by Owen | 1908, 6 Oct 22 | Crime | 0 Comments
Eesh.
ALBANY, N.Y. — A New York City man has been charged with smuggling three Burmese pythons in his pants at a U.S-Canadian border crossing.
Calvin Bautista, 36, is accused of bringing the hidden snakes on a bus that crossed into northern New York on July 15, 2018. Importation of Burmese pythons is regulated by an international treaty and by federal regulations listing them as “injurious to human beings.”
by Owen | 2114, 25 Sep 22 | Crime, Politics | 2 Comments
Well, the expected happened for people who actually understand how addiction works.
When voters passed the state’s pioneering Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act in 2020, the emphasis was on treatment as much as on decriminalizing possession of personal-use amounts of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and other drugs.
But Oregon still has among the highest addiction rates in the country. Fatal overdoses have increased almost 20% over the previous year, with over a thousand dead. Over half of addiction treatment programs in the state lack capacity to meet demand because they don’t have enough staffing and funding, according to testimony before lawmakers.
Supporters want more states to follow Oregon’s lead, saying decriminalization reduces the stigma of addiction and keeps people who use drugs from going to jail and being saddled with criminal records. How Oregon is faring will almost certainly be taken into account if another state considers decriminalizing.
[…]
Of 16,000 people who accessed services in the first year of decriminalization, only 0.85% entered treatment, the health authority said. A total of 60% received “harm reduction” like syringe exchanges and overdose medications. An additional 15% got help with housing needs, and 12% obtained peer support.
by Owen | 0724, 23 Sep 22 | Crime, Politics | 7 Comments
I sincerely think that this was intentional. The rules for getting so much of this money were so lax and so arbitrary that it appeared designed for fraud and grift. I think politicians didn’t really care because they thought that getting the money into the economy in any fashion was more important. They also winked at friends and supporters to get in on the gravy train. It’s unconscionable.
Fraudsters stole nearly $46billion in unlawful unemployment claims during the pandemic, the Labor Department concluded on Thursday – while warning that the actual figure may be even higher.
Criminals used inventive measures to access the COVID benefits, with more than 205,000 Social Security numbers that belonged to dead people being used to claim the cash.
by Owen | 2118, 22 Sep 22 | Crime, Politics | 2 Comments
Well, that’ll encourage people to stay.
Lightfoot was asked about last week’s comments by Kempczinski to the Economic Club of Chicago where he referenced the recent departures of high-profile companies such as Caterpillar, Boeing and Citadel from the area and said the city needed to “face facts.” He said that “while it may wound our civic pride to hear it, there is a general sense out there that our city is in crisis” and noted that there are “fewer large companies headquartered in Chicago this year than last year.”
At her customary post-City Council press conference Wednesday, Lightfoot used one of her favorite lines to rebut criticism.
“What would have been helpful is for the McDonald’s CEO to educate himself before he spoke,” Lightfoot said.
by Owen | 2039, 20 Sep 22 | Crime, Law | 4 Comments
This is a terribly tragic event, but it is also a really interesting case.
Carson Senfield, from Buffalo, New York, was shot dead at 1am on Saturday when he entered the stranger’s vehicle by mistake – but so far the unidentified shooter has not been arrested.
The sophomore, who was not known to the driver, was shot in the upper body and now the State’s Attorney is to decide whether the motorist was justified in killing the teen under Florida’s controversial ‘Stand Your Ground Law’.
[…]
The driver inside that car said he was in fear of his life when he shot and killed Seinfeld, according to investigators.
Tampa Police Department said that the driver was not arrested – and it’s now up to the State Attorney’s Office to decide if the shooter was justified in his actions or not.
Horrible, horrible, horrible event. But was it a crime?
It’s 1 am and some strange man gets in your car unannounced. We don’t really know what the behavior was, but the driver thought he was in danger and reacted. Did he think he was being carjacked? Robbed? Kidnapped? It could have been anything.
