...
In case you don't remember "affluenza," it was a legal defense that was put up (successfully!) to get a rich kid off the hook in 2013, with the argument that the kid's parents were so terribly wealthy that the kid never learned the difference between right and wrong.  And the jury bought it! [1] [2] [3] [4]

Mob of 20 Executes a Smash And Grab at a Jewelry Store In San Francisco.  About 20 robbers entered a Sunnyvale jewelry store Wednesday afternoon and used hammers and tools to break display cases before fleeing with merchandise and leading officers on a pursuit.  The Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety responded at 1:27 p.m. to PNG Jewelers located at 791 E. El Camino Real on a report of a robbery in progress.  After the alleged suspects stole valuables, they left the location in multiple cars before officers arrived.

Behold the Monster You Created.  [Scroll down]  Well, my friends.  You miscalculated. [...] You supported the movement to defund the police, not because of any evidence whatsoever of systemic racism in policing, but because your life is a spiritual sewer and, to fill the void, you need a cause to cling to.  So long as the chaos occurred only on the inner city streets of the minorities you claim to support, you were content to posture along.  But you have since discovered that there are few takers in the world of would-be police applicants to play your willing scapegoat.  The sharp decline in police retention nationwide has resulted in the George Floyds of the world getting ever more comfortable branching out into once-safe neighborhoods to engage in their "underprivileged" behavior.

Judge Explains Why He Released Woman Charged with Stabbing 3-Year-Old to Death.  An Ohio judge has defended his decision to release the woman accused of killing three-year-old Julian Wood.  "I'm confident in the way the court handled the matter," he told Fox 8, as reported by Daily Mail.  [Tweets]  "We did it by the letter of the law, there was nothing there to send up alarms.  There wasn't any red flags shooting up that pole."  Judge Brian Hagan explained that there were "no signs of mental distress, no signs of previous, violent acts," despite a referral for a mental health evaluation just days before the fatal stabbing.

Man found not criminally responsible for setting woman on fire while on TTC bus.  The man who killed a woman by lighting her on fire while on a TTC bus at Kipling Subway Station in 2022 has been found not criminally responsible for his actions due to mental disorder.  Tenzin Norbu, 33, of Toronto, admitted to the killing after he was charged with first-degree murder.  The two did not know each other.  Norbu approached Dolma and asked her if she was Tibetan, to which Dolma replied "yes."  Norbu then pulled out a jar of lighter fluid and poured in on Dolma and lit it.  [Apparently irrelevant tweet]  Nyima died of her injuries 18 days after the attack.  Norbu pleaded not guilty on the grounds of his mental state.  "The only issue to be decided in this trial is whether Mr. Norbu has proven on a balance of probabilities that at the time he killed Ms. Dolma he was not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder," the judge wrote.

Will the Democrats Survive this Year's Election?  Next to inflation and its attendant erosion of our standard of living, crime is at the top of the list of pertinent issues currently being faced.  Mayors and district attorneys in even deep blue cities are being threatened with recall en masse.  This reaction is hardly arbitrary since there is a blatant demonstration of cause and effect.  In order to pander to their inner-city constituents, leftist progressives have their fingerprints all over soft-on-crime laws and policies[,] hence the cause.  Retailers are thus suffering huge losses due to theft — an effect, and its costs are ultimately being born by consumers, along with their having to wait for an attendant to unlock the toothpaste case.  Unlike crime, immigration is a federal issue — but it is still seriously linked to local crime — since various foreign criminal organizations are taking advantage of our inept border policies.

The Evidence Is In:  Progressivism Is a Mental Illness.  [Scroll down]  In trying to understand the shambolic, emotion-driven mentality of Democrats, it is noteworthy that psychological displacement is also a prominent feature of the progressive mindset.  In psychology, displacement is when a person takes a negative emotion (anger, frustration) and redirects the emotion from its original source to a less threatening recipient. [...] We see psychological displacement when progressives transfer blame for crime from criminals onto cops, with demands to defund, abolish, or even kill the police.  We also witness displacement when progressive white women or elderly Asians are assaulted or sucker-punched in the face by black males but refuse to blame or otherwise identify their assailants, whom they fear.  Instead, in interviews or on social media, they often blame white males, white "racism," or some other amorphous thing that they do not fear.  With the Israel-Hamas conflict, we are witness to both progressive projection (ascribing Hamas's empirically self-evident genocidal threats and behavior toward Israel to the Jewish state itself) and psychological displacement.

