BLACK STORE LOOTING IN LOS ANGELES - DON'T EXPECT TO SEE IT GONE SOON! - Karen Bass Launches Task Force to Fight Retail Theft; Newsom Triples Highway Patrol in L.A.

 

Karen Bass Launches Task Force to Fight Retail Theft; Newsom Triples Highway Patrol in L.A.

Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times via Getty

JOEL B. POLLAK

17 Aug 20230

2:06

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass launched a new task force Thursday to fight mass looting and retail theft in the region, and Governor Gavin Newsom announced that he would triple the number of California Highway Patrol officers in the city to assist the effort.

Bass announced the task force at a press conference Thursday morning, days after a mass looting event in the Westfield Topanga mall made national news.

There have been several such events in the last few years, thought to be connected to organized crime.

The mayor elaborated in a press release:

“What we’ve seen over just the past week in the City of Los Angeles and in surrounding regions is unacceptable, which is why today we are here announcing action,” said Mayor Karen Bass. “These are not victimless crimes – especially in the case where Angelenos were attacked – through force or fear – as they did their jobs or ran errands. No Angeleno should feel like it’s unsafe to go shopping and no Angelenos should feel like it’s unsafe to open a business in Los Angeles or Los Angeles County. This task force will aggressively investigate these incidents and hold individuals that are responsible for these crimes fully accountable.”

Newsom announced that he would triple the number of California Highway Patrol officers in the city to assist Bass’s task force.

His office added a boast: “Under Governor Newsom’s leadership, public safety funding is at an all-time high in California.”

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

 LOOTING IS SIMPLY PART OF THE BLACK SUBCULTURE

50 Cent Slams Los Angeles over Flash Mob Robberies: ‘LA Is Finished’

Ryan Pierse/Getty Images/screenshot

ALANA MASTRANGELO

16 Aug 20230

Rapper 50 Cent slammed Los Angeles following a recent flash mob robbery of a Nordstrom store in the Democrat-controlled city, proclaiming, “LA is finished,” and advising store owners to “lock the doors.”

“I told you LA was finished,” 50 Cent wrote in an Instagram caption, sharing a screenshot of a headline, which read, “Flash Mob Hits Another High-End Store in L.A. County, Steal Estimated $100K in Merchandise.”

“They are gonna have to lock the doors, appointment only,” the rapper added in his caption.

50 Cent was reacting to a recent news headline about scores of thieves appearing to ransack a Nordstrom in Canoga Park.

This is not the first time 50 Cent has declared Los Angeles “finished.”

In July, the rapper shared the same sentiments after it was revealed that the Democrat-controlled city implemented a zero bail policy and non-violent criminals would no longer be detained in the city, writing on Instagram, “LA is finished watch how bad it gets out there”

In 2021, after blasting President Joe Biden’s tax plan, the rapper moved from New York to Houston.

“I Love NY, but i live in Houston now i’ll explain later,” 50 Cent wrote in a tweet, sharing a photo of himself outside the Houston Astrodome.

The rapper also included two screenshots about a true crime television series, “Confessions of a Crime Queen,” that he produced. “Green Light Gang. BOOM,” his tweet concluded.

 

While 50 Cent never clarified why he moved to Houston, the decision came a few months after he told his followers on social media to “Vote for Trump” in response to Biden’s tax plan.

“WHAT THE F***! (VOTE ForTRUMP),” the rapper posted on Instagram. “I’M OUT. F*** NEW YORK The KNICKS never win anyway.”

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.

CrimeEntertainment50

CRIME IN AMERICA IS BLACK!

BEAT THE FUKING SHIT OUT OF THEM AND SEE IF THEY COME BACK

Bass has promised to hire more police — just a few years after then-Mayor Eric Garcetti promised to cut more than 10% of the police budget for redistribution to “communities of color” in the midst of the Black Lives Matter riots that shook the city.

Mass looting has been a phenomenon since the riots, and especially since mobs looted high-end stores in San Francisco’s Union Square in November 2021.

WATCH: Mob Ransacks Topanga Nordstrom in L.A.; Mayor Karen Bass: ‘Unacceptable’

https://www.breitbart.com/crime/2023/08/12/watch-mob-ransacks-topanga-nordstrom-in-l-a-mayor-karen-bass-unacceptable/

26

Screenshot

JOEL B. POLLAK

12 Aug 20231,425

2:18

A mob of looters ransacked a Nordstrom location in the Westfield Topanga mall in the San Fernando Valley on Saturday afternoon, prompting Mayor Karen Bass to condemn the chaos.

Local news station KTLA reported:

Police said anywhere between 20-50 suspects are believed to be involved, although the exact number has not been confirmed.

The thieves were seen violently grabbing whatever merchandise they could carry, with many seen ripping the security devices attached to designer purses and luggage items. Store shelves and display racks were destroyed, knocked over and littered across the floor along with a ton of fallen merchandise.

At one point, a security guard who tried to intervene was attacked with a chemical spray, police said. It’s unclear what that person’s condition is.

Mayor Bass issued a statement on Saturday evening:

What happened today at the Nordstrom in the Topanga Mall is absolutely unacceptable. Those who committed these acts and acts like it in neighboring areas must be held accountable. The Los Angeles Police Department will continue to work to not only find those responsible for this incident but to prevent these attacks on retailers from happening in the future.

Bass has promised to hire more police — just a few years after then-Mayor Eric Garcetti promised to cut more than 10% of the police budget for redistribution to “communities of color” in the midst of the Black Lives Matter riots that shook the city.

Mass looting has been a phenomenon since the riots, and especially since mobs looted high-end stores in San Francisco’s Union Square in November 2021.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

SN'T AMERICA SICK AND TIRED OF BLACK CRIME???

San Francisco's Shopping Street Is Completely Empty | Literally No Stores Left

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m25PRgN2OYs

Police Investigate Sikh 7-Eleven Workers Who Resisted Robber

If your store is being robbed over and over again, the police can't help.

August 7, 2023 by Daniel Greenfield 18 Comments

Newsletter

In a pro-crime system, committing crimes isn’t a crime, but resisting criminals is the only real crime.

The video of 7-Eleven Sikh workers standing up and fighting back against a criminal who was boldly looting the store even as they were being told that they should shut up and take it has gone viral.

And now the police are investigating the workers for stopping a criminal.

Here comes the investigation.

Stockton police said they are investigating the assault of a 7-Eleven robbery suspect by two workers and say the suspected thief is believed to have robbed the store two other times within the same 24-hour period.

Video of the July 29 assault has gained national attention. In the more than five-minute clip, a man can be seen emptying shelves of cigarettes and other products from the store’s shelves before the clerks step in to stop him. The clip shows one of the clerks pinning the man down while another beats the would-be thief with what appears to be a pole.

Stockton police said in an update Saturday that they were aware of two other reports of early morning robberies at the 7-Eleven location involving the same suspected thief, one on July 28 and another on July 29.

Police said that on July 28 at 3:41 a.m., a 7-Eleven worker reported the suspect going behind the counter and threatening to shoot the clerk if he intervened. The suspect then took several packs of cigarettes in a large garbage bag before fleeing.

On July 29 at 12:27 a.m., a 7-Eleven worker reported the suspect demanding money at the store while simulating that he had a handgun. When the worker didn’t comply, the suspect grabbed food items and put them in a garbage bag before leaving, police said.

At some point later in the morning, the man is believed to have returned to the store, police said. That’s when the beating captured in the viral video took place.

They said that after their investigation concludes, they will forward the findings to the San Joaquin County district attorney for review.

If your store is being robbed over and over again, the police can’t help, but if you stand up to the criminal, suddenly there’s an investigation. But when your store is being robbed over and over again, there’s no investigation.

Daniel Greenfield

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

Reader Interactions

Video shows suspects steal $300,000 worth of designer goods in 'flash mob burglary'

https://news.yahoo.com/video-shows-suspects-steal-300-001051479.html

 

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0:42

 

 

 

'Flash mob' burglarizes high-end store in California, steals $300,000 worth of merchandise

4.5k

Saman Shafiq, USA TODAY

Updated Thu, August 10, 2023 at 7:17 PM PDT

A high-end designer store in Glendale, California was looted by dozens of people in a flash mob burglary on Tuesday, Glendale Police said.

At least 30 suspects "flooded" the Yves Saint Laurent store in The Americana at Brand Tuesday afternoon and stole clothing and other merchandise before fleeing on foot and leaving the location in numerous vehicles, said police in a statement. An investigation into the incident is underway. The total loss is estimated to be approximately $300,000.

The Americana is a major indoor-outdoor hub in Glendale adjacent to Northeast and Downtown Los Angeles.

Video footage from the incident, captured by onlookers, shows dozens of masked individuals running out of the store with merchandise and other goods in their arms.

What is a 'flash mob' burglary?

"'Flash mob' burglaries involve a large, coordinated group of individuals simultaneously rushing into the store, overwhelming staff, and taking it over," explained the police, adding that suspects grab as much merchandise as they can before escaping in multiple vehicles.

More: Police arrest four accused of robbing Palm Desert mall jewelry store with sledgehammers

“This type of criminal activity will not be tolerated in Glendale," said Glendale Police Chief Manuel Cid in a statement, promising that the department will "pursue all leads and utilize every available resource to apprehend those responsible and bring them to justice."

Expect an elevated police presence in and around the downtown Glendale corridor, Cid added.

Caruso, the real estate company that owns The Americana at Brand is offering a reward of up to $50,000 for leads on the incident and suspects.

"Flash mob" burglars loot high-end retail store in California

Glendale Mayor Dan Brotman also expressed concern over the event saying that “this coordinated crime challenges our values, but our determination to uphold safety and unity is resolute."

Anyone with information should contact the Glendale Police Department or the L.A. Regional Crime Stoppers, if they wish to remain anonymous.

Retailers concerned over organized theft

Meanwhile, retailers like Target, Walmart, Dollar General and Home Depot have expressed concern and are sounding the alarm on retail theft in recent months. Missing inventory was discussed more this past quarter than any quarter on record, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Retailers have been increasingly concerned about a loss of profits because of shrinkage – an industry term that refers to the difference between the inventory a store has on its balance sheet and its actual inventory.

Target CEO Brian Cornell shared that shrinkage can be driven by multiple factors. The term includes everything from items lost or damaged items to theft by employees or visitors. He and other executives have sounded the alarm over a rise in organized retail theft in which thieves steal merchandise to resell for a profit, often online through sites like Amazon or eBay.

To combat such incidents, retailers are introducing strategies like shorter store hours, self-servicing locking cabinets or smart shopping carts. However, there is also a worry that such measures will impact customer service and hurt sales. Some retailers have also been pushing for stricter penalties for stealing to curb retail theft.

However, before any strong conclusions can be drawn about the impact of retail theft on profit, more needs to be learned by greater data gathering and analysis.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dozens of suspects steal luxury designer goods in 'flash mob' robbery 

CRIME IN AMERICA IS BLACK!

BLACK STORE LOOTER GETS THE SHIT BEAT OUT OF HIM

California 7-Eleven workers beat robber with stick until suspect starts crying

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIFKtOsZl8c

WATCH: Mass Looting of Gucci at L.A.’s Century City Mall

https://www.breitbart.com/crime/2023/08/03/watch-mass-looting-of-gucci-at-l-a-s-century-city-mall/

37

Matt Sayles / Associated Press

JOEL B. POLLAK

3 Aug 20230

2:31

Police confirmed Wednesday that a group of at least nine men had looted a Gucci store Monday at the Westfield Century City mall in Los Angeles, one of the most popular and upscale shopping centers in the city.

Video footage emerged almost immediately:

Breitbart News reached out to the management of the mall for confirmation and comment, and received no response. However, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) confirmed the event on Wednesday. The Los Angeles Times reported:

The Gucci store at a mall in Century City was robbed Monday by a large group of thieves, in a grab-and-dash heist that was caught on video, according to the Los Angeles Police Department and video of the incident.

A group of at least nine men could be seen sprinting out of the store around 3:10 p.m. Monday in video posted to Twitter. The LAPD confirmed that there was a robbery at a store at Westfield Century City mall. It was not immediately clear if the men were armed or if anyone was injured.

…

Bystanders looked on and took video, while a lone security guard walked helplessly behind the men as they sprinted away, the video shows. A suited man who appeared to work for Gucci could be heard on the phone calling the police.

The Century City mall is in the heart of west Los Angeles, near the Fox studio lot and surrounded by office complexes housing Hollywood’s top agents and entertainment lawyers.

Mass looting events have been an increasing problem in many American cities, ever since the Black Lives Matter riots in 2020. In November 2021, a mob looted stores in San Francisco’s Union Square, reviving the national trend. A similar mob looted stores in L.A., but all of the perpetrators who were arrested were let go. Another mob looted a luxury store in Malibu last year.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

CUT AND PASTE YOUTUBE LINKS

Shoplifting is tax evasion

By Nick Lopez

Pop quiz:  A progressive city institutes a 9.7% sales tax, how much tax revenue do they lose on shoplifted goods?

It's a good question, one that needs to be properly researched, answered, and thrown in the face of the tax and spend liberals.

When an item is shoplifted, the local taxing authority cannot collect sales tax on that item.  The stolen item also contributes to the stores shrinkage, making the company less profitable... And subject to smaller income tax the state can collect.

Most of the items stolen are resold.  Sometimes online, sometimes on the street in front of the store the item was stolen from.  No sales tax is collected on the sale of the stolen items.

Although the stolen items are sold at a significant discount, the profit margin for the thief is 100%.  Despite the huge profit margin, shoplifting rings probably don't file tax returns on the income made from the sale stolen merchandise. And yet another chance for tax collection is bypassed.

If the shoplifter is selling the item right outside the store it was stolen from (this is happening in Chicago and San Francisco), the government misses yet another taxing opportunity when the thief sells to someone who was on their way to buy the item legitimately.

When the store goes out of business because of shoplifting, the city loses property tax, all sales tax, and the state loses income tax from the corporation and from the laid off employees and managers.

When stores fire employees for reporting shoplifting, they help the shoplifter cheat the government even more by taking away income tax revenue in addition to the lost sales tax.

Retail theft is tax evasion.  Can governments that have huge unfunded pensions (like Illinois) really afford to ignore the loss of tax revenue from retail theft?