I’ve ridden Uber and Lyft hundreds of times. I don’t think I’ve ever just gotten into a car. Usually there is an exchange of greetings and I wait for the driver to say my name so that I know that he or she is actually on the other end of the app. I also check the license plate with the app. If I just jumped into a car uninvited, might the driver panic and take action? Maybe. I might if I were the driver.
I think it all comes down to whether or not we believe that it is reasonable for the driver to feel endangered when a man jumps in his car at 1 am.
Still, what a horrible loss for the family and a tragic death.
by Owen | 1948, 20 Sep 22 | Crime, Politics | 13 Comments
When it comes to actual political violence and not just words, the balance seems decidedly tilted to the Left. What a monster.
Early Sunday morning, 41-year-old Shannon Brandt allegedly ran over 18-year-old Cayler Ellingson with his car following a political dispute in McHenry, North Dakota.
After being charged on Monday with vehicular homicide and leaving the scene of a deadly accident, Brandt admitted that his actions were politically motivated.
[…]
Brandt later called police himself to report the incident. As InForum reports, he claimed that Ellingson had been part of a “Republican extremist group,” and had ordered others to come after him following a political argument.
According to police, Brandt was drunk at the time, however aside from that, very little is known about what transpired.
by Owen | 1939, 20 Sep 22 | Crime, Law | 0 Comments
Banning someone from buying a gun while under felony indictment goes against their Second Amendment right to bear arms, a federal judge in Texas ruled Monday.
“There are no illusions about this case’s real-world consequences—certainly valid public policy and safety concerns exist,” U.S. District Judge David Counts, a Trump appointee, wrote in his decision.
Counts cited a June Supreme Court decision, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association vs. Bruen, in which the justices rolled back concealed-carry permit restrictions for gun owners in New York state.
Counts’ opinion relied heavily on the framework set out by the high court in Bruen, saying that it was unclear after that ruling “whether a statute preventing a person under indictment from receiving a firearm aligns with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
[…]
“No longer can courts balance away a constitutional right. After Bruen, the Government must prove that laws regulating conduct covered by the Second Amendment’s plain text align with this Nation’s historical tradition. The Government does not meet that burden,” Counts found.
This complies with due process. If a person is not convicted, they can certainly exercise other rights. It stands to reason that the 2nd Amendment shouldn’t be precluded.
It is unclear to me if a judge could make a prohibition to purchase firearms a condition of parole. It seems that it would be a way for a judge to lay this restriction on defendants who have a history of, and/or are accused of violent crimes, while still providing them due process. The problem with a blanket prohibition is that it is arbitrary and does not distinguish between violent felonies and white-collar felonies.
by Owen | 2116, 11 Sep 22 | Crime, Culture, Economy, Politics | 11 Comments
We continue to see the expansion of corporate/government collusion to implement an invasive surveillance and coercion state. I will be making my purchases with cash.
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) approved creation of the merchant code on Friday following pressure from gun-control activists who say it will help track suspicious weapons purchases.
“Following ISO’s decision to establish a new merchant category code, Visa will proceed with next steps, while ensuring we protect all legal commerce on the Visa network in accordance with our long-standing rules,” Visa said in a statement.
Mastercard said on Friday that following ISO’s approval, “we now turn our focus to how it will be implemented by merchants and their banks as we continue to support lawful purchases on our network while protecting the privacy and decisions of individual cardholders.”
American Express said when ISO develops a new code, the company will work with third-party processors and partners on implementation.
The code will show where an individual spends money but not what items were purchased.
It is worth point out, again, that this is yet another anti-2nd Amendment effort that will no stem crime. Crooks don’t buy their guns with a credit card.
by Owen | 1740, 2 Sep 22 | Crime, Firearms, Politics | 1 Comment
Chicago is one of the nation’s gun violence hotspots and a seemingly ideal place to employ Illinois’ “red flag” law that allows police to step in and take firearms away from people who threaten to kill. But amid more than 8,500 shootings resulting in 1,800 deaths since 2020, the law was used there just four times.