Inside the crime-ridden California neighborhood where it's even too dangerous for road workers.  Frustrated Oakland residents are in the hole after a construction crew quit and refused to finish its pothole paving job because it got 'too dangerous' for its workers — as other businesses flee the Bay Area over the same concerns.  Residents in the Sobrante Park area in East Oakland said they weren't even notified after the third-party general contractor decided to abandon the project before repaving the streets, leaving large potholes and dangerous loose gravel all over the neighborhood since mid-May.  When resident Shari Angarano reached out to a city project manager for some answers, she was left in disbelief.  'He essentially said that the work was suspended and he couldn't tell me the time frame when they would return because the contractor halted all the work because they felt unsafe,' Angarano told DailyMail.com.

The Editor says...
I'll bet the road work is dangerous because the workers are constantly being harassed by lily-white rednecks in old pickup trucks.  Right?

Retail Theft Is Wildly Out Of Control All Over America, And It Is Only Going To Get Worse.  We are right in the middle of a tsunami of shoplifting that never seems to end, and as a result major retailers are closing down locations in major cities all over the country.  A few years ago, videos of brazen shoplifters ruthlessly looting retail stores were shocking everyone, but now this sort of thing is so common that very few of us are shocked anymore.  We have come to expect that our retail stores will be regularly looted because this is who we have become as a nation.  Sadly, even many of our politicians aren't too concerned that the impoverished masses are stealing billions of dollars worth of merchandise from our major retailers.  Like so many others, maybe they figure that those retailers won't even miss what is being taken.  But the truth is that they do miss what is being taken, and CEOs have been complaining very loudly about it.

Another Weekend Of Dystopian Lawlessness In Lost Angeles.  Soros-backed District Attournys only go after Trump, not the hordes of demonoids making Democrat-run cities uninhabitable.  [Video clip]

The Destructive Generation — Proving America's Weakest Link.  The country's major cities are increasingly medieval, with a million homeless camped on fetid streets.  Criminals terrorize the law-abiding.  They assume their violence will be contextualized away by vacuous "critical legal" or "critical race" or "critical penal" theories.  This generation releases violent felons to prey on the weak and sheds hardly a tear as police officers are shot unnoticed at the rate of nearly one a day.

Soros-Backed DA's Office Gave Free Consultations to Illegal Aliens Charged With Violent Crimes.  Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner's office provided free consultations and legal assistance to illegal aliens charged with violent felonies in 2023, documents reveal.  The taxpayer-funded consultations were provided to migrants charged with various heinous crimes — including rape, robbery, strangulation, aggravated assault, and homicide by vehicle — in an ostensible effort to help them avoid convictions that would lead to their deportation, documents obtained by the Immigration Reform Law Institute reveal.  Krasner created the position of immigration counsel in 2018 to provide consultations and work on cases involving illegal aliens.

Chicago alderman says she will no longer share crime alerts because they create a bad 'perception'.  In a North Side ward where four people have been shot in the past week, and robberies and sex crimes are at their highest level in over a decade, the local alderman announced on Wednesday that she would no longer post crime alerts on social media or send crime alerts to her constituent email list.  Why?  Something about racism and her belief that "over-reporting of crime leads to an inaccurate public perception about crime rates."  Do you know what else leads to a perception of high crime rates?  High crime.  Which alderman with a skyrocketing crime problem is going to start playing "hide the football" with the people who elected her?  Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth (48th), whose ward includes much of Edgewater and parts of Uptown.

Crime and punishment in Joe Biden's America.  In the summer of 2020, America was in flames as Antifa and Black Lives Matter set fire to city after city — Seattle, Minneapolis, Portland, New York, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and so many more.  Police stations were torched, and dozens of officers were injured as all manner of projectiles, from rocks to Molotov cocktails, were hurled at them.  Dozens of people died.  The damage was estimated at over $1.2 billion, the highest in history.  In January of 2021, the Biden administration came to town.  With 35,000 FBI agents and support personnel at his disposal, and armed with an annual $10.8 billion budget, Biden's Attorney General Merrick Garland had everything he needed to bring the criminals to bear.  But there was no outrage from the Justice Department.  Instead, with a lonely exception here and there, there was silence.  Tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of crimes across the country never have been, nor ever will be, prosecuted.