Refusal to prosecute retail theft is the equivalent of using tax dollars to fund organized retail theft gangs.  The big city liberals might as well be collecting money from working people and handing big bundles of cash to everyone who is in jail.

The government has 48,000 new, armed IRS agents, perhaps they should be out busting people who are evading taxes... Like shoplifters.

Image: Fastly

The Gift That Keeps On Giving: Chicago Man Charged in Years Long $6M Home Depot Scam

92

Chicago Police Department

AMY FURR

28 Jul 2023293

4:00

Officials have charged a fourth suspect in a fraud scam that caused Home Depot stores in Chicago to lose a massive chunk of money.

In an article published Thursday, CWB Chicago said it reported in May the stores were defrauded by several individuals who racked up $900 credits over 6,000 times for one purchase a few years prior:

Officials said the scam began in March 2020 when someone purchased more than $6,000 from the home improvement chain’s 2570 North Elston location. Days later, someone returned to the store and said the purchase was for a tax-exempt church. A store employee accepted the tax-exempt documents and issued the representative a $900 gift card for the tax value.

Taxes on the purchase were $555, and that receipt was recycled for three years to make over 6,000 gift cards. Many of those cards had $900 on them.

“Cashiers scanned the receipt bar code from an accomplice’s phone each time, manually entered the tax exemption information, and then cut a gift card for the difference,” the report continued, noting some of the cashiers made several gift cards for the same purchase at one time, and some had a copy of the receipt saved on their phones to use.

He said the company was investing in more security guards, lighting, and additional lighting in parking lots, along with recording towers, in order to remedy the problem.

“And it’s not a place that many of us in retail thought we’d have to be,” he added.In December, an 83-year-old Home Depot worker in North Carolina died after reportedly being shoved by an alleged shoplifter, according to Breitbart News.

Gary Rasor, the victim, was allegedly assaulted at the store in Hillsborough when he tried to confront a man who was allegedly stealing pressure washers.

“Rasor suffered several fractured bones, and he was in the hospital for weeks and unable to walk. His condition worsened after he viewed footage of the incident for the first time, according to his wife,” the outlet said.

BLACKS APPEAR TO BE THE MOST VIOLENT SUBCULTURE IN THE WORLD

Witnesses described the  suspect as a black man wearing a gold chain and a navy shirt, the Daily Mail said. Officers called a Level One Mobilization and have a person in custody, but did not confirm the suspect’s description. New York City Councilmember Erik Bottcher said  the man had “mental health issues.”

Police: Suspect Stabbed Multiple People Outside Famous New York City Bakery

5

iStock/Getty Images Plus

ELAINE MALLON

27 Jul 2023105

3:01

A man is in custody after stabbing two people with scissors outside of Magnolia’s Bakery in West Village in New York City on Wednesday morning.

A 911 call was made at 9:58 a.m. First responders arrived on the scene quickly to treat the victims, Citizen reported.  The man allegedly slashed a 24-year-old man in the arm and another man in the neck, the Daily Mail reported. Both are in stable condition.

Witnesses described the  suspect as a black man wearing a gold chain and a navy shirt, the Daily Mail said. Officers called a Level One Mobilization and have a person in custody, but did not confirm the suspect’s description. New York City Councilmember Erik Bottcher said  the man had “mental health issues.”

Eli Klein, 45, witnessed the attack while he was walking with his wife and infant daughter on the sidewalk. They ran away as soon as the incident broke out.

“It happened so close – it was 10, 15ft away – and we were on the same side of the sidewalk,” Klein told the DailyMail. “Normally I would stop to help the guy or take a picture of the suspect and give it to the police but in this instance, I had my baby with me, we just ran, we didn’t wait.”

Owner of a nearby art gallery and a lifelong resident of New York, Klein said crime has become a greater worry.

“We’ve seen a steady decrease since whenever it was, decades ago, but unfortunately the decrease has stopped,” Klein told the DailyMail. “It’s not like it was in the 1980s or the early 90s, when it was much worse than this, but you want things to keep getting better and the improvement, the overall trajectory, has stopped.”

 Crime statistics from November 2022 revealed just how prevalent violence and lawlessness have become in the big apple.

Breitbart News’s Amy Furr reported:

Crime in New York City increased over the past year but New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) claims data did not show bail reform as being the problem.

The New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) recent crime statistics show that year to date, rape was up 10.9 percent, robbery up 32.4 percent, burglary up 29.1 percent, and grand larceny up 38.5 percent.

During an interview Friday on CNN, Hochul asserted that “the data is not showing” that bail reform is causing the surge in crime, and “There are individual cases, but compared to pre-pandemic and when this was passed, I don’t think there’s a real disparity.”

The New York Bail Reform law went into effect on January 1, 2020.

Researchers from John Jay College of Criminal Justice found that more than 72 percent of violent crime suspects freed without bail were rearrested, compared to fewer than 62 percent who were rearrested before the bail reform law, Breitbart News reported.

James Lee Ramsey, 27, allegedly kicked the elderly victim to the ground just after 11 a.m. Friday on Ellis Street, the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office said Tuesday.

88-Year-Old Asian Woman Faces Life-Threatening Injuries After Unprovoked Attack in San Francisco

Getty Images

Thomas McKenna

July 26, 2023

A California man is under arrest after he allegedly violently assaulted an elderly woman in San Francisco last week, as crime rises and businesses leave the city.

After spitting in the face of another victim, 27-year-old James Lee Ramsey allegedly kicked the 88-year-old Asian-American woman to the ground Friday morning in downtown San Francisco, according to Fox News. Bystanders detained Ramsey until police arrived. The woman was brought to the hospital with life-threatening injuries.

The unprovoked attack comes as San Francisco struggles with out-of-control crime, drug use, and homelessness that are driving businesses out of the city and state. Homicides and fentanyl deaths in San Francisco have both spiked in the past three years, with homicides increasing nearly 40 percent. More than half a million residents fled California in the two years after the pandemic’s start, according to the New York Post. More than 350 companies left California between 2018 and 2021, according to the California Globe.

Ramsey was charged with felony elder abuse and assault, as well as two misdemeanors for battery and vandalism.

San Francisco district attorney Brooke Jenkins called Ramsey's alleged crimes "horrific" and said she is "fed up with brazen violence."

Jenkins took office last July after her predecessor, Chesa Boudin, was recalled. During his stint as DA, Boudin ended cash bail and announced he would not prosecute a slew of misdemeanors, including prostitution and public urination.

Published under: California , Crime , San Francisco

Five-Year-Old on Cocaine Fatally Shoots 16-Month-Old on Marijuana

1

Laurent Hamels/Getty Images

AWR HAWKINS

27 Jul 20230

2:22

A five-year-old Indiana boy, allegedly high on cocaine, shot and killed his 16-month-old brother, who was allegedly high on marijuana, in March of this year.

The Daily Mail reported that 27-year-old Deonta Jermaine Johnson was in the apartment asleep when the five-year-old allegedly shot 16-month-old Isiah Johnson in the head.

CBS News noted that Johnson is the father of the deceased 16-month-old, not the five-year-old.

Initially, Johnson allegedly denied having a gun and claimed the 16-month-old had fallen or was otherwise injured by his brother. As police searched the apartment, they found a gun locked in a safe and another “in the drawer of a dresser,” according to the Daily Mail. Officers also discovered “93 fentanyl pills, marijuana, and drug paraphernalia inside the apartment.”

Prosecutors have since charged Johnson and 24-year-old Shatia Tiara Welch “with neglect and various drug charges.” Johnson also faces obstruction of justice charges for allegedly taking marijuana out of the apartment and hiding it in his car before officers arrived on the scene.

Deonta Jermaine Johnson, 27, and Shatia Tiara Welch, 24 (LaPorte Police Department)

On April 15, 2023, the day of Isiah’s funeral, Welch posted on Facebook, “Today has been the hardest day of my life. HOW Tf do I say goodbye to my son my one-year-old baby? S*** so crazy I lost my best friend March 28th my life will NEVER be the same.”

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 and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.

33 Shot in Chicago in Bloody Weekend Under Soft-on-Crime Mayor

A crime scene in Chicago, 2021 (Getty Images)

Thomas McKenna

July 25, 2023

A slew of weekend shootings over the weekend left at least 33 shot—with 6 dead and 27 wounded—in Chicago, where the Democratic mayor has called "defund the police" a "real political goal."

The city has averaged 13 homicides per week in the past year, compared with 10 per week in 2019, according to a local ABC affiliate. The bloody weekend was the deadliest this month.

The shootings come under the tenure of recently elected mayor Brandon Johnson, who took office in May after arguing the city should "have health professionals, not police, respond to crisis calls." He was the only candidate who did not support filling the 1,600 vacancies in the Chicago Police Department. Johnson’s predecessor, former mayor Lori Lightfoot, pushed similar soft-on-crime policies that included hiring mental health workers "to respond to 911 calls."

The City Council is set to hold a hearing titled "Treatment, Not Trauma," which aims to reform how the police respond to mental health crises.

After a violent weekend in April in which hundreds of juveniles wreaked havoc downtown, Johnson said the smashed windows and wounded bystanders were due to a lack of "spaces for youth to gather safely." The city sent "peacekeepers" into the streets to stop violence during Memorial Day weekend but subsequently charged a man wearing a peacekeeper’s vest in connection with a street scuffle.

Published under: Brandon Johnson , Chicago , Crime

33 Shot in Chicago in Bloody Weekend Under Soft-on-Crime Mayor

A crime scene in Chicago, 2021 (Getty Images)

Thomas McKenna

July 25, 2023

A slew of weekend shootings over the weekend left at least 33 shot—with 6 dead and 27 wounded—in Chicago, where the Democratic mayor has called "defund the police" a "real political goal."

The city has averaged 13 homicides per week in the past year, compared with 10 per week in 2019, according to a local ABC affiliate. The bloody weekend was the deadliest this month.

The shootings come under the tenure of recently elected mayor Brandon Johnson, who took office in May after arguing the city should "have health professionals, not police, respond to crisis calls." He was the only candidate who did not support filling the 1,600 vacancies in the Chicago Police Department. Johnson’s predecessor, former mayor Lori Lightfoot, pushed similar soft-on-crime policies that included hiring mental health workers "to respond to 911 calls."

The City Council is set to hold a hearing titled "Treatment, Not Trauma," which aims to reform how the police respond to mental health crises.

After a violent weekend in April in which hundreds of juveniles wreaked havoc downtown, Johnson said the smashed windows and wounded bystanders were due to a lack of "spaces for youth to gather safely." The city sent "peacekeepers" into the streets to stop violence during Memorial Day weekend but subsequently charged a man wearing a peacekeeper’s vest in connection with a street scuffle.

Published under: Brandon Johnson

New York City has a shoplifting problem, but kiosks aren’t going to stop it

 

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/05/new_york_city_has_a_shoplifting_problem_but_kiosks_arent_going_to_stop_it.html

 

By Andrea Widburg

Like all Democrat-run cities that turned against police in 2020, New York City has a crime problem, including an explosive uptick in shoplifting. Fortunately for New York City store owners, Mayor Eric Adams has a plan. The problem is that, as with all lefty plans, it will cost money and almost certainly be completely useless.

Ever since the George Floyd riots caused leftist-managed cities to defund their police, all sorts of crimes have increased. In New York City, the crime that’s really taken off is shoplifting.

In the first eight months of 2021, shoplifting in New York increased by 30% over rates in 2020. Of course, one could argue that slowly ending the lockdown was what made the difference. However, that wouldn’t explain what happened in 2022. In that year, shoplifting went up by another 45% over rates in 2021, with an even better marker being the fact that it was 275% higher than a decade or so earlier.

Shoplifting may be a non-violent crime, but it has a disastrous effect on people in the community because stores, including big box stores, respond to theft in two different ways: First, they raise their prices; then when that proves ineffective, they pick up their marbles and go home by shutting down stores. In San Francisco, for example, Walgreens closed five stores due to shoplifting. Target, meanwhile, predicts that retail crime will cost it as much as $1.3 billion:

Crime-battered retail giant Target said it expects to suffer as much as a $1.3 billion hit to its bottom line because of “theft and organized crime,” according to the company’s first-quarter earnings report released Wednesday.

The Minneapolis-based chain said its profit will be squeezed by “$500 million more than what we saw last year” – when the company lost as much as $800 million from “inventory shrink.”

Considering that Target voiced its full-throated support for BLM and dug deep in its pocket to support the communist organization, one can’t help but notice an “actions have consequences” scenario at work. That’s a shame because Target used to be a very nice place. Now, though, aside from shoplifting, lots of people (me included) are fed up with its Pride shenanigans, which it’s now aimed at children. But I digress…

New York mayor Eric Adams seems to have been feeling the heat from merchants in New York City, so his office has announced a “crackdown on shoplifting plan.” As always, though, when the government steps in to help, the devil is in the details:

 

 

And yes, that screen shot is real, not a Photoshop. According to Fox 5’s full report,

The new crackdown includes giving first-time offenders intervention programs instead of prosecution, de-escalation training for retail employees, establishing neighborhood retail watch groups to share information about a theft in real-time with one another and the police, and installing kiosks in stores to connect would-be thieves with social service programs.

One of the things that everyone has noticed about shoplifters is that they’re not starved, Dickensian-style waifs stealing a loaf of bread to survive. Instead, they’re organized gangs that go in and steal merchandise that has a good retail value on the street:

 

Or if they’re eating what they steal, it’s party time, not starvation time:

 

What’s happening is organized crime:

 

In other words, little police kiosks promising social services (which will augment all the posters about social services in the crime-ridden NY subway) are not going to change things. Nor will friendly little “intervention programs” affect what is hardcore criminal activity. The NYC plan is taking a flyswatter to an out-of-control wild boar.

I would say that the people of NYC deserve better but, actually, they don’t. This is what they voted for. It’s not just that Adams garnered 80.4% of the vote in Manhattan, 76% in the Bronx, 70.8% in Brooklyn, and 59.8% in Queens, with only Staten Island showing the good sense to vote for Curtis Sliwa (66.4% of the votes). It’s also that a total of only 1,125,000 turned out to vote, out of a city with a population that’s close to 9,000,000.

