Category: News Scan

As Chicago was besieged with another weekend of protests against police with the accompanying fires and looting, 110 people were shot, 25 fatally.  Tom Schuba, Sam Charles and Matthew Hendrickson of the Chicago Sun Times report that most of the shooting victims last weekend were black as are most of the suspects.  Reverend Michael Pfleger, a longtime crusader against gun violence in Chicago told reporters, “I heard people saying all over, `Hey, there’s no police anywhere, police ain’t doing nothing.'”  The city reported 65,000 calls to 911 over the weekend, as law-abiding store owners and residents sought police responses to an “unprecedented level of activity,” according to a PD spokesman.  The protests in Chicago over the death of George Floyd included attacks on officers and demands that police departments be shut down or defunded,  and provided a “teachable moment” on how cities will look if those demands are met.

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Hard core libertarian groups are on a tear these days about the possibility that the Supreme Court might abolish or at least limit the doctrine of qualified immunity, which they view as a grossly unacceptable impediment to holding vicious police officers accountable for their behavior.  But the doctrine has its beginnings in a source not known for bending over backwards with sympathy for the police. Continue reading . . .

“George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis has revived the Obama-era narrative that law enforcement is endemically racist. On Friday, Barack Obama tweeted that for millions of black Americans, being treated differently by the criminal justice system on account of race is “tragically, painfully, maddeningly ‘normal,’ ”  writes Heather MacDonald in today’s Wall Street Journal.  In his piece in California Political Review, James V. Lacy notes “Liberal officials and the media focus on what they call “systemic racism” as causing the death of Floyd and other people of color at the hands of scoflaw police officers.”  Liberal/progressive politicians and their mouthpieces in the mainstream media have become boringly predicable.  News anchors, politicians and endless array of pundits have been for years engaged in nonstop hectoring that virtually everything happening in the United States, including sports and weather events, is the result of racism.  Maintaining this narrative requires ignoring the inconvenient truth.

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The week of national rioting following the killing of George Floyd by a depraved Minneapolis police officer has escalated into a “pandemic of civil violence more widespread than anything seen during the Black Lives Matter movement of the Obama years,” noted Manhattan Institute scholar Heather MacDonald in a piece in today’s City Journal.  She points to the weak response by Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who ordered police to abandon a precinct attacked and torched by rioters and then Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s reluctance to mobilize the national guard to avoid appearing “oppressive.”   This politically correct posturing in the face of widespread violent chaos in major U.S. cities demonstrates the successful marketing of blacks as victims of white privilege by academia, progressives and the national media.  Under this narrative anything the mob does to protest injustice, including beating innocent store owners and burning their businesses to the ground is justified. Continue reading . . .

Longtime de-incarceration advocates are insisting on the increased use of compassionate release and home confinement during the current pandemic, and ask why officials can’t continue to make these modest releases—and then some—after the pandemic passes, especially if crime doesn’t rise as a result and cash-strapped states want the biggest bang for their public safety bucks?   Jordan S. Rubin of Bloomberg Law writes that “reformers, who’ve been fighting for years against warehousing older and sick inmates in particular, see a glimmer of hope that this generational tragedy could serve to promote a more evidence-based approach to crime and punishment.”

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This has not been a good year for New York. The state was caught flat-footed by the COVID-19 pandemic, then the governor ordered nursing homes to accept people with the infection, resulting in thousands of unnecessary deaths.  It looks as if New York City will suffer the longest and most restrictive lockdown in the country, killing off about half of its businesses.  The subways have turned into homeless shelters, endangering those who must ride or work in them.  The no-bail law which took effect in January has flooded the city with criminals and shootings, auto theft, and commercial burglaries are all increasing. When the lockdown is finally lifted, law-abiding New Yorkers will become victims to increased robberies and assaults by criminals that the governor was concerned might get sick. Add to this hot mess, the new “Green Light Law” enacted in April.  The new law makes it a felony for any DMV employee or New York cop to share information about illegal aliens given driver’s licenses with federal immigration agents. Adam Shaw of Fox News reports on why this creates a serious law enforcement problem. Continue reading . . .

A San Diego man arrested and released at least five times in recent weeks is now being held in jail for attempted murder.  David Hernandez of the San Diego Tribune reports that Timothy Alvarado was arrested for attempted murder for a stabbing attack on a homeless man. In early April, Alvarado was released from jail after a burglary conviction, just days before the state announced a $0 bail policy for nonviolent felons to protect jails from the coronavirus. A month later Alvarado led police on an high-speed chase after stealing a minivan from a car lot. He was arrested, cited, and released. Two days later Alvarado was arrested in a stolen Jaguar, before being cited and released.  The following week he was arrested, cited, and released for stealing a Mitsubishi. Four days later he was arrested for stealing the same Mitsubishi and, of course, cited and released. Last Saturday, an officer heard a man screaming and saw Alvarado running from the victim. The victim was hospitalized with serious injuries, and Alvarado was arrested. Under current California law, a criminal can be arrested and released for multiple felonies until he hurts or kills someone.

Data compiled by UCLA indicates that over 67,000 criminals have been released from jails and prisons across the country due to the Covid-19 pandemic.  Daniel Horowitz has this piece in the Conservative Review noting that, “this has nothing to do with fear of prisoners dying of coronavirus. Just a few hundred deaths have been recorded out of a population of 2.2 million inmates, lower than that of the general population.  In most prisons, the overwhelming majority of those who got the virus have been asymptomatic and are now already immune and have been for quite some time. Thus, there is no reason to release large numbers of convicted criminals, most of whom are young and healthy.   This has everything to do with accelerating an already dangerous de-incarceration movement, which is why you shouldn’t hold your breath and wait for them to be re-apprehended after the virus burns out.”

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A unanimous panel of the Federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the death sentence of a man who at age 18, kidnapped, raped and brutally murdered a 12-year-old boy.   The court’s per curiam opinion concluded that Danny Lee Hill is mentally retarded and under the Supreme Court’s 2002 ruling in Atkins v. Virginia is ineligible for execution.  In its opinion the court announced, “We hold that Hill is intellectually disabled and that he cannot be sentenced to death. No person looking at this record could reasonably deny that Hill is intellectually disabled.  In holding otherwise, the Ohio courts avoided giving serious consideration to past evidence of Hill’s intellectual disability.”   A story in today’s Tribune Chronicle reports that in September of 1985 Hill and 17-year-old accomplice grabbed 12-year-old Raymond Fife as he was riding his bicycle through a wooded area to a Boy Scout meeting.

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As the California Legislature reconvened earlier this month, the leadership encouraged members to focus on bills “essential” to addressing the coronavirus pandemic.  Michele Hanisee, President of the Association of Los Angeles Deputy District Attorneys, has this piece questioning one of those “essential” bills.    To address the pandemic, Assemblywoman Shirley Weber (D. San Diego)  decided to introduce AB 3070 which restricts attorneys or judges from excusing potential jurors whose behavior renders them unsuitable to properly evaluate evidence and reach a verdict based upon the law.  Assemblywoman Weber believes that excusing people who slept through jury selection, who associate with members of criminal street gangs, who express disdain for police, prosecutors and judges, or cannot understand enough English to follow the proceedings is racist and should not be allowed.

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