Degenerates In Portland Rob A Frail And Confused 93-Year-Old Man.  A 93-year-old man was targeted by a gang of three pickpockets in the parking lot of a Portland Costco and had his wallet stolen.  Clear surveillance footage sees the trio sneaking up on the elderly man as he pushes a cart back to his car completely unaware is that he is being tailed by the criminals.  Seizing the opportunity, one member of the gang reaches out his left hand and manages to grab the wallet from the shopper's back pocket.  [Video clip]

Memorial Day Weekend in the City.  [Scroll down]  So our cities hold press conferences.  They announce "an increased police presence."  They declare that there will be more patrols downtown, "but don't think that means we won't be in the neighborhoods, too!" Cities reinstitute curfews that they don't have the staff to enforce.  They remind people to keep their wits about them and remember that the police can't be everywhere.  They remind us not to park in a dark cul-de-sac; they remind us to stay on lighted paths, and maybe to avoid neighborhoods that just might not be the safest for you.  Chicago's bosses announced that they'll be doing everything necessary to keep the city safe — the extra patrols, the safety messages, the increased presence around shopping districts, the checking of bags at the beach.  Wait a minute.  "The checking of bags at the beach?"  "Everything necessary," they say.  Really?  Some of us remember when we were kids, going to the beach, whether on Lake Michigan or one of our country's many other lakes or ocean shores.  Police didn't check our bags in those days, and we were infinitely safer then than now.  Perhaps they aren't doing "everything necessary," after all.

The Editor says...
When politicians announce their plans for "increased police presence," and these are the same politicians who have been beating the "defund the police" drum for a couple of years, everybody knows it's impossible to expect to see more cops everywhere because there aren't any.  Sooner or later, everybody in Chicago will notice, and yet they will persist in voting for lying Socialist Democrats.

Mother Confronts A Registered Sex Offender Filming Her 16 Year Old Daughter At Target.  Mother confronts tier two registered sex offender for allegedly filming her 16-year-old daughter in a Target store but police say he didn't break the law.  'You took a video.  Show it to me... That's my daughter, take it off your phone... That's disgusting.'  Charles Broc Mullholand, 40, is a tier two registered sex offender in Wood County, Ohio.  'Why are you signing out of your Apple ID?'  The detective said.  The mother said she saw several videos of other girls on his phone and tried to grab it, but he pushed her arm and walked away.  'It's not that he was just recording people, he's recording her inappropriately, and he's zooming in on body parts of her.'  [Video clip]

World's Most Arrested Man Dies At 74.  The world's most arrested man has died.  Henry Earl, whose criminal history included more than 1500 busts, passed away last week.  He was 74.  For the last several years of his life, Earl resided at a nursing home in Owenton, Kentucky, a city about 50 miles from Lexington, where he racked up the majority of his arrests.  As reported in these pages, Earl was regularly collared for public order crimes — fueled by alcohol — and booked into the Fayette County Detention Center in Lexington.  When TSG stopped counting, Earl had spent a staggering 6000 days in the county lockup for offenses like public intoxication and disorderly conduct (violent crimes did not often appear on Earl's prodigious rap sheet).

Blue line getting thinner in West Coast states as police take refuge in Idaho.  The Gem State has become a popular moving destination for both retired and active-duty police officers, a trend Horst and Idaho Fraternal Order of Police President Bryan Lovell broadly attribute to a more positive climate.  "They come to Idaho where they can enjoy their career and make a difference," Lovell told Fox News Digital.  "They see that, in large part, our communities are supportive of law enforcement and public safety."  Cities large and small across the country suffered severe staffing shortages on the heels of anti-police protests in 2020.  Four years later, some departments still can't stop the bleeding.  Seattle's police staffing is at its lowest level since the 1990s, according to a March KING 5 report.  Earlier this year in California, the Alameda Police Department offered a $75,000 signing bonus — the highest in the nation — on top of a six-figure starting salary to try to entice new officers.