It’s a pattern that’s played out in New Mexico, with nearly 600 gun homicides during that period and a mere eight uses of its red flag law. And in Massachusetts, with nearly 300 shooting homicides and just 12 uses of its law.
An Associated Press analysis found many U.S. states barely use the red flag laws touted as the most powerful tool to stop gun violence before it happens, a trend blamed on a lack of awareness of the laws and resistance by some authorities to enforce them even as shootings and gun deaths soar.
AP found such laws in 19 states and the District of Columbia were used to remove firearms from people 15,049 times since 2020, fewer than 10 per 100,000 adult residents. Experts called that woefully low and not nearly enough to make a dent in gun violence, considering the millions of firearms in circulation and countless potential warning signs law enforcement officers encounter from gun owners every day.
Who are these “experts” and how did they determine what the correct number of gun confiscations are? This is why these laws are dangerous. They will widen the aperture of what constitutes a threat to achieve the level of gun confiscation they want.
by Owen | 2114, 28 Aug 22 | Crime | 4 Comments
Three Dutch commandos, who were in the US for training, have been shot and wounded outside a hotel in the city of Indianapolis while off duty.
The incident occurred at around 03:30 on Saturday local time in the city’s entertainment district.
Indianapolis police say officers found the three men with gunshot wounds and they were taken to nearby hospitals.
[…]
Local police said they believed there had been an earlier altercation between the men and another person or group.
Speaking to FOX59, an officer with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said: “Right now the information we’re willing to disclose is that it was not something that occurred inside the hotel.
“It was a previous altercation we believe at another location.”
The Dutch defence ministry said the men’s families had been informed and that an investigation by local police was under way.
No arrests have been made.
by Owen | 2131, 22 Aug 22 | Crime, Politics - Wisconsin | 1 Comment
Guest article from former Assembly Representative Jesse Kremer. I agree.
As a former legislator and Vice-Chair of the Public Safety Committee in the Wisconsin Assembly, my family and I support our local law enforcement 100%. While I agree that we could use a few more servants in blue patrolling the streets, permanently raising our county taxes by nearly 10% will not reduce crime. I will be voting NO on the Washington County Board’s Anti-Crime Plan tax referendum this fall.
It is blatantly obvious that our county government leaders have begun actively campaigning for this behemoth tax increase. They are regularly publicizing the types of individuals being apprehended while traversing our county. I have no doubt that our taxpayer funded county newsletter will also be actively shilling for our YES vote in the near future.
Crime is a real problem and there are real solutions. We just need to be engaged.
Many families, including ours, does not have the means to perpetually shell out money. Washington County used to be the most conservative county in Wisconsin. Pushing referendums on residents with no studies or data, however, is reckless, especially when our families are all experiencing:
- Rampant inflation and “COVID-excuse” supply chain issues increasing our grocery bills by 30%.
- Spiking energy costs, twice this year already, to cover supply shortages and subsidize the “renewables” being purchased by energy companies.
- A 250% increase in fuel bills from just a couple of years ago.
But what if some of the initial funds are “free money” – grants from the state or federal government? Free money does not exist. After the funds are gone, we, the taxpayers, will still be on the hook to cover the costs of a government program that once established, will not be eliminated.
While I am extremely concerned with the rampant crime in our state, it is not because we do not have enough local law enforcement – or enough laws from Madison. There are real solutions:
- In modern-day American, there is no deterrent for crime. Judges and prosecutors are not locking up offenders to the fullest extent of the law. Case in point (2022WA000414): Recently there were several high-dollar, commercial thefts and burglaries in Washington County. Our public servants did their job and arrested the perpetrators. Our newest judge, Sandra Giernoth, a Gov. Evers appointee, turned around and released him on a $10,000 bond allowing the criminal to simply skip out on his hearing and continue to terrorize the community. It is time to hold our judges and prosecutors accountable. We must kick them out via the election process if they are unable to keep our communities safe!
