Thursday, September 01, 2016
LAPD GIVES CHRIS BROWN THE STAR TREATMENT
When arrested after a 10-hour standoff from 3 a.m. to 1 p.m., Brown was not handcuffed and was allowed to walk freely to a police car
Singer songwriter Chris Brown, well known for rearranging then girlfriend Rihanna’s face with his fists, had a 10-hour standoff with LAPD after a woman reported he had threatened her by pointing a gun at her face. The cops arrived at his mansion at 3 a.m. Tuesday and were not able to arrest him until 1 p.m.
During the standoff Brown made disparaging rants about the police in a series of videos on Instagram. Some of his rants went like this:
So I'm sleep half the damn night. I just wake up. All these motherfucking helicopter choppers is around. Police out there at the gate.
Come on my nigger! What the fuck hell else do you want from me?
I stay out the way, take care of my daughter, do work. I don't fuck ugly bitches, trifling bitches, whatever else.
I'm way too tired to be dealing with this bullshit.
Every three months you come up with something. What's gonna be next?
At the same time when I call the police for stalker people that are endangering my life, they don't come 'til the next day.
Let somebody make a fucked up allegation about me. Oh yeah the whole fucking swat team.
I don't care. Y'all gonna stop playing with me like I'm the villain out here, like I'm going crazy.
When you get the warrant or whatever you need to do, you're going to walk right up in here and you're going to see nothing. You idiots!
I ain't did shit. I ain't gonna do shit!
You idiots. I'm tired of fuckinging with it all. You're the worse gang in the world, the police. And I said it. Fuck you!
When the cops finally entered Brown’s house he surrendered peacefully, but not before pitching a duffel bag out of a window. The bag contained weapons and drugs. The police also found a gun in the house.
While the cops did pat him down, news videos show that they allowed him to walk leisurely to a police car without being handcuffed or led by the arm. Now that’s what I call giving Chris Brown the star treatment.
Any ordinary citizen would have been thrown to the ground, searched and handcuffed with his hands behind him. Then he would have been dragged along and dumped into the cop car. And there sure as hell wouldn’t have been a 10-hour standoff.
Brown was charged with assault with a deadly weapon and released on $250,000 bail.
Brown could be in deep shit, not for pointing a gun at a woman if in fact he did so, but for being a felon in possession of a gun. He was convicted of a felony for the punching bag job he did on Rihanna.
As for the star treatment Brown got from LAPD, here I’ve thought all along that only former Sheriff Lee Baca had his deputies do that.
Singer songwriter Chris Brown, well known for rearranging then girlfriend Rihanna’s face with his fists, had a 10-hour standoff with LAPD after a woman reported he had threatened her by pointing a gun at her face. The cops arrived at his mansion at 3 a.m. Tuesday and were not able to arrest him until 1 p.m.
During the standoff Brown made disparaging rants about the police in a series of videos on Instagram. Some of his rants went like this:
So I'm sleep half the damn night. I just wake up. All these motherfucking helicopter choppers is around. Police out there at the gate.
Come on my nigger! What the fuck hell else do you want from me?
I stay out the way, take care of my daughter, do work. I don't fuck ugly bitches, trifling bitches, whatever else.
I'm way too tired to be dealing with this bullshit.
Every three months you come up with something. What's gonna be next?
At the same time when I call the police for stalker people that are endangering my life, they don't come 'til the next day.
Let somebody make a fucked up allegation about me. Oh yeah the whole fucking swat team.
I don't care. Y'all gonna stop playing with me like I'm the villain out here, like I'm going crazy.
When you get the warrant or whatever you need to do, you're going to walk right up in here and you're going to see nothing. You idiots!
I ain't did shit. I ain't gonna do shit!
You idiots. I'm tired of fuckinging with it all. You're the worse gang in the world, the police. And I said it. Fuck you!
When the cops finally entered Brown’s house he surrendered peacefully, but not before pitching a duffel bag out of a window. The bag contained weapons and drugs. The police also found a gun in the house.
While the cops did pat him down, news videos show that they allowed him to walk leisurely to a police car without being handcuffed or led by the arm. Now that’s what I call giving Chris Brown the star treatment.
Any ordinary citizen would have been thrown to the ground, searched and handcuffed with his hands behind him. Then he would have been dragged along and dumped into the cop car. And there sure as hell wouldn’t have been a 10-hour standoff.
Brown was charged with assault with a deadly weapon and released on $250,000 bail.
Brown could be in deep shit, not for pointing a gun at a woman if in fact he did so, but for being a felon in possession of a gun. He was convicted of a felony for the punching bag job he did on Rihanna.
As for the star treatment Brown got from LAPD, here I’ve thought all along that only former Sheriff Lee Baca had his deputies do that.
HOMIE DON’T PLAY
BY Bob Walsh
Kim Jong-Un is the psychopathic fearless leader of North Korea, with the worst haircut in the known universe. North Korean “news” outlets have released the fact that, back in July, Kim had a vice premier executed “for disrespect” because the man fell asleep on the stage during one of Kim’s speeches.
Damn, isn’t Communism wonderful? (Or not.)
EDITOR’S NOTE: Hey, just a minute there. What do you mean worst haircut in the known universe? I’ve got a haircut exactly like Kim’s and I have to fight off women because of it.
Kim Jong-Un is the psychopathic fearless leader of North Korea, with the worst haircut in the known universe. North Korean “news” outlets have released the fact that, back in July, Kim had a vice premier executed “for disrespect” because the man fell asleep on the stage during one of Kim’s speeches.
Damn, isn’t Communism wonderful? (Or not.)
EDITOR’S NOTE: Hey, just a minute there. What do you mean worst haircut in the known universe? I’ve got a haircut exactly like Kim’s and I have to fight off women because of it.
NOW THERE IS REAL PROOF. DOES ANYBODY REALLY CARE?
Is Hillary a liar and a criminal? Without a doubt, YES
By Bob Walsh
The State Department said yesterday that an “undetermined” number of the 30
emails recovered by the FBI from Hillary’s secret email server relate directly to the
attack on the U. S. Consulate at Benghazi in 2012 and further that they are NOT
among the emails previously turned over to State by the Hildebeast.
This means that we can now say absolutely and without equivocation that Hillary
lied her ass off when she said that she turned over absolutely all work related
emails to State when she left.
State says it will take until the end of September to go over these 30 emails prior to
releasing them. Federal Judge Amit Mehta has questioned the apparently lengthy
period of time necessary to review a relatively small number of documents. He has
ordered State to report back to him in one week as to why the review process is
taking so long.
So, what difference, if any, will any of this make. IMHO unless there is a clear
smoking gun in those emails it will make very little, at least before the election.
Hillary supporters don’t care if Hillary has been murdering pregnant nuns, they
will vote for her anyway. Trump supporters and Hillary haters aren’t going to vote
for her under any circumstances.
It COULD, however, make just enough of a difference to the people in the middle
in places like Ohio, Colorado and Florida where the election is likely to be
decided. A couple of thousand votes in the right districts could determine who our
next president is going to be, especially if Trump does well and the Hildebeast does
poorly in the debates and Trump shuts his yap in the meantime.
Is Hillary a liar and a criminal? Without a doubt, YES. Will it really matter? That
my friends is still an open question. Maybe we will be lucky and she will stroke
out on stage at the third debate. Don’t bet the farm on it.
By Bob Walsh
The State Department said yesterday that an “undetermined” number of the 30
emails recovered by the FBI from Hillary’s secret email server relate directly to the
attack on the U. S. Consulate at Benghazi in 2012 and further that they are NOT
among the emails previously turned over to State by the Hildebeast.
This means that we can now say absolutely and without equivocation that Hillary
lied her ass off when she said that she turned over absolutely all work related
emails to State when she left.
State says it will take until the end of September to go over these 30 emails prior to
releasing them. Federal Judge Amit Mehta has questioned the apparently lengthy
period of time necessary to review a relatively small number of documents. He has
ordered State to report back to him in one week as to why the review process is
taking so long.
So, what difference, if any, will any of this make. IMHO unless there is a clear
smoking gun in those emails it will make very little, at least before the election.
Hillary supporters don’t care if Hillary has been murdering pregnant nuns, they
will vote for her anyway. Trump supporters and Hillary haters aren’t going to vote
for her under any circumstances.
It COULD, however, make just enough of a difference to the people in the middle
in places like Ohio, Colorado and Florida where the election is likely to be
decided. A couple of thousand votes in the right districts could determine who our
next president is going to be, especially if Trump does well and the Hildebeast does
poorly in the debates and Trump shuts his yap in the meantime.
Is Hillary a liar and a criminal? Without a doubt, YES. Will it really matter? That
my friends is still an open question. Maybe we will be lucky and she will stroke
out on stage at the third debate. Don’t bet the farm on it.
REASONABLE CONCLUSION
An air traffic control tower suddenly lost communication with a Cessna aircraft.
A moment later the tower land-line rang and was answered by one of the controllers.
The passenger riding with the pilot who lost communications was on a cellular phone and and yelled, "Mayday, Mayday! The pilot had a fatal heart attack and I grabbed his cell phone out of his pocket. He told me before we took off he had the tower on his speed dial memory. I am flying upside down at 8,000 feet and traveling at 130 mph!”
The controller in the tower immediately put him on speaker phone.
"Calm down," he said. "We acknowledge you and we’ll guide you down after a few questions. The first thing is not to panic, remain calm!"
He then began his series of questions...
Tower: “How do you know you are traveling at 8,000 feet?"
Aircraft: "I can see that it reads 8,000 feet on the altimeter dial in front of me.”
Tower: "Okay, that’s good, remain calm. How do you know you are traveling at 130 mph?”
Aircraft: "I can see that it reads 130 mph on the airspeed dial in front of me.”