The only ones I feel for are the conservatives (some of whom I count among my good friends) who took the time and made the effort to vote. As to those people, I’ve heard that Florida’s a nice place, as are most of the southern states.

Image: Twitter screen grab.

BLACKS = THE MOST VIOLENT SUBCULTURE IN THE WORLD

Shocking video captures BLACK woman startling shoppers in Venice with pickaxe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo8SPtmhLX0

 

BLACK Man violently strikes a small child at a Walgreens in Miami

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdJtYKdnYlk

 

Two BLACK men arrested, two detained in chop shop takedown

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5fj1zm29dY

BLACKS DRAG WOMAN OUT OF CAR

Jenkintown Police Chief Credits Tips, Work by Detectives For Finding Two Suspects In Road Rage Assau

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuoPzt0KChs

A Chicago man shot and killed the mother of his children while on bond for being a felon in possession of a weapon in April and then fled to Texas, prosecutors said Tuesday. The murder of Jessica Johnson, 30, came just a few months after Edward Roscoe, 29, allegedly dropped their 4-month-old daughter, killing her.

 

THE REALITY OF THE STAGGERING EPIDEMIC BLACK CRIME TIDAL WAVE IN AMERICA!

 

BLACKS ARE 15xs to 30xs MORE LIKELY TO PERPETRATE VIOLENCE THAN WHITES.

 

Dr. Williams comments on another reality: that the rate of black homicide and armed robbery as well as other violent crimes are as is as much as 15–30 times more than whites

Blacks are also overrepresented among perpetrators of hate crimes—by 50 percent—according to the most recent Justice Department data from 2017; whites are underrepresented by 24 percent. This is particularly true for anti-gay and anti-Semitic hate crimes.

 

Police: 3 BLACK Suspects Attacking Jewish Children As Young As 3 In Brooklyn

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGpYM78c36I

 

Columbia University Student Davide Giri Stabbed To Death Near Morningside Park; Suspected Gang Membe

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ff-mymRrpsw

 

This is happening all over the country: Watters

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8HcukWuw_Y

 

 

Florida law enforcement targets BLACK smash-and-grab thefts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBrQaRgunss&t=10s

 

 

 

llinois authorities recover millions worth of stolen goods connected to organized retail theft

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9bUrxDMDv0

 

 

Jack London Square Residents Frustrated Over Rampant Car Break-Ins

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1jRv59x40c

 

 

Police looking for burglar who slithered across floor at Riverside hair salon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtk7kXtJkEU

 

 

Video shows armed robbery in the Fairfax District

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZf4WA-rG0I

 

NAME A SINGLE THING THE BANKSTER REGIME OF GAMER LAWYER BARACK

OBAMA, LAWYER JOE BIDEN AND LAWYER ERIC HOLDER DID FOR 

BLACKS DURING THE 8 YEARS THEY WERE SURRENDERING OUR BORDERS TO

MEXICO!

The WORST Democrat Cities in the United States

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7RgqngPUnw

 

Every year in America, some 500 whites are murdered by black assailants, more than twice as many as blacks killed by whites.  The media need to report all of these cases fairly and without bias so as to counter the false reporting and misplaced emphasis in the national press.  All victims, of whatever race, deserve justice because all human life is precious.  The reporting of violence should not be based on race — it should be proportionate to the crime, without regard to the race of the perpetrator or the victim.  Jeffrey Folks 

Smash-and-Grab BLACK Thieves Hit San Jose Eastridge Mall Jewelry Store

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVH7rS40tLo

 

 

Police: Harlem Man Sprayed With Unknown Substance, Struck With Stick During BLACK Assault

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o1yMO1ib10

 

 

14 BLACK suspects arrested in LA smash-and-grab

 robberies | ABC7

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY6rfAUmEe8

 

 

FBI Offers Reward For Justin Smith, Suspected Of Killing Pregnant Girlfriend Dianna Brice In Philade

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vmzzv-VE7kA

 

 

More details revealed after DNA leads to arrest in cold-case murder

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhKjXJqjg7o

 

AT THIS TIME, THERE MAY BE NO GREATER THREAT TO AMERICA THAN BLACK VIOENCE AND LOOTING!

 

WILL BLACK LIVES LOOT FINISH OFF RETAIL STORES?

A Holiday Crisis is Imminent as Retailers Face Bankruptcy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RLH4Jd_7a0

 

2 BLACK men wanted in connection with CTA Red Line robbery

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aYrc61gIGw

 

BLACK CAR THEFT

'Shocks the conscience': Chicago police arrested 11-year-old BLACK BOY for carjacking, Brown says

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqEnkK9yCfc 

 

Watson Video: The Truth About the Christmas Parade Killer

The real story is magically disappearing.

Tue Nov 30, 2021 

Paul Joseph Watson

 2 comments

 

 

Video commentator Paul Joseph Watson gets to the truth behind the media disinformation surrounding the horrific act of vehicular terrorism by a black supremacist who intentionally ran down dozens of parade-goers recently in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

Check out the short video below:

 

 

 

REALITY: BLACKS ARE THE MOST VIOLENT SUBCULTURE IN THE WORLD!

Avant murder suspect arrested in Hollywood Hills

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKQIUM5gr64

 

BLACK Suspects Rob Woman Returning To Hancock Park Home With Her Baby

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4sHPXEZC7E

 

 

Suspect arrested in killing of Jacqueline Avant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJKpsa4IgJE

 

Suspect in custody in shooting death of Jacqueline Avant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5lRjUhDClY

 

 

 

BLACK Woman Extradited To Face Charges For Execution-Style Murder Of Brooklyn Mother

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13XRRxC4NiA

 

 

BLACK Woman accused of pushing man off bus to his death faces new charge

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzuklP_uoEY

 

 

 

Thieves Ransack Louis Vuitton Store in San Francisco Union Square

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5ZGM6kXi9A

Man accused of stabbing his father 46 times is now under arrest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdNUqfXF8sg

BLACK MAN STABS VICTIM IN NECK

‘Gruesome' Random Stabbing Outside WeHo Whole Foods Leaves Man Bleeding on Sidewalk

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/gruesome-random-stabbing-outside-weho-whole-foods-leaves-man-bleeding-on-sidewalk/ar-AAQUSH4?ocid=wispr&li=BBnbfcL

 

Soros Prosecutors Let BLACK Sex-Offender CVS Burglar Free

Virginia Commonwealth's attorneys frequently let criminals walk

https://freebeacon.com/democrats/soros-prosecutors-let-sex-offender-cvs-burglar-free/

 

Man Attacked Inside Apartment During Bushwick Robbery

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAdUZ2VTRxI

 

BLACK Suspects will face ethnic intimidation charges in SEPTA attack: Police

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mQNkLSPnq4

VIDEO

Asian students attacked by group of BLACK teens on SEPTA train in Philadelphia, suspects to face charges

https://news.yahoo.com/asian-students-attacked-group-teens-210608683.html

Report: Four BLACK Teens Allegedly Murdered 60-Year-Old in Dallas Parking Lot

https://www.breitbart.com/crime/2021/11/18/report-four-teens-allegedly-murdered-60-year-old-dallas-parking-lot/

Records said four capital murder suspects arrested for Tuesday’s murder of a man at a Costco parking lot in Dallas are young people, according to Fox 4.

BLACK Suspect(s) wanted in a series of aggravated robberies in Houston at the 9700 block of S. Post Oak.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bf14OIeDxoA

 

Police: Deliveryman shoots armed suspects trying to rob him, killing one

https://6abc.com/shooting-attempted-robbery-philadelphia-crime-city/11256875/

 

Police say while the armed suspects searched the victims car, he managed to pull out his gun and shoot the would-be robbers.

 

 

Police: 2 BLACK men arrested for shooting of armored car guards, killing accomplices short time later

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LepMCucS41s

 

 

BLACK Teen arrested for fatally shooting mother who was reading Bible to daughter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSZV7FuQkfg

 

 

Rapper Young dolph shot and killed by BLACKS in his hometown 2021 (live)

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqOqcLQgy4A

 

 

Memphis police chief addresses Young Dolph shooting

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiD8O72bnQQ

 

Manhattan BLACK Gang Shootout Caught on Camera; 3 Hurt

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf7zNAnfFWM

 

 

 

BLACK Suspect sought in arson that killed 2 in Nicetown: Police

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZx6x5dSQDA

 

Rapper Young dolph shot and killed by BLACKS in his hometown 2021 (live)

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqOqcLQgy4A

 

Memphis police chief addresses Young Dolph shooting

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiD8O72bnQQ

 

Manhattan BLACK Gang Shootout Caught on Camera; 3 Hurt

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf7zNAnfFWM

 

 

 

BLACK Suspect sought in arson that killed 2 in Nicetown: Police

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZx6x5dSQDA

 

 

LAPD investigating 'follow-home' BLACK robberies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JG7oRRpaSdY 

 

Caught On Video: 70-Year-Old Woman's Purse Stolen At Brooklyn Store by BLACKS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tK5gsjxSSKU

 

 

Miami Beach business owners say videos BLACK show crime is out of control

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgiU1CHOwGM

 

BLACK Woman Extradited To Face Charges For Execution-Style Murder Of Brooklyn Mother

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13XRRxC4NiA

 

 

I-Team: BLACK Woman accused of pushing man off bus to his death faces new charge

II-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzuklP_uoEY

 

BLACK Thieves Ransack Louis Vuitton Store in San Francisco Union Square

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5ZGM6kXi9A

BLACK Man accused of stabbing his father 46 times is now under arrest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdNUqfXF8sg

 

BLACK ASSAULT

4 dead, including 2 former BLACK police officers on the run, following traffic stop

 https://www.yahoo.com/gma/former-police-officers-wanted-carjacking-172500157.html

 

 

Four people were pronounced dead following an attempted traffic stop in Maryland, as a manhunt was underway in the state for two former police officers who were considered armed and dangerous. On Thursday night, police confirmed two of the deceased were the former officers.

Three passengers were pronounced dead at the scene in Smithsburg late Thursday afternoon, including a female driver, an adult man and one child, according to Maryland State Police.

A fourth passenger, another child, was medevacked to a local hospital and pronounced dead, police said.

 

BLACK Mother In Custody In 1986 Cold Case Of ‘Baby John’ Found Dead In Dumpster In Greenwich

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PznuuUTMVQ8

 

 

 

 

BLACK Ex-NFL player Zac Stacy arrested after alleged brutal attack of woman in Florida, jail records show

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZM-Nsvxhnc

 

 

4 BLACK Teens Injured In Newburgh Shooting

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tqq7BqPHlg

 

 

 

BLACKS LOOTING - Aggravated robbery at a pharmacy located near Stella Link and S. Braeswood Blvd.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-xScXWNKVY

 

 

WATCH | Temple PD looking for BLACK suspects in wild shootout caught on camera

 

https://www.blogger.com/blog/posts/5440581937224467578

 

Insane: BLACK Hammer-wielding thieves invade Concord jewelry store, wiping store clean

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY0QR0zJ6EE

 

 

 

BLACK LIVES MURDER AND LOOT AND HAVE FOR A VERY LONG TIME!

 

https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2021/11/black-terrorism-in-america-murder-loot.html

 

Dr. Williams comments on another reality: that

the rate of black homicide and armed robbery as

well as other violent crimes are as is as much as

15–30 times more than whites

In reality, BLM is the very embodiment of Marxism, anti-Semitism, and racism—a trifecta of wickedness capable of destroying any society. John Perazzo 

Blacks are also overrepresented among perpetrators of hate crimes—by 50 percent—according to the most recent Justice Department data from 2017; whites are underrepresented by 24 percent. This is particularly true for anti-gay and anti-Semitic hate crimes.

 

 

 

BLACK LIVES MATTER CO-FOUNDER PURCHASES $1.4 MILLION HOME IN 0.4% BLACK COMMUNITY

 

 

https://www.theepochtimes.com/blm-co-founder-purchases-1-4-million-home-in-a-0-4-percent-black-population-community-larry-elder_3786037.html?utm_source=ai_recommender&utm_medium=a_bottom_above_etv

 

BLACK RACISM, ANTI-SEMITISM, ANTI-ASIAN, HOMOPHOBIC, VIOLENCE AND IGNORANCE AS DISPLAYED BY THIS CLOWN CHAPPELLE

Comedian Dave Chappelle’s The Closer: A racist tirade disguised as stand-up comedy

 

 

 

https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2021/10/dave-chappelle-one-more-racist-black.html

 

Blacks are also overrepresented among perpetrators of hate crimes—by 50 percent—according to the most recent Justice Department data from 2017; whites are underrepresented by 24 percent. This is particularly true for anti-gay and anti-Semitic hate crimes.

 

 

THE DEPRAVED GHETTO BLACK CULTURE IN AMERICA  - Is it the world’s most violent subculture?

https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2019/10/ghetto-black-violence-in-america-dr.html

 

Dr. Williams comments on another reality: that the rate of black homicide and armed robbery as well as other violent crimes are as is as much as 15–30 times more than whites

 

So, we have local black gang associates posting terror threats on social media -- threats of murder, by burning, directed at the women and children family members of white police employees -- immediately before the murder, by burning, of the white teenage daughter of a local police department employee. Plus, the killing took place only minutes after the victim was seen on video at the same location as the husband or boyfriend of the person who posted the threats, as he was filling a handheld can with gasoline.

 

BLACK HATE, RACISM AND VIOLENCE IN AMERICA

https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2021/11/black-lives-matters-threat-of-violence.html

 

Meanwhile BLM has demonstrated yet again that it's a violent hate group that engages in political terrorism. And yet our political class will insist that it's the new civil rights movement which is entirely "above politics" and may not be criticized.