- There is no sense of morality. Over the past 70 years our government and many of our public agencies have actively campaigned to destroy religious institutions and take a wrecking ball to the nuclear family. This has to stop! Strong families must be encouraged and our religious organizations allowed to thrive.
If we must increase taxes to fight crime it would be better invested in additional prisons resulting in more, and longer, incarcerations. This may be the one solution that the 2-3% of thugs who are destroying our society, and the Mayberry lifestyle as we knew it, can comprehend.
by Owen | 1505, 21 Aug 22 | Crime, Politics - Wisconsin | 1 Comment
Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News last week.
The races for governor and U.S. Senate are sure to dominate the attention of most voters this November, and rightfully so, but there are also other important choices for the voters including that of attorney general. Josh Kaul has used the office as a platform for activism and fallen well short of his duty to Wisconsin as the state’s top law enforcement officer. Voters would do well to ensure that he is not allowed to continue his malfeasance for a second term.
Josh Kaul, the son of the late disgraced former Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager, was narrowly elected in the blue wave election of 2018. He was elected with less than 50% of the vote and defeated his Republican opponent by a scant 0.65%. Despite his narrow plurality win, Kaul has used every tool in the attorney general’s box to advocate for his leftist causes at taxpayer expense. Meanwhile, he has failed to fulfill the basic duties of the job to fight crime.
Let us start with some of the things that Kaul has been spending his time on instead of prosecuting criminals. In the wake of the United States Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Kaul announced that his office — the people’s office — would not prosecute anyone who violated Wisconsin’s abortion laws. Whatever one thinks about the law, it is a constitutional law that was passed by a duly elected legislature and signed into law by a duly elected governor (a Democrat, no less). Kaul has a sworn duty to uphold the laws of the state. Kaul has gone a step further and is suing the Republican leadership in the state Senate over Wisconsin’s abortion law arguing that it is unenforceable. Instead of spending his time and the taxpayers’ resources on fighting crime, Kaul is taking it upon himself to sue to change laws with which he does not agree. Kaul is not a participant in the law-making structure of government. The attorney general is supposed to be the people’s prosecutor and enforce the people’s laws. Instead, he is trying to usurp the power of the people to pass laws with the courts.
This is not the only issue on which Kaul is spending his time and the people’s resources to engage in leftist activism. Kaul has been a vocal advocate for curtailing civil rights with more restrictive gun laws. He has advocated for legalizing marijuana despite the disastrous consequences we see ravaging other states that have legalized it. Kaul has used his office to defend the bureaucratic dismantling of our elections laws that leave Wisconsin open to sloppy and fraudulent elections. Kaul is a busy guy, but he is not busy doing the things that Wisconsin needs done.
While Kaul has been acting as the state’s top activist, he has been failing as the state’s top cop. Under his tenure, he has left dozens of state prosecutor jobs unfilled. Fewer prosecutors leads to fewer prosecutions and Kaul has been engaging in his personal “defund the police” action.
The State Crime Lab, which former Attorney General Brad Schimel fixed, has fallen victim to Kaul’s neglect. The turnaround time for routine lab tests has increased by over 30% since Kaul took office. His mismanagement of the State Crime Lab means that criminals are staying on the street longer as police wait anxiously for the evidence they need to arrest them.
The evidence of Kaul’s dereliction is in the crime data. According to FBI crime statistics, Wisconsin’s violent crime rate in 2020 was the highest it had been in 35 years. Milwaukee has already had over 500 non-fatal shootings and over 130 homicides this year. The carnage is real. While Kaul is using his office to advocate for leftist causes, his failures in running the Department of Justice are being measured in dead bodies and ruined lives.
Wisconsin needs an attorney general who will work tirelessly to enforce the laws of the state and put criminals in jail. Josh Kaul has proven time and time again that he will prioritize his personal political causes over that of the people of Wisconsin every time.
by Owen | 0713, 19 Aug 22 | Crime, Culture, Politics - Wisconsin | 11 Comments
Tragic. Our soft on crime policies are not helping. And our open border is a pipeline of death.