Tower: "OK, this is great so far, but it’s heavily overcast down here, how do you know you are flying upside down?”
Aircraft: "Because the shit in my pants is running out of my shirt collar!"
A moment later the tower land-line rang and was answered by one of the controllers.
The passenger riding with the pilot who lost communications was on a cellular phone and and yelled, "Mayday, Mayday! The pilot had a fatal heart attack and I grabbed his cell phone out of his pocket. He told me before we took off he had the tower on his speed dial memory. I am flying upside down at 8,000 feet and traveling at 130 mph!”
The controller in the tower immediately put him on speaker phone.
"Calm down," he said. "We acknowledge you and we’ll guide you down after a few questions. The first thing is not to panic, remain calm!"
He then began his series of questions...
Tower: “How do you know you are traveling at 8,000 feet?"
Aircraft: "I can see that it reads 8,000 feet on the altimeter dial in front of me.”
Tower: "Okay, that’s good, remain calm. How do you know you are traveling at 130 mph?”
Aircraft: "I can see that it reads 130 mph on the airspeed dial in front of me.”
Tower: "OK, this is great so far, but it’s heavily overcast down here, how do you know you are flying upside down?”
Aircraft: "Because the shit in my pants is running out of my shirt collar!"
LITTLE LARRY WANTS TO BE A BILLIONAIRE ….. WHAT DOES CLASSMATE SARAH WANT?
A teacher asks the kids in her 3rd grade class: "What do you want to be when you grow up?"
Little Larry says: "I wanna start out as a Fighter Pilot, then be a billionaire, go to the most expensive clubs, find me the finest whore, give her a Ferrari worth over a million bucks, an apartment in Copacabana, a mansion in Paris, a jet to travel throughout Europe, an Infinite Visa Card, and all the while banging her like a loose screen door in a hurricane.”
The teacher, shocked and not knowing what to do with this horrible response from little Larry, decides not to acknowledge what he said and simply tries to continue with the lesson.
"And how about you, Sarah?"
"I wanna be Larry’s whore..."
Little Larry says: "I wanna start out as a Fighter Pilot, then be a billionaire, go to the most expensive clubs, find me the finest whore, give her a Ferrari worth over a million bucks, an apartment in Copacabana, a mansion in Paris, a jet to travel throughout Europe, an Infinite Visa Card, and all the while banging her like a loose screen door in a hurricane.”
The teacher, shocked and not knowing what to do with this horrible response from little Larry, decides not to acknowledge what he said and simply tries to continue with the lesson.
"And how about you, Sarah?"
"I wanna be Larry’s whore..."
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
ARE CRIMINAL CHARGES REALLY WARRENTED FOR TEACHERS WHO HAVE SEXUAL RELATIONS WITH STUDENTS?
It seems as though the nation is facing an epidemic of school teachers getting busted for having sexual relations with students. In Texas alone, 207 teachers have been busted for engaging in sex with students during the last 11 months.
When teachers get caught having sex with students, they will face felony charges and if convicted, they could be sent to prison if they do not get probation.
Are criminal charges really warranted for teachers who have sexual relations with students? In my opinion, not in all cases.
To begin with, such teacher misconduct should not go unpunished. In every case, the guilty teacher’s teaching credentials should be revoked. His or her teaching days should be history!
Society sets a higher protection standard for females than for males when it comes to sexual assaults. This is especially true for minor females because such assaults may result in long term mental health problems. Thus any male or female teacher who has sex with a female student should be arrested and face felony charges.
On the other hand, I’ve never heard of any male student who got lucky with a female teacher having mental health problems. Such claims by parents are a lot of horseshit designed as grounds for a lawsuit against a school district.
This brings me to the male teacher who has or attempts to have sex with a male student. Throw his fucking predatory ass into the slammer! Just as with the girls, this could result in long term mental health problems.
And now for the female teacher who fulfills a boys wildest dreams. As I said, fire her ass and revoke her teaching credentials, but don’t throw her in jail unless the student was under 15-years-old.
Why not throw her in jail for fucking a 15 or 16-year-old? Because many studies have shown that by the time boys reach the age of 15 they have already become sexually active.
My dreams were never fulfilled while I was in school, damn it! My women teachers were all stuffy and all I ever got from them was a swat across the hand with a yard stick.
I know I’ll get a lot of flack for this, but I see no reason why criminal charges are warranted for female teachers who have sex with a male student 15 years of age or older. Let’s get real, the life of that lucky boy is sure as hell not going to be ruined.
When teachers get caught having sex with students, they will face felony charges and if convicted, they could be sent to prison if they do not get probation.
Are criminal charges really warranted for teachers who have sexual relations with students? In my opinion, not in all cases.
To begin with, such teacher misconduct should not go unpunished. In every case, the guilty teacher’s teaching credentials should be revoked. His or her teaching days should be history!
Society sets a higher protection standard for females than for males when it comes to sexual assaults. This is especially true for minor females because such assaults may result in long term mental health problems. Thus any male or female teacher who has sex with a female student should be arrested and face felony charges.
On the other hand, I’ve never heard of any male student who got lucky with a female teacher having mental health problems. Such claims by parents are a lot of horseshit designed as grounds for a lawsuit against a school district.
This brings me to the male teacher who has or attempts to have sex with a male student. Throw his fucking predatory ass into the slammer! Just as with the girls, this could result in long term mental health problems.
And now for the female teacher who fulfills a boys wildest dreams. As I said, fire her ass and revoke her teaching credentials, but don’t throw her in jail unless the student was under 15-years-old.
Why not throw her in jail for fucking a 15 or 16-year-old? Because many studies have shown that by the time boys reach the age of 15 they have already become sexually active.
My dreams were never fulfilled while I was in school, damn it! My women teachers were all stuffy and all I ever got from them was a swat across the hand with a yard stick.
I know I’ll get a lot of flack for this, but I see no reason why criminal charges are warranted for female teachers who have sex with a male student 15 years of age or older. Let’s get real, the life of that lucky boy is sure as hell not going to be ruined.
BUSTED IN THE VISITING ROOM AT THE Q
By Bob Walsh
A woman visitor at San Quentin State Prison was busted for smuggling on Thursday of last week.
Teri Nicholas, 47, is (was?) a teaching assistant from Los Angeles. She was visiting Bruce Milsap, a death row prisoner. She APPEARED to be pregnant. However, an alert visiting room officer noticed plastic bags in a nearby trashcan that had no obvious source.
It turns out that Ms. Nicholas had smuggled in some peach cobbler, greens, cell phones and chargers all stashed in her fake baby bump. Ms. Nicholas did clear the metal detector, which one would think would have picked up the cell phones and chargers.
She will be back in court on September 13 and could get four years as a guest of the state if convicted on all charges.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Here’s a little additional information.
Milsap, a member of the East Coast Crips gang, was on death row for murdering eight people in the 1990s during a series of robberies in Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties.
And the teacher was carrying 18 cellphones, 18 cellphone chargers, two unidentified blue pills and about 3 ounces of heroin in her baby bump. Another educated idiot flushes herself down the shitter.
Six death row inmates died between 2010 and 2015 with detectable levels of methamphetamines, heroin metabolites or other drugs in their systems, and there were eight non-fatal drug overdoses on death row during that period.
A woman visitor at San Quentin State Prison was busted for smuggling on Thursday of last week.
Teri Nicholas, 47, is (was?) a teaching assistant from Los Angeles. She was visiting Bruce Milsap, a death row prisoner. She APPEARED to be pregnant. However, an alert visiting room officer noticed plastic bags in a nearby trashcan that had no obvious source.
It turns out that Ms. Nicholas had smuggled in some peach cobbler, greens, cell phones and chargers all stashed in her fake baby bump. Ms. Nicholas did clear the metal detector, which one would think would have picked up the cell phones and chargers.
She will be back in court on September 13 and could get four years as a guest of the state if convicted on all charges.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Here’s a little additional information.
Milsap, a member of the East Coast Crips gang, was on death row for murdering eight people in the 1990s during a series of robberies in Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties.
And the teacher was carrying 18 cellphones, 18 cellphone chargers, two unidentified blue pills and about 3 ounces of heroin in her baby bump. Another educated idiot flushes herself down the shitter.
Six death row inmates died between 2010 and 2015 with detectable levels of methamphetamines, heroin metabolites or other drugs in their systems, and there were eight non-fatal drug overdoses on death row during that period.
DID POLICE CHIEF GET HER TIT CAUGHT IN THE WRINGER?
By Bob Walsh
Diane Stuart is the Chief of Police of Hayward, CA. This is a bedroom community in the East Bay area. Chief Stuart is, as of yesterday, on paid administrative leave due to a “personnel issue” pending further investigation.
Stuart, who has been chief for five years, previously worked for the San Jose (CA) PD under the name Diane Urbane. There is no information in the news reports I have read about her being married, divorced or whatever.
Stuart was pretty hot stuff in San Jose, working for their intelligence unit and on the SWAT team among other assignments. When she left to become chief in Hayward she was replaced by another female, Rikki Goede, who is now the chief in Piedmont.
Presumably Stuart did not leave a bad taste at San Jose when she left or they would not have moved in another female chief. She was an assistant chief when she left San Jose.
Captain Mark Koller is the Acting Chief in Hayward pending resolution of whatever is going on.
Diane Stuart is the Chief of Police of Hayward, CA. This is a bedroom community in the East Bay area. Chief Stuart is, as of yesterday, on paid administrative leave due to a “personnel issue” pending further investigation.
Stuart, who has been chief for five years, previously worked for the San Jose (CA) PD under the name Diane Urbane. There is no information in the news reports I have read about her being married, divorced or whatever.
Stuart was pretty hot stuff in San Jose, working for their intelligence unit and on the SWAT team among other assignments. When she left to become chief in Hayward she was replaced by another female, Rikki Goede, who is now the chief in Piedmont.