 

Rutgers U. Faculty Groups Support BLACK Prof Who Said White People Are ‘Villains’ that Must Be ‘Taken Out’

Travis Scott has repeatedly given a snarling middle finger to the safety of his fans and this deadly, predictable disaster is a direct result of his arrogant and shameful recklessness

 https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2021/11/travis-scott-reminds-america-of-joke-of.html

 

Would-be BLACK thief fatally shot by Lakeview homeowner in shootout, police say

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeaeO3W7fd8

Raleigh BLACK man released on bond after crashing car related to 14 armed robberies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQTphSd5mXE

Two teens shot at by classmate’s BLACK mother, police say

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiJ04x-4Qn4

 

BLACK Angelo Ford Charged With First-Degree Murder For His Role In Fanta Billity's Death

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHvspqjXWgA

 

 BLACK VIOLENCE IN AMERICA  

 THE MURDER, MAYHEM AND LOOTING THAT IS SO MUCH A PART OF THE BLACK SUBCULTURE ACROSS AMERICA

 https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2021/08/black-violence-in-america-murder-mayhem.html

2 hurt when BLACK gunman opens fire at close range on crowded Philadelphia street

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AR_lpslyZM

BLACK Suspect arrested after throwing Molotov cocktail at Brooklyn deli, slashing man

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4diGwxzLKE

 

BLACK Chicago gun violence: Lightfoot, Brown urge public to speak up

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh6EO8KIXeo

 

BLACK Man shot at MS Dollar General, suspect detained

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmovrKr1iE0

  

Neighbors disturbed after two men found dead in SUV

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBoPTBMc4Y4

 

HOW MUCH OF THE NATIONWIDE SURGE IN VIOLENCE IS PERPETRATED BY BLACKS?

ONLY 8% OF THE POPULATION OF SAN FRANCISCO ARE BLACKS, AND YET THEY PERPETRATE 40% OF THE CRIME.

Would-be BLACK thief fatally shot by Lakeview homeowner in shootout, police say

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeaeO3W7fd8

 

NYPD: BLACK Man Sexually Assaulted 13-Year-Old Walking Home From School

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul3V_d56-KE

 

East Cleveland police: 3 BLACKS in custody, more wanted after woman tortured before murder

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7Q4FSD4dOQ

 

BLACKS Miramar High School students to be charged for murder as adults

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtzOEZ7fgOU

BLACK Robbery suspect shot and killed in Oakland gas station shootout identified

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHW7UQFeBFU

 Home Invasion Woman hides in bathroom and fires at BLACK burglars through the door

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3FhxGXVi5o

 Shocking video shows brazen BLACK thieves stealing from Ulta Beauty store

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhCTrcTzFYQ

 BLACK VIOLENCE

Man targeted by would-be BLACK robbers turns the table on suspects by opening fire in Fairfax

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLnN0cGgoPs

BLACK Woman charged after police say she tried to run a mother and her children off the road

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9FvjzywOiA

 Police say BLACK man stabbed wife, tried to vacuum blood

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2HvVanq4nw

  

Teenage girl kidnapped, stabbed by BLACKSand left for dead 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEfcCWoNEq0

 

Exclusive: Survivor of Wendy's fast food massacre in Flushing breaks silence after 20 years

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zte8tyGoV3I

Man chased, shot in the head and killed by BLACK mob in Queens

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8i4gZDSV14w

 Officer dragged by car in attempt to stop burglary

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhyVN69ls8E

 

Mom tells police her son confessed to Memphis shooting

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UNzniXuR3c

Police arrest Memorial Park BLACK rape suspect

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_CTw00ZoBo

 SHOCKING: Philadelphia police release video of deadly drive-by shooting; BLACK gunman still being sought

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoNwZowTEnk

 RAW: Violent shootout caught on camera at East St. Louis gas station

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roQ-ObzbDxU

 RAW VIDEO: Wild shootout in Northeast DC captured on home surveillance video | FOX 5 DC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3RiJxu-yKU

Surveillance video of Kirkwood home invasion by BLACK

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SitCOS3YXSU

 Killing caught on camera

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr0XvtpkE78

BLACK Intruder shot, killed after kicking in door, charging occupant with a knife

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PXJz38_7a8

 

VIDEO: BLACK Burglary suspected thwarted by gun-toting homeowner

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N1A9xT9cCA

 

Mother armed with shotgun scares off BLACK burglar in Miami Gardens

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o2eSvS8KPU

 

Video: Neptune Beach resident shoots at 3 BLACK armed robbers, police say

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjWxoHK-H5E

  

BLACK Woman arrested in Jacksonville in connection with execution-style killing in New York

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZ1bRRHVZUg

 

BLACK Man accused of knocking out woman, spitting on officer in Miami Beach

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0HmX9-A4pA

 

BLACK Mom charged with reckless driving with baby in car

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZW1q1IDQC8

 

BLACK Suspect in deadly shooting had 2020 murder charges

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s52_8qIw97Q

 

BLACK Woman charged with beating, shooting at boyfriend

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ7u3S_Shek

 

Woman killed, man hospitalized in South LA double shooting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gDfgjFdgxY

Former BLACK corrections employee fatally shot boyfriend in Miami Gardens, cops say

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOa1sgW-I6g

 

Surveillance video shows BLACK man stealing coveted puppy from pet store

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsqXrzqFD5o

 

Shooting outside North Miami Beach fast food restaurant under investigation

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwwD7_BAacA

 

BLACK female suspect appeared to stomp on the woman’s head multiple times.

VIDEO: NYC Woman Beaten, Stomped in Head During Alleged Robbery

 https://www.breitbart.com/crime/2021/10/13/video-nyc-woman-beaten-stomped-head-alleged-robbery/

 

AMY FURR

Police have released video of two people’s alleged attack on a woman in Brooklyn last week that resulted in her being taken to the hospital unconscious.

 At one point in the video, the BLACK female suspect appeared to stomp on the woman’s head multiple times.

Police told Pix 11 the attack was not random, and they believe it was the result of an earlier encounter between the victim and the female suspect.

 

BLACK RACISM, ANTI-SEMITISM, ANTI-ASIAN, HOMOPHOBIC, VIOLENCE AND IGNORANCE AS DISPLAYED BY THIS CLOWN CHAPPELLE

Comedian BLACK Dave Chappelle’s The Closer: A racist tirade disguised as stand-up comedy

 https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2021/10/dave-chappelle-one-more-racist-black.html

  

BLACK Thieves crash UHaul into auto parts store

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-fAr-bP3Ds

  Woman who livestreamed her looting spree in Chicago released from prison the same day she arrived to serve her 17-month sentence

 https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2021/11/blacks-and-looting-case-against-taeshia.html

 By Thomas Lifson

I’d like to be able to say “only in Chicago,” which seems to have become the world capital of street crime, but alas, “criminal justice reform” runs rampant – as do criminals, even those convicted of felonies

BLACK LOOTING IN S.F.

EXCLUSIVE: Two San Francisco Prosecutors Quit, Join Effort to Recall City's DA'

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqTfK2pRXs0

 

BIG SPIKE IN BLACK SHOPLIFTING, THIEVES GET MORE BRAZEN, POVERTY DANGER AHEAD WARNING

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4BMXf2G6h8

 Walgreens Closes Five Bay Area Stores amid Shoplifting Surge

https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2021/10/13/walgreens-closes-five-bay-area-stores-amid-shoplifting-surge/

 https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2021/10/black-lives-loot-walgreens-closes-five.html

 

 VIDEO

WATCH: Ulta Beauty Ransacked BY BLACKS During Store Hours in Chicago

https://www.breitbart.com/crime/2021/09/28/ulta-beauty-ransacked-during-store-hours-chicago/

  

11 BLACK Suspects Sought In $100K Handbag Heist At Palo Alto Louis Vuitton Store

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzIkiCOuQNE

 

Video shows suspected BLACK thieves sprinting out of California Neiman Marcus with designer handbags

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1ctqHXAcXM

 

Brazen BLACK shoplifting video in San Francisco becomes issue in California recall

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAIcsHh8vso

 

Brazen, Serial BLACK Shoplifter Appears In Court As DA Vows To Crack Down On Retail Thefts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvvnsvVJrdE

Busting an Organized BLACK Shoplifting Ring

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYFvtPM2su4

 

Vicky Nguyen Gets Inside Look At BLACK Retail Theft Rings | TODAY

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97x6bLB5RhM

 San Francisco locals react to rampant BLACK shoplifting, break-ins | Fox News Digital Original

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BU6o2MIuMQc

 

Target Cuts Store Hours in San Francisco Due to BLACK Shoplifting Surge

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NNjdF0cCuQ

 

BLACK Group steals $30K from store in seconds | FOX6 News Milwaukee

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S2pX-VRZXc

 

Major BLACK Arrest In $1 Million Apple Store Thefts

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0SCIkKgu7A

 

Apple Store BLACK Robbery Suspects Arrested

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT9Jc7lB_Zo

 

Pricey BLACK Heist Lasts 34 Seconds, Ends With $200K Jewelry Stolen

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09aI0HAqtBM

 

BLACK Jewelry heist captured on video at Avenues Mall store

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6goU5Fj_b8

 

BLACK Credit Card Thieves Caught on Tape Using Skimmers | Nightline | ABC

News

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAP7sVh4smc

BLACK Man Trapped Inside of Store After Serial Thieving Spree | I Survived a Crime | A&E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmLUEQUd6pQ

 https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2021/10/13/walgreens-closes-five-bay-area-stores-amid-shoplifting-surge/

 

Walgreens Closes Five Bay Area Stores amid BLACK Shoplifting Surge

Michael M. Santiago/Getty

PAUL BOIS

The ongoing shoplifting surge has forced Walgreens to close five more San Francisco stores as local law enforcement continues to do next to nothing to curtail the problem.

In a statement to SF Gate, Walgreens spokesman Phil Caruso confirmed “organized retail crime” has strangled San Francisco stores.

“Organized retail crime continues to be a challenge facing retailers across San Francisco, and we are not immune to that,” Caruso said. “Retail theft across our San Francisco stores has continued to increase in the past few months to five times our chain average.”

“During this time to help combat this issue, we increased our investments in security measures in stores across the city to 46 times our chain average in an effort to provide a safe environment,” he added.

Asha Safai, San Francisco Board of Supervisor for District 11 admitted to feeling “devastated” over the closure a Walgreens store that has “been a staple for seniors, families and children for decades.”

“I am completely devastated by this news – this Walgreens is less than a mile from seven schools and has been a staple for seniors, families and children for decades. This closure will significantly impact this community,” he tweeted.

 

Safai told SFGate that the shoplifting had crippled the store’s bottom-line and endangered the staff and customers to an unhealthy degree.

“This is a sad day for San Francisco,” Safai said. “We can’t continue to let these anchor institutions close that so many people rely on.”

Shoplifting has skyrocketed in San Francisco recently, likely a result of Proposition 47, which dictates stealing would not be a felony in California if the item stolen did not exceed $950.

The damage has been felt across a range of business outlets.

 

In May of this year, The San Francisco News described the situation as being “out of control,” noting that 17 Walgreens have had to close in the past five years due to rampant shoplifting in the city.

17 Walgreen locations in San Francisco have closed their doors within the last five years according to a report from the SF Chronicle. Ten of these closures transpired from 2019 to this year with the last Walgreens store to close its door as of this writing, back on March 17. The cause of the closures is due to rampant shoplifting and looting that has transpired at Walgreen locations in the city believed to be perpetuated by an organized crime ring.

On Thursday, May 13 a hearing was held by the Board of Supervisors with retailers, the SFPD, the district attorney’s office, and probation departments. Brendan Dugan, director of organized retail crime and corporate investigations, believes that San Francisco is at the center of organized retail crime. He brought up a state bust in the Bay Area from last year in which $8 million in stolen merchandise was confiscated from five suspects. The merchandise came from CVS, Target and Walgreens stores from all across San Francisco.

The lack of enforcement made shoplifters so nonchalant and casual they would often steal in broad daylight while awestruck customers documented the crime on their iPhones, allowing for some viral internet moments.

 

 

CrimeEconomyLaw and OrderCaliforniaSan FranciscoshopliftingWalgreens

 

San Francisco Safeway Cuts Hours Due to Rampant Shoplifting

383waltarrrrr / Flickr / CC / Cropped

JOEL B. POLLAK

A prominent Safeway supermarket in the Castro district of San Francisco is limiting its hours due to rampant shoplifting, the latest example of a retail store closing or limiting its operations in the left-liberal city due to out-of-control petty crime.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported Saturday:

Shoppers at the Safeway in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood will see a noticeable change to the store: It now closes at 9 p.m. due to what one supervisor described as “out of control” shoplifting.

Once open 24 hours a day, the Safeway store on Market and Church streets now has the earliest closing hours of all the Pleasanton-based supermarket chain’s San Francisco storefronts, most of which stay open until midnight.

…

[San Francisco Supervisor Rafael] Mandelman said theft at the Safeway at 2020 Market Street has been “out of control” and recently met with Safeway representatives “to better understand the issues at this store.” He said he also planned to meet with the San Francisco Police Department and the office of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin “to see what is currently being done to deter theft at Safeway, and to figure out a plan to do better.”

Earlier this year, Walgreens closed 17 stores in the city due to shoplifting, which skyrocketed after California voters passed Proposition 47, a ballot initiative aimed at criminal justice reform, which reclassified thefts up to $950 as misdemeanors. As a result, such thefts are rarely prosecuted.

The crime spike began under former district attorney George Gascón, who is now district attorney for Los Angeles County, and has continued under Chesa Boudin, who now faces a likely recall election.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

 

ONLY 8% OF THE POPULATION OF SAN FRANCISCO IS BLACK. THEY PERPETRATE 40% OF THE CRIMES. 

SEVEN WALGREENS HAVE CLOSED DUE TO BLACK LOOTING. 

SEE THE VIDEOS BELOW.

 

San Fran patrol special officer rips Pelosi's inaction over BLACK crime surge: She doesn't care

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SewBXWKj2g

 

 

 

Is Stealing Wrong?

Not on the Left.

Thu Nov 4, 2021 

Dennis Prager

 16 comments

 

 

To most readers of this column, the question is absurd. The reason is not because the question is, in fact, absurd; it is because most readers of this column are conservative, and many are religious.

Am I implying that most leftists do not believe stealing is wrong?

Yes, I am.

As incredible as this assertion is to just about all religious people and virtually all conservatives, most leftists do not believe stealing is wrong. Since I always draw a distinction between those on the Left and liberals, let me add that I suspect most liberals think stealing is wrong. But it almost doesn't matter because they vote for people who do not think it is.

One proof is the passage of Proposition 47, a California ballot initiative passed in 2014, under which theft of less than $950 in goods is treated as a nonviolent misdemeanor and rarely prosecuted. As a result, in Democrat-run California cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, retail theft has soared.

