The Other McCain

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Ironic Justice: Two Anti-Police Lawmakers Get Carjacked

Posted on | December 24, 2021 | Comments Off on Ironic Justice: Two Anti-Police Lawmakers Get Carjacked

Kimberly Lightford (left), Mary Scanlon (right)

This may cause me to re-think my opposition to carjacking:

Two Democrats who supported police reform in Philadelphia and Chicago were both carjacked at gunpoint within 24 hours of each other.
Illinois state Sen. Kimberly Lightford (D-Maywood) was targeted in suburban Chicago on Tuesday night, while Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) was carjacked Wednesday afternoon after an event in South Philadelphia.
Lightford was driving with her husband, Eric McKennie, in Broadview at about 9:45 p.m. when three masked suspects in a Durango SUV hijacked the couple’s black Mercedes.
Police said “multiple gunshots” were fired during the incident but Lightford and her husband weren’t physically hurt.
The suspects fled in the Mercedes and Durango, according to police. . . .

The reason “multiple gunshots” were fired is because Lightford’s husband has a concealed carry permit and opened fire on these, uh, troubled youth, but was unable to stop them from stealing the Mercedes.

Her ordeal came hours before Scanlon, a fellow Democrat, was carjacked at gunpoint in a separate incident as she returned to her blue Acura MDX at about 2:45 p.m. Wednesday.
Scanlon was targeted in South Philly by two men in a dark SUV who demanded she hand over her keys, police said.
Her personal cellphone, government-issued phone and purse were inside her car when the carjackers took off.
Scanlon’s spokesperson said she was “physically unharmed” following the ordeal.
Her car was found in neighboring Delaware with five suspects inside just hours later, according to police.

The Biden DOJ, which has been ignoring (or perhaps encouraging) the year-long violent crime wave in America, sprang into action once the criminals targeted a Democratic congresswoman:

United States Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams announced that Josiah Brown, 19, of Wilmington, DE, was arrested and charged by Criminal Complaint on charges of carjacking and carrying and using a firearm during a crime of violence in connection with an armed carjacking that occurred in Franklin D. Roosevelt Park in South Philadelphia yesterday afternoon. The defendant made his initial appearance in federal magistrate court in Philadelphia this afternoon and is currently detained.
According to the Complaint, while the victim and an associate were speaking near the victim’s parked vehicle, an SUV pulled up alongside them and blocked them in. One suspect got out of the SUV, pointed a gun at the victim and demanded the keys to the victim’s vehicle and at the same time, a second suspect also got out of the SUV. The victim complied, and then both suspects got into the victim’s car and drove away. A third suspect driving the SUV then fled following the victim’s car.
Investigators determined that the victim’s vehicle contained equipment to track and locate it, which they did later that day in Wilmington, and then in New Castle, Delaware. When multiple individuals approached the parked vehicle in the parking lot of the Christiana Fashion Center in New Castle, law enforcement detained five people, including the defendant who was in possession of the keys to the victim’s vehicle.
“The investigation into this incident is in its very initial stages, and we are continuing to investigate and evaluate charging decisions,” said U.S. Attorney Williams. “Armed carjacking is a serious federal crime. There have been a rash of violent crimes like this recently, and while there were national security implications to this particular incident, we are always working collaboratively with our local partners to evaluate if cases should be taken federally. Working together means more resources, more tools, more intelligence. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If you pick up a gun and use it to commit a crime, together, we will come after you. And we are very good at what we do.”

In point of fact, however, if armed carjacking is a “serious federal crime,” when was the last time the feds got involved in such a case? Just two weeks ago, Philadelphia police said the city has seen an 80% increase in carjackings this year, and what had United States Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams done in response? Nothing, until a Democratic congresswoman got carjacked in — sweet irony! — FDR Park.

Seriously, go look through the press release archive at the U.S. Attorney’s web site and tell me if you find a case where they previously prosecuted a carjacking. I went back as far as April and didn’t find one, so if the Biden DOJ was making it a priority to “come after” carjackers before this week, they weren’t very successful at it. But then again, success really hasn’t been a hallmark of the Biden administration, has it?