California hemorrhages its law enforcement officers to a red state.  Men and women whose job may require them to lay their lives on the line, who handle some of the scummiest and darkest realities in the history of humanity, want to be respected and supported by their employers and community?  No kidding.  And it's not just a few cops here and there — deep blue pro-crime cities are hemorrhaging law enforcement officers: [...] But, what I find doubly obnoxious is that instead of implementing policies that work, like the tough-on-crime policies of red states, the government uses taxpayer dollars — like the $75,000 bonus in Alameda, California — to woo new officers.  The people responsible for this don't pay, in the slightest, and it's enraging.

Thieves Steal 60 Birkin Bags Worth 1.8 Million Dollars.  Brazen masked burglars have torn through a high-end hotel stealing at least $1.8million worth of designer handbags in a late-night raid.  Newly released security footage from the Maison Wrist Aficionado shop inside the Setai Hotel on Miami Beach showed two thieves break in on March 22.  First they pulled up outside in a work van and broke the lock on the door, then grabbed two green plastic garbage bins and rushed inside.  Cameras caught them grabbing everything in sight, including 60 Hermès Birkin handbags worth $20,000 to $35,00 each, and piling them into the bins.  [Video clip]

Ex-Con Whose Murder Conviction Was Overturned Kills Another Man Less Than Two Years After His Release.  A Brooklyn ex-con whose murder conviction was tossed out by prosecutors is back behind bars — this time charged in a shooting that left a 19-year-old man dead just nine months after he was released from prison.  Shamel Capers, 25 was found guilty in 2016 in the shooting death of 15-year-old D'aja Robinson with a stray bullet while she rode a Q6 bus in Jamaica after a Sweet 16 birthday party.  Now, after serving just eight years of a 15-year-to-life prison sentence for murder, Capers is facing new charges in a Queens shootout last year that left another teenager dead in a hail of bullets.  [Video clip]

Significant drop noted in Pittsburgh police enforcement.  Traffic stops conducted by city police dropped from 29,196 in 2017 to 6,916 in 2023.  Arrests dropped from 14,205 in 2019 to 7,180 in 2023, according to data the city released earlier this month.  These follow national trends in other departments across the U.S.  The department is also scaling back its patrols of the city, implementing recent changes to how it responds to 911 calls and burglar alarms as it struggles to fill positions with a reduced police force.  The City Council earmarked less for law enforcement in its 2024 budget and cut the number of uniformed police officers from 900 in 2023 to 850 this year.  The police department said Thursday it staffs 760 sworn officers, though it has historically had difficulties filling budgeted positions.

Chicago DA, Kim Foxx [says] If Cops Find Illegal Firearms, Drugs Or Stolen Property In Your Car, They Won't Charge You.  Soros-funded lunatic, District Attorney Kim Foxx of Chicago has proposed a new draft policy to decrease prosecutions resulting from findings during traffic stops significantly.  According to this proposal, if illegal firearms, drugs, or stolen property are found during a search of a vehicle, prosecutors would not pursue charges.  Foxx argues that these charges disproportionately affect black people.  However, there is an exception to this policy: if the stop directly resulted from a public safety incident, it would be considered.  Routine traffic violations such as registration issues, headlights, or signal lights would not be considered a public safety threat and would not be pursued under this policy.  [Video clip]

San Diego Is Releasing One Of The Worst And Most Violent Serial Rapists The City Has Experienced.  A placement hearing took place Friday for Alvin Ray Quarles, also known as the 'Bolder-Than-Most' rapist.  Held at the San Diego Central Courthouse, the release hearing was scheduled for consideration of the terms of his release as a sexually violent predator.  Quarles spent 25 years in state prison after pleading guilty in 1989 to committing a string of rapes, robberies and burglaries.  [Video clip]

Socialist Member of Chicago City Council Thinks the Idea of Punishing Criminals is 'Racist'.  Rossana Rodriguez, a self-described socialist serving on Chicago's city council, believes the idea of punishing criminals is racist.  What does she think should be done with rapists and murderers?  Summer camp?  When you look at the breakdown of law and order in cities across the United States, remember that the chaos is being driven by people like this.  They are the problem.

