Category: Crime

California Is Worse Than You Think.

My colleague from the philosophy department was becoming increasingly angry. He was trying to be polite, but it was clear that he was raging inside. After a few minutes, he smiled a very strained smile and excused himself.

Our conversation was about California, or to be more specific, California governance. As readers can imagine, he was bullish on how the Democratic Party governs the state, California being perhaps the most one-party state in the USA. Every statewide election has gone to a Democrat in the last decade, and Democrats have a supermajority in the state legislature, which means that there is no meaningful Republican opposition and whatever the Democrats want, they get.

Not surprisingly, California governance is squarely progressive. The unions representing government employees effectively run the legislature, and as a result, pay, benefits, and pensions for those workers increasingly are straining the state budgets. (Steven Greenhut, a libertarian journalist based in California, has documented the unsustainable growth of government in that state for nearly two decades.) Yet, the state continues to march politically and economically in the progressive direction as though the laws of economics didn’t matter.

For the most part I have observed progressive California from far away, but my life took a different turn a few years ago, and the state is becoming my new home. I married a retired nurse from Sacramento in 2018, and because of health issues with her adult daughter, she has to remain in that city, something not in our original plans. Because my school’s campus either has been closed or severely restricted during the covid-19 lockdowns, I have spent most of the past year working from my wife’s home.

Living and working in California has offered me the opportunity to observe California progressivism up close, and it has been an interesting experience. Yes, the state where I officially reside, Maryland, is famously one-party and progressive, but the progressivism of California makes Maryland’s legislature look almost red state by comparison and surreal in some ways.

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When you have the city leadership, for all intents in bed with the insurrectionists, people will provide for their own self defense and security. Basically Auto Defensas.

Downtown Portland Businesses Invest in Private Security to Combat Crime

Authorities Deflect From Their Role In Violence Surge

Communities of all sizes are seeing a significant surge in violent crime. It’s happening in places like New York and Chicago, but it’s also happening in much smaller communities as well.

Unsurprisingly, people are asking why? They want their public officials to tell them not just why this is happening but how they’re going to fix it. After all, that’s what people expect the government to do. It’s part of why they pay their taxes, after all.

Also unsurprisingly, some of those officials are trying to deflect from their role in the fiasco.

When Andre Avery drives his commercial truck through Detroit, he keeps his pistol close.

Avery, 57, grew up in the Motor City and is aware that homicides and shootings are surging, even though before the pandemic they were dropping in Detroit and elsewhere. His gun is legal, and he carries it with him for protection.

“I remain extremely alert,” said Avery, who now lives in nearby Belleville. “I’m not in crowds. If something looks a little suspicious, I’m out of there.”

In Detroit, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and even smaller Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Milwaukee, 2020 has been deadly not only because of the pandemic, but because gun violence is spiking.

Authorities and some experts say there is no one clear-cut reason for the spike. They instead point to social and economic upheaval caused by the COVID-19 virus, public sentiment toward police following George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody and a historic shortage of jobs and resources in poorer communities as contributing factors. It’s happening in cities large and small, Democrat and Republican-led.

Now, I agree that there’s no single, clear-cut reason for the surge we’ve been seeing. It would be easy if there were and life is rarely that simple. There wasn’t a single cause for violent crime before and we’re unlikely to find a single cause now.

Yet what’s interesting to me is that while they point to the social and economic changes brought about by the pandemic and the anti-police sentiment, they completely ignore the fact that many of these same authorities released thousands of prisoners into our communities all in one fell swoop. Do they really think that so many convicted criminals entering society at one time wouldn’t create some degree of increase in criminality? Are they that deluded that they believe their rehabilitation efforts were so successful now when there’s little evidence they were before?

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House fire overnight after shooting near scene of deadly Sunday night home invasion in Port Arthur

PORT ARTHUR, Texas — Port Arthur Police are investigating a house fire that happened around midnight on Tuesday at the same home where three people broke in and held a family at gunpoint Sunday night.