MADISON (WKOW) — The Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) has issued a public health advisory about fentanyl’s presence in overdose deaths.
State health officials said there were 651 fentanyl overdose deaths in Wisconsin in 2019. By 2021, that nearly doubled to 1,280.
That’s a stark reversal of a pre-pandemic trend, when Paul Krupski, DHS’s Director of Opioid Initiatives, said Wisconsin actually recorded a decrease in opioid deaths.
[…]
MADISON (WKOW) — The Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) has issued a public health advisory about fentanyl’s presence in overdose deaths.
State health officials said there were 651 fentanyl overdose deaths in Wisconsin in 2019. By 2021, that nearly doubled to 1,280.
That’s a stark reversal of a pre-pandemic trend, when Paul Krupski, DHS’s Director of Opioid Initiatives, said Wisconsin actually recorded a decrease in opioid deaths.
by Owen | 0744, 18 Aug 22 | Crime, Politics - Wisconsin | 5 Comments
The MacIver Institute has a very long, but very good, story about the Evers crime wave. It’s easy to say that Evers’ has encouraged or allowed crime to rise. Sometimes we forget that it isn’t just about attitude. It is about policies. Evers has enacted specific policies that have encouraged the rise in crime. It is an intentional policy choice and one in which Evers accepts the increase in crime and pain of victims as the acceptable price of his ideological tenet that criminals are victims of the system instead of perpetrators of mayhem.
Tony Evers has been a leader in the movement toward leniency on crime, and decarceration. His success in advancing these policies as governor has been accompanied by the largest rise in violent crime in more than a generation. And like his colleagues on the left, he isn’t backing away from his policies, he’s just pointing the finger of blame away from the perpetrators.
Here is a recap of the Evers Felons Before Families initiatives we’ve covered:
Releasing half the prison population (he’s already nearly 1/3 of the way to his goal)
Lying about how many violent criminals are in prisons (it’s 70%, not 20%)
Turning a blind eye when prisoners in the community refuse to comply with the terms of their supervision
Refusal to remove DAs for low and no bail policies that kill
Appointing a parole commissioner who would swiftly boost the number of criminals given a “second chance” and then pretending he went rogue and asking for his resignation
Lavishing sympathy on accused rapist Jacob Blake who resisted arrest while armed
Chastising victims’ families – telling them to “take a breath” – for their anguished demands for justice
Vetoing a legislative package of Tougher on Crime bills
A complete overhaul of the criminal justice code to dump Truth in Sentencing, reduce sentences, and increase early releases.
Replacing words like ‘prisoner’ and ‘sex offender’ for gentler terms like ‘person in our care’ and ‘client’ that harm criminal self-esteem
by Owen | 0613, 16 Aug 22 | Crime, Politics - Wisconsin | 3 Comments
My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:
Josh Kaul, the son of the late disgraced former Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager, was narrowly elected in the blue wave election of 2018. He was elected with less than 50% of the vote and defeated his Republican opponent by a scant 0.65%. Despite his narrow plurality win, Kaul has used every tool in the attorney general’s box to advocate for his leftist causes at taxpayer expense. Meanwhile, he has failed to fulfill the basic duties of the job to fight crime.
[…]
While Kaul has been acting as the state’s top activist, he has been failing as the state’s top cop. Under his tenure, he has left dozens of state prosecutor jobs unfilled. Fewer prosecutors leads to fewer prosecutions and Kaul has been engaging in his personal “defund the police” action.
The State Crime Lab, which former Attorney General Brad Schimel fixed, has fallen victim to Kaul’s neglect. The turnaround time for routine lab tests has increased by over 30% since Kaul took office. His mismanagement of the State Crime Lab means that criminals are staying on the street longer as police wait anxiously for the evidence they need to arrest them.