What has Biden accomplished in his presidency?  Devastation.  [Scroll down]  The Biden regime embraces what all the Soros-funded and elected DAs, prosecutors and AGs embrace, they who are committed to the soft-on-crime polices that puts violent criminals on the streets within hours of their arrest.  Some on the left call this a form of reparations!  This "restorative justice" is another pipe dream; it does not work.  It permits, even encourages more crime for which, again, there are no consequences.  While Alvin Bragg is pursuing Trump relentlessly for an invented misdemeanor, New York has become a mecca for criminals who have been given free rein to steal, mug, assault, rape and murder innocent civilians.  This may well be the biggest tragedy of the Biden presidency!  Criminals are protected, victims are thrown under the bus or even charged for the crime of defending themselves.  The frequency with which violent felons are released to commit further crimes is the most egregious crime against civil society and is a stated policy of the Biden platform.

Maine DOC to Buy 'state-of-the-art' Laser Tattoo Removal Machine to Help Inmates Reintegrate into Society.  The Maine Department of Corrections (Maine DOC) is seeking a vendor to purchase a "state-of-the-art" laser tattoo removal machine, a purchase the agency argues will help inmates successfully reintegrate into society.  According to a Request for Proposals (RFP) posted by the Maine Department of Administrative and Financial Services (DAFS) on April 29, the Maine DOC is soliciting bids from vendors "to procure "to procure a state-of-the-art laser tattoo removal equipment that meets stringent requirements for safety, efficacy, and versatility, designed to facilitate the rehabilitation and reintegration of inmates within a correctional facility setting."

Should You Believe Faulty U.S. Crime Stats or Your Own Lying Eyes?  Americans can be forgiven for suffering from whiplash regarding law and order.  In recent weeks the Biden administration and many news outlets, including USA Today and The Hill, have touted declines in violent crime statistics to argue that America is becoming a safer place.  "Right now, with 2023 figures and early 2024, the trends are all pointing down, in a positive direction," Jeff Asher, whose New Orleans-based AH Datalytics is developing his own "Real-Time Crime Index," told RealClearInvestigations.  Conservative outlets, including City Journal and the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, assert that minor declines in headline grabbers like homicides fail to capture what is really happening in the U.S.  From 2017 to 2019, the U.S. had an average of 16,641 homicides a year.  In 2021 and 2022, however, the country saw considerably more bloodshed, with an average of more than 22,000 annual homicides.  Even if the 2023 number drops slightly, it will still represent a large increase over the recent past, before the pandemic and racial upheaval set in motion in 2020.

Guilty Illegal Immigrants Rioters Charges Dismissed While Innocent January 6ers Remain In Jail.  Today in America, we see where the government, both federal and state, are treasonously alluring illegals to come into this country (Article III, Section 3 U.S. Constitution).  In the process, these illegals are bringing with them drug trafficking, human trafficking, murder, rape, attacks on the American military, attacks on America's police, etc.  The list goes on.  What could one expect from those who are ILLEGALLY crossing over the border?  What has been the response to these crimes?  Recently, a Spanish Judge in Texas, Judge Ruben Morales somehow ruled against American Law (He must be impeached and prosecuted; Article 2, Section 4 U.S. Constitution) in arguing that Texas authorities failed to prove probable cause.  In spite of the above, consider that back on January 06, 2021, we found that Americans were allured to Washington D.C. and then entrapped only to be accused by this government of the crimes that the paid provocateurs that were bused in are guilty of committing.  As of today, over 1200 Americans who were exercising their First Amendment, God-given rights are somehow behind bars (Proverbs 17:15x).

Houston Police Department Chief Out as Uninvestigated Criminal Cases Scandal Broadens.  The nation's fourth-largest city has a big problem when it comes to conducting criminal investigations.  It's getting worse.  Houston Police Chief Troy Finner resigned last week.  There is no way he could have remained in his position after the scandal of 260,000 incident reports labeled "Suspended — Lack of Personnel", or SL were discovered.  Two assistant chiefs have been demoted and one executive has resigned.  The new mayor, John Whitmire, has a real disaster on his hands.  Whitmire said that the "dumb person that came up with that code" is no longer at HPD.  I don't care what the code is.  I just want my city's police department to be properly staffed and solve the [...] crimes.  The shortage of personnel has been going on for years and only got worse during the Summer of Love in 2020 when defunding the police was all the rage.

