Hobbling Cops and Shortening Sentences

Over the past several years real law enforcement leaders, not appointed chiefs in liberal cities or George Soros-funded DAs, have been warning that giving in to demands by Black Lives Matter and progressive politicians for sentencing and policing reforms would result in more crime.  President Barack Obama used his pen to begin these reforms, releasing thousands of drug dealers from prison,  backing off federal prosecution of dealers for new crimes,  implementing “catch and release” on our southern border and initiating federal consent decrees to handcuff police in big cities like Chicago, supposedly to reduce racially-biased policing.  By 2019, many of the most populous states had adopted some form of sentencing reform, cutting sentencing for most crimes,  shortening or eliminating enhancements for repeat felons and reducing or eliminating bail.  In the face of intense pressure by local politicians, activist groups and a complicit media,  Police departments have backed away from progressive policing, particularly in minority urban areas.

As noted in multiple posts on this blog, the chickens appear to have come home to roost.  Crime rates in major cities were rising as we began 2020, while many mayors and Governors from California to New York were too busy attacking the Trump Administration to notice.  Then came the pandemic and statewide lockdowns.  The progressives running some big cities cited the pandemic to justify releasing thousands of criminals from prisons and jails, and eliminated bail for those arrested for committing crimes.   And crime, particularly violent crime. increased even more in these places.

Then on May 25, a Minneapolis police officer was caught on video using excessive force to kill a repeat felon named George Floyd.   Within two days, Black Lives Matter, and other well funded radical progressive groups, with chapters in virtually every state, mobilized thousands for protests in over 120 cities.  Many of the protests become violent with multiple assaults, especially on police, excessive property damage and looting.   As fires were set and people were being attacked in New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, Portland, Detroit, Minneapolis, Atlanta and Washington DC,  mayors refused to deploy the police or call in the National Guard to stop the riots and protect property for more than a week.  In Seattle and Portland the rioting is continuing today, almost two months since Floyd’s death.

Many of the thousands of increased violent and property crimes now being reported every week are being committed by habitual criminals set free by sentencing reforms and by the reduction in policing demanded by progressives and the media.  In Chicago, in addition to record-breaking shootings and murders, armed children as young as 10 are roaming the streets in bands looking for carjacking targets.  The Chicago Sun Times reports that over the last few days, 15 people were carjacked at gunpoint by groups of children.   The Wall Street Journal reports that number of shootings in New York City rose by 130% in June to 205, compared with 89 during the same time a year earlier, and murders are up by 30%. The number of shooting victims in the Big Apple has increased by 63% so far this year.  According to CBS news over the July 4th weekend in Atlanta, 24 people were shot and five killed, including a 8-year-old girl.  The Los Angeles Times reports that 17 people have died in LA area shootings since the beginning of July.  Julia Musto of Fox News reports that last Friday, three young men out fishing in Frostproof, Florida were brutally murdered by habitual criminal T.J. Wiggins, out of bond for breaking a man’s arm with a crowbar.  Wiggins had a record of 230 felony arrests and been sent to prison twice.  California’s East Bay Times reports that the man arrested for the unprovoked murder of a doctor over the holiday weekend was on Sierra County’s most wanted list due to multiple felonies.  John Conway received an eight month sentence in January for vehicle theft, but was free by early July, when he shot Dr. Ari Gresham as he was fishing with his son.  The 15-year-old boy escaped and hid in the woods for 30 hours before he was found.

People who have demanded sentencing and police reforms, along with the criminals, share responsibility for what’s happening today in America’s cities.