The evidence of Kaul’s dereliction is in the crime data. According to FBI crime statistics, Wisconsin’s violent crime rate in 2020 was the highest it had been in 35 years. Milwaukee has already had over 500 non-fatal shootings and over 130 homicides this year. The carnage is real. While Kaul is using his office to advocate for leftist causes, his failures in running the Department of Justice are being measured in dead bodies and ruined lives.
Wisconsin needs an attorney general who will work tirelessly to enforce the laws of the state and put criminals in jail. Josh Kaul has proven time and time again that he will prioritize his personal political causes over that of the people of Wisconsin every time.
by Owen | 1805, 25 Jul 22 | Crime, Politics - Wisconsin | 5 Comments
MADISON – Senate Minority Leader Janet Bewley was involved in a fatal car crash Friday that left a mother and her 5-year-old daughter dead.
Bewley, who represents a district that covers the northwestern part of the state, pulled out of a Lake Superior beach entrance and into the path of a car driven by 27-year-old Alyssa Ortman of Pennsylvania, according to the Ashland Police Department. When Ortman’s car collided with Bewley’s, it spun across Highway 2 and was hit by another vehicle driven by 45-year-old Jodi Munson of Mason.
Ortman’s 5-year-old daughter was pronounced dead at the crash scene. Ortman was transported to a nearby hospital where she later died, according to police.
[…]
Ben Baker, a reporting intern for the Journal Sentinel, was on the phone with Bewley on Friday afternoon for an interview he had arranged with her staff about this fall’s elections for the Legislature.
Shortly after the interview began, Bewley told Baker she had cataract eye surgery the day before. Minutes later, she stopped talking mid-sentence and the call went silent. When Baker asked Bewley if she was still on the line, she sounded concerned. When Baker asked if she was OK, she said, “Yeah, I’m OK. This is not a good accident.”
by Owen | 2032, 15 Jul 22 | Crime | 3 Comments
Cry me a river. Remember that ever order of restitution is to repay the victim they robbed.
She entered the juvenile justice system at 13, after she ran away from home for the first time, hoping to escape a volatile relationship with her mother. Before long, running away escalated to petty theft, then stealing cars and breaking into homes. It cost her nearly two years spent in and out of juvenile facilities, and many additional months still tied to the system through probation.
When her final stint on probation ended last year and her juvenile record was sealed because she had turned 18, “It was like a whole chapter of my life that had been closed,” Guevara said. “I was free.”
But before long she began receiving monthly reminders that she was anything but. Bills totaling $60,000 in restitution owed for her crimes began pouring in, drowning the teenager in debt just as she had started trying to get back on her feet.
Guevara, now 19, is one of thousands of teenagers and young adults across the country paying restitution imposed by juvenile courts to compensate their victims for losses and damages related to their crimes. But a new report examining the practice asserts that many are paying into a broken system — one that often derails the lives of the young offenders the juvenile system was created to rehabilitate, all the while delaying or even denying compensation to their victims.
The report, published Thursday by the Juvenile Law Center, a national legal aid and advocacy group based in Philadelphia, sheds light on a rarely scrutinized process through which juvenile offenders can become trapped in a perpetual cycle of debts owed to society.
by Owen | 0825, 25 Jun 22 | Crime, Culture, Law, Politics | 3 Comments
If the ruling had gone the other way, there would not have been riots. We all know it. Only one side of the ideological spectrum routinely resorts to violence and rage when things don’t go their way.
Furious pro-choice demonstrators took to the streets in cities including Washington DC, Phoenix, New York City and Los Angeles as they begged the Biden administration to find a way to overrule the decision.
A group was spotted burning the flag of the United States in the capital while others gathered outside Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ home.
In Arizona, cops were forced to fire tear gas at protestors after they appeared to breach the State Senate building in Phoenix, with staff evacuated but no one reported to have been injured.
And at least 25 were arrested in New York City after around 17,000 descended on Washington Square Park before marching through the streets to Grand Central Station, Times Square, and Bryant Park.
