America Faces No Greater Threat Than Joe Biden and the Democrat Party. Their Assault to Our Borders Is As Great As Their Assault to Free Speech and Free Elections
Tuesday, September 28, 2021
A NATION UNRAVELS - Homicides in the US surged by almost 30 percent in 2020
Homicides in the US surged by almost 30 percent in 2020
Homicides in the US surged by nearly 30 percent in 2020, the greatest one-year increase ever recorded by the FBI since the agency began collecting the annual statistics in 1960. The spike in murders was a primary factor in the overall 5.6 percent increase in violent crime in the US last year.
The total number of homicides reported in 2020 was 21,570, which was almost 5,000 more than the previous year. While the increase over 2019 was dramatic, and indicative of the intensity of the social tensions rooted in a year dominated by the coronavirus pandemic, the number of homicides did not come close to the record of nearly 25,000 murders committed in 1991.
The FBI released the statistics on Monday in the 2020 edition of its report called, “Crime in the US.” The report says that there were an estimated 1,277,696 violent crimes committed, approximately 388 offenses per 100,000 inhabitants. The data is maintained by the FBI in its Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program.
An FBI statement announcing the data said, “The UCR Program collects information on crimes reported by law enforcement agencies regarding the violent crimes of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault, as well as the property crimes of burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson.”
The agency statement also indicated that the number of homicides was likely even higher given that only 15,897 law enforcement agencies out of a total of 18,819 nationwide submitted data to the UCR program.
One notable aspect of the data is that the increase in murders was a nationwide phenomenon, not a regional one. According to an assessment of the data published by the New York Times, “No geographic area was spared.” In cities with populations over 250,000 that reported full data, the number of murders rose over 35 percent. In cities with 100,000 to 250,000 people, homicides increased over 40 percent and in cities under 25,000, it rose 25 percent.
It is also significant that 77 percent of the homicides were committed with a firearm, the largest share ever reported and an increase from 67 percent in the previous decade. Additionally, while the total number of violent crimes increased, the data shows a decrease in other major crimes in 2020. The Times report says, “Murder, although it carries the highest societal cost, makes up a tiny portion of major crimes as defined by the FBI.”
The Times analysis went on, “Some of the reduction in overall crime was clearly related to the pandemic. Theft made up around seven in 10 property crimes, and it’s hard to commit shoplifting when stores are closed. But overall crime was dropping long before the pandemic: 2020 was the 18th straight year of declining overall crime.”
Some analysts have attributed the increase in murder to a stand down by law enforcement officers due to the George Floyd protests against police violence last year. While there was a large increase in officer retirements between April 2020 and April 2021, the Times reports that the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows no change in the total number of people employed by local police departments during the same period.
The sharp rise in homicides is but one indication of impact of the criminally negligent and homicidal response of the capitalist ruling elite to the coronavirus pandemic on the social crisis facing masses of people in the US. More than 350,000 people died from COVID-19 in 2020, while millions lost jobs and were driven into poverty as the ruling establishment pursued a policy of “herd immunity” and demanded a return to work and school while the virus continued to spread.
The past year also saw a spike in the number of people killed in auto accidents. A preliminary estimate by the National Safety Council found that 42,060 people were killed in car crashes in 2020, up from 39,017 in 2019, the largest single year increase in fatalities in nearly a century. The increase in road deaths took place even though the number of miles traveled by car fell by 13 percent.
According to a report in Vox on September 19, traffic experts said the 2020 fatality spike came as there were “fewer cars on the road during quarantine, traffic congestion was all but eliminated, which emboldened people to drive at lethal speeds. Compared to 2019, many more drivers involved in fatal crashes also didn’t wear seat belts or drove drunk.”
As reported on July 15 by the World Socialist Web Site, the pandemic also fueled an all-time high of 93,000 overdose deaths in the US in 2020. Based on a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the number of drug overdose deaths—which translate to an average of more than 250 each day, or roughly 11 every hour—increased by over 30 percent from the already catastrophic numbers from 2019.
HOW MANY WOULD BE OUT THERE MURDERING AND MAYHEMING IF THEY HAD A GOOD PAYING JOB?
Democrat Mayor Jim Kenney’s Philadelphia Surpasses 400 Homicides for 2021
Mayor Jim Kenney’s (D) Philadelphia surpassed 400 homicides for the year following two fatalities on Saturday.
The Philadelphia Inquirernotes that “two fatal shootings Saturday night brought Philadelphia’s total number of homicides this year to beyond 400.”
The city has surpassed 400 homicides for a year only twice during the past 20 years.
The Inquirer observes that when fatal and non-fatal shootings are combined, a total of “1,696 people had been shot through Wednesday” of last week.
ABC 6 reports that the most recent homicide in Philly was a man shot and killed around 2 a.m. Monday morning outside the Philadelphia Marriot.
Mayor Kenney reacted to the surging death numbers by saying, “I am heartbroken and outraged that we’ve lost more than 400 Philadelphians to preventable violence this year. My heart goes out to all families suffering from enormous grief. Our administration continues to act with urgency to reduce violence and save lives.”
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw also commented on the rising homicides, saying:
Our department continues to make a record number of crime gun confiscations, and a record number of arrests of the individuals in possession of them. However, this is not nearly enough. We will continue to work with our law enforcement and community partners to bring to justice those who seek to cause harm to our beautiful city and its people.