Did you notice that the perp was from Biden’s home state of Delaware? As Paul Mirengoff notes at Powerline, 19-year-old Josiah Brown of Wilmington had pending charges in multiple states, and had been released from custody as recently as August. There is no doubt that, like many other Delaware residents, Brown is a menace to society:

Authorities in Chester County issued an arrest warrant for Brown in March 2021 after his fingerprints matched those identified by police in a string of vehicle break-ins in Kennett Square in late 2020, police said.
Ten days after that warrant was issued, Brown was picked up by sheriffs deputies in Cecil County, Md., after they responded to reports of car thefts and gunshots. The officers later discovered Brown and six juveniles, at least two of whom were also from Wilmington, inside a vehicle that had been reported stolen in New Jersey.
Police said the vehicle appeared to have been recently struck by gunfire, and two teenage girls inside were suffering from gunshot wounds. They were both hospitalized.
Brown, meanwhile, was arrested on the outstanding warrant from Chester County. He was later released on bail and had been scheduled to stand trial earlier this month on charges including receiving stolen property and theft from a motor vehicle. But the case was delayed, according to court records, which did not provide a reason for the postponement. The case is still listed as active.

Wanted on warrants, driving around in a stolen vehicle, with two teenage passengers who had been wounded in a shootout with persons unknown — a regular “honor student,” this Josiah Brown. If the cops had shot him, we’d be seeing his eighth-grade graduation photo on CNN while Ben Crump and the grieving family demanded #JusticeForJosiah.

Perhaps readers will not be surprised to learn that Democrat Rep. Mary Scanlon has learned nothing from this experience:

Scanlon said during a virtual news conference that the episode was frightening, particularly because the gunmen appeared so young when they got out of their SUV.
“I was scared that someone would do something even more stupid than trying to steal a car,” Scanlon said.
Still, she was grateful that no one — including other residents or families using the park — was injured. And she said President Joe Biden was among the many who had since called to wish her well. She and Biden also discussed “common sense gun safety measures,” she said, such as enhanced background checks and potential regulations for ghost guns. . . .
Court documents say that Brown admitted pointing a real but unloaded gun at Scanlon to intimidate her. Following his confession, the documents say, Brown wrote Scanlon an apology letter.
Scanlon said she hadn’t seen the letter, but added: “If this is the person who held me up yesterday, they did a very stupid thing, and if their letter of apology is genuine, then it sounds like they can learn from their mistakes.”

How stupid can you be? Well, if you’re a Philadelphia Democrat, perhaps there’s no limit to your stupidity, but Scanlon’s remarks display an astonishing ignorance of who criminals are, and why and how they do the things they do. To anyone with common sense (a category that excludes Pennsylvania Democrats, of course) Josiah Brown’s record indicates that he is a psychopath with no regard for the lives or property of others.

Where is their any evidence that Josiah Brown can “learn from [his] mistakes”? Just a few months ago, he got caught driving a stolen car with two bleeding teenagers inside — just another “very stupid thing” he did, according to Pennsylvania Democrat Mary Scanlon — but that didn’t lead him to repent and renounce his criminal ways. And what’s this noise about “common-sense gun safety measures”? Where is the evidence that any gun law advocated by Scanlon or Biden would stop a career criminal like Josiah Brown, who has never met a law he wouldn’t violate?

No one expects logic from a Pennsylvania Democrat, however, so Mary Scanlon’s misguided sympathy for criminal psychopath Josiah Brown will not get any pushback from the media, just the same as the media won’t bother asking why Chicago Democrat Kimberly Lightford, who supports strict gun control laws, is OK with her husband carrying a pistol.

As I say, however, this situation might prompt me to reconsider my opinion about carjacking. While I have always advocated that carjacking should be treated as very serious crime, to be punished by long prison sentences, I could perhaps be persuaded toward a more lenient attitude, if it were only Democrats getting carjacked. Like, if some young thug carjacked Ayanna Pressley or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez . . .

Well, that would be a “very stupid mistake,” as Mary Scanlon says, but there’s no need to add to the mass incarceration problem.




 

Category: Crime, Democrats, Illinois, Pennsylvania

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