An eyewitness tells 12News a neighbor saw smoke and flames coming from the home and dialed 911. Nobody was home when the fire started. Right now, the cause is unknown.

Less than 24 hours after the scary home invasion in Port Arthur, police were back near the scene Monday evening.

According to investigators, shots were fired Monday in the 2500 block of 18th Street. On Sunday night, investigators said a 29-year-old man shot and killed one of three people holding his family at gunpoint in their own home. Continue reading “”

‘Accident’ my eye. The only way that happened is the homeowner was hanging on the top of that window watching him turn blue. Much cleaner than a 00 buck or 5.56 .

Florida burglar climbing into home killed by falling window

A freak accident involving a falling window killed a Florida burglar, according to a report.

It happened Saturday during the attempted burglary of a home in Lehigh Acres, NBC 2 Fort Myers reported.

Jonathan Hernandez, 32.

Jonathan Hernandez, 32. (Lee County Sheriff’s Office )

Lee County Sheriff’s Office said Monday that the window killed Jonathan Hernandez when it slammed down on him as he was climbing through it.

The incident report says the window came down on the 32-year-old man’s neck, the station reported.

Deputies found him dead when they arrived on the scene.

Tyrone Lane told the station he and Hernandez were friends. He questioned the account of what happened.

“He is not a burglar,” he said “He’s not a thief. He’s not a bad guy. That’s not what he is.”

Biden Urges Dems To Conceal Their Defund the Police Agenda Until After Georgia Runoffs

In a recording leaked to The Intercept, former Vice President Biden appeared to blame the “defund the police” movement for the Democrats’ shellacking down-ballot in the 2020 elections, and urged liberal civil rights leaders not to put public pressure on his incoming administration regarding police reform until after the Georgia Senate runoff elections in January.

“I also don’t think we should get too far ahead ourselves on dealing with police reform in that, because they’ve already labeled us as being ‘defund the police’ anything we put forward in terms of the organizational structure to change policing — which I promise you, will occur. Promise you.” Biden can be heard telling left-wing civil rights leaders in the recording. “Just think to yourself and give me advice whether we should do that before January 5, because that’s how they beat the living hell out of us across the country… I just raise it with you to think about. How much do we push between now and January 5, we need those two seats, about police reform? But I guarantee you there will be a full-blown commission. I guarantee you it’s a major, major, major element…we can go very far.” Continue reading “”

Americans under 40 or so think relatively orderly, low-crime cities are a natural phenomenon. Those of us who came of age in the 70s and 80s know better. The younger urbanites are going to get harsh lesson.

Los Angeles prosecutor plans to seek release of thousands of criminals.

The newly elected Los Angeles district attorney, George Gascón, plans to seek the release of thousands of criminals by eliminating sentence enhancements for repeat offenders. As NPR reports, “he calls for the banning of sentencing enhancements, a step which could lead to the release of thousands of inmates. Seeking longer prison terms for criminal defendants with past felony convictions … had become a common practice among LA prosecutors.” “Gascón estimated such a move could affect at least 20,000 cases,” according to ABC News.

Gascón is banning prosecutors in Los Angeles County from seeking the sentencing enhancements approved by California voters in Proposition 8. That ballot initiative increased penalties for repeat offenders who commit willful homicide, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault with a firearm.

Gascón also will not allow prosecutors in his office to seek the death penalty. Gascón additionally vowed to stop charging juveniles as adults, meaning that 17-year-old serial killers will not be held beyond age 25.

Nor will Los Angeles prosecutors be allowed to seek bail before a criminal defendant is released, if the defendant is not charged with a violent felony.  “According to a special directive effective Tuesday, prosecutors will now be instructed to ask the court for the criminal defendant’s release” instead. Gascón’s office will also seek the resentencing of many inmates serving enhanced sentences.

