The Other McCain

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Why Wasn’t He Already Behind Bars?

Posted on | February 16, 2021 | Comments Off on Why Wasn’t He Already Behind Bars?

Say hello to Leonard Ortega, 47, of Seattle, a lifelong criminal who was inexplicably out on the streets earlier this month:

Police say 47-year-old Leonardo Ortega pulled a shotgun on 68-year-old Phil Salmon, and stole his pick up truck Wednesday morning [Feb. 3] from a Chevron gas station in Seattle’s Greenwood neighborhood. Salmon’s son Dan says it could have been a lot worse.
“A lot worse if he had pulled the trigger, it would have been over he was only 3 feet away,” says Dan.
Authorities say Ortega then proceeded to take officers on a car chase with speeds reaching up to 75 miles per hour on city streets during the morning commute, ending with a huge crash several miles away at the corner of Broad St and Alaskan Way along the downtown waterfront. Ortega was immediately arrested.
Friday afternoon, Ortega waived his right to appear in court for his bail hearing. He’s facing multiple charges including motor vehicle theft and evading police.
Ortega has a lengthy criminal history including seven felony convictions such as being in possession of a stolen gun and stealing cars.
“We know from police they are investigating him for multiple cases not only in Seattle but in other cities as well,” says Casey McNerthney with the King County Prosecutor’s Office.
But there are now questions about why a judge released him last month after being arrested for allegedly stealing an empty FedEx truck in the Northgate neighborhood.
“In those docs that we got from police, law enforcement didn’t object to the release,” says McNerthney, which allowed Ortega to be on the street before this latest arrest.
“I’m not sure if the officer who looked at that case when they put together that form knew the extent of his history. So that’s not meant to knock the police at all,” says McNerthney.

Gosh, what has happened in Seattle recently that might result in a policy of unusual leniency toward criminals? But if you pay attention to crime stories, you see these kind of cases all the time — the suspect in a heinous case that makes headlines is almost always a career criminal who is out on probation or parole for an earlier crime. Most serious crime in this country is committed by lifelong criminals who will predictably return to their felonious habits as soon as they are released from prison.

Is leniency toward criminals “social justice”? Consider this story that ran in the Washington Post a couple of years ago:

In the past decade, nearly 26,000 murders have gone without an arrest in major American cities.
Of those, more than 18,600 of the victims — almost three-quarters — were black.

You can, and should, read the whole thing, but think about what this means: There are more than 20,000 murderers on our nation’s streets. In reporting on these unsolved homicides, the liberals at the Washington Post undoubtedly intended to imply that law enforcement exhibits an indifference to the deaths of black people, because of “systemic racism.” But these unsolved murders are occurring mainly in liberal big cities, where leniency toward crime is usually the policy. In such cities, “social justice” translates to “turn ’em loose.” Allowing criminals to roam the streets will result in a lot more unsolved murders, and if most of the victims of these crimes are black, well, whose fault is that?

Good luck finding a liberal who can answer that question.




 

Category: Crime

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