Presumably Stuart did not leave a bad taste at San Jose when she left or they would not have moved in another female chief. She was an assistant chief when she left San Jose.
Captain Mark Koller is the Acting Chief in Hayward pending resolution of whatever is going on.
WHEN THE EXCREMENT HITS THE AIR CIRCULATION DEVICE
Creative but unskilled help can be helpful indeed
By Bob Walsh
A few days ago, in the early hours of Sunday, Nikko Gallo, blasted out of his mind on Flakka and LSD, broke into a house in Stuart, Florida. He fought like hell with a man in the house, who outweighed him by 100 pounds. The man’s mother, instead of freaking out, grabbed an aluminum baseball bat and whacked the home invader in the head a few times, helping to subdue him.
The mother was slightly injured by broken glass. I am guessing that Gallo is now in custody or the hospital, but the news blurb I got this from did not say.
By Bob Walsh
A few days ago, in the early hours of Sunday, Nikko Gallo, blasted out of his mind on Flakka and LSD, broke into a house in Stuart, Florida. He fought like hell with a man in the house, who outweighed him by 100 pounds. The man’s mother, instead of freaking out, grabbed an aluminum baseball bat and whacked the home invader in the head a few times, helping to subdue him.
The mother was slightly injured by broken glass. I am guessing that Gallo is now in custody or the hospital, but the news blurb I got this from did not say.
A REALLY, REALLY, REALLY COLD CASE
By Bob Walsh
Forensic scientists have just finished a detailed post-mortem examination of Lucy, a proto-human who died in Africa about 3.2 million years ago.
Those scientists have concluded that Lucy probably bit the dust as the result of a fall from a fairly tall tree.
Lucy’s remains were discovered in 1974 in what is now central Ethiopia.
I wonder if her family member-survivors will try to sue the survivors of the owners of the tree? (Probably not. The tree probably didn’t have an owner. I don’t think that real estate ownership was an issue back then. Plus lineage would be hard to determine.)
Forensic scientists have just finished a detailed post-mortem examination of Lucy, a proto-human who died in Africa about 3.2 million years ago.
Those scientists have concluded that Lucy probably bit the dust as the result of a fall from a fairly tall tree.
Lucy’s remains were discovered in 1974 in what is now central Ethiopia.
I wonder if her family member-survivors will try to sue the survivors of the owners of the tree? (Probably not. The tree probably didn’t have an owner. I don’t think that real estate ownership was an issue back then. Plus lineage would be hard to determine.)
SIZE OF POLICE FORCES HAVE LESS TO DO WITH CRIME REDUCTION THAN POLICING STRATEGIES
Grits For Breakfast
August 29, 2016
Every municipal budget cycle, police administrators approach local budget writers asking for more officers to combat crime. But hiring more cops is expensive and local officials seldom have a way to judge whether doing so will increase public safety for their constituents.
Recently, researchers conducted "a systematic review of 62 studies and 229 findings of police force size and crime from 1971 through 2013. Only studies of U.S. policing and containing standard errors of estimates were included." Their analysis revealed that, "the overall effect size for police force size on crime is negative, small, and not statistically significant."
The upshot of their meta-analysis: "This line of research has exhausted its utility. Changing policing strategy is likely to have a greater impact on crime than adding more police."
That's not what police chiefs and unions are telling city councils in local budget conversations. Regardless, at this point, the costs of adding ever-more officers without changing policing strategies and adequately funding various support services probably can't be justified in most instances.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The size of police forces may very well not matter in cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, etc. that already have well-staffed police agencies. But what about the under-staffed smaller cities and towns? And then there are your rural county sheriff departments that in most instances are woefully understaffed. You better believe that in those smaller towns and rural sheriff departments size does matter!
August 29, 2016
Every municipal budget cycle, police administrators approach local budget writers asking for more officers to combat crime. But hiring more cops is expensive and local officials seldom have a way to judge whether doing so will increase public safety for their constituents.
Recently, researchers conducted "a systematic review of 62 studies and 229 findings of police force size and crime from 1971 through 2013. Only studies of U.S. policing and containing standard errors of estimates were included." Their analysis revealed that, "the overall effect size for police force size on crime is negative, small, and not statistically significant."
The upshot of their meta-analysis: "This line of research has exhausted its utility. Changing policing strategy is likely to have a greater impact on crime than adding more police."
That's not what police chiefs and unions are telling city councils in local budget conversations. Regardless, at this point, the costs of adding ever-more officers without changing policing strategies and adequately funding various support services probably can't be justified in most instances.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The size of police forces may very well not matter in cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, etc. that already have well-staffed police agencies. But what about the under-staffed smaller cities and towns? And then there are your rural county sheriff departments that in most instances are woefully understaffed. You better believe that in those smaller towns and rural sheriff departments size does matter!
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT SERVES A PURPOSE
A thick sheaf of peer-reviewed academic studies refutes the abolitionists’ belief that executing murderers doesn’t deter other murders
BY Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
August 28, 2016
Writing in support of Proposition 62, a California ballot initiative to repeal the death penalty, former El Dorado county supervisor Ron Briggs makes the tiresomely familiar claim that “the death penalty does not make our communities any safer” and “is not a deterrent to crime.”
For death penalty opponents, it is a venerable article of faith that executing murderers doesn’t deter other murders and that abolishing the death penalty doesn’t make killings more likely. Never mind that a thick sheaf of peer-reviewed academic studies refutes the abolitionists’ belief, as, of course, does common sense: All penalties have some deterrent effect, and the more severe the penalty, the more it deters. Let a parking meter expire, and you risk a $20 ticket; park in a handicapped spot, and risk a $200 ticket. Which violation are you less likely to commit?
It doesn’t take a social-science degree to grasp the real-world difference between facing vs. not facing a potential death sentence. Criminals grasp it too.
Dmitry Smirnov did. A resident of British Columbia, Smirnov was smitten with Jitka Vesel, a pretty Chicago woman he’d met online playing “World of Warcraft” in 2008 and then dated for several weeks. When Vesel ended the brief relationship, Smirnov took it badly. He returned to Canada, but kept pursuing Vesel by phone and online. When she broke off communication with him, he began plotting to kill her.
Smirnov returned to the United States in 2011, bought a gun and ammunition, and drove back to Chicago. He attached a GPS device to Vesel’s car so he could track her movements. On the evening of April 13, he tailed her to the Czechoslovak Heritage Museum in Oak Park, Ill., where she was a curator and board member. When she came out after a meeting, Smirnov ambushed her. He shot her repeatedly, firing multiple rounds into the back of her head even after she had crumpled to the ground.
A deranged suitor? Maybe — but Smirnov wasn’t too deranged to first check out whether Illinois was a death penalty state. He headed back to Chicago to murder Vesel only after learning that Illinois had recently abolished capital punishment. When he was questioned afterward by police, according to prosecutors, he told them he had confirmed Illinois’ no-death penalty status “as recently as the morning of the murder.” In an e-mail sent to a friend after the fact, Smirnov — who voluntarily surrendered to the police — made clear that he knew what to expect. “Illinois doesn’t have the death penalty, so I’ll spend the rest of my life in prison,” he wrote.
At trial Smirnov pleaded guilty, and was given a life sentence.
Would Jitka Vesel be alive today if Smirnov had faced the death penalty? Obviously there is no way to know for sure. But we do know for sure that when the cost of a crime goes up, the frequency of that crime goes down. Raise the price of any behavior, and fewer people will do it. The deterrent power of punishment is axiomatic; criminal law would be meaningless without it.
Still, a penalty cannot deter if it is never imposed. California hasn’t executed a murderer in 10 years. Only 13 killers have been put to death since 1972, when the state legalized capital punishment. Hundreds of savage murderers have been sentenced to death — there are currently 746 inmates on California’s death row — but endless legal appeals and procedures have made executions, for all intents and purposes, impossible.
Most Californians understand that their state’s death penalty needs to be fixed, not abolished. Voters defeated a repeal initiative, Proposition 34, in 2012 and appear likely to do the same to Proposition 62, the new repeal measure, this November. According to a statewide poll released last week by the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, voters oppose the new death penalty repeal measure by a 10-point margin, 55 percent to 45 percent.
On the other hand, California voters strongly support a second death penalty measure that will also be on the November ballot. Proposition 66, as summarized by the San Francisco Chronicle, would “speed up executions by setting tight deadlines for court rulings, placing some limits on appeals, and requiring many more defense lawyers to take capital cases.” The UC Berkeley poll shows voters backing Proposition 66, with its mend-it-don’t-end-it approach, by an overwhelming 76-to-24 ratio.
The politics of capital punishment are complicated and emotional, but human nature doesn’t change. Granted, incentives and disincentives are never foolproof. Granted, there will always be cases in which deterrents don’t deter. On the whole, however, when the death penalty is on the books and consistently enforced, a significant number of homicides will be prevented.
Pretty much by definition, murders that don’t happen because criminals are deterred by the prospect of being executed can’t be systematically tallied. But felons often disclose their motives when asked. In a striking 1961 opinion, California Supreme Court Justice Marshall McComb plumbed the files of the Los Angeles Police Department to demonstrate the deterrent effect of the death penalty on the thinking of violent criminals.
McComb listed numerous examples of homicides not committed because a would-be killer didn’t want to risk capital punishment. Among them:
■ Margaret Elizabeth Daly, arrested for attacking Pete Gibbons with a knife, who told the investigating officers: “Yeah, I cut him and I should have done a better job. I would have killed him but I didn’t want to go to the gas chamber.”
■ Orelius Mathew Steward, imprisoned for bank robbery, who acknowledged that he had considered shooting the unaccompanied cop who arrested him: “I could have blasted him. I thought about it at the time, but I changed my mind when I thought of the gas chamber.”