It is very disturbing that Gascón is banning the longer sentences for repeat offenders provided for in California law. It is only fair to punish repeat offenders more than a first-time offender. Continue reading “”

Interstate shootings don’t surprise police, who say streets are flooded with guns

ST. LOUIS – Two interstate shootings Monday have people wondering if they’re safe anywhere. But they are just the beginning of the violence police say they’re seeing every day.

“The streets are absolutely flooded with stolen guns,” Maryland Heights Police Chief Bill Carson said.

The chief said many of them are coming from legal gun owners who are carrying them in their cars. Carson said it’s so prevalent now that criminals are confident they’ll find a gun when breaking into a car. He said the criminals are “looking specifically for guns. They’re finding guns and a lot of times when we encounter them, they are armed with guns they’ve stolen out of cars.” Continue reading “”

SKYROCKETING MURDERS IN MAJOR CITIES UNDERSCORE GUN CONTROL DISASTER

BELLEVUE, WA – Skyrocketing murder rates in several major American cities with strict gun laws offer hard evidence that gun control isn’t just a failed policy, it’s a disaster, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

More than 700 people have been murdered in Chicago so far this year. Baltimore’s total is above 335, and Philadelphia has logged more than 450 slayings. Even relatively benign Seattle has nearly doubled the number of homicides it reported for all of 2019, a fact not lost on CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. So far this year, the Jet City has seen 55 murders, while 2019 produced 28 slayings.

“Seattle is a textbook example of horribly failed policies,” Gottlieb said. “The city council just slashed the police department’s budget following months of civil unrest, vandalism, property destruction and rising crime. Five years ago, the city adopted a gun and ammunition tax to finance a so-called ‘gun violence reduction’ program that drove business out of the city and obviously hasn’t prevented any violent crime. The city adopted a ‘safe storage’ mandate for gun owners. It has also obviously failed, and is currently being challenged in court by the Second Amendment Foundation and National Rifle Association.

“Ironically,” he noted, “the city is headquarters to a billionaire-backed gun prohibition lobbying group that has bankrolled two extremist gun control initiatives. The rising body count is proof positive their anti-gun-rights crusade has been an unmitigated failure.”

CCRKBA checked Seattle homicide data back more than a decade. Over the 12-year period from 2008 to 2019, the city averaged just over 24 slayings annually.

“It’s time for the gun control lobby to admit its schemes have all failed, and for the city, and the state, to change course dramatically,” Gottlieb said. “Laws that penalize honest citizens while being ignored by criminals don’t accomplish anything and they should be scrapped.

“Seattle anti-gunners like to boast about how progressive they are,” he observed. “If doubling the number of murders is their idea of progress, maybe we should all go back to living in log cabins.”

CCRKBA Director of Operations Julianne Versnel said there may be a “silver lining” to Seattle’s foolish response of cutting police funding and pushing stricter gun control.

“People living in adjoining communities will see criminals going into Seattle to commit crimes,” she said, “and leave suburbs alone.”

Metro Mayhem: Murders Soar in Chicago, Los Angeles = More Gun Law Failure

Monday morning it appeared the City of Chicago was close to hitting—if it hadn’t already—700 homicides for the year, with five weeks remaining in 2020, according to data from the Chicago Sun-Times, and the Windy City is not alone in the rise of metropolitan mayhem.

Two thousand miles west, the City of Los Angeles hit a murderous milestone over the weekend, as the Los Angeles Times reported the city has racked up 300 slayings so far this year. It was a figure the city hadn’t logged since 2009, the newspaper said.

A thousand miles north, Seattle is also reporting more murders this year than for any of the past six, according to Seattle Police Department data. So far, as of Monday morning, there have been 41 slayings in the Jet City, up from 28 killings last year, and 32 for all of 2018, and the year is not over. Seattle, for its size and population, traditionally has a remarkably low number of murders, but it is located in a county with the highest number of legally-armed citizens in the state, even though the Seattle Police has used the COVID-19 shutdown to suspend accepting concealed pistol license applications since mid-March.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, last Thursday the number of homicide victims had reached 694. Over the weekend, six more people were reportedly killed and 46 others were wounded in shootings occurring across the city. If those figures are accurate—the newspaper keeps a running tally of murders—the city has hit a threshold.