They also stopped outside News Corp headquarters – home to Fox News and The New York Post – and yelled ‘Burn it down! Burn it down! F–k Tucker Carlson!’ Vandals also sprayed ‘F*** Fox’ on the side of the building.
Meanwhile pro-life protesters also amassed nationwide, some breaking down in tears as they celebrated the immediate end of abortions in 18 states.
by Owen | 0632, 8 Jun 22 | Crime, Culture | 20 Comments
“And quite frankly, what San Francisco’s doing is not a safe consumption site at the Tenderloin Center. For lack of a better term, it’s opium den, where people can sit in Adirondack chairs and shoot dope all day. They’re monitored by a nonprofit worker that was given ten minutes of training on how to administer Narcan.”
As for whether addicts are availing themselves of services at Tenderloin Center, Wolf said, they are not.
“Forty thousand people have gone to that Tenderloin Center in the last month, and they linked less than half a percent of those people to treatment,” he said. “I don’t know what kind of weird experiment San Francisco is doing right now, but I promise you that that’s not helping anybody find recovery.”
Instead of fostering wellness, the center seems to be metastasizing the problem, the addiction spilling into the streets. I am going to do my best to not put too fine a point on this, to not illustrate what is happening within a few feet of Sandberg and me in a way that makes you think I am trying to win you to one side or another, but if you will, here is the scene: A young man stands in front of us babbling for ten minutes, wanting us to buy a vape pen or to have sex, it’s unclear which. A toothless woman screams. A legless man lights a pipe. Tourists photograph each other with City Hall in the middle distance, and a woman with a leg cast encrusted in grime rolls past. It’s not possible to tell how old she is: thirty? Fifty? She has no possessions that I can see, and no destination, rolling in a desultory manner toward and then away from several men also in wheelchairs, one whose foot is so badly infected my groin contracts and feels flash-burned.
Once again, we see a leftist policy that is allegedly based on good intentions (help addicts be safe and give them access to treatment) end up in utter failure and making the problem worse. These policies are rooted in a fantasy version of the human condition instead of the real world.
I’ve known my fair share of addicts. I have lost family members to addiction. Many of us have. And there is a truth to addiction… enablement just makes it worse. They have to hit a bottom before they will seek treatment. Often times that bottom is losing their marriage, job, or home. Sometimes it is going to jail where they have an opportunity to truly detox and get treatment. But offering an addict a “safe place” to indulge their demons with no consequences will always end up just like it did in San Francisco.
It’s cruel. It’s cruel to the addicts and it’s cruel to the people who have to suffer from the crime and disease that radiates out from them.
by Owen | 0601, 8 Jun 22 | Crime, Politics | 1 Comment
How bad does it have to be for Californians to vote this way?
For months now, voters in San Francisco and Los Angeles have voiced their concerns that daily life in their cities appears to be spiraling out of control. Residents in San Francisco have been contending with a rise in burglaries and car thefts, as well an alarming spate of hate crimes directed against Asian Americans. Los Angeles residents have witnessed a sharp increase in violent crime, while city leaders have been grappling with a homelessness crisis that has led to the proliferation of tents and trash across parks, sidewalks and public spaces, while exposing an untreated mental health emergency on their streets.
On Tuesday, San Francisco voters registered their disquiet by recalling District Attorney Chesa Boudin amid concern that he was advancing progressive policies as a national criminal justice reform advocate at the cost of their safety. It was a move that signaled just how far the political pendulum has swung since the 2020 election cycle when many Democratic voters cited police accountability and criminal justice overhauls among their top concerns – a debate that reached a crescendo following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
On the same night, voters in the overwhelmingly progressive city of Los Angeles signaled their unease with Democrats’ handling of crime and homelessness by elevating billionaire shopping mall magnate Rick Caruso, a former Republican who became a Democrat earlier this year, into a runoff race to replace term-limited Mayor Eric Garcetti.