The Inquirerexplains that “29% of homicides and 15% of nonfatal shootings have resulted in arrests by police so far in 2021.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.
R&B Superstar R. Kelly Convicted in Sex Trafficking Trial
NEW YORK (AP) — R. Kelly, the R&B superstar known for his anthem “I Believe I Can Fly,” was convicted Monday in a sex trafficking trial after decades of avoiding criminal responsibility for numerous allegations of misconduct with young women and children.
A jury of seven men and five women found Kelly guilty of racketeering on their second day of deliberations.
The charges were based on an argument that the entourage of managers and aides who helped the singer meet girls — and keep them obedient and quiet — amounted to a criminal enterprise.
Several accusers testified in lurid detail during the trial, alleging that Kelly subjected them to perverse and sadistic whims when they were underage.
Singer R. Kelly (C) appears at a hearing before Judge Lawrence Flood at Leighton Criminal Court Building, on June 26, 2019. (Photo by E. Jason Wambsgans)
For years, the public and news media seemed to be more amused than horrified by allegations of inappropriate relationships with minors, starting with Kelly’s illegal marriage to the R&B phenom Aaliyah in 1994 when she was just 15.
His records and concert tickets kept selling. Other artists continued to record his songs, even after he was arrested in 2002 and accused of making a recording of himself sexually abusing and urinating on a 14-year-old girl.
Widespread public condemnation didn’t come until a widely watched docuseries “Surviving R. Kelly” helped make his case a signifier of the #MeToo era, and gave voice to alleged victims who wondered if their stories were previously ignored because they were Black women.
Watch below:
At the trial, several of Kelly’s accusers testified without using their real names to protect their privacy and prevent possible harassment by the singer’s fans. Jurors were shown homemade videos of Kelly engaging in sex acts that prosecutors said were not consensual.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Maria Cruz Melendez argued that Kelly was a serial abuser who “maintained control over these victims using every trick in the predator handbook.”
The defense labeled the accusers “groupies” and “stalkers.”
Defense attorney Deveraux Cannick questioned why the alleged victims stayed in relationships with Kelly if they thought they were being exploited.
“You made a choice,” Cannick told one woman who testified, adding, “You participated of your own will.”
Kelly, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, has been jailed without bail since in 2019. The trial was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic and Kelly’s last-minute shakeup of his legal team.
When it finally started on Aug. 18, prosecutors painted the 54-year-old singer as a pampered man-child and control freak. His accusers said they were under orders to call him “Daddy,” expected to jump and kiss him anytime he walked into a room, and to cheer only for him when he played pickup basketball games in which they said he was a ball hog.
The accusers alleged that they also were ordered to sign nondisclosure forms and were subjected to threats and punishments such as violent spankings if they broke what one referred to as “Rob’s rules.” Some said they believed the videotapes he shot of them having sex would be used against them if they exposed what was happening.
Among the other more troubling tableaus: Kelly keeping a gun by his side while he berated one of his accusers as a prelude to forcing her to give him oral sex in a Los Angeles music studio; Kelly giving several alleged victims herpes without disclosing he had an STD; Kelly coercing a teen boy to join him for sex with a naked girl who emerged from underneath a boxing ring in his garage; and Kelly shooting a shaming video of one alleged victim showing her smearing feces on her face as punishment for breaking his rules.
Some of the most harrowing testimony came from a woman who said Kelly took advantage of her in 2003 when she was an unsuspecting radio station intern. She testified he whisked her to his Chicago recording studio, where she was kept locked up and was drugged before he sexually assaulted her while she was passed out.
When she realized she was trapped, “I was scared. I was ashamed. I was embarrassed,” she said.
She said one of R. Kelly’s employees warned her to keep her mouth shut about what had happened.
Other testimony focused on Kelly’s relationship with Aaliyah. One of the final witnesses described seeing him sexually abusing her around 1993, when Aaliyah was only 13 or 14.
Jurors also heard testimony about a fraudulent marriage scheme hatched to protect Kelly after he feared he had impregnated Aaliyah. Witnesses said they were married in matching jogging suits using a license falsely listing her age as 18; he was 27 at the time.
Aaliyah, whose full name was Aaliyah Dana Haughton, worked with Kelly, who wrote and produced her 1994 debut album, “Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number.” She died in a plane crash in 2001 at age 22.
This combination photo shows singer R. Kelly after the first day of jury selection in his child pornography trial at the Cook County Criminal Courthouse in Chicago on May 9, 2008. (AP Photo/File)
R. Kelly performs in concert at Barclays Center on September 25, 2015 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. (Photo by Mike Pont/Getty Images)
In at least one instance, Kelly was accused of abusing a victim around the time he was under investigation in a child pornography case in Chicago. He was acquitted at trial in 2008.
For the Brooklyn trial, U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly barred people not directly involved in the case from the courtroom in what she called a coronavirus precaution. Reporters and other spectators had to watch on a video feed from another room in the same building.
The New York case is only part of the legal peril facing the singer. He also has pleaded not guilty to sex-related charges in Illinois and Minnesota. Trial dates in those cases have yet to be set.
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