In Los Angeles, according to Fox News, there were four killings over the weekend that bumped the city above the 300 mark. How many more will be added to the death toll won’t be known until Jan 2. But Fox said the city’s 32 percent increase in shootings “comes as other major cities also grapple with similar rises in crime during the coronavirus pandemic.”

Los Angeles and Seattle offer a dilemma for gun control advocates. Both are the largest cities in their respective states, and they have seen the adoption of stricter gun control laws in recent years that proponents argued would reduce gun-related violence. The exact opposite has been the case. Continue reading “”

Wisconsin police launch manhunt for gunman who shot and wounded seven adults and a teenager at a mall

  • A shooter opened fire at the Mayfair Mall in Wauwatosa on Friday around 3pm
  • The mall is around seven miles outside of Milwaukee 
  • Wauwatosa police said eight people were injured and taken away in ambulances
  • One teenager and seven adults were caught up in the shooting 
  • The suspect remains at large with SWAT teams currently circling the mall
  • Dennis McBride, mayor of Wauwatosa, said the injuries were not life-threatening 

 

BLM Supporter Tied to Michigan Gov. Whitmer Kidnapping Plot. Demands Grow for Her to Apologize to Trump.

Yet another one of the conspirators indicted in the plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has turned out to be an anarchist and this time is an identified Black Lives Matter, Inc.™ supporter.

If you’re keeping book, that now means at least three of the six men indicted by the federal government for the frightening conspiracy to kidnap the governor from her vacation home are avowed anti-Donald Trump anarchists and at least one is a BLM protester. When half the conspirators rolled up by the feds are anarchists, this is what you might call a pattern.

The BLM connection comes from no less than The Washington Post, which buried the lede of its own story by headlining its piece, “Accused leader of plot to kidnap Michigan governor was struggling financially, living in basement storage space,” as if living in a basement was the most surprising thing about the conspirator. Indeed, we can be assured that if one of the conspirators had attended a Trump rally that would have headlined the story.

One of alleged plotters, 23-year-old Daniel Harris, attended a Black Lives Matter protest in June, telling the Oakland County Times he was upset about the killing of George Floyd and police violence.

Parker Douglas, a lawyer for Harris, said his client was a former Marine who lived at home with his parents and did construction work. Douglas said Harris told him some things described in the FBI affidavit were taken out of context while others he “thinks just didn’t happen.” Douglas said his client believes “not everybody mentioned in this knew everything that is described in this complaint.” He said his client, in a brief meeting, had suggested he had voted for candidates from both parties, had not expressed a view on President Trump and seemed to favor small government. [Emphasis added]

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BLUF:
That’s the thing about “insurrectionary anarchists.” They make fickle allies. If they help you get into power, they will try to oust you the following day, since power is what they are against. Many of them don’t even vote. They are experts at unraveling an old order but considerably less skilled at building a new one. That’s why, even after more than 100 days of protest in Portland, activists do not agree on a set of common policy goals.

Even some anarchists admit as much.

“We are not sure if the socialist, communist, democratic or even anarchist utopia is possible,” a voice on “The Ex-Worker” podcast intones. “Rather, some insurrectionary anarchists believe that the meaning of being an anarchist lies in the struggle itself and what that struggle reveals.”

In other words, it’s not really about George Floyd or Black lives, but insurrection for insurrection’s sake.

The Truth About Today’s Anarchists
“Insurrectionary anarchists” have been protesting for racial justice all summer. Some Black leaders wish they would go home.

On the last Sunday in May, Jeremy Lee Quinn, a furloughed photographer in Santa Monica, Calif., was snapping photos of suburban moms kneeling at a Black Lives Matter protest when a friend alerted him to a more dramatic subject: looting at a shoe store about a mile away.