Walgreens stores in San Francisco are racking up four times the average amount of theft in Walgreens stores across the country; spending on security guards in San Francisco is 35 times more than the chain's average in other cities. Walgreens has been forced to close 22 stores in the city since 2016.

As reported in the San Francisco Chronicle: "The Safeway located in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood ... was a longstanding, 24-hour fixture in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood. But as of last week, the store's hours have been cut back to 6 a.m. to 9 p.m ... A Safeway spokesperson (said) that the cutbacks are 'due to an increasing amount of theft at the store.'"

Further proof that the Left doesn't consider theft wrong — at least when committed by a person of color — was an interview broadcast on NPR last year with the author of a book titled "In Defense of Looting." The NPR interviewer threw only softball questions to the author.

In the last election, Los Angeles voters elected San Francisco's previous district attorney, George Gascon, as Los Angeles's district attorney. It was Los Angeles's way of declaring that stealing is not wrong. And it is worth noting that it is not only racial minorities and the poor who make these elections possible; it is also prosperous whites. The Los Angeles DA is a wealthy white, and he was supported by a white billionaire, George Soros.

It is hard to believe that millions of Americans do not deem stealing from stores morally wrong, so let's try to explain how this has come about.

Reason No. 1 is moral relativism. For as long as there has been a Left, it has rejected moral absolutes. As the great British historian, Paul Johnson, pointed out a half-century ago in his magnum opus, "Modern Times," the secular world applied the relativism of the natural sciences to morality.

Reason No. 2 is the reason for reason number one: the collapse of the Judeo-Christian value system and the accompanying abandonment of, and often disdain for, biblical ethics. Biblical morality posits moral absolutes — meaning that stealing is wrong for everyone, certainly people of every color. Yes, one can offer a biblical defense of a starving man stealing food for his starving family. But that is hardly what is happening in San Francisco and other American cities.

Reason No. 3 is Marxist morality. From Marx to the present, Marxism has divided the world not between right and wrong, but between economic classes. Therefore, it is morally acceptable for members of the poorer classes to steal from members of the more affluent classes. This notion has made its way into young people's minds for decades. About 30 years ago, I spoke to students from four Cleveland high schools. I asked them to raise their hand if they would steal something they really wanted from a department store if they were certain they would not get caught. Nearly all the students raised their hands. When I asked some of them to justify their reasoning, they all said the same thing: they wouldn't steal from a mom-and-pop store, but they would steal from a department store. It is OK to steal from "the rich."

Reason No. 4 is leftists' view of nonwhites, especially blacks, a view that conservatives have never shared. Leftists truly believe that blacks are intellectually and morally inferior to whites. The evidence? They do not believe blacks should be held to the same intellectual and moral standards to which leftists hold whites. Leftists do not defend whites who steal, and they hold whites to higher intellectual standards. Leftists do not argue for lowering math standards for whites, only for blacks.

The bottom line is the Left is immoral. That is why it defends stealing.

 

 ONLY LOS ANGELES?!?

     CRIME IN AMERICA IS BLACK! 

 

Residents of L.A.’s Watts Urged to Avoid Large Gatherings Due to Shootings

40

Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times via Getty

JOEL B. POLLAK

3 Aug 2023156

2:52

Residents of Watts, a predominantly Latino and black neighborhood in south-central Los Angeles, are being discouraged from attending large gatherings for the rest of 2023 due to the recent surge of drive-by and mass shootings in the area.

The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday:

Leaders have now called on Watts residents not to congregate in large groups for the rest of 2023.

…

The impassioned calls for “unity within the community” arrived on the heels of two shootings that killed two and injured nine near the Imperial Courts and Jordan Downs public housing projects, according to LAPD Deputy Chief Emada Tingirides. She told The Times that law enforcement agencies were investigating the recent shootings.

…

Attendees were told during Tuesday’s briefing that both of the incidents involved lone gunmen. Disrespectful posts on social media likely fueled some of the shootings, which Rejón says is a trend that has picked up in other major cities across the country in recent years. He blames social media and online “rumor mills” that help disrespectful messages feed into a larger conflict.

The ongoing violence comes amid calls by newly-installed Mayor Karen Bass to hire 1,000 new Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers to bring the force back to 10,000 cops. Her predecessor, Mayor Eric Garcetti, vowed to cut $150 million from the LAPD during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, and to redistribute the funding to “communities of color.”

When Breitbart News asked Garcetti whether that would make such communities unsafe, he denied that it would. He also decried “systemic racism,” which he defined, when asked, as “racism that’s built into systems.” He is now U.S. Ambassador to India.

Crime has surged in many American cities in recent years, over a period that has coincided with the election of radical left-wing prosecutors, many of them backed by billionaire Democratic Party patron George Soros, such as Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón. Gascón has focused on reducing criminal penalties for violent felons, rather than reducing crime.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

Meanwhile, Johnson has busied himself with looking to put $25 million in city funds to house illegal aliens, and turning several of the city’s schools and colleges into shelters for illegal aliens. Even as up to 50 Chicagoans have been shot every weekend since he took office.

Chicago Police Finally Make Large Number of Arrests During Teen Mass Rampage

2

E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

WARNER TODD HUSTON

1 Aug 2023144

4:09

For the last several years, the Chicago Police Department (CPD) has engaged in a policy of “hands-off” as huge groups of hundreds of teens and young adults rampage through neighborhoods looting stores, vandalizing cars, fighting with each other, and even shooting people. But on Sunday, police reversed that policy and actually made dozens of arrests during one such mob scene.

Last weekend, the CPD made about 40 arrests as a large group of teens again targeted an area along Roosevelt Road in the city’s South Loop business district.

It was the largest number of arrests since 61 were arrested during a mob rampage in July of 2021, according to CWB Chicago.

Still, a mere 40 arrests made only a small dent in the mob of some 400 teens carousing through the area and totally trashing a 7-Eleven convenience store in the process.

Video shows the scene at the store:

According to NBC 5, most were charged with misdemeanors and immediately released, though a select few were hit with gun charges.

But, the CPD certainly made an about-face. In fact, according to CBS News, several CPD supervisors were heard encouraging officers to make arrests.

“Let’s be clear – for these kids are running in the street, mass arrest. Lock them up,” a supervisor was heard saying, CBS added.

“If you’re an officer, you should be putting hands on people and arresting them right now – not watching them walk by you,” the supervisor reportedly added.

Interim Chicago Police Supt. Fred Waller stood by the arrests.

“Our posture has been tolerant, and usually when we say that it’s curfew and we ask them to disperse, they do,” Waller said. “Yesterday, they, so to speak, crossed the line.”

Waller also said the arrests were for cause, not random.

“The arrests are a result of the actions. Before we asked them to move, we asked them to go home. It was curfew time, and they did. This time, they refused. They began fighting against each other,” Waller said. “We haven’t arrested people like that, but this group got so out of hand we had no choice.”

Community activists also tried to jump into action ahead of the appearance of the mob of teens. Seeing social media posts encouraging teens to gather in the area, activists say they began contacting businesses to close up and lock down to try and prevent damage to their best ability.

These mobs of teens have been causing havoc in Chicago for several years, now, and little has been done to stop them.

Just in April, a couple suffered injuries as groups of hundreds of teens rioted through the city’s downtown Loop area.

Mayor Brandon Johnson listens during a City Council meeting Wednesday, May 24, 2023, at City Hall in Chicago. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

Also in April, two teens were shot by someone seemingly shooting randomly into the crowd of hundreds during four days of teen mob action.

In May, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, a self-professed “progressive,” took office, but has thus far been able to make a dent in the rising crime rates, or put a stop to these mobs of teens terrorizing the city.

In fact, Johnson has scolded anyone critical of the mobs. In April he was heard chastising the media and Chicago’s weary residents for “demonizing” the mobs of teens.

“In no way do I condone the destructive activity we saw in the Loop and lakefront this weekend,” Johnson said after the four days of destruction wrought in April. “It is unacceptable and has no place in our city. However, it is not constructive to demonize youth who have otherwise been starved of opportunities in their own communities.”

Meanwhile, Johnson has busied himself with looking to put $25 million in city funds to house illegal aliens, and turning several of the city’s schools and colleges into shelters for illegal aliens. Even as up to 50 Chicagoans have been shot every weekend since he took office.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, or Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston.

CrimePoliticsassaultChicagoChicago Police De

 

California's Crime Crisis is getting worse

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LhXKch3QPc

Police: Man Posing as UPS Worker Beats Woman with Weighted Sock in Manhattan Elevator

97

New York Police

ELAINE MALLON

30 Jul 2023220

2:43

New York City police officers are on the hunt for a man who allegedly robbed and beat a woman with a sock stuffed “with an unknown object” inside an elevator in Manhattan on Sunday.

Surveillance images outside the building show that the suspect is a black male who appears to be posing as a UPS delivery man, the New York Post reported. At the time of the assault, he was wearing a black shirt and pants, a grey baseball cap, and a lanyard, and he was holding a package in one hand and a book bag in another.

The assailant reportedly robbed $25 from the 26-year-old victim who was transported to Bellevue Hospital. According to authorities, she is in stable condition.

The suspect fled the scene on a bike.

This latest incident in Manhattan comes days after Breitbart News reported that authorities responded to two stabbing victims outside of Magnolia’s Bakery in the West Village:

Eli Klein, 45, witnessed the attack while he was walking with his wife and infant daughter on the sidewalk. They ran away as soon as the incident broke out.

“It happened so close – it was 10, 15ft away – and we were on the same side of the sidewalk,” Klein told the DailyMail. “Normally I would stop to help the guy or take a picture of the suspect and give it to the police but in this instance, I had my baby with me, we just ran, we didn’t wait.”

Crime statistics from November 2022 revealed just how prevalent violence and lawlessness have become in the Big Apple.

Breitbart News’s Amy Furr reported:

Crime in New York City increased over the past year but New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) claims data did not show bail reform as being the problem.

The New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) recent crime statistics show that year to date, rape was up 10.9 percent, robbery up 32.4 percent, burglary up 29.1 percent, and grand larceny up 38.5 percent.

During an interview Friday on CNN, Hochul asserted that “the data is not showing” that bail reform is causing the surge in crime, and “There are individual cases, but compared to pre-pandemic and when this was passed, I don’t think there’s a real disparity.”

The New York Bail Reform law went into effect on January 1, 2020.

Researchers from John Jay College of Criminal Justice found that more than 72 percent of violent crime suspects freed without bail were rearrested, compared to fewer than 62 percent who were rearrested before the bail reform law, Breitbart News reported.

‘I am Hopeless’ — Assailants Set Free After Putting NYC Cab Driver in Hospital

690

Screenshot

ELAINE MALLON

30 Jul 2023851

2:40

A cab driver in Democrat-controlled New York City is outraged after authorities released a man and woman after they allegedly beat him, landing him in a hospital bed with a neck brace on.

Afzal Butt, 61, said the July 19 evening attack in Midtown left him feeling “hopeless and helpless” with the criminal justice system and blamed New York’s bail reform laws for allowing the two of the five assailants to just be issued a desk appearance and be able to go home that same day, the New York Post reported.

“If they’re not going to put them behind bars, this is a horrible system,” Butt told the Post. “I am hopeless and helpless with this system.”

As a new poll by Sienna College Research Institute found 41 percent of the public has “never been this worried about safety,” Mayor Eric Adams flouts citizens’ concerns, claiming the news plays on people’s psyche.

“Let’s think about it for a moment, how do they start their day? They start their day picking up the news, the morning papers, they sit down and they see some of the most horrific events that may happen throughout the previous day,” Adams told Fox 5.

“Send the mayor the video and tell him die with the shame,” Butt told the Post.

Butt, who immigrated from Pakistan in 2004, pulled his cab over after a separate group of scooter riders threw food inside his cab. As he was cleaning his car, video shows the five attacking him after busting his side window. He falls to the ground and one of the assailants —  a woman with long braids — stomps on him. A bystander grabs her away from Butt. He was immediately sent to the hospital.

“There’s so much pain in my neck,” Butt said. “I still can’t move my neck. My arms, my knees, my hips. My chest felt like I was getting pressure on my chest. So much pain.”

Authorities arrested Howard Colley, 35,  Natalie Morgan, 51. Colley was charged with misdemeanor assault and Morgan was charged with criminal mischief; however, since neither had a criminal history and the offenses were just misdemeanors they were just issued a desk appearance.

A police source told the Post these lenient rules are thanks to the bail reform passed in 2019, which ended the practice of cash bail for most misdemeanors.

Authorities are still in search of three suspects: a 5ft5 woman with her hair in a bun, a 5ft10 man with an athletic build and a 5ft8 woman with lengthy braids.

A married father of two, Butt said his family is worried about him returning to work.

Oakland NAACP Calls for 'State of Emergency' Over Crime

Ian Schwartz

July 28, 2023

The Oakland NAACP released a statement Thursday calling for state and local elected leaders to declare a "state of emergency" as a result of increasing violent crime in the California city.

The statement, written by Oakland NAACP president Cynthia Adams and Bishop Bob Jackson of Acts Full Gospel Church, blasted soft-on-crime local officials as well as left-wing activism for the surge in crime.

"Failed leadership, including the movement to defund the police, our District Attorney’s unwillingness to charge and prosecute people who murder and commit life threatening serious crimes, and the proliferation of anti-police rhetoric have created a heyday for Oakland criminals," Adams and Jackson wrote.

Adams and Jackson also said that African Americans were disproportionately affected by crime and criticized misguided attempts to alleviate racism by refusing to prosecute violent offenders.

"There is nothing compassionate or progressive about allowing criminal behavior to fester and rob Oakland residents of their basic rights to public safety. It is not racist or unkind to want to be safe from crime," the statement read.

Adams and Jackson called on city and state officials to devote additional resources, including police officers, to resolve the problem:

"We are in crisis and elected leaders must declare a state of emergency and bring resources together from the city, the county, and the state to end the crisis."

The statement comes amid a spike in crime in the Bay Area. In neighboring San Francisco, Mayor London Breed was forced to flee a speech on combating violent crime after someone threw a brick in the crowd.

Several big-name brands like Nordstrom and Saks OFF 5th and hotel chains have left the area due to concerns about public safety.

