Monthly Archive: August 2024

An initiative addressing theft and drug abuse has qualified for California’s November 5 ballot, along with a ballot measure passed by the Legislature which increases the rights of prison inmates.

Proposition 36, is sponsored by the California District Attorneys Association and is supported by retailers, victims’ groups and most state law enforcement professionals. The measure changes several provisions of California Proposition 47, which converted thefts of $950 or less to misdemeanors, along with drug sales or possession, even if the offender has multiple priors. If adopted, Proposition 36 would strengthen penalties for habitual shoplifters and thieves, allowing an offender convicted of a third theft valued at less than $950 to be charged with a felony and sentenced to up to three years in state prison, depending on his criminal record.

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After walking across the U.S. southern border, violent Venezuelan gang members have flocked to the sanctuary city of Denver where they can commit crimes without fear of deportation. Christina Coulter of Fox News reports that the Tren de Argua gang is now moving into the suburbs which do not share Denver’s sanctuary city policies. Aurora, Colorado, which is nine miles from Denver, has entire apartment complexes that are now controlled by the gang:

“We currently have entire complexes under gang control—complexes where staff have been beaten up, they’ve been threatened, their families have been threatened [and] complexes where there are no staff left on the property,” Aurora City Council Member Danielle Jurinsky said. “These complexes are being run by this Tren de Aragua gang.

“They start brokering apartments themselves when someone leaves out of fear or whatever. They go in and take pictures of the apartment themselves. Then, I’ve been told, within hours, a Venezuelan family moves in.”

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California’s Board of Parole Hearings (CBPH) has ordered the parole of a Sacramento man convicted of attempting to murder eight people after serving 14 years of a 90-year prison sentence.  The Sacramento District Attorneys office reports that in August and September of 2009, 24-year-old Kyle Frank targeted cars with black or Hispanic drivers to shoot at from his car on the Interstate 80 freeway.  He was convicted of eight counts of attempted murder for shooting into four cars, often yelling racial slurs before firing. In each incident Frank fired at least four shots into the victim’s cars, often after blocking their attempts to exit the freeway to escape. While only one victim was actually wounded,  it was clear from the evidence that he was attempting to kill the drivers and passengers. One of the cars was driven by a Hispanic mother with her two minor children.

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A Florida drifter, who murdered an 18-year-old college freshman and raped the victim’s 21-year-old sister in 1994, is scheduled for execution on August 29.  Caroline Christensen of WCTV reports that last month Governor Ron DeSantis signed the death warrant for 57-year-old Loran Cole.  His attorneys have petitioned the state supreme court for a stay of execution arguing that evidence of Cole’s abusive childhood might have swayed the sentencing jury to recommend life in prison rather than the death penalty. The Florida Attorney General argues that Cole’s abusive childhood claims have been presented and rejected in earlier appeals.  Cole also claims that his Parkinson’s disease will cause him to suffer pain during his lethal injection.  Update:  Cole was executed without incident by lethal injection Thursday morning.

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New data from the Council on Criminal Justice indicate that; in a survey of 39 cities that consistently report crime statistics, violent crime has declined slightly over the first half of 2024, while shoplifting has increased by 24%. An article by Hans Bader in Liberty Unyielding reports that following the Black Lives Matter riots of 2020, retail theft has reached epidemic levels in the cities surveyed. This has forced the closure of major stores in some locations including Macys, CVS, Walgreens, Target and Walmart, which have become unprofitable or unsafe due to repeated thefts,. sometimes by mobs of shoplifters.

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Pressure by progressive lawmakers, particularly in blue cities, to restrict police traffic stops as a means for addressing racial discrimination has been quite effective. Traffic stops nationally dropped significantly during the 2020 Covid 19 lockdowns, and have stayed down in the post-pandemic years, especially in democrat run cities including Philadelphia, Memphis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Phoenix and Seattle. Emily Badger and Ben Blatt of the New York Times report that the reduction in traffic enforcement spread nationally after the widely publicized 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The writers attribute the decline in stops to two sources, changes in department policy and decisions by officers on the street.

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