■ Paul Brusseau, convicted for a string of candy store holdups, which he committed while pretending to carry a gun. “Asked what his reason was for simulating a gun rather than using a real one, he replied that he did not want to get the gas chamber.”
Criminals may be evil and pitiless, but criminality isn’t a synonym for stupidity. When murder is punished with death, fewer criminals will murder. When murder is punished with nothing worse than prison, more criminals will be emboldened to kill. In the never-ending debate over capital punishment, that is always what the choice comes down to.
BY Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
August 28, 2016
Writing in support of Proposition 62, a California ballot initiative to repeal the death penalty, former El Dorado county supervisor Ron Briggs makes the tiresomely familiar claim that “the death penalty does not make our communities any safer” and “is not a deterrent to crime.”
For death penalty opponents, it is a venerable article of faith that executing murderers doesn’t deter other murders and that abolishing the death penalty doesn’t make killings more likely. Never mind that a thick sheaf of peer-reviewed academic studies refutes the abolitionists’ belief, as, of course, does common sense: All penalties have some deterrent effect, and the more severe the penalty, the more it deters. Let a parking meter expire, and you risk a $20 ticket; park in a handicapped spot, and risk a $200 ticket. Which violation are you less likely to commit?
It doesn’t take a social-science degree to grasp the real-world difference between facing vs. not facing a potential death sentence. Criminals grasp it too.
Dmitry Smirnov did. A resident of British Columbia, Smirnov was smitten with Jitka Vesel, a pretty Chicago woman he’d met online playing “World of Warcraft” in 2008 and then dated for several weeks. When Vesel ended the brief relationship, Smirnov took it badly. He returned to Canada, but kept pursuing Vesel by phone and online. When she broke off communication with him, he began plotting to kill her.
Smirnov returned to the United States in 2011, bought a gun and ammunition, and drove back to Chicago. He attached a GPS device to Vesel’s car so he could track her movements. On the evening of April 13, he tailed her to the Czechoslovak Heritage Museum in Oak Park, Ill., where she was a curator and board member. When she came out after a meeting, Smirnov ambushed her. He shot her repeatedly, firing multiple rounds into the back of her head even after she had crumpled to the ground.
A deranged suitor? Maybe — but Smirnov wasn’t too deranged to first check out whether Illinois was a death penalty state. He headed back to Chicago to murder Vesel only after learning that Illinois had recently abolished capital punishment. When he was questioned afterward by police, according to prosecutors, he told them he had confirmed Illinois’ no-death penalty status “as recently as the morning of the murder.” In an e-mail sent to a friend after the fact, Smirnov — who voluntarily surrendered to the police — made clear that he knew what to expect. “Illinois doesn’t have the death penalty, so I’ll spend the rest of my life in prison,” he wrote.
At trial Smirnov pleaded guilty, and was given a life sentence.
Would Jitka Vesel be alive today if Smirnov had faced the death penalty? Obviously there is no way to know for sure. But we do know for sure that when the cost of a crime goes up, the frequency of that crime goes down. Raise the price of any behavior, and fewer people will do it. The deterrent power of punishment is axiomatic; criminal law would be meaningless without it.
Still, a penalty cannot deter if it is never imposed. California hasn’t executed a murderer in 10 years. Only 13 killers have been put to death since 1972, when the state legalized capital punishment. Hundreds of savage murderers have been sentenced to death — there are currently 746 inmates on California’s death row — but endless legal appeals and procedures have made executions, for all intents and purposes, impossible.
Most Californians understand that their state’s death penalty needs to be fixed, not abolished. Voters defeated a repeal initiative, Proposition 34, in 2012 and appear likely to do the same to Proposition 62, the new repeal measure, this November. According to a statewide poll released last week by the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, voters oppose the new death penalty repeal measure by a 10-point margin, 55 percent to 45 percent.
On the other hand, California voters strongly support a second death penalty measure that will also be on the November ballot. Proposition 66, as summarized by the San Francisco Chronicle, would “speed up executions by setting tight deadlines for court rulings, placing some limits on appeals, and requiring many more defense lawyers to take capital cases.” The UC Berkeley poll shows voters backing Proposition 66, with its mend-it-don’t-end-it approach, by an overwhelming 76-to-24 ratio.
The politics of capital punishment are complicated and emotional, but human nature doesn’t change. Granted, incentives and disincentives are never foolproof. Granted, there will always be cases in which deterrents don’t deter. On the whole, however, when the death penalty is on the books and consistently enforced, a significant number of homicides will be prevented.
Pretty much by definition, murders that don’t happen because criminals are deterred by the prospect of being executed can’t be systematically tallied. But felons often disclose their motives when asked. In a striking 1961 opinion, California Supreme Court Justice Marshall McComb plumbed the files of the Los Angeles Police Department to demonstrate the deterrent effect of the death penalty on the thinking of violent criminals.
McComb listed numerous examples of homicides not committed because a would-be killer didn’t want to risk capital punishment. Among them:
■ Margaret Elizabeth Daly, arrested for attacking Pete Gibbons with a knife, who told the investigating officers: “Yeah, I cut him and I should have done a better job. I would have killed him but I didn’t want to go to the gas chamber.”
■ Orelius Mathew Steward, imprisoned for bank robbery, who acknowledged that he had considered shooting the unaccompanied cop who arrested him: “I could have blasted him. I thought about it at the time, but I changed my mind when I thought of the gas chamber.”
■ Paul Brusseau, convicted for a string of candy store holdups, which he committed while pretending to carry a gun. “Asked what his reason was for simulating a gun rather than using a real one, he replied that he did not want to get the gas chamber.”
Criminals may be evil and pitiless, but criminality isn’t a synonym for stupidity. When murder is punished with death, fewer criminals will murder. When murder is punished with nothing worse than prison, more criminals will be emboldened to kill. In the never-ending debate over capital punishment, that is always what the choice comes down to.
DON’T KILL THE DEATH PENALTY
Prop 62's backers can't name an exonerated individual from California's post-1978 death row because there aren't any
By Debra J. Saunders
Townhall
August 28, 2016
Opponents of California's death penalty have been highly successful at thwarting executions since the state resumed executions in 1992 after a 20-year hiatus. Their latest ploy is Proposition 62, which would repeal the death penalty and resentence death row inmates to life without parole. Measure sponsors argue that capital punishment presents the risk of executing an innocent person, but also state that California's death penalty is "simply unworkable."
That's a cheeky stand, coming from the corner that has been throwing monkey wrenches into the criminal justice system to subvert death penalty law. Over the years, appellate attorneys have introduced endless time-sucking, frivolous appeals that have jammed the courts, largely on technical grounds that have nothing to do with guilt or innocence, e.g., the trial lawyer wasn't top-drawer; the defendant's parents were abusive; lethal injection may not be painless.
In 2006, lawyers argued that convicted torturer-murderer Michael Morales might feel pain in his last moments because of the state's three-drug lethal injection protocol. A federal judge granted their appeal and effectively froze the capital punishment pipeline for a decade.
California Gov. Jerry Brown had pledged to implement the death penalty, even though he personally opposes it, yet his corrections department was happy to sit back and let the law not work for years. In exasperation, the tough-on-crime Criminal Justice Legal Foundation filed a lawsuit on behalf of the families of murder victims of two death row inmates to prod the state into developing a drug protocol that should pass muster with the U.S. Supreme Court. California Attorney General Kamala Harris, who also said she would uphold California's law despite her personal objections, tried to block the suit on the dubious grounds that the victims' families "lack standing." She failed. The families won. Sacramento finally devised a one-drug protocol, which should go into effect after a vetting period expected to end soon.
So now, just as the obstructionists are about to run out of string, they have put a measure on the November ballot to end California's death penalty.
Anti-death penalty activist Matt Cherry of Death Penalty Focus told the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board that capital punishment "has failed in California." Since 1992, he added, "just 13 people have been executed," which he noted constitutes about 1 percent of the 930 individuals sentenced to death since 1978. It's like an extorting mobster telling an honest businessman that it no longer pays to work hard and follow the rules: "You might as well just toss me the keys to the shop and save yourself some heartache."
In their ballot argument, Prop 62 supporters warn that when executions resume, California risks executing an innocent person — someone like Carlos DeLuna, who was executed in 1989 before an "independent investigation later proved his innocence." Problem: Texas executed DeLuna. Prop 62's backers can't name an exonerated individual from California's post-1978 death row because there aren't any.
In 2012, I asked Gov. Brown whether he had considered appointing a panel to recommend death row inmates deserving of a commutation. Brown personally remains a death penalty opponent, so his answer is instructive: "As attorney general, I think the representation was good. I think people have gotten exquisite due process in the state of California. It goes on for 20 or 25 years, and to think that they've missed anything like they have in some other states, I have not seen any evidence of it. None. I know people say, 'Oh, there have been all these innocent people.' Well, I have not seen one name on death row that's been told to me."
At a different editorial board meeting, former San Quentin State Prison Warden Jeanne Woodford, Ana Zamora of the ACLU and Berkeley law professor Elisabeth Semel vigorously defended all of the high jinks played by anti-death penalty lawyers. They oppose both the death penalty and Prop 66, which is supposed to streamline executions.
Why does it take a year to process an appeal based on a convicted killer's childhood? Why doesn't the Habeas Corpus Resource Center focus on worthy appeals and stop jamming up the courts with frivolous paper — and then complain about court backlogs? Why have opponents gone after the state for getting lethal injection drugs from compounding pharmacies or other states, after opponents made it impossible to secure drugs from once-legal sources? The answer to everything: Defense attorneys have to do it because "it's the law."
Well, so is the death penalty.
