Author: Michael Rushford

A 23-year-old vagrant in the Los Angeles County community of Glendale was allowed to go on a crime spree this week thanks to the county’s zero bail policy.  Zero bail was instituted last year to somehow address the Covid-19 pandemic by releasing drug dealers and thieves without bail shortly after their arrest.  Under District Attorney George Gascon, LA County is continuing the zero bail policy.  Louis Casiano of Fox News reports that Kaelun Scharrer was first arrested Monday evening in a stolen car containing drug paraphernalia.  Six hours later he was released without bail.  Scharrer then proceeded to the American Brand Shopping Mall and stole a tip jar and fled on foot.  He was later arrested, charged with a misdemeanor and released again without bail.  He walked out of the police station and immediately stole a flatbed truck.  He was later arrested with the truck in the city of LaVerne.   This time the thief is being held in jail on $25,000 bail.  The LA County Police Chief told reporters that crimes like car theft have increased under zero bail.  Duh.  Progressives want to make zero bail permanent.

A poll commissioned by the campaign to recall progressive Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón found that 61.4% of registered voters support replacing him.  James Varney of the Washington Times reports that Gascón did not respond to a request for comment.   Gascón’s policies of releasing property offenders without bail, declining to fully charge serious offenders, and seeking to reduce the sentences of even violent criminals, has contributed to an epidemic of crime an violence in Los Angeles, sparking the effort to remove him from office.  The poll, conducted between July 23-28, involved 650 LA County voters of which 53% were Democrat and 17% Republican, with the rest either declined to state or independent.  The poll also found that 41.5% of respondents are willing to sign the recall petition, with translates into 2,331,653.  The campaign needs to gather signatures from 579,062 registered LA Country voters by October 27 to put the question on the ballot.

With the unprecedented surge in shootings and homicides in California over the past two years, you would think that even the state’s woke, progressive political class would take action to crack down on criminal firearm use.  Nope.

Michele Hanisee, veteran prosecutor and President of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys in Los Angeles has this piece explaining how  progressive LA Country District Attorney George Gascón and the politicians in Sacramento want to decriminalize the use of firearms by criminals at the same time the “LA County Sheriff has reported a stunning 111 percent increase in homicides from January 1, 2021, to May 21, 2021.”  Most of the murder victims were shot.  Hanisee notes that policies reducing penalties for crimes enacted in Sacramento and ordered by Gascón, not the increase in legal firearm sales that liberal politicians decry, is causing the skyrocketing increase in shootings and homicides in California.

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It has become apparent over the past several years that many of those devoted to the progressive movement taking over the Democrat party are divorced from reality and ignorant of history.  This is particularly true when it comes to criminal justice policy.  In 1994, more than twice as many Californians were victims of violent crime than in 2011.  Murders in the Golden State dropped by 60% during that period.  There were comparable reductions in New York, Texas, Illinois, Florida and most other states.  There have been mountains of research devoted to finding out why this occurred.  Perhaps the best compilation of data on this phenomenon is Professor Barry Latzer’s 2016 book, The Rise and Fall of Violent Crime in America.  Latzer concluded that while differences in culture between different racial and ethic groups have historically influenced crime rates, societies’ response to crime plays a major roll in the level of violent crime.  In the mid-1990s Americans of every racial and ethnic group demanded a stronger law enforcement response to the criminals dominating its cities during the crime wave of the 1970s and 1980s.  That stronger response, including major improvements in policing, delivered two decades of vastly safer cities and neighborhoods, disproportionately benefiting to those living in high-crime urban neighborhoods.  None of the thousands of young adults who joined the Black Lives Matter protests last summer know anything about this.

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Fatal drug overdoses set an all time record in 2020, with over 93,000 Americans dying.  Just shy of a 30% increase compared to 2019.  Maggie Fox of The Philadelphia Tribune quotes Dr. Nora Volkow of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, “This is the highest number of overdose deaths ever reported in a 12-month period.  These data are chilling.   The COVID-19 pandemic created a devastating  collision of health crises in America.”  The Dean of Public Health Practices at Johns Hopkins agreed; “The pandemic had a lot to do with it….but as the pandemic recedes, we are still dealing wit this overdose crisis.”  The story went on to discuss the need for treatment programs and controls on over-prescribing doctors.  Earlier this year a Washington Post story by Devlin Barrett reported that last year America saw the largest one-year increase in homicides since records have been kept.  The story notes that the increase in murders was not limited to large cities.  Small towns also saw increases of up to 30%.  Experts suggested that the collapse of public confidence in police contributed to the increase, but that the pandemic also played a significant role.  The head of the National Fraternal Order of Police suggested that changes in criminal justice policy which left more criminals on the street  contributed, but that suggestion was discounted by a data analyst who explained that increased murders occurred in places where such reforms had not been implemented.

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A City Journal piece by former District Attorney and defense lawyer Tom Hogan, explains why veteran prosecutors have recently been leaving DA’s Offices in large numbers.  “Prosecutors are leaving the profession for several reasons, the first and most obvious being the new wave of progressives sweeping into office.”  Hogan notes that in St. Louis where Soros-bankrolled progressive Kim Gardner was elected in 2017,  turnover in her office exceeded 100% as her de-prosecution, no bail and short sentencing policies, along with her claims that the entire criminal justice system is racist, destroyed morale.  He also notes that pro-criminal laws passed by liberal state legislatures, which prevent prosecutors from taking criminals off the streets and bury them in new procedures, and the current political climate which presumes that prosecutors are racists, are also contributing to the exodus of experienced prosecutors.  “With violent crime surging in cities across the country,  there couldn’t be a worse time to lose them.”

In a stumbling, bumbling speech yesterday,  President Joe Biden outlined his approach to the historic increases in violent crime across America.  As reported by the New York Times Biden said “Crime historically rises during the summer. And as we emerge from this pandemic, the country opening back up again, the traditional summer spike may be more pronounced than it usually would be. For folks at home, here’s what you need to know. I’ve been at this a long time and there are things we know that work to reduce gun violence and violent crime and things that we don’t know about. But things we know about: Background checks for purchasing a firearm are important; ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines; community policing and programs that keep neighborhoods safe and keep folks out of trouble. These efforts work. They save lives.”  Sorry Joe, but were not experiencing a “traditional summer spike” and the solutions you are proposing have never worked or saved any lives.

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After a record number of shootings last year and 875 deaths, nearly twice as many as in 2019, violent crime in Chicago is on track  to set a new record this year.  According to Newsweek, there were 956 shootings in Chicago resulting in 185 deaths during the first quarter of 2021, a 14% increase in homicide compared to the same period last year.  In the face of last year’s skyrocketing homicide rate and Black Lives Matter riots, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot proposed cutting the police department’s budget by $59 million, while telling reporters that she does not support defunding the police as reported by CBS News.  She has variously blamed Chicago’s shootings and murders on former President Trump, the Corona Virus, and gun laws in Indiana and Texas.

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