If you read major U.S. newspapers or watch the network news lately you have been informed that while homicides increased in some American cities over the past two years, overall crime is down.  This Associated Press story by David Klepper and Gary Fields is a typical example of this narrative.  Nationally homicides last year increased by 25% with roughly 20,000 people killed.  Preliminary data from police departments suggests that the homicide spikes were much higher in urban centers last year and will increase even more this year.  We have also been told that these increases have occurred in some places that did not defund their police, so we can’t blame the anti-police progressives or politicians like President Biden who, last year labeled police as racists.  The problem with this narrative is that it is false.  Two years of double-digit increases in murder is evidence of a serious breakdown in law enforcement.  In urban centers the homicide increases are much higher than national numbers reflect.  Murders in Los Angeles County are up by 95% over last year’s decade high.   In Chicago murders were up 22%, in Minneapolis 56% and in Portland an astounding 800% according to the AP article.  Other crimes went up as well.

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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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