If California voters should decide to repeal capital punishment, do not believe for one minute they won't use every dirty trick to undermine life without parole. And they'll tell you they have to because "it's the law."
By Debra J. Saunders
Townhall
August 28, 2016
Opponents of California's death penalty have been highly successful at thwarting executions since the state resumed executions in 1992 after a 20-year hiatus. Their latest ploy is Proposition 62, which would repeal the death penalty and resentence death row inmates to life without parole. Measure sponsors argue that capital punishment presents the risk of executing an innocent person, but also state that California's death penalty is "simply unworkable."
That's a cheeky stand, coming from the corner that has been throwing monkey wrenches into the criminal justice system to subvert death penalty law. Over the years, appellate attorneys have introduced endless time-sucking, frivolous appeals that have jammed the courts, largely on technical grounds that have nothing to do with guilt or innocence, e.g., the trial lawyer wasn't top-drawer; the defendant's parents were abusive; lethal injection may not be painless.
In 2006, lawyers argued that convicted torturer-murderer Michael Morales might feel pain in his last moments because of the state's three-drug lethal injection protocol. A federal judge granted their appeal and effectively froze the capital punishment pipeline for a decade.
California Gov. Jerry Brown had pledged to implement the death penalty, even though he personally opposes it, yet his corrections department was happy to sit back and let the law not work for years. In exasperation, the tough-on-crime Criminal Justice Legal Foundation filed a lawsuit on behalf of the families of murder victims of two death row inmates to prod the state into developing a drug protocol that should pass muster with the U.S. Supreme Court. California Attorney General Kamala Harris, who also said she would uphold California's law despite her personal objections, tried to block the suit on the dubious grounds that the victims' families "lack standing." She failed. The families won. Sacramento finally devised a one-drug protocol, which should go into effect after a vetting period expected to end soon.
So now, just as the obstructionists are about to run out of string, they have put a measure on the November ballot to end California's death penalty.
Anti-death penalty activist Matt Cherry of Death Penalty Focus told the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board that capital punishment "has failed in California." Since 1992, he added, "just 13 people have been executed," which he noted constitutes about 1 percent of the 930 individuals sentenced to death since 1978. It's like an extorting mobster telling an honest businessman that it no longer pays to work hard and follow the rules: "You might as well just toss me the keys to the shop and save yourself some heartache."
In their ballot argument, Prop 62 supporters warn that when executions resume, California risks executing an innocent person — someone like Carlos DeLuna, who was executed in 1989 before an "independent investigation later proved his innocence." Problem: Texas executed DeLuna. Prop 62's backers can't name an exonerated individual from California's post-1978 death row because there aren't any.
In 2012, I asked Gov. Brown whether he had considered appointing a panel to recommend death row inmates deserving of a commutation. Brown personally remains a death penalty opponent, so his answer is instructive: "As attorney general, I think the representation was good. I think people have gotten exquisite due process in the state of California. It goes on for 20 or 25 years, and to think that they've missed anything like they have in some other states, I have not seen any evidence of it. None. I know people say, 'Oh, there have been all these innocent people.' Well, I have not seen one name on death row that's been told to me."
At a different editorial board meeting, former San Quentin State Prison Warden Jeanne Woodford, Ana Zamora of the ACLU and Berkeley law professor Elisabeth Semel vigorously defended all of the high jinks played by anti-death penalty lawyers. They oppose both the death penalty and Prop 66, which is supposed to streamline executions.
Why does it take a year to process an appeal based on a convicted killer's childhood? Why doesn't the Habeas Corpus Resource Center focus on worthy appeals and stop jamming up the courts with frivolous paper — and then complain about court backlogs? Why have opponents gone after the state for getting lethal injection drugs from compounding pharmacies or other states, after opponents made it impossible to secure drugs from once-legal sources? The answer to everything: Defense attorneys have to do it because "it's the law."
Well, so is the death penalty.
If California voters should decide to repeal capital punishment, do not believe for one minute they won't use every dirty trick to undermine life without parole. And they'll tell you they have to because "it's the law."
‘I SHOT DAD’
The tragic case of a child who killed his abusive, neo-Nazi father
By Kristine Guerra
The Washington Post
August 28, 2016
Jeffrey Hall was unequivocal about what he wanted.
"I want a white nation," he once told the Los Angeles Times. "I don't hide what I am, and I don't water that down."
An unemployed plumber who used to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border looking for illegal immigrants, Hall was a rising star among white supremacists.
He would often speak at rallies, promoting the goals of the National Socialist Movement, the largest neo-Nazi organization in the country, with 46 chapters in 20 states. In a YouTube video of a 2009 anti-immigration rally in Southern California, Hall, the National Socialist Movement's regional director there, is seen holding a megaphone with a smiling Hitler emoji sticker on it as he proclaims the need for "white immigration" and a "pro-white" America.
But Hall's rise in the movement ended abruptly. He died in May 2011, when he was shot at point-blank range while sleeping on his living room couch.
The killer - in a shocking twist - was his 10-year-old son, Joseph, a troubled boy whose childhood was fraught with violence perpetrated by his father.
As the oldest of Hall's children, Joseph, it seemed, was first in line to get a glimpse of his father's activities, including shooting guns and patrolling the Mexican border for illegal immigrants. But Joseph also bore the brunt of Hall's violent outbursts.
On May 1, 2011, hours after a meeting of the neo-Nazi group at Hall's house in Southern California, the boy took his father's revolver from the upstairs bedroom where his stepmother was sleeping.
Joseph fired a bullet into his father's head, just behind his father's left ear.
As his 32-year-old father lay lifeless in a pool of blood, Joseph admitted what he had done.
"I shot dad," he told his stepmother, according to court records.
During an interrogation that lasted more than an hour, Joseph was allowed to give up his Miranda rights - a decision the boy made without an attorney's guidance and, some argue, without fully understanding what that entailed.
And as Joseph's statements to police suggest, he understood little about death and its lasting consequences.
"How many lives do people usually get?" Joseph asked police officers after they arrived at the crime scene, according to court records.
Joseph has been in custody since his father's death. In 2013, the boy was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to serve 10 years in a California juvenile facility.
Many child advocates and politicians think the boy's conviction was flawed. They argue that Joseph, a child with developmental disabilities, could not have realized the wrongfulness of what he had done - and could not have understood what it meant when he gave up his Miranda rights while being interrogated by police after the shooting.
Joseph's culpability and the issue of allowing children to waive their Miranda rights without any legal guidance are now the subject of proposed legislation in California, as well as a pending appeal to the nation's highest court.
"There's not a 10-year-old on the planet who ought to be in a position of waiving a constitutional right without an advice from an adult," said Scott Ballenger, part of Joseph's legal team, which has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review Joseph's appeal, after it was denied by the California courts.
Five years after Hall's death, Joseph's case prompted California legislators to introduce a bill that would provide children with some layer of protection from police interrogation.
Unlike some states, California doesn't have a law that requires young children to receive legal guidance from an attorney or a guardian before they're interrogated.
Introduced in February, Senate Bill 1052 could potentially affect hundreds of children like Joseph who enter the criminal justice system at a young age. It would require those younger than 18 to first consult with an attorney or a legal guardian before they're allowed to waive their Miranda rights - and before they're interrogated by a police officer.
The bill has been approved by the California Senate and Assembly and was sent back to the Senate this week for a final vote. "We have to update our laws to be realistic, to be sure that children have protection before they're aggressively interrogated," the bill's author, state Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, told The Washington Post. "Young people don't grasp what they're agreeing to."
SB 1052, if it becomes law, won't have any effect on Joseph's case, though it spurred the legislation.
By Kristine Guerra
The Washington Post
August 28, 2016
Jeffrey Hall was unequivocal about what he wanted.
"I want a white nation," he once told the Los Angeles Times. "I don't hide what I am, and I don't water that down."
An unemployed plumber who used to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border looking for illegal immigrants, Hall was a rising star among white supremacists.
He would often speak at rallies, promoting the goals of the National Socialist Movement, the largest neo-Nazi organization in the country, with 46 chapters in 20 states. In a YouTube video of a 2009 anti-immigration rally in Southern California, Hall, the National Socialist Movement's regional director there, is seen holding a megaphone with a smiling Hitler emoji sticker on it as he proclaims the need for "white immigration" and a "pro-white" America.
But Hall's rise in the movement ended abruptly. He died in May 2011, when he was shot at point-blank range while sleeping on his living room couch.
The killer - in a shocking twist - was his 10-year-old son, Joseph, a troubled boy whose childhood was fraught with violence perpetrated by his father.
As the oldest of Hall's children, Joseph, it seemed, was first in line to get a glimpse of his father's activities, including shooting guns and patrolling the Mexican border for illegal immigrants. But Joseph also bore the brunt of Hall's violent outbursts.
On May 1, 2011, hours after a meeting of the neo-Nazi group at Hall's house in Southern California, the boy took his father's revolver from the upstairs bedroom where his stepmother was sleeping.
Joseph fired a bullet into his father's head, just behind his father's left ear.
As his 32-year-old father lay lifeless in a pool of blood, Joseph admitted what he had done.
"I shot dad," he told his stepmother, according to court records.
During an interrogation that lasted more than an hour, Joseph was allowed to give up his Miranda rights - a decision the boy made without an attorney's guidance and, some argue, without fully understanding what that entailed.
And as Joseph's statements to police suggest, he understood little about death and its lasting consequences.
"How many lives do people usually get?" Joseph asked police officers after they arrived at the crime scene, according to court records.
Joseph has been in custody since his father's death. In 2013, the boy was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to serve 10 years in a California juvenile facility.
Many child advocates and politicians think the boy's conviction was flawed. They argue that Joseph, a child with developmental disabilities, could not have realized the wrongfulness of what he had done - and could not have understood what it meant when he gave up his Miranda rights while being interrogated by police after the shooting.