San Francisco thief used Target's self-checkout service to steal $60,000 worth of merchandise over 120 visits.  A thief in California exploited Target's self-checkout service by dashing off with $60,000 worth of merchandise over 100 visits to the retail store.  This comes as more stores are utilizing self-checkout services instead of employees physically scanning customers' items.  The New York Post reported that Aziza Graves, 43, paid a visit to the Target at the Stonestown Galleria in San Francisco a staggering 120 times between October 3, 2020, and November 16, 2021.  Graves' elaborate scheme consisted of picking items off the shelves and making her way to the self-checkout counter, scanning her items, and paying a nominal amount, such as a single bill or coin, before ultimately making off with her loot.

Hundreds of cops flee California to Texas blaming Golden State's 'soft-on-crime' policies.  Hundreds of California cops are fleeing to Texas to escape 'soft-on-crime' policies they say have made their jobs 'pointless', DailyMail.com can reveal.  Rank-and-file officers up to department chiefs have hit out at state legislators, claiming a succession of 'anti-law enforcement' policies have made their work impossible.  Overworked and unsupported, they have instead taken up jobs in Texas and other states that are seen as tough on crime.

Man who killed off-duty Detroit cop with her service weapon will likely not serve jail time.  A man who shot and killed his girlfriend, a sergeant with the Detroit Police Department, will likely not serve jail time after reaching a plea agreement with prosecutors.  The plea agreement stems from an apparent incident of domestic violence several years ago.  In June 2019, 35-year-old Eddie Ray-Jr.  Johnson and his live-in girlfriend, Elaine Williams — a 34-year-old mother of two and a 14-year member of DPD — went out with some neighbors to grab drinks at a local bar.  When everyone returned to their respective homes in Garden City, Michigan — a suburb of Detroit — the neighbors could hear Johnson and Williams arguing, court documents showed.  Then, just before midnight, police received a report of a shooting at the couple's residence.  When police arrived, they found Williams already dead with five gunshot wounds.  Johnson had likewise been shot once in the abdomen.  Both Williams and Johnson had a blood-alcohol level of at least twice the legal driving limit in Michigan that night.

Retail Theft Ring Busts Reveal Some Hard Truths.  Los Angeles County Sheriff Department detectives proudly announced a complex and successful sting this week.  A retail theft ring has been caught red-handed, with millions of dollars' worth of make-up, perfume, pharmaceuticals, and more, stolen from stores in and around California, much of it still bearing store tags. [...] Where do these ringleaders get the army of foot soldiers to do the swiping, the smash-and-grabbing, the flash-mobbing?  For the past few decades, the leftist approach to the problem of urban crime has been to empty the jails and just hire more social workers.  They disregard or statutorily reduce sentencing guidelines for property crimes, so that even after shoplifters, burglars and other robbers are convicted, they are released back into the community almost immediately.  Should anyone be surprised that crime is rampant, when the government is knowingly releasing every thief they catch via a revolving door policy?

Has Leftist Lawfare Created the Police State Yet?  Could it be that the average non-leftist citizen now feels both powerless and terrified to object to any of these injustices?  They see the brutal treatment meted out to President Trump, his associates, and his legal team, on the one hand, versus the reverence for a president whose family has inexplicably received millions of dollars from foreign sources and for violent protesters who have magically escaped jail time, or of crack-using, tax-dodging Biden family members.  Consider the brazenness and audacity of this administration, including its DOJ, over the last several years.  Their targeted victims have purposely included some of the most credentialed, accomplished, prominent, well-connected, and well-heeled Americans, people such as cabinet members, generals, journalists, and even attorneys of those same victims.  Other victims have been ordinary folk, such as people's friends, family members, parents opposing sexualized curricula at their kids' schools, or peaceful men and women holding up signs near an abortion clinic.