He arrived to find young people pouring out of the store, shoeboxes under their arms. But there was something odd about the scene. A group of men, dressed entirely in black, milled around nearby, like supervisors. One wore a creepy rubber Halloween mask.

The next day, Mr. Quinn took pictures of another store being looted. Again, he noticed something strange. A white man, clad in black, had broken the window with a crowbar, but walked away without taking a thing.

Mr. Quinn began studying footage of looting from around the country and saw the same black outfits and, in some cases, the same masks. He decided to go to a protest dressed like that himself, to figure out what was really going on. He expected to find white supremacists who wanted to help re-elect President Trump by stoking fear of Black people. What he discovered instead were true believers in “insurrectionary anarchism.” . . .

Mr. Quinn discovered a thorny truth about the mayhem that unfolded in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man in Minneapolis. It wasn’t mayhem at all.

While talking heads on television routinely described it as a spontaneous eruption of anger at racial injustice, it was strategically planned, facilitated and advertised on social media by anarchists who believed that their actions advanced the cause of racial justice. In some cities, they were a fringe element, quickly expelled by peaceful organizers. But in Washington, Portland and Seattle they have attracted a “cultlike energy,” Mr. Quinn told me.

Don’t take just Mr. Quinn’s word for it. Take the word of the anarchists themselves, who lay out the strategy in Crimethinc, an anarchist publication: Black-clad figures break windows, set fires, vandalize police cars, then melt back into the crowd of peaceful protesters. When the police respond by brutalizing innocent demonstrators with tear gas, rubber bullets and rough arrests, the public’s disdain for law enforcement grows. It’s Asymmetric Warfare 101. Continue reading “”

18 of Top 20 Cities with Projected Highest Murder Rates Have Democrat Mayors

A New York Times report based on projections for 2020 shows 18 of the top 20 cities for homicides have Democrat mayors.

Ironically, the Times leans on the Republican exceptions in the list to claim President Donald Trump is wrong for calling out the Democrat Party over violent cities around the country.

Again, 18 of the top 20 cities for the projected highest murder rates are run by Democrats. The projections were drawn from a combination of police department figures and media reports.

Below is a list of the cities, the names/party affiliation of their mayors, and their projected murder rate (PMR):

  1. St. Louis — Mayor Lyda Krewson (D) — PMR: 90.4
  2. Baltimore — Mayor Bernard Young (D) — PMR: 55.8
  3. Detroit — Mayor Mike Duggan (D) — PMR: 47.6
  4. New Orleans — Mayor LaToya Cantrell (D) — PMR: 46:4
  5. Cleveland — Mayor Frank G. Jackson (D) — PMR: 41:3
  6. Kansas City, MO — Mayor Quiton Lucas (D) — PMR: 40.0
  7. Cincinnati — Mayor John Cranley (D) — PMR: 33:4
  8. Milwaukee — Mayor Tom Barrett (D) — PMR: 31.7
  9. Chicago — Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) — PMR: 28.6
  10. Atlanta — Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) — PMR: 27.9
  11. Philadelphia — Mayor Jim Kinney (D) — PMR: 27.4
  12. Washington — Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) — PMR: 27.3
  13. Louisville — Mayor Greg Fischer (D) — PMR: 23.0
  14. Miami — Mayor Francis X. Suarez (R) — PMR: 22.2
  15. Indianapolis — Mayor Joe Hogsett (D) — PMR: 21.9
  16. Oakland — Mayor Libby Schaaf (D) — PMR: 21.0
  17. Toledo — Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz (D) — PMR: 20.8
  18. Tulsa — Mayor G.T. Bynum (R) — PMR: 20.0
  19. Minneapolis — Mayor Jacob Frey (D) — PMR: 18.7
  20. Greensboro — Mayor Nancy B. Vaughan (D) — PMR: 18.6

The Times also includes a lookback at the ten U.S. cities with the highest murder rates in 2019. All ten had Democrat mayors.