Published under: California , Crime , Defund the Police , San Francisco

Nearly 50 Shot Friday into Sunday Night in Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Chicago

1

Jamie Kelter Davis/Bloomberg via Getty Images

AWR HAWKINS

31 Jul 20230

2:39

Nearly 50 people were shot, five of them fatally, Friday into Sunday night in Mayor Brandon Johnson’s (D) Chicago.

ABC 7 / Chicago Sun-Times noted that four others were fatally shot Friday into Sunday night, and those shooting victims were among the at least 47 people who were shot.

The first fatal shooting of the weekend occurred around 10:20 p.m. Friday. Two men, one of whom was 61 years old, pulled guns on each other “in the 2600-block of West Luther Street.” The 61-year-old was shot in the head and pronounced dead at a hospital.

A 28-year-old man was shot in the face and killed in Auburn Gresham Saturday night around 8:00 p.m.

A 20-year-old woman and a 30-year-old man were walking “in the 1300-block of West Devon Avenue” around 1:45 p.m. Sunday when a drive-by shooter opened fire on them, shooting the man ten times. He was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Breitbart News reported that nine people were shot just before 1:00 a.m. Sunday morning in Chicago’s Lawndale neighborhood when multiple people exited a Jeep and opened fire on a group of women. One woman was killed, and eight others were injured.

At 5:00 p.m. Sunday, another drive-by shooting occurred on the “6400 block of South Albany Avenue.” There was an exchange of words between someone in the car and a 66-year-old man before shots rang out. The 66-year-old was shot in the chest and was taken to hospital, where he died.

The Sun-Times pointed out that 342 people were killed in Chicago from January 1, 2023, through July 30, 2023.

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 and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com

The Gift That Keeps On Giving: Chicago Man Charged in Years Long $6M Home Depot Scam

92

Chicago Police Department

AMY FURR

28 Jul 2023293

4:00

Officials have charged a fourth suspect in a fraud scam that caused Home Depot stores in Chicago to lose a massive chunk of money.

In an article published Thursday, CWB Chicago said it reported in May the stores were defrauded by several individuals who racked up $900 credits over 6,000 times for one purchase a few years prior:

Officials said the scam began in March 2020 when someone purchased more than $6,000 from the home improvement chain’s 2570 North Elston location. Days later, someone returned to the store and said the purchase was for a tax-exempt church. A store employee accepted the tax-exempt documents and issued the representative a $900 gift card for the tax value.

Taxes on the purchase were $555, and that receipt was recycled for three years to make over 6,000 gift cards. Many of those cards had $900 on them.

“Cashiers scanned the receipt bar code from an accomplice’s phone each time, manually entered the tax exemption information, and then cut a gift card for the difference,” the report continued, noting some of the cashiers made several gift cards for the same purchase at one time, and some had a copy of the receipt saved on their phones to use.

He said the company was investing in more security guards, lighting, and additional lighting in parking lots, along with recording towers, in order to remedy the problem.

“And it’s not a place that many of us in retail thought we’d have to be,” he added.In December, an 83-year-old Home Depot worker in North Carolina died after reportedly being shoved by an alleged shoplifter, according to Breitbart News.

Gary Rasor, the victim, was allegedly assaulted at the store in Hillsborough when he tried to confront a man who was allegedly stealing pressure washers.

“Rasor suffered several fractured bones, and he was in the hospital for weeks and unable to walk. His condition worsened after he viewed footage of the incident for the first time, according to his wife,” the outlet said.

BLACKS APPEAR TO BE THE MOST VIOLENT SUBCULTURE IN THE WORLD

Witnesses described the  suspect as a black man wearing a gold chain and a navy shirt, the Daily Mail said. Officers called a Level One Mobilization and have a person in custody, but did not confirm the suspect’s description. New York City Councilmember Erik Bottcher said  the man had “mental health issues.”

Police: Suspect Stabbed Multiple People Outside Famous New York City Bakery

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iStock/Getty Images Plus

ELAINE MALLON

27 Jul 2023105

3:01

A man is in custody after stabbing two people with scissors outside of Magnolia’s Bakery in West Village in New York City on Wednesday morning.

A 911 call was made at 9:58 a.m. First responders arrived on the scene quickly to treat the victims, Citizen reported.  The man allegedly slashed a 24-year-old man in the arm and another man in the neck, the Daily Mail reported. Both are in stable condition.

Witnesses described the  suspect as a black man wearing a gold chain and a navy shirt, the Daily Mail said. Officers called a Level One Mobilization and have a person in custody, but did not confirm the suspect’s description. New York City Councilmember Erik Bottcher said  the man had “mental health issues.”

Eli Klein, 45, witnessed the attack while he was walking with his wife and infant daughter on the sidewalk. They ran away as soon as the incident broke out.

“It happened so close – it was 10, 15ft away – and we were on the same side of the sidewalk,” Klein told the DailyMail. “Normally I would stop to help the guy or take a picture of the suspect and give it to the police but in this instance, I had my baby with me, we just ran, we didn’t wait.”

Owner of a nearby art gallery and a lifelong resident of New York, Klein said crime has become a greater worry.

“We’ve seen a steady decrease since whenever it was, decades ago, but unfortunately the decrease has stopped,” Klein told the DailyMail. “It’s not like it was in the 1980s or the early 90s, when it was much worse than this, but you want things to keep getting better and the improvement, the overall trajectory, has stopped.”

 Crime statistics from November 2022 revealed just how prevalent violence and lawlessness have become in the big apple.

Breitbart News’s Amy Furr reported:

Crime in New York City increased over the past year but New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) claims data did not show bail reform as being the problem.

The New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) recent crime statistics show that year to date, rape was up 10.9 percent, robbery up 32.4 percent, burglary up 29.1 percent, and grand larceny up 38.5 percent.

During an interview Friday on CNN, Hochul asserted that “the data is not showing” that bail reform is causing the surge in crime, and “There are individual cases, but compared to pre-pandemic and when this was passed, I don’t think there’s a real disparity.”

The New York Bail Reform law went into effect on January 1, 2020.

Researchers from John Jay College of Criminal Justice found that more than 72 percent of violent crime suspects freed without bail were rearrested, compared to fewer than 62 percent who were rearrested before the bail reform law, Breitbart News reported.

James Lee Ramsey, 27, allegedly kicked the elderly victim to the ground just after 11 a.m. Friday on Ellis Street, the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office said Tuesday.

88-Year-Old Asian Woman Faces Life-Threatening Injuries After Unprovoked Attack in San Francisco

Getty Images

Thomas McKenna

July 26, 2023

A California man is under arrest after he allegedly violently assaulted an elderly woman in San Francisco last week, as crime rises and businesses leave the city.

After spitting in the face of another victim, 27-year-old James Lee Ramsey allegedly kicked the 88-year-old Asian-American woman to the ground Friday morning in downtown San Francisco, according to Fox News. Bystanders detained Ramsey until police arrived. The woman was brought to the hospital with life-threatening injuries.

The unprovoked attack comes as San Francisco struggles with out-of-control crime, drug use, and homelessness that are driving businesses out of the city and state. Homicides and fentanyl deaths in San Francisco have both spiked in the past three years, with homicides increasing nearly 40 percent. More than half a million residents fled California in the two years after the pandemic’s start, according to the New York Post. More than 350 companies left California between 2018 and 2021, according to the California Globe.

Ramsey was charged with felony elder abuse and assault, as well as two misdemeanors for battery and vandalism.

San Francisco district attorney Brooke Jenkins called Ramsey's alleged crimes "horrific" and said she is "fed up with brazen violence."

Jenkins took office last July after her predecessor, Chesa Boudin, was recalled. During his stint as DA, Boudin ended cash bail and announced he would not prosecute a slew of misdemeanors, including prostitution and public urination.

Published under: California , Crime , San Francisco

Five-Year-Old on Cocaine Fatally Shoots 16-Month-Old on Marijuana

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Laurent Hamels/Getty Images

AWR HAWKINS

27 Jul 20230

2:22

A five-year-old Indiana boy, allegedly high on cocaine, shot and killed his 16-month-old brother, who was allegedly high on marijuana, in March of this year.

The Daily Mail reported that 27-year-old Deonta Jermaine Johnson was in the apartment asleep when the five-year-old allegedly shot 16-month-old Isiah Johnson in the head.

CBS News noted that Johnson is the father of the deceased 16-month-old, not the five-year-old.

Initially, Johnson allegedly denied having a gun and claimed the 16-month-old had fallen or was otherwise injured by his brother. As police searched the apartment, they found a gun locked in a safe and another “in the drawer of a dresser,” according to the Daily Mail. Officers also discovered “93 fentanyl pills, marijuana, and drug paraphernalia inside the apartment.”

Prosecutors have since charged Johnson and 24-year-old Shatia Tiara Welch “with neglect and various drug charges.” Johnson also faces obstruction of justice charges for allegedly taking marijuana out of the apartment and hiding it in his car before officers arrived on the scene.

Deonta Jermaine Johnson, 27, and Shatia Tiara Welch, 24 (LaPorte Police Department)

On April 15, 2023, the day of Isiah’s funeral, Welch posted on Facebook, “Today has been the hardest day of my life. HOW Tf do I say goodbye to my son my one-year-old baby? S*** so crazy I lost my best friend March 28th my life will NEVER be the same.”

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 and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.

33 Shot in Chicago in Bloody Weekend Under Soft-on-Crime Mayor

A crime scene in Chicago, 2021 (Getty Images)

Thomas McKenna

July 25, 2023

A slew of weekend shootings over the weekend left at least 33 shot—with 6 dead and 27 wounded—in Chicago, where the Democratic mayor has called "defund the police" a "real political goal."

The city has averaged 13 homicides per week in the past year, compared with 10 per week in 2019, according to a local ABC affiliate. The bloody weekend was the deadliest this month.

The shootings come under the tenure of recently elected mayor Brandon Johnson, who took office in May after arguing the city should "have health professionals, not police, respond to crisis calls." He was the only candidate who did not support filling the 1,600 vacancies in the Chicago Police Department. Johnson’s predecessor, former mayor Lori Lightfoot, pushed similar soft-on-crime policies that included hiring mental health workers "to respond to 911 calls."

The City Council is set to hold a hearing titled "Treatment, Not Trauma," which aims to reform how the police respond to mental health crises.

After a violent weekend in April in which hundreds of juveniles wreaked havoc downtown, Johnson said the smashed windows and wounded bystanders were due to a lack of "spaces for youth to gather safely." The city sent "peacekeepers" into the streets to stop violence during Memorial Day weekend but subsequently charged a man wearing a peacekeeper’s vest in connection with a street scuffle.

Published under: Brandon Johnson

Oakland NAACP Calls for 'State of Emergency' Over Crime

Ian Schwartz

July 28, 2023

The Oakland NAACP released a statement Thursday calling for state and local elected leaders to declare a "state of emergency" as a result of increasing violent crime in the California city.

The statement, written by Oakland NAACP president Cynthia Adams and Bishop Bob Jackson of Acts Full Gospel Church, blasted soft-on-crime local officials as well as left-wing activism for the surge in crime.

"Failed leadership, including the movement to defund the police, our District Attorney’s unwillingness to charge and prosecute people who murder and commit life threatening serious crimes, and the proliferation of anti-police rhetoric have created a heyday for Oakland criminals," Adams and Jackson wrote.

Adams and Jackson also said that African Americans were disproportionately affected by crime and criticized misguided attempts to alleviate racism by refusing to prosecute violent offenders.

"There is nothing compassionate or progressive about allowing criminal behavior to fester and rob Oakland residents of their basic rights to public safety. It is not racist or unkind to want to be safe from crime," the statement read.

Adams and Jackson called on city and state officials to devote additional resources, including police officers, to resolve the problem:

"We are in crisis and elected leaders must declare a state of emergency and bring resources together from the city, the county, and the state to end the crisis."

The statement comes amid a spike in crime in the Bay Area. In neighboring San Francisco, Mayor London Breed was forced to flee a speech on combating violent crime after someone threw a brick in the crowd.

Several big-name brands like Nordstrom and Saks OFF 5th and hotel chains have left the area due to concerns about public safety.

Published under: California , Crime , Defund the Police , San Francisco

Suspect in Critical Condition After Resident Opens Fire to Save Family

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Screenshot

AWR HAWKINS

9 Aug 2023214

1:52

A Bakersfield, California, intruder was shot by a resident and hospitalized in critical condition after allegedly forcing his way into a home around 8 p.m. last Friday.

Video from a Ring camera showed the suspect, 38-year-old Tanarri Stocker, who was allegedly armed, ringing a doorbell at one house then running to a neighboring house. It was at the neighboring home that the Stocker allegedly made unwanted entry and came face-to-face with a legal gun owner.

KGET reported Stocker allegedly entered via the garage then went into the home through a side door. A resident in the home shot Stocker, critically wounding him.

The Bakersfield Police Department indicated Stocker “is a convicted felon and prohibited from possessing a firearm.” The charges arising from Friday’s incident include aggravated assault and being a felon in possession of a firearm,

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 and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010, a speaker at the 2023 Western Conservative Summit, and he holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.

Oakland NAACP Calls for 'State of Emergency' Over Crime

Ian Schwartz

July 28, 2023

The Oakland NAACP released a statement Thursday calling for state and local elected leaders to declare a "state of emergency" as a result of increasing violent crime in the California city.

The statement, written by Oakland NAACP president Cynthia Adams and Bishop Bob Jackson of Acts Full Gospel Church, blasted soft-on-crime local officials as well as left-wing activism for the surge in crime.

"Failed leadership, including the movement to defund the police, our District Attorney’s unwillingness to charge and prosecute people who murder and commit life threatening serious crimes, and the proliferation of anti-police rhetoric have created a heyday for Oakland criminals," Adams and Jackson wrote.

Adams and Jackson also said that African Americans were disproportionately affected by crime and criticized misguided attempts to alleviate racism by refusing to prosecute violent offenders.

"There is nothing compassionate or progressive about allowing criminal behavior to fester and rob Oakland residents of their basic rights to public safety. It is not racist or unkind to want to be safe from crime," the statement read.

Adams and Jackson called on city and state officials to devote additional resources, including police officers, to resolve the problem:

"We are in crisis and elected leaders must declare a state of emergency and bring resources together from the city, the county, and the state to end the crisis."