Joseph's culpability and the issue of allowing children to waive their Miranda rights without any legal guidance are now the subject of proposed legislation in California, as well as a pending appeal to the nation's highest court.
"There's not a 10-year-old on the planet who ought to be in a position of waiving a constitutional right without an advice from an adult," said Scott Ballenger, part of Joseph's legal team, which has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review Joseph's appeal, after it was denied by the California courts.
Five years after Hall's death, Joseph's case prompted California legislators to introduce a bill that would provide children with some layer of protection from police interrogation.
Unlike some states, California doesn't have a law that requires young children to receive legal guidance from an attorney or a guardian before they're interrogated.
Introduced in February, Senate Bill 1052 could potentially affect hundreds of children like Joseph who enter the criminal justice system at a young age. It would require those younger than 18 to first consult with an attorney or a legal guardian before they're allowed to waive their Miranda rights - and before they're interrogated by a police officer.
The bill has been approved by the California Senate and Assembly and was sent back to the Senate this week for a final vote. "We have to update our laws to be realistic, to be sure that children have protection before they're aggressively interrogated," the bill's author, state Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, told The Washington Post. "Young people don't grasp what they're agreeing to."
SB 1052, if it becomes law, won't have any effect on Joseph's case, though it spurred the legislation.
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
WEINER CONTINUES SEXTING HIS WEENEE WHILE HIS WIFE AND HILLARY ARE DOING ….. WHAT!?
Former Congressman and New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner is caught again sexting his dick to a woman “friend”
The Unconventional Gazette | August 30, 2016
Anthony Weiner resigned from Congress in 2011 after getting caught displaying his dick to six women on the internet. In 2013, during his unsuccessful campaign for mayor of New York, Weiner got caught sexting again, this time to a woman by using the AKA “Carlos Danger.”
Now Carlos has been caught waving his weenie yet again. The New York Post reports Weiner sent explicit photos to a woman “friend” multiple times over the past 19 months and to whom he described his sexual fantasies and masturbation in messages, calling her “literally a fantasy chick.”
It is well-known that Carlos Danger is the hubby of Huma Abedin who happens to be Hillary Clinton’s best pal and top confidante.
Huma announced Monday that she’s had it with the smart phone weenie waver and is giving him the heave-ho. Perhaps she should have taken Anthony’s sexting toy away from him when he got caught doing it again three years ago.
Coincidentally, a recently retired Secret Service agent who asked not to be identified told The Unconventional Gazette that there seems to be more to what’s going on between Hillary and Huma than a professional and platonic relationship.
The agent said he was assigned to Hillary’s protective detail. Every time Hillary and Huma went into her study, Hillary gave him explicit orders that under no circumstances were they to be disturbed. Then she would shut the door and he could hear it being locked.
He says that after a while on several occasions he could hear what sounded to him like high-pitched moaning and groaning being emitted from behind the closed door. And he would also hear exclamations such as “Oh God, oh my God!” coming forth from within the study.
The agent says he did not believe Hillary and Huma were engaged in prayer on those occasions.
The Unconventional Gazette has no reason to doubt the unnamed agent’s account. After all, Hillary’s hubby Bill has a long record of cheating on his wife. And Carlos Danger has a record of cheating on Huma, albeit over the internet. Obviously both husbands, Bill and Anthony, have not been sexually satisfied by their spouses, Hillary and Huma.
Do the moans, groans and godly exclamations coming from behind closed doors mean that Hillary Clinton could become our nation’s first Lesbian President?
The Unconventional Gazette | August 30, 2016
Anthony Weiner resigned from Congress in 2011 after getting caught displaying his dick to six women on the internet. In 2013, during his unsuccessful campaign for mayor of New York, Weiner got caught sexting again, this time to a woman by using the AKA “Carlos Danger.”
Now Carlos has been caught waving his weenie yet again. The New York Post reports Weiner sent explicit photos to a woman “friend” multiple times over the past 19 months and to whom he described his sexual fantasies and masturbation in messages, calling her “literally a fantasy chick.”
It is well-known that Carlos Danger is the hubby of Huma Abedin who happens to be Hillary Clinton’s best pal and top confidante.
Huma announced Monday that she’s had it with the smart phone weenie waver and is giving him the heave-ho. Perhaps she should have taken Anthony’s sexting toy away from him when he got caught doing it again three years ago.
Coincidentally, a recently retired Secret Service agent who asked not to be identified told The Unconventional Gazette that there seems to be more to what’s going on between Hillary and Huma than a professional and platonic relationship.
The agent said he was assigned to Hillary’s protective detail. Every time Hillary and Huma went into her study, Hillary gave him explicit orders that under no circumstances were they to be disturbed. Then she would shut the door and he could hear it being locked.
He says that after a while on several occasions he could hear what sounded to him like high-pitched moaning and groaning being emitted from behind the closed door. And he would also hear exclamations such as “Oh God, oh my God!” coming forth from within the study.
The agent says he did not believe Hillary and Huma were engaged in prayer on those occasions.
The Unconventional Gazette has no reason to doubt the unnamed agent’s account. After all, Hillary’s hubby Bill has a long record of cheating on his wife. And Carlos Danger has a record of cheating on Huma, albeit over the internet. Obviously both husbands, Bill and Anthony, have not been sexually satisfied by their spouses, Hillary and Huma.
Do the moans, groans and godly exclamations coming from behind closed doors mean that Hillary Clinton could become our nation’s first Lesbian President?
SOMETHING IS ROTTEN IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA’S SUNSHINE CANYON
‘The smell is torture,’ San Fernando Valley residents say of Sunshine Canyon Landfill
By Dana Bartholomew
Los Angeles Daily News
August 28, 2016
GRANADA HILLS -- Six months after Stephen Beck moved into his newly built Legends at Cascades condo in Sylmar, he awoke to a noxious bedroom window invader.
An overwhelming smell of garbage.
“What we are talking about is stench,” said Beck, 75, who had moved into his home less than a mile from Sunshine Canyon Landfill in October 2009. “Like a pile of fruits or veggies that are rotting.”
“They can throw red herrings. But the fact is, we can smell it. It’s not BS. It’s in our face,” he said. “So, what we’ve learned to do is close our windows. That’s how we’re forced to live.”
Beck was among more than two dozen San Fernando Valley residents to testify in Granada Hills on Saturday before an independent air district law panel now considering a proposed nuisance abatement order in response to thousands of dump odor complaints.
During the first of an expected five public hearings, the five-member South Coast Air Quality Management District Hearing Board considered an air district proposal that aims to control the stench wafting from the 362-acre Sylmar dump, the county’s largest.
If approved, it would be the second order of abatement against landfill owner Republic Services in five years.
From 2009 to last month, South Coast air regulators received 9,224 complaints, from mostly Granada Hills and Sylmar. In the past three years, the district has issued more than 90 notices of violation.
“In the proceeding before the board today, the district alleges the odors are the result of insufficient gas collection, inadequate treatment of incoming daily waste, and inadequate daily and intermediate cover procedures,” Nick Sanchez, an attorney for the SCAQMD, told the board.
“As a result of the odors emanating from the landfill, a considerable number of persons living in the community and attending (its) elementary school have been forced to remain indoors,” Sanchez said.
The courtlike hearing drew an estimated 50 people to an auditorium at the Valley Academy of Arts and Sciences in Granada Hills.
It was in 2011, after decades of complaints from Valley residents, that the landfill and the air district reached a mutual agreement in a first abatement order to control odors.
Since then, Republic Services has spent $27 million to corral methane and other gases and control smells from emanating from the landfill within Los Angeles and L.A. County at the base of Newhall Pass.
The improvements include installing nearly 600 gas collection wells drilled into 58 years of waste, in addition to 15 miles of pipe leading to flares or a small power plant that burns off the gas. Plus 20,000 oak trees, fence-line misters and other odor stopping measures.
Since 2011, the large earthen bowl at Sunshine Canyon that collects up to 2.3 million tons of trash a year has tripled its ability to collect landfill gases, generally the source of nighttime complaints from nearby residents.
Now the Phoenix-based company is battling a nuisance order petition that would limit the dump’s daily intake of trash by a third, lop off three morning hours of operation, and demand improved covers to control garbage gases.
Landfill representatives say diverting as much as 3,000 daily tons to landfills in Simi Valley and Chiquita Canyon near Santa Clarita by 175 garbage trucks will further pollute the air by driving extra distances to distant dumps.
“It’ll have absolutely no impact on landfill odors, because the waste in the landfill generates gas for decades,” said Thomas M. Bruen, an attorney representing Republic Services, of the proposed restrictions. “The only way to control odor is to have a good gas collection system, which we believe we have.”
In a way, the entire air district nuisance rules and odor complaint and verification process was on trial, as attorneys for Republic Services zeroed in on roughly 30 local residents organized through social media they say have generated the most complaints.
“That rule, and the district policy, is under attack during these proceedings,” said the SCAQMD’s Sanchez.
A recent lawsuit by the company to get the names of complainants protected by the air district was defeated in court. Condo tenant Beck was among the plaintiffs on a class-action lawsuit filed in 2012 against Republic Services, now verging on a settlement.
Councilman Mitch Englander, who represents the North Valley, issued a letter in support of a nuisance order. “This community has suffered enough,” he said.
Steve Lee, who represents a group fighting an expansion of Chiquita Canyon near Val Verde, said he doesn’t want to see diverted garbage sent over from Sunshine Canyon.
“We don’t want the trash to be sent to us,” he said.
Wayde Hunter, who has fought the ills of Sunshine Canyon for 30 years, said Sunshine Canyon collects millions of tons of fresh trash each year “despite an odor problem they’ve not been able to correct.”