The Times contends, “More cities are run by Democratic mayors than by Republican ones, but murder is rising pretty much everywhere, regardless of a mayor’s political party.”

On June 29, 2020, Breitbart News reported a Washington Post column suggesting Trump was wrong to criticize the violence in Democrat-controlled cities because only 17 of the top 20 most violent cities are run by Democrats.

The FBI Crime Stat that Keeps Wounding Gun Control Lobby

With this week’s release of the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report (UCR) for 2019, the gun prohibition lobby is once again faced with an uncomfortable truth: Their crusade to ban so-called “assault rifles” doesn’t pass the smell test.

Continuing a pattern that dates back decades, the number of homicides involving rifles of any kind amounts to a fraction of all the murders in any given year. By far, handguns are used in more slayings in any given year.

In 2019, according to the UCR, there were an estimated 13,927 homicides, of which 10,258 involved firearms. But the report only positively linked 364 of those slayings to rifles, and there has never been a breakdown on the types of rifles, whether they were all semi-auto, or bolt-action, lever-action, pump-action or single-shot models. Continue reading “”

Sen. Rand Paul says Homeland Security panel will refer report on Bidens, Ukraine to DOJ for criminal probe

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., plans to refer the Senate Homeland Security and Finance Committees’ report on their investigation into Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings to the Department of Justice later this week, he told “The Story” Wednesday.

“I think riding on Air Force Two and doing business is illegal … and probably a felony,” Paul told host Martha MacCallum. “I think it’s illegal to take money from a Russian politician’s wife, $3.5 million, was it reported accurately?”

Paul was referencing items from the new report which details Hunter Biden’s role on the board of Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings and his alleged “extensive and complex financial transactions.” Continue reading “”

Making the case for ‘everyday carry’, as in, if you’re not, you’re really nothing more than a victim waiting to happen.
As I’ve adopted:
Don’t carry for the odds, carry for what’s at stake.

TBI Statement: Dangelo Dorsey Case.

UPDATE (Monday, September 14, 10:25 AM Central): As the investigation continues, and as TBI Agents learn more about the set of events that unfolded on and around Interstate 24 on Sunday afternoon, the Bureau would like to clarify the record on two points.

  1. Following the shooting inside of the vehicle on Sunday morning, in which Dangelo Dorsey shot and killed one person and shot and injured another, Dorsey exited and attempted to carjack a nearby vehicle. The driver was able to escape on foot. Dorsey then approached a nearby truck, and during the exchange with that driver, Dorsey fired his weapon and shot him in the face. At that point, Dorsey approached another driver and, when she attempted to drive away, shot through the car’s window, striking her in the hand. At that point, Dorsey drove off in an undetermined vehicle, rear-ending the Ford Mustang in which Phillip Jordan Stevens and his wife were traveling. They stopped, believing it to be a fender-bender, and – at that point – Dorsey took them hostage at gunpoint.
  2. Shortly before the police pursuit, Dorsey took both hostages to a location in the McMinnville area, separated them, and executed the male hostage in view of his wife. He then forced the woman back into the Rav4 and returned to the interstate, ultimately leading to the pursuit and subsequent crash.

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Authorities arrest 4 in connection to possible arson, fires along West Coast
Two of the suspects remain unidentified, and authorities dismissed potential political affiliations
(Yeah right, ‘no political affiliations‘)

Four have been arrested on suspicion of arson in West Coast areas already under seige from major destructive and deadly blazes, according to reports.

As wildfires continue to rage across three states, police investigated separate incidents near existing wildfires. Two men in Washington state, one man in Oregon and one woman in California are facing charges,
according to the Daily Wire.

The latest reports suggest that at least 20 people have died in California, eight in Oregon and one in Washington state as firefighters struggle to contain already deadly fires.

Ashland, Ore., Police Chief Tighe O’Meara announced Thursday that a criminal investigation was opened into the cause of the Almeda fire calling the circumstances around the fire ‘suspicious’. Continue reading “”