The statement comes amid a spike in crime in the Bay Area. In neighboring San Francisco, Mayor London Breed was forced to flee a speech on combating violent crime after someone threw a brick in the crowd.

Several big-name brands like Nordstrom and Saks OFF 5th and hotel chains have left the area due to concerns about public safety.

Published under: California , Crime , Defund the Police , San Francisco

Gun-Controlled Washington, DC, on Pace for Deadliest Year in 2 Decades

Kevin Dietsch/Getty

AWR HAWKINS

8 Aug 202378

2:41

Gun-controlled, Democrat-run Washington, DC, is witnessing a surge in murders that is putting it on pace to record its deadliest year in two decades.

Three homicides over the weekend brought the city’s total for this year to 161, which represents “a 28 percent increase over this time in 2022,” the Washington Post noted.

Jamila White chairs the Advisory Neighborhood Commission for the area in which the latest three murders occurred and claims city officials are not responding to the commission’s suggestions on how to fix things.

White said, “Our voices and our solutions are not being acted upon. The community has been doing what it can. The community is in survival mode.”

The DCist reported on August 2 that U.S. Attorney for D.C. Matthew Graves, a Biden appointee, assured the city’s residents his office is working with police to focus on a small group of people who they believe are behind the killing and mayhem.

The outlet pointed to “a 2022 study…[which] found that as few as 500 identifiable people, many of them involved in neighborhood crews or cliques, are responsible for 70% of the city’s shootings.” That small group comprises those on whom Graves is focused.

Gabby Giffords’ gun control group, Giffords, points out Washington, DC, has universal background checks, gun owner licensing, a red flag law, an “assault weapons” ban, a “high capacity” magazine ban, firearm registration, waiting periods for gun purchases, gun storage laws, and many other gun controls.

These same controls have also failed to stop shootings in California.

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 and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010, a speaker at the 2023 Western Conservative Summit, and he holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.

Portland Area Loses $1 Billion as Wealthy Taxpayers Flee Crime, Drugs and Surging Homeless Population

CRAIG BANNISTER | AUGUST 7, 2023

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As taxpaying residents fled Portland, Oregon to escape rising crime, drugs, and a growing homeless problem, Portland’s county lost $1 billion in revenue between 2020 and 2021, an analysis of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data reveals.

The taxpayers who left Multnomah County, in which Portland is located, were mostly high-income earners, driving down average earnings and resulting in a record $1 billion of lost revenue, analysis conducted by OregonLive.com found.

Loss of personal income tax revenue is extremely harmful to Oregon’s financial situation. Without a state sales tax, Oregon counts on personal income tax revenue to provide for 86% of the state’s General Fund.

Multnomah County has reportedly suffered the largest loss of population of any Oregon county, according to Census data. Portland alone shed about three percent of the its population from 2020 to 2022, the sixth largest decline among the 50 largest U.S. cities.

According to the 2022 Portland Insights Survey conducted for the city, respondents cited Homelessness (44.5%), Cost of Living (21.8%), and Community Safety (19.5%) as Portland’s three greatest challenges.

What’s more, nearly three of four residents (72.1%) said that they don’t “feel safe walking during the NIGHT in the central city.” And, their concern appears well-founded, as an analysis of crime statistics concluded that 99% of U.S. neighborhoods are safer than Portland. Additionally, Portland residents are more than twice as likely to be victims of violent crime than are all Oregon residents, taken together.

Violent crime is increasing in Portland. Between 2019 and 2022, the number of both homicides and shooting incidents tripled. The 101 homicides in 2022 set an annual record-high for the city.

Drugs also pose an increasing threat, which has been exacerbated by the 2020 passage of Measure 110, which made Oregon the only state in the U.S. to decriminalize hard drugs, such as heroin, methamphetamine and (until earlier this year) fentanyl.

The harm done by the measure’s passage appears to have been both swift and brutal, The Washington Examiner explains:

“Since then, Oregon has become the state with the second-highest rate of substance use disorder and sees more than two deaths per day from opioid overdoses, according to a government audit of the consequences of Measure 110.

“According to preliminary Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates, Oregon's overdose deaths increased 6.76% from December 2021 to December 2022. The national increase was 0.5%.”

From 2019 to 2021, the number of unintentional opioid overdose deaths in Oregon skyrocketed from 280 to 745, according to state health department statistics.

Even with the crime and drug epidemics, Portland residents rate the homeless crisis the worst problem facing the city.

Indeed, the number of people living on the street in Multnomah County, which includes Portland, rose 29% from January 2022 to January 2023

In all of Oregon, the homeless population jumped 23% from 2020 to 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 2022 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report.

The homeless problem in Portland has gotten so bad that disabled residents were forced to file a federal class action lawsuit against the city, alleged that it violated the American with Disabilities Act by allowing the homeless, as well as their tents and their encampments, to obstruct sidewalks. On May 31, a settlement was reached and approved, requiring the city of Portland to take a series of specific steps to clear the sidewalks for safe passage.

Charles Fain Lehman

This Is Your City on Fentanyl

Oregon’s decriminalization law has transformed large parts of Portland’s downtown into an open-air drug market.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/this-is-your-city-on-fentanyl

Officer Daniel DiMatteo is a 24-year police veteran—ten years with the Chicago P.D., then 14 years and counting with the Portland Police Bureau. He’s worked on gang crime and gun violence. And now, he spends much of his time trying to deal with Portland’s drug crisis.

On the day I met him, in March 2023, DiMatteo was patrolling a stretch of downtown around Washington Center, a decommissioned shopping mall that has become a hot spot for drug use. Not long afterward, cops swept the area after it saw 11 overdoses in one night. But on this day, it was full of people, many of them homeless, most using drugs in broad daylight.

Tiny foil scraps covered the ground for blocks, remnants of “safe smoking kits”: you put your drug of choice on the foil, heat it with a lighter, and inhale the resultant smoke through a straw (also provided). Most of the users were smoking, though a few also shot up. Needles are also freely available.

The drug of choice is fentanyl. Heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine are all out of the picture now, explained DiMatteo. Instead, people smoke fentanyl, either as loose powder or pressed into the shape of pills, called “blues” for their color. A blue runs $2 or so; chronic users on Portland’s streets will routinely consume 20 to 30 a day.

Over the course of two hours, DiMatteo doesn’t arrest any of the numerous people we see smoking drugs in the middle of the sidewalk. He can’t. Since February 2021, possession of controlled substances has been “decriminalized” in Oregon, a decision that voters approved as part of state Ballot Measure 110. The best he can do is write a $100 ticket—which will, in almost all cases, not be paid.

At one point, DiMatteo spotted a man about to light up, and flagged him over. The man was a youngish white guy, wearing wraparound shades. He’d been using for about three years, he said, and then, at DiMatteo’s request, he revealed what he was holding—a blue and some white powder, perched in the foil. This, he said, he got for about $7; it will keep him feeling good for a few hours. A friend darted over, grabbed his lighter, and darted away. “What’s your friend worried about?” asked DiMatteo. The guy looked puzzled, replying, “It’s decriminalized, right?”

Instead of ticketing or arresting, DiMatteo’s approach was mostly to make his presence known, usually with a wise-guy attitude. When we turned a corner and spotted an open-air drug deal, he told the men to break it up. The dealer wasn’t carrying enough—usually under a gram—to warrant an arrest, but that didn’t stop DiMatteo from warning him not to pull the knife visible in his back pocket. We saw several of these; machetes are apparently also common. Homicide among Portland’s homeless is, not coincidentally, at its highest point in over a decade.

Even absent danger, such interactions are often frustrating. Maybe three in every four users he talks to, DiMatteo claimed, concede that, yeah, they shouldn’t be doing drugs in public. But while DiMatteo repeatedly offered help in finding treatment or a shelter, only one person said yes. A fire department employee we met said that for every ten people he offers services to, eight or nine say no.

And if they say no, nothing much else can be done, because there are no consequences for smoking fentanyl on a public sidewalk. There is, lamented DiMatteo, “no accountability.” Most users tell him that they have no reason to go to a shelter—shelters have curfews and rules about drugs, after all, and tents don’t. Aren’t they freer, in a sense, if they reject help?

Many of their fellow Portlanders, alarmingly, seem to agree. DiMatteo once knew a woman, he said, who offered to have him write her a ticket for smoking meth in public, just so he could feel useful. At one point, as the two talked, a driver stopped, rolled down his window, and told DiMatteo to stop harassing the woman. “He’s trying to talk to me about getting services!” the woman shot back. The driver, oblivious, insisted that DiMatteo leave her alone anyway.

This, in miniature, is the attitude that produced Measure 110: all law enforcement does is harass drug users, making their lives worse. Leave the addicts alone and then . . . well, surely things will get better.

Officer Daniel DiMatteo, a 24-year police veteran, who has worked on gang crime and gun violence, now spends most of his time dealing with Portland’s drug crisis—though he makes few arrests.

Portland has a homelessness problem. Of the 5,000 homeless individuals in Multnomah County (where the city is located), about 3,000 were unsheltered on the coldest night of the year; around the same number are chronically homeless. It also has a drug problem. The drug-overdose death rate more than doubled between 2018 and 2021. In 2021, more than one in every 2,000 county residents died from a drug overdose, usually from fentanyl or methamphetamine. The problems tend to intersect: nearly 200 homeless people died in the county in 2021, and 82 percent of those deaths involved drugs.

These problems don’t distinguish Portland from other big West Coast cities. San Francisco and Seattle have large homeless populations and high overdose death rates. What makes Portland different is its response. In November 2020, voters passed Measure 110, the “Drug Decriminalization and Addiction Treatment Initiative,” by a 17-point margin. The law made small possession of drugs only a “violation,” punishable by just a $100 fine, which can be waived if the violator calls a hotline to get a free “health assessment.” And it mandated the creation of an expansive network of addiction-services facilities funded by marijuana-tax revenue.

Measure 110’s passage represented a major victory for an ascendant, progressive view of drug policy. America, in this telling, has been wrongly approaching drug addiction from a punitive angle, locking up millions of people—disproportionately “black and brown”—just for getting high. Instead, advocates contend, we should decriminalize drug possession and treat drug use as a “public health” problem, to be addressed through the judicious application of social services.

“I think it was about recognizing when something isn’t working,” said Tera Hurst, who led the fight to pass 110 and now runs the Oregon Health Justice Recovery Alliance, which advocates for its implementation. “The criminalization of people creates really harmful barriers for folks who are trying to get back into what we would say is a healthy, functioning society—trying to get housing, jobs, bank accounts, all of those things that are critical for you to really thrive here. Adding barriers to someone because they have a small amount of drugs in their pocket just doesn’t feel like commonsense public policy.” Further, Hurst added, Oregon’s addiction-services system was (and is) “half the size it should be.” That last part seems right: national data put Oregon last among states by share of people who need, but aren’t getting, treatment for substance abuse. It’s second only to Vermont for the share of its population admitting to recent drug use.

Still, Measure 110 has been mired in controversy. In an audit, the Oregon secretary of state called the rollout “challenging,” attacking the primary oversight body for failing to deliver on key responsibilities. Cities and counties have tried to claw back marijuana funds, saying that 110 “blew a hole” in their budgets. The police insist that the measure has gutted their ability to enforce public order. Addiction health experts have charged that it hasn’t provided the treatment services that Oregonians were promised. Drug deaths keep rising.

The vision behind Measure 110 isn’t new. Organizations like the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), the George Soros–backed advocacy group that pushed for 110, have promoted these ideas for years. But in Oregon, they have finally rallied the political and financial will needed to make it a reality. The DPA poured more than $5 million into the initiative. Other major policy funders joined it, including the Laura and John Arnold Foundation ($700,000), the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative ($500,000), and the Sixteen Thirty Fund ($250,000). The anti-110 side raised just over $160,000. It’s surprising that the vote was as close as it was.

Visit Portland, though, and it’s hard to see how the new situation is an improvement. The regime that 110 is building seems primarily geared toward facilitating, rather than alleviating, addiction. A purportedly “carceral” regime has been replaced by one of neglect—benign or otherwise.

One beneficiary of Measure 110’s funding is the Miracles Club, a recovery-services program based on Portland’s east side. It’s used the $3.2 million it received under 110 to operate three transition houses, as well as offer a variety of programming, from intensive outpatient treatment to acupuncture. The program also regularly distributes clothes to the homeless. The procedure is simple: two club employees—on this day, Dom and Kayla—bundle clothes, new from Costco, into the back of a car, and head out to distribute them. They’ve also put together harm-reduction kits—needles, naloxone (liquid and injected), bandages—in “Miracles Club” tote bags, to be offered along with the clothes.

“Harm reduction,” meaning interventions that make drug use (ostensibly) safer without necessarily discouraging continued use, is a big priority under the new regime. In 110’s first year, nearly 60 percent of the 16,000 clients who accessed services that it funded got some kind of harm-reduction service, like needle exchanges or naloxone. Less than 1 percent got treatment.

The first Miracles Club stop is Dawson Park, a hub of the black community on Portland’s east side. When Dom and Kayla pop the trunk and start giving out clothes, most of those shuffling up to pick over the offerings are black, though a few white faces are visible, too. The club’s goal is to provide comfort: being homeless, addicted to drugs, is harsh enough, so why should anyone in such circumstances not get clean things to wear? It doesn’t matter, apparently, that most of the men and women rifling through the garments seem dressed in clothes of similar quality to what they’re receiving for free. Nor does it matter that at least one man who takes a jacket for himself is clearly not homeless. Across the street, it looks as though one woman turns around and sells an article of clothing she’s just picked up to another. But who can say?

After Dawson Park comes downtown, near where Officer DiMatteo was working. The Miracles Club car stops across from the offices of Street Roots, a local homelessness-advocacy group, where many homeless individuals congregate. The procedure here is mostly the same: club workers hand out clothes and harm-reduction kits, no questions asked. According to Kayla, the Miracles Club’s workers don’t go out of their way to solicit street people for services, as DiMatteo did, but wait for them to ask for help. This is not unusual practice among drug-focused nonprofits; it’s part of the “meet people where they’re at” ethos.