Riverside Police Arrest 104 In Drug Sweep, but 100 Are Back on the Street.  Riverside police arrested 104 people, including 33 dealers, during a three-day sweep targeting illegal drugs, the department announced May 2.  The Riverside Police department's narcotics unit conducted an undercover drug purchase operation along the Magnolia Avenue corridor, between Van Buren Boulevard and Pierce Street over the past several weeks.  During the three-week "Operation Street Sweeper," undercover agents were able to make 46 purchases of methamphetamine, fentanyl, cocaine, the hallucinogen PCP, and psilocybin mushrooms, the department reported.  Sellers in the city, located about 55 miles east of Los Angeles, were mainly homeless or living in the various motels along Magnolia Avenue, police said.

The leftist credentials of a Seattle judge who gave a pass to illegal acts.  The facts aren't complicated.  On January 6, 2024, a huge number of pro-Hamas protesters blocked I-5 in Seattle.  Clearly acting on the orders of local elected officials, the state troopers did nothing to clear this conduct, which is illegal on its face as well as being an act of domestic terrorism.  Instead, they just waited it out.  After the fact, law enforcement officers combed through social media posts about the event to identify participants.  Eventually, they filed criminal trespass and disorderly conduct charges against six of the participants.  Nevertheless, attorneys for the I-5 Six argued at the defendants' arraignment (the formal charging proceeding) that using social media was an improper form of suspect identification for three of the six named defendants.  This is nonsense.  If the photos from an event in a public place show that these defendants were among engaged in illegal acts, that's sufficient for the charges against them.  Judge Andrea Jarmon, however, accepted the defense argument and dismissed the criminal trespass charges.  (The prosecution has not dropped the charges.)

UCLA Hamas Encampment Fanatics Get No Jail Time, and It Gets Worse From There.  I can't say I'm surprised given I predicted this, but that doesn't make it any less absurd.  According to a local news report in California, the violent pro-Hamas students who set up an illegal encampment and trashed the UCLA campus received no jail time.  [Advertisement]  Instead, as documented by the reporter for "Good Day LA," they were only given citations.  Worse?  They were also handed a free meal to take with them.  [Tweet with video clip]  [Transcript]  The students (and many non-students) were arrested early Thursday just before dawn.  Police had to fight their way through lines of violent "protesters," including some who had occupied Royce Hall.  The terrorist supporters threw urine, rocks, and bottles in an attempt to save themselves from arrest.  Hours later, the area was finally cleared.  [Advertisement]

Louisiana Has The Nation's Highest Prison Mortality Rate.  Did you know that at 42.7 deaths per 100,000 people in the general population, Louisiana's prison mortality rate, which is a measure of how many people die in jail, is the highest in America? [...] If you have a state with a lot of criminals, which Louisiana does, and those criminals kill a lot of people, which unfortunately ours do, seeing as though Louisiana consistently has the highest murder rate in the country and has had that disgraceful designation for decades, then there are a couple of very obvious conclusions to be had.  The first one is that those murderers are going to get long prison sentences.  The second one is that murderers with long prison sentences are quite likely to end up dying in prison before they can get out.  According to the study the number one killer of prisoners in Louisiana was heart disease.  In other words, a natural cause.

The [Black Man] Who Broke A Random White Lady's Jaw In NYC Is Released Again Even After His Charge Is Upgraded To A Felony.  A suspect accused of randomly punching and breaking a woman's jaw has been released again even after prosecutors upgraded the assault charge to a felony.  Dulce Pichardo, 57, suffered a broken jaw, lost three teeth, and has nerve damage, requiring her jaw to be wired shut and to drink through a straw[.]  Franz Jeudy, 33, remained on supervised release after he was indicted on charges including second-degree assault more than a month after the alleged attack.  [Video clip]

This Is The Judge That Just Dismissed All Charges Against The Communist Morons Who Blocked a Major Highway In Seattle.  This is Judge Andrea Jarmon in Seattle.  She just dismissed ALL criminal trespass charges against half of the pro-Palestine activists who blocked the I-5 for 4 hours.  Jarmon sided with the defense attorneys, suggesting it was wrong of state patrol to recognize the suspects from social media.  [Video clip]

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 Boudi