Author: Michael Rushford

With a murder rate comparable to Chicago and twice as much property crime, life in many parts of Seattle is far from safe.  But the defund-the-police movement is still strong in Seattle which is currently implementing “policing alternatives,” including having “crisis responders” rather than police respond to 911 calls, as reported by Lindsay Kornick of Fox News.  Seattle City Councilwoman Lisa Hebold who spearheaded the program announced last Friday that she is “really, really happy to report that the city is hiring for the six positions for its first pilot alternate response team. It’s going to be a way for 911 operators to dispatch calls to somebody other than police, somebody other than fire, a crisis responder who is unarmed.”

Continue reading . . .

The Mayor of New Haven, Connecticut and the Police Chief of Yale are quite upset about a police union’s decision to let students know that crime is a problem in their city.  Audrey Cronklin of Fox News reports that last weekend members of the Yale Police Union distributed flyers indicating that “murders have doubled, burglaries are up 33% and motor vehicle thefts are up 56%” according to the New Haven Police Department.  The flyer also offers incoming students safety tips such as staying off the streets after 8 PM, avoid walking alone, avoid public transportation and stay on campus.  New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker called the flyers “childish” during a Tuesday press conference.  The campus Police Chief said that he was “disgusted” that the police union chose “to take this path.”  The chief added the most reported crimes at Yale involve stolen laptops and cell phones.  A union spokesperson responded;  “There’s no dispute on the facts,  So  I think they feel an obligation to make sure that students don’t fall victim to crimes while attending Yale University.”  Probably a good idea as Neighborhood Scout ranks New Haven as more dangerous that 94% of U.S. cities.

Piling on to Kent’s recent post, out-of-control crime is not only destroying the quality of life in San Francisco.  While homicides in Oakland have dropped by 14% so far this year, burglaries have increased by a whopping 41% and robberies are up by 20% according this CNN story.  In late June a sixty-year-old retiree was shot and killed in broad daylight while doing yardwork.  Responding to the almost daily shootings, burglaries and robberies, Oakland police are telling residents to buy air horns to alert neighbors to intruders and put bars on doors and windows.  While city leaders are promising to find ways to prevent crime, some residents have had enough.

Continue reading . . .

An opinion piece by Rachel Ehrenfeld of Fox News focuses upon the dramatic increase in drug use in America.  She takes us back to 1994, when 90% of Americans opposed the use of illegal drugs.  That was about the same time that George Soros, the liberal hedge-fund billionaire, established his Open Society Foundation in New York.  One of the foundation’s initial efforts to soften opposition to drug abuse was to distribute “safe smoking kits” to those using marijuana and hash.  In the pursuit of legalizing drugs, Soros funded pro-drug organizations to lobby the public and lawmakers with assurances that marijuana was relatively harmless, non-addictive and was useful in treating depression and other conditions. They also promised that taxes on legal pot would generate billions in new revenue for state and county governments.  After successfully targeting Colorado, California and Arizona for legalization, the campaign eventually won legalization of marijuana in 37 states   In 2022 the Biden Administration copied the Soros program for users of harder drugs, beginning distribution “safe user kits” which come with clean needles, and crack pipes.  Remarkably the Administration reported that this effort was implemented to promote racial equality by providing the drug use kits to “under-resourced populations such as racial, sexual, gender and ethnic minority groups.”   Last year a Pew Research survey found that 88% of the U.S. population now support legalization of marijuana.

Continue reading . . .

The defund the police movement is alive and well in Chicago.  The first weekend in August was a bloody one in the windy city, as reported by the Sun Times, with 27 shootings and seven fatalities.  Among the victims was an 8-year-old girl playing in front of her house.  The suspect, who was tackled and held for police by the girl’s father, walked up and intentionally shot the child in the head.  She died.  A 14-year-old boy is in critical condition with two gunshot wounds in the head from a Saturday night shooting.  Among the other victims was a 35-year-old man shot while sitting in his home.  The Chicago Police Department has lost 1,700 officers since Mayor Lori Lightfoot took office in 2019.  Newly elected Mayor Brandon Johnson has no plan to add more officers.  Arrests in the city have dropped by 50% since 2019 and a suspect is arrested in only 5% of non-fatal shootings.  Amid this bloodletting, uber-liberal Illinois Governor J.D. Pritzker is busy virtue-signaling, signing a new law that mandates the hiring of non-citizens as police officers.  How bad does it have to get before state voters start electing people committed to cracking down on criminals.

An ex-con who brutally murdered a 6-year-old girl in 2002 died peacefully via lethal injection last night in Missouri.  David Lieb of the Associated Press reports that 45-year-old Johnny Johnson had been released from prison six months before he lured Casey Williamson, the daughter of a family friend, to an abandoned factory, attempted to rape her, then beat her to death with a brick when she resisted.  Police found her body buried under rocks in a pit less than a mile from her home.  At trial and on appeal Johnson’s attorneys argued that his schizophrenia prevented his understanding the link between his crime and his punishment.  But just before his execution, Johnson disproved that claim by apologizing for the murder.  A hail-Mary appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was rejected with Associate Justices Sonja Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Katanji Brown Jackson voting to stay his execution.  Sixteen murderers have been executed in the United States so far this year.  Last year eight murderers had been executed by August 1.

A July 20 New York Times piece by Tim Arango reports on a survey of 30 large U.S. cities by the Council on Criminal Justice which found that homicides over the first six months of 2023 have declined by 9.4% compared to last year.  If the trend continues, Arango suggests it could be the largest one-year drop in homicides ever recorded.  Noting that there were 202 fewer homicides among the surveyed cities, which included New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and Denver, they remain 24% higher than over the same period in 2019.   Other serious crimes including aggravated assault, robbery, commercial and residential burglary declined by 5% or less, while motor vehicle theft increased by over 33%.  The survey also noted a stunning 39% decline in drug offenses.  The Times reported that many experts agree that “the disruptions of the pandemic–the social isolation, the closure of schools and jobs lost — likely led to an increase in crime.”   While “an unproven theory cited by some experts amid the social unrest that followed the murder of Mr. Floyd, officers in some places pulled back from enforcement…”

Continue reading . . .

A bill moving through the California Legislature aims to eliminate racial bias by reducing consequences for turnstile jumping on public transit.  Golden Gate Media reports that while San Francisco’s Bart,  Los Angeles’ Metro and Sacramento’s RT are all crime-ridden and losing money, Los Angeles Assemblyperson Isaac Bryan (D. Los Angeles) introduced AB 819 to improve racial equity among transit riders.  According to Bryan “enforcement of fare evasion is discriminatory. People who face criminal charges for not paying their transit fare are disproportionately people of color and face harsher penalties when they are stopped.”  So allowing more freeriders on public transit is going to improve racial justice.  As one BART board member responded, “More decriminalization for BART makes the system less safe.”  It is already too dangerous for many to voluntarily choose take a train or bus in Los Angeles and San Francisco.  Unfortunately, most people commuting on public transit have no other option.