The Miracles Club does more than provide free clothes. According to information that the club provided to Portland magazine We Out Here, Measure 110 funds have covered a wide variety of its services—among them, transitional housing beds, 27 in total, including ten in a house specifically for the “African American LGBTQ+ community.” But there’s also a “living wage” that the club provides for “peer mentors” (recovered addicts who now help current ones). And the 110 money pays for other things for club clients: hygiene products, food, rent, phones, and even gas.

That’s all very charitable. But few of those offered the Miracles Club’s services get help to quit drugs. In 2022, the club told We Out Here, it contacted nearly 7,000 homeless people and had 1,700 peer-to-peer counseling encounters. But just 83 of its clients completed residential treatment, and another 78 finished outpatient treatment. That’s not so far off from the number (37) who got free computers.

Some Miracles Club services may indeed help drug abusers on some level (the jury remains out on acupuncture). But it’s hard to imagine that Oregonians expected that their tax dollars would go toward free computers and gas money when they voted for the Drug Decriminalization and Addiction Treatment Initiative. Certainly, life on the streets is unpleasant; but why is the marginal government dollar going toward making it less unpleasant—as opposed to getting the homeless and addicted off the streets?

Asked what he thinks of the view that making life on the streets more comfortable enables addiction, Dom pauses to consider. He is, he has previously volunteered, in recovery himself. On reflection, he says that, yes, this sort of thing enabled him when he was using. But, he continues, that’s just how he experienced it; others may see it differently.

Providing drug treatment was part of Measure 110’s justification. Nine percent of Oregonians were addicted to an illicit drug as of 2020, more than residents in any other state. Eighteen percent of those needing treatment, though, were not getting it—again, more than in any other state. The problem has been particularly acute among the young. As of last September, just four residential treatment facilities existed for teenagers, none offering medication-assisted treatment. Measure 110 funds were supposed to fill that gap. And the money is now flowing—more than $250 million has been promised, and $150 million paid out. But is all that money providing what addicted Oregonians really require?

Some of the funds are going to Alan Evans. Evans was homeless and addicted to drugs for 27 years. Now, he runs Helping Hands Reentry Outreach Centers, a comprehensive homelessness-services program operating across several Oregon counties. But despite now accepting Measure 110 money, Evans voted against the initiative, he said, because it removed the accountability that is necessary to help people escape addiction, and failed to prioritize the integrated services that many of his clients desperately need. “We legalize drug use,” Evans noted, “and we also do harm reduction, we give free needles, we give foil, we teach people how to use responsibly, we give them Narcan. The message we’re sending to people like me, that come from that place, is stay exactly where you’re at, and by the way, we’re going to do our best to help you so that you don’t die, and why don’t you wait for three to 20 years and we’ll get you housing built?”

Most Measure 110 beneficiaries are more supportive of it than Evans, and most spend their money the way the Miracles Club does. Portland-based Fresh Out Community Based Reentry told We Out Here that the first 202 people it served received “employment support, peer mentoring, harm reduction services, and food insecurity assistance.” Just 27 clients went to treatment. Painted Horse Recovery, a “culturally specific” recovery center that caters to American Indians, informed the magazine that Measure 110 funded “drum making kits, beads and hides for Natives getting out of prison and treatment.” As Painted Horse executive director Jerrod Murray enthused: “With this money, we see that our approaches work for our people. We are now better equipped to have our community connect to culture through beading, regalia making, drum making and a safe community space. These things are helping people stay clean.”

A clothing drive run by the Miracles Club, a recovery-services program that has garnered millions in government funds to provide various services, including distributing harm-reduction drug kits in branded tote bags around the city

Asked about this prioritization, Tera Hurst conceded that the state may have to draw on federal funding sources to get real treatment capacity online. But, she added, “I feel like the [providers’] services are exactly the right services, and if they’re too heavy on peer support for a little bit in a county, you know, peers can be the difference between somebody staying alive and somebody dying.”

Others have been far more critical. Speaking to the Oregon Senate Committee on the Judiciary last September, Stanford addiction specialist Keith Humphreys charged that Oregon had become too concerned with harm reduction, to the detriment of treatment. “If Oregon continues on its current path of not complementing effective harm reduction with strong prevention and treatment initiatives, and of focusing harm reduction only on people who use drugs, it should expect rising drug use, addiction, and harms to communities,” he maintained.

Those community harms are the most hotly debated part of the Measure 110 rollout. Proponents contended that, if anything, the measure would reduce crime, as it would, in Hurst’s view, allow law enforcement to “focus on the more violent crime and violent criminals, and property crimes.” Decriminalizing a “gram of heroin in somebody’s pocket, which is all decrim did, does not increase criminal activity, and criminal activity is still criminal,” Hurst argued. “If anything, when you have more services and more people being able to connect with folks who are in desperate situations, you’re actually creating better community safety and not the other way around.”

But crime isn’t dropping. According to a recent Research Triangle Institute assessment, police calls for service remain roughly flat in Portland. This may be because the time police aren’t spending on drug crimes is now directed toward property crime, which surged in Portland in the months following Measure 110’s implementation. That shouldn’t be surprising: the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission once estimated that 78 percent of property offenses were committed by people stealing to support their addiction. If drug use is less controlled, it increases, and so do its negative social effects.

Measure 110 has constrained the police’s ability to stem the disorder evident on Portland’s streets. Police can, yes, issue citations for possession. But the citations are ineffectual. As of August 2022, more than 3,000 possession citations had been issued statewide. In only about 4 percent of cases did recipients call the hotline to get a health assessment; just 1 percent requested treatment resources. During its first 15 months, the Oregon secretary of state found, this exercise cost the state about $7,000 per call. Why bother?

Measure 110 isn’t having any noticeable effect on Oregon’s drug-incarceration numbers, either. People could still get arrested for drugs in Oregon before Measure 110—about 8,000 were in 2020. But in this progressive state, they weren’t going to prison. As of the end of 2020—before 110 was implemented—data from the National Corrections Reporting Program show that fewer than 900 individuals were in Oregon’s prisons for drug-related offenses, the fifth-lowest share among states of the prison population in for drugs. And none of those people was in solely on drug-related charges. Consequently, the Oregon secretary of state observed, “there are no savings resulting from fewer individuals being incarcerated due to the drug decriminalization aspects of M110.”

Measure 110 is likely worsening Portland’s long-standing unsheltered homelessness problem, however. Josh Lair, who does community outreach for a medication-assisted treatment program, lauded 110’s funds distribution and breaking down of barriers between service providers. But he’s also seeing drug users coming to Portland from as far away as Texas and Arizona to live in the city’s homeless camps. “And a lot of it has to do with the fact that they’re not going to be in trouble,” Lair said. “I ask them, ‘Why are you here?’ And they say, ‘because of the drug law.’ ”

Large parts of Portland’s downtown and Chinatown districts are now open-air drug markets. One outpost of the city’s famed Voodoo Donuts, for example, is an island in a sea of drug use and camping. The city’s bridges now offer not only a beautiful vista of the Willamette River but also the ugly sight of people living in their own filth. The criminal-justice system can’t do anything about it. And the nonprofits seem either unable or unwilling to do anything, either.

Faced with the situation on the ground in Portland, the more politic supporters of Measure 110 usually plead incompetence. This was basically the tack taken by the secretary of state’s office in its audit: 110’s rollout was bumpy not because of any fatal flaw but because everyone involved was struggling to figure things out. Asked about the rollout, Hurst noted that “changing systems in the midst of a global pandemic is not something I’d recommend to anyone.”

“I’m not going to tout that everything went out smooth. It was hard, it was messy, and it didn’t happen as quickly as I wanted it to,” Hurst said. “That said, the providers on the ground were able to work miracles getting folks the care they needed, getting up and running, hiring people, buying houses, doing the things we desperately need to create the structure of care that we just don’t have here in Oregon.”

Oregon voters aren’t buying it. In an April 2023 poll, a majority said that Measure 110 was bad for Oregon; two-thirds said that it had made drug addiction, homelessness, and crime worse. Asked if they supported restoring criminal penalties for possession while maintaining increased funding for drug treatment, nearly two in three Oregonians agreed. And even Portland mayor Ted Wheeler has had enough: he’s reportedly planning to criminalize public drug use, which, in tandem with his earlier move to ban unsanctioned camping, suggests that the city might be waking up to the effects of its lenient policies on public order. (See “Portland Sobers Up,” Spring 2023.)

Some recent Portland woes have been pinned unfairly on decriminalization—a police contact suggests, for example, that the city’s recent homicide surge was more about decarceration following Covid than about the drug regime. But voters are not wrong to see Measure 110 as an abdication. Maybe it’s okay not to punish people for using drugs—but it isn’t okay to leave them to suffer from addiction or to let them colonize public space. Yet across Portland, that is precisely what is happening.

Charles Fain Lehman is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal.

The High Cost of Crime: Oregon County Loses $1 Billion as Residents Flee Lawless Portland

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Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

AMY FURR

4 Aug 20230

2:47

Residents who fled Multnomah County, Oregon, in 2020 took over $1 billion in income as they searched for a better life in other areas.

The news is according to an analysis of data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Oregonian reported Sunday.

“Numbers gleaned from annual income tax returns provide the most detailed information available on where Americans are moving — and taking their money,” the outlet said:

The latest figures, based on income tax returns filed in 2020 and 2021, show that Multnomah County lost a net 14,257 tax filers and their dependents. The county’s resulting net income loss topped $1 billion for the first time in the decade that the IRS has tracked moving data.

The pandemic appeared to prod relatively higher earners — more likely to hold jobs that can be done remotely — to relocate than in pre-pandemic years. The average income of Multnomah County residents who moved away in 2020, the most recent figure available, was 14% higher than of those who moved the year prior, according to The Oregonian/OregonLive’s analysis.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Census found almost three percent of Portland’s population decided to leave between 2020 and 2022, the Wall Street Journal reported in June.

“The drop of about 17,400 to 635,000 was the sixth largest decline among the 50 largest cities,” the article said, noting that local leaders are now desperate to keep people from moving out.

In addition, “Mayor Ted Wheeler, a Democrat, has come under increasing pressure to address rising violent crime and sprawling homeless encampments,” the Journal article stated.

Portland families were reportedly packing up and moving elsewhere because of rampant homelessness and crime plaguing the area, according to a report from August 2022, reported by Breitbart News.

“Portland experienced a massive spike in its homicide rate from 2019 to 2021, recording a 207 percent increase. During that same timeframe, frequent ANTIFA riots were also occurring in the downtown area,” the article said.

In May, KPTV said Portland was “one of the fastest-shrinking U.S. cities.” A reporter for the outlet noted people said data backs up the fact that “Portland just is not what it used to be now.”

One resident lamented, “It’s like Portland died. The tourists haven’t come back like they used to be, especially the Japanese, because they love this city.”

When Portland Died

A city crumbles under a wave of anarchy and crime.

August 7, 2023 by Michael A. Letts 14 Comments

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For several years, Portland was the pinnacle of artistic community. Its oddball style appealed to many and drew thousands to the city. There was even a comedy series, Portlandia, that celebrated its diversity.

But…those days are gone. And you can blame anyone that supported the “defund the police” campaign.

A new report from Fox News reveals that the city, which was one the “crown jewel of the West Coast,” has now fallen into hard times, mainly due to rising crime within the communities.

In fact, police data shows that crime has dramatically increased over that of other states – including Chicago and New York.

Speaking with Fox News, Washington County District Attorney Kevin Barton explained, “Each area has different challenges, but what we’re seeing in the metro area is absolutely rising crime.”

Spread across Multnomah County, Washington County and Clackamas County, the crime has reached astronomical levels, forcing both citizens and businesses to flee elsewhere.

“The increases that we’re seeing are nothing like the increases that we’re seeing in our neighbors,” Barton explained.

“What’s happening is with our de-carceration and elimination of bail culture, we’ve got all these people running around,” Kristin Olson, a trial attorney and host of the Rational in Portland podcast, added. “And it’s really scary because we also have this anti-police culture.”

So how did it come to this? It’s simple – Portland succumbed to those rioters that believed defunding the police would be the answer.

You may recall this heinous campaign that launched in 2020, following the death of George Floyd. Thousands got the insane idea that taking funding away from the police would be the definitive answer for his death, and would make this nation great.

But what happened from the fallout of that? Thousands of officers have left their jobs, either by retirement, simply being tired of their job or, in some extreme cases, suicide; millions of dollars have gone into other campaigns that have since failed to launch off the ground; and some politicians have become jaded, still believing that police officers are the problem even as their cities erupt into criminal chaos.

The biggest thing, however? The rise in criminal activity. It’s ravaged a lot of cities over the past couple of years, including Denver, Los Angeles and several others. And yet, these politicians still don’t have an answer when the clear one is sitting right in front of their faces – restore the police budget.

Oregon State Police data made it very clear that crime is increasing due to a lower police presence, with an increase over nine percent compared to the previous year.

So…why aren’t city officials doing anything about it? Because they refuse to admit that they’re wrong. They refuse to admit that “defunding the police” was the incorrect answer. Even as their Portland-based businesses fall apart and citizens move away for greener pastures, towards people that actually care about them.

It doesn’t help that President Biden is twiddling his thumbs as well. A while back – sorry, a long while back – he vowed to “fund the police” with a new campaign, after months of supporting “defund the police.” But you might notice that there’s been nothing introduced to Congress or the Senate, despite the best efforts of our Republicans to get something going. (You can thank the middling Democrats who still believe in “defunding the police” for that.)

Something needs to be done. Someone in the Biden administration (or perhaps someone who actually cares about what’s happening) needs to take a closer look at Portland and let it serve as an example of what will happen to these states if they don’t give the police the proper support they deserve. Otherwise, I fear where the next turn in this country will take. Imagine every city ending up the way that Portland is. Scary thought, isn’t it?

My heart goes out to the police working in the streets of Portland, as well as the citizens and businesses that continue to support them. They’re fighting a good fight when the people that can actually get anything done refuse to. And that has to be the most frustrating aspect of all.

Michael Letts is the Founder, President, and CEO of InVest USA, a national grassroots non-profit organization that is helping hundreds of communities provide thousands of bulletproof vests for their police forces through educational, public relations, sponsorship, and fundraising programs. He also has over 30 years of law enforcement experience under his belt, hence his pro-police stance for his brothers and sisters in blue.

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