Four years ago, Nurha Hindi-Chahayed and her family bought a house in Granada Hills less than a half mile from the landfill. Six month later, she and her three kids experience the same sour whiff as Beck.
“The odors that we smell in the morning terrorize our morning routine,” said Hindi-Chahayed, president of the parent-teacher organization at Van Gogh Charter School, considered the epicenter for landfill smell. “Kids hold their noses when coming to class. We cannot hold morning assembly.”
“The smell is torture,” she said.
By Dana Bartholomew
Los Angeles Daily News
August 28, 2016
GRANADA HILLS -- Six months after Stephen Beck moved into his newly built Legends at Cascades condo in Sylmar, he awoke to a noxious bedroom window invader.
An overwhelming smell of garbage.
“What we are talking about is stench,” said Beck, 75, who had moved into his home less than a mile from Sunshine Canyon Landfill in October 2009. “Like a pile of fruits or veggies that are rotting.”
“They can throw red herrings. But the fact is, we can smell it. It’s not BS. It’s in our face,” he said. “So, what we’ve learned to do is close our windows. That’s how we’re forced to live.”
Beck was among more than two dozen San Fernando Valley residents to testify in Granada Hills on Saturday before an independent air district law panel now considering a proposed nuisance abatement order in response to thousands of dump odor complaints.
During the first of an expected five public hearings, the five-member South Coast Air Quality Management District Hearing Board considered an air district proposal that aims to control the stench wafting from the 362-acre Sylmar dump, the county’s largest.
If approved, it would be the second order of abatement against landfill owner Republic Services in five years.
From 2009 to last month, South Coast air regulators received 9,224 complaints, from mostly Granada Hills and Sylmar. In the past three years, the district has issued more than 90 notices of violation.
“In the proceeding before the board today, the district alleges the odors are the result of insufficient gas collection, inadequate treatment of incoming daily waste, and inadequate daily and intermediate cover procedures,” Nick Sanchez, an attorney for the SCAQMD, told the board.
“As a result of the odors emanating from the landfill, a considerable number of persons living in the community and attending (its) elementary school have been forced to remain indoors,” Sanchez said.
The courtlike hearing drew an estimated 50 people to an auditorium at the Valley Academy of Arts and Sciences in Granada Hills.
It was in 2011, after decades of complaints from Valley residents, that the landfill and the air district reached a mutual agreement in a first abatement order to control odors.
Since then, Republic Services has spent $27 million to corral methane and other gases and control smells from emanating from the landfill within Los Angeles and L.A. County at the base of Newhall Pass.
The improvements include installing nearly 600 gas collection wells drilled into 58 years of waste, in addition to 15 miles of pipe leading to flares or a small power plant that burns off the gas. Plus 20,000 oak trees, fence-line misters and other odor stopping measures.
Since 2011, the large earthen bowl at Sunshine Canyon that collects up to 2.3 million tons of trash a year has tripled its ability to collect landfill gases, generally the source of nighttime complaints from nearby residents.
Now the Phoenix-based company is battling a nuisance order petition that would limit the dump’s daily intake of trash by a third, lop off three morning hours of operation, and demand improved covers to control garbage gases.
Landfill representatives say diverting as much as 3,000 daily tons to landfills in Simi Valley and Chiquita Canyon near Santa Clarita by 175 garbage trucks will further pollute the air by driving extra distances to distant dumps.
“It’ll have absolutely no impact on landfill odors, because the waste in the landfill generates gas for decades,” said Thomas M. Bruen, an attorney representing Republic Services, of the proposed restrictions. “The only way to control odor is to have a good gas collection system, which we believe we have.”
In a way, the entire air district nuisance rules and odor complaint and verification process was on trial, as attorneys for Republic Services zeroed in on roughly 30 local residents organized through social media they say have generated the most complaints.
“That rule, and the district policy, is under attack during these proceedings,” said the SCAQMD’s Sanchez.
A recent lawsuit by the company to get the names of complainants protected by the air district was defeated in court. Condo tenant Beck was among the plaintiffs on a class-action lawsuit filed in 2012 against Republic Services, now verging on a settlement.
Councilman Mitch Englander, who represents the North Valley, issued a letter in support of a nuisance order. “This community has suffered enough,” he said.
Steve Lee, who represents a group fighting an expansion of Chiquita Canyon near Val Verde, said he doesn’t want to see diverted garbage sent over from Sunshine Canyon.
“We don’t want the trash to be sent to us,” he said.
Wayde Hunter, who has fought the ills of Sunshine Canyon for 30 years, said Sunshine Canyon collects millions of tons of fresh trash each year “despite an odor problem they’ve not been able to correct.”
Four years ago, Nurha Hindi-Chahayed and her family bought a house in Granada Hills less than a half mile from the landfill. Six month later, she and her three kids experience the same sour whiff as Beck.
“The odors that we smell in the morning terrorize our morning routine,” said Hindi-Chahayed, president of the parent-teacher organization at Van Gogh Charter School, considered the epicenter for landfill smell. “Kids hold their noses when coming to class. We cannot hold morning assembly.”
“The smell is torture,” she said.
DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS’ CRIME STATISTICS
By Chuck DeVore and Randy Petersen
Real Clear Policy
August 17, 2016
In a recent Real Clear Policy article, Sean Kennedy examines Texas’ violent crime rate, questioning the Lone Star State’s policy of improving public safety while reducing incarceration. Unfortunately, by cherry-picking data of questionable quality, Mr. Kennedy undermines his central claims.
Start with the facts. Over the past decade, Texas closed three prisons while cutting its juvenile detainee population from about 4,000 in 2006 to 1,331 earlier this year. These reforms focused on keeping non-violent offenders out of costly lock-ups and used a portion of the dollars saved toward proven treatment, rehabilitation, and reentry programs. Texas did not reduce penalties for violent offenders, let alone murderers. The result: Reduced recidivism, lower costs, and a state-wide crime rate reduced to levels not seen since 1968.
This is the Texas model of reducing both crime and incarceration rates, and it has been successfully implemented in varying degrees in some 40 states as well as informing pending federal criminal justice legislation. So impugning Texas’ criminal justice reform efforts isn’t just messing with Texas, it’s questioning the basis of criminal justice reform work across the nation.
The idea that crime rates and incarceration are joined at the hip has been thoroughly discredited. Incapacitation of criminals via incarceration is a factor in crime rates, to be sure. But most criminals eventually get out of prison, and, when they do, helping them stay out is vitally important.
Moreover, there’s no evidence that recent criminal justice reforms pioneered in Texas have any connection to the increases in violent crime seen in some U.S. cities. To the contrary, over the past several years, crime rates have fallen faster in states that have reduced imprisonment rates than in those where prisons have continued to grow. Many of the cities now experiencing violent crime increases, such as Chicago, are in states that have yet to implement comprehensive sentencing and corrections reforms.
This isn’t to say that current criminal activity, largely concentrated in major urban centers, might not have something to do with the so-called Ferguson Effect or the Mexican drug cartels’ replacement of marijuana smuggling with heroin. Criminal behavior and crime rates are the result of a complex interplay of demographics, policing, sentencing, incarceration, rehabilitation, reentry, and other factors. For that reason, parts of the system can be improved while others fail, resulting in increased overall crime.
So, what, exactly, is the problem with Texas?
Mr. Kennedy admits that crime plummeted in Texas as prison populations were reduced right through 2014. But he goes on to say, “Now violent crimes — especially homicide — have spiked again in Texas’ biggest cities,” suggesting that Texas’ criminal justice reforms are to blame. But there is no correlation between increased violent crime in Texas’ largest cities and criminal justice reforms largely aimed at nonviolent offenders. In fact, there’s a long history in Texas and a large body of research that shows these well-implemented alternatives not only cost less but work better than the prison cell. Such reforms, when implemented correctly, reduce recidivism and crime rates.
If we misdiagnose the problem, we won’t find the solution. Kennedy points to two charts showing the number of homicides and violent crimes committed in Texas’ five largest cities for the first six months of 2014, 2015, and 2016. Because FBI statistics are only available through the first half of 2015, Kennedy combines raw data from the police departments themselves as well as from the Major Cities Police Chiefs Association, a lobbying and advocacy group.
The problem? A staffer at the Major Cities Police Chiefs Association warned us that their data are “not scientific” and used only “as a benchmark for the agencies to see where they stand in relation to one another.” Further, the data are not checked for accuracy but simply self-reported by the member agencies, who return a survey sent out by the association. This ought to raise red flags.
How do Kennedy’s data compare to the official FBI data available for two of the three periods on which he reports? Not well.
For instance, Kennedy asserts that the number of homicides in Houston went up 57.8 percent in the first six months of 2014 compared to 2015; the FBI data says 44 percent. Both indicate a large jump, but the difference between 57.8 percent and 44 percent is statistically significant.
Kennedy’s overall violent crime number for Houston is even more at odds with available data. He claims that the number spiked by almost 25 percent, comparing the first half of 2014 to first half of 2015. The FBI data for the same period doesn’t show such increase, but, rather, a decrease of 1.8 percent. Factoring in population growth, the decline in violent crime in Houston over that period is closer to 3 percent — far lower than Kennedy’s 25 percent.
Since the Major Cities Police Chiefs Association didn’t report Houston’s statistics in their compilation of data, Kennedy likely derived the figure (7,957 violent crimes from January 2014 to June 2014) from the Houston Police Department. But that department reported 10,000 violent crimes for the period while the FBI lists 10,401. Thus Kennedy’s base year for Houston is more than 20 percent lower than it should be, undermining his subsequent calculations.
Now, let’s take a look at 2013 data. For the first half of that year, Houston reported 10,106 violent crimes. Comparing the first six months of 2013 to 2016, the overall number of violent crimes rose by 14.7 percent in three years. Factoring in population growth and using the proper baseline for 2013, we see that violent crime rate is up about 9 percent in three years and about 13 percent over the last two, more than a third less than Kennedy’s 36 percent jump.
Looking at the 29 major Texas cities comprising 39 percent of the state’s population that reported 2014-2015 data to the FBI, (Austin didn’t report), we see violent crime going up in 15 cities and down in 14, an average increase of 4 percent (not factoring for population growth). For urban centers statewide, violent crime was up 2.4 percent. Factoring in population growth, the violent crime rate in these cities over the first six months of 2015 compared to 2014 increased about 0.6 percent.
Murder spikes are concerning, but the violent crime rate is more telling. Murders are, thankfully, a small proportion of the aggregate of violent crimes in any city, so a movement up or down is a large percentage of that small number. Keep in mind that the Uniform Crime Report, a database maintained by the Federal Bureau of Information on national crime statistics and used in innumerable research efforts, only captures the most serious offense from any single incident. For instance, if a victim is killed as a result of a rape, robbery, or aggravated assault, only the murder is counted. So it would be more alarming if the murder rate and the violent crime rate were rising in tandem (they’re not).
Since violent crime, especially homicide, is relatively rare, property crime rates can provide a better barometer of trends and the effectiveness of criminal justice policies. What happened to the number of property crimes in Texas’ major cities (excluding Austin) reported to the FBI? Down by 5.9 percent from the first half of 2014 to the first half of last year. Converting to a crime rate, property crime in these cities is down almost 8 percent.
The Major Cities Police Chiefs Association report, which is comprised of 61 urban law enforcement agencies (and does not take population growth into account), indicates that violent crime, including homicide and non-fatal shootings, is up nationally by 2.3 percent from the first half of 2015. This means that the violent crime rate in this subset of cities is up on the order of just over 1 percent — not good, but certainly not a massive crime spike. For the full year, 2014 to 2015, the violent crime rate is up a similar 2.2 percent.
So it’s simply not the case that, in aggregate, violent crime in Texas’ major cities “has risen year-on-year for the first time in a generation,” as Kennedy asserts. On the contrary, Texas crime rates are at historic lows and its incarceration rates are heading lower, mainly due to a shift in treatment of non-violent offenders, which leaves more room in state lockups for the violent. These successful criminal justice reforms have resulted in improved public safety and a lower cost to taxpayers.
The evidence from Texas is clear: Criminal justice reforms have improved public safety, not imperiled it. The Lone Star State is a model for the rest of the nation.
EDITOR’S NOTE: I think somebody has messed with those crime statistics to make it look like Texans are safer under the criminal justice reforms.
Real Clear Policy
August 17, 2016
In a recent Real Clear Policy article, Sean Kennedy examines Texas’ violent crime rate, questioning the Lone Star State’s policy of improving public safety while reducing incarceration. Unfortunately, by cherry-picking data of questionable quality, Mr. Kennedy undermines his central claims.
Start with the facts. Over the past decade, Texas closed three prisons while cutting its juvenile detainee population from about 4,000 in 2006 to 1,331 earlier this year. These reforms focused on keeping non-violent offenders out of costly lock-ups and used a portion of the dollars saved toward proven treatment, rehabilitation, and reentry programs. Texas did not reduce penalties for violent offenders, let alone murderers. The result: Reduced recidivism, lower costs, and a state-wide crime rate reduced to levels not seen since 1968.
This is the Texas model of reducing both crime and incarceration rates, and it has been successfully implemented in varying degrees in some 40 states as well as informing pending federal criminal justice legislation. So impugning Texas’ criminal justice reform efforts isn’t just messing with Texas, it’s questioning the basis of criminal justice reform work across the nation.
The idea that crime rates and incarceration are joined at the hip has been thoroughly discredited. Incapacitation of criminals via incarceration is a factor in crime rates, to be sure. But most criminals eventually get out of prison, and, when they do, helping them stay out is vitally important.
Moreover, there’s no evidence that recent criminal justice reforms pioneered in Texas have any connection to the increases in violent crime seen in some U.S. cities. To the contrary, over the past several years, crime rates have fallen faster in states that have reduced imprisonment rates than in those where prisons have continued to grow. Many of the cities now experiencing violent crime increases, such as Chicago, are in states that have yet to implement comprehensive sentencing and corrections reforms.
This isn’t to say that current criminal activity, largely concentrated in major urban centers, might not have something to do with the so-called Ferguson Effect or the Mexican drug cartels’ replacement of marijuana smuggling with heroin. Criminal behavior and crime rates are the result of a complex interplay of demographics, policing, sentencing, incarceration, rehabilitation, reentry, and other factors. For that reason, parts of the system can be improved while others fail, resulting in increased overall crime.
So, what, exactly, is the problem with Texas?
Mr. Kennedy admits that crime plummeted in Texas as prison populations were reduced right through 2014. But he goes on to say, “Now violent crimes — especially homicide — have spiked again in Texas’ biggest cities,” suggesting that Texas’ criminal justice reforms are to blame. But there is no correlation between increased violent crime in Texas’ largest cities and criminal justice reforms largely aimed at nonviolent offenders. In fact, there’s a long history in Texas and a large body of research that shows these well-implemented alternatives not only cost less but work better than the prison cell. Such reforms, when implemented correctly, reduce recidivism and crime rates.
If we misdiagnose the problem, we won’t find the solution. Kennedy points to two charts showing the number of homicides and violent crimes committed in Texas’ five largest cities for the first six months of 2014, 2015, and 2016. Because FBI statistics are only available through the first half of 2015, Kennedy combines raw data from the police departments themselves as well as from the Major Cities Police Chiefs Association, a lobbying and advocacy group.
The problem? A staffer at the Major Cities Police Chiefs Association warned us that their data are “not scientific” and used only “as a benchmark for the agencies to see where they stand in relation to one another.” Further, the data are not checked for accuracy but simply self-reported by the member agencies, who return a survey sent out by the association. This ought to raise red flags.
How do Kennedy’s data compare to the official FBI data available for two of the three periods on which he reports? Not well.
For instance, Kennedy asserts that the number of homicides in Houston went up 57.8 percent in the first six months of 2014 compared to 2015; the FBI data says 44 percent. Both indicate a large jump, but the difference between 57.8 percent and 44 percent is statistically significant.
Kennedy’s overall violent crime number for Houston is even more at odds with available data. He claims that the number spiked by almost 25 percent, comparing the first half of 2014 to first half of 2015. The FBI data for the same period doesn’t show such increase, but, rather, a decrease of 1.8 percent. Factoring in population growth, the decline in violent crime in Houston over that period is closer to 3 percent — far lower than Kennedy’s 25 percent.
Since the Major Cities Police Chiefs Association didn’t report Houston’s statistics in their compilation of data, Kennedy likely derived the figure (7,957 violent crimes from January 2014 to June 2014) from the Houston Police Department. But that department reported 10,000 violent crimes for the period while the FBI lists 10,401. Thus Kennedy’s base year for Houston is more than 20 percent lower than it should be, undermining his subsequent calculations.
Now, let’s take a look at 2013 data. For the first half of that year, Houston reported 10,106 violent crimes. Comparing the first six months of 2013 to 2016, the overall number of violent crimes rose by 14.7 percent in three years. Factoring in population growth and using the proper baseline for 2013, we see that violent crime rate is up about 9 percent in three years and about 13 percent over the last two, more than a third less than Kennedy’s 36 percent jump.
Looking at the 29 major Texas cities comprising 39 percent of the state’s population that reported 2014-2015 data to the FBI, (Austin didn’t report), we see violent crime going up in 15 cities and down in 14, an average increase of 4 percent (not factoring for population growth). For urban centers statewide, violent crime was up 2.4 percent. Factoring in population growth, the violent crime rate in these cities over the first six months of 2015 compared to 2014 increased about 0.6 percent.
Murder spikes are concerning, but the violent crime rate is more telling. Murders are, thankfully, a small proportion of the aggregate of violent crimes in any city, so a movement up or down is a large percentage of that small number. Keep in mind that the Uniform Crime Report, a database maintained by the Federal Bureau of Information on national crime statistics and used in innumerable research efforts, only captures the most serious offense from any single incident. For instance, if a victim is killed as a result of a rape, robbery, or aggravated assault, only the murder is counted. So it would be more alarming if the murder rate and the violent crime rate were rising in tandem (they’re not).
Since violent crime, especially homicide, is relatively rare, property crime rates can provide a better barometer of trends and the effectiveness of criminal justice policies. What happened to the number of property crimes in Texas’ major cities (excluding Austin) reported to the FBI? Down by 5.9 percent from the first half of 2014 to the first half of last year. Converting to a crime rate, property crime in these cities is down almost 8 percent.
The Major Cities Police Chiefs Association report, which is comprised of 61 urban law enforcement agencies (and does not take population growth into account), indicates that violent crime, including homicide and non-fatal shootings, is up nationally by 2.3 percent from the first half of 2015. This means that the violent crime rate in this subset of cities is up on the order of just over 1 percent — not good, but certainly not a massive crime spike. For the full year, 2014 to 2015, the violent crime rate is up a similar 2.2 percent.
So it’s simply not the case that, in aggregate, violent crime in Texas’ major cities “has risen year-on-year for the first time in a generation,” as Kennedy asserts. On the contrary, Texas crime rates are at historic lows and its incarceration rates are heading lower, mainly due to a shift in treatment of non-violent offenders, which leaves more room in state lockups for the violent. These successful criminal justice reforms have resulted in improved public safety and a lower cost to taxpayers.
The evidence from Texas is clear: Criminal justice reforms have improved public safety, not imperiled it. The Lone Star State is a model for the rest of the nation.
EDITOR’S NOTE: I think somebody has messed with those crime statistics to make it look like Texans are safer under the criminal justice reforms.
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