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Groups the States

Police Officer Survives Shootout

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If you should ever happen to be in Louisville, Kentucky, allow me to offer this advice: Avoid the intersection of S. 40th Street and W. Kentucky Street. As a matter of fact, you might want to avoid being anywhere near that neighborhood. But frankly, you’d do best to stay far, far away from Louisville, a “wretched hive of scum and villainy.”

Last week, in the wee hours of the morning, Officer Brandon Haley was patrolling the dangerous streets of Louisville when he encountered a vehicle with no lights. He attempted to catch up with the vehicle:

The vehicle was traveling westbound on Kentucky Street and turned south on 40th Street where the vehicle came to rest on the sidewalk. . . . Officer Haley exited his vehicle and advised that two subjects were running. As Officer Haley ran towards the vehicle, several subjects began shooting from a house on the west side of 40th Street. Officer Haley was immediately struck and fell to the ground and returned fire.
While still being shot at, Officer Haley ran to the opposite side of the street where he was met by Officer [Colin] Billotto. As Officer Billotto began assessing Officer Haley’s injuries, the subject or subjects began shooting at officers again. Officer Billotto returned fire and dragged Officer Haley to a safer position.
Officer Billotto immediately began to relay information to responding officers while rendering aid to Officer Haley. Officer Haley was placed in a police car and transported to University Hospital with life-threatening injuries. Numerous officers responded, including LMPD’s Hostage Negotiation Team, as well as SWAT. Over the course of the next several hours, five persons of interest were taken into custody and multiple guns and narcotics were seized at the scene.

Officer Haley survived his wounds. On Wednesday, Louisville police released bodycam video of the shootout, which I can’t embed here because YouTube has classified it as too violent and graphic. While no suspects have yet been charged with shooting Officer Haley, police did make multiple arrests at the scene:

Officers received a search warrant to search the house on South 40th and found various illegal drugs and nine guns — two of which were reported stolen. According to police reports, officers tried to get Dominique Thompson Jr., 27, and Quantez Porter, 28, resisted coming out of the home.
Residents told LMPD a person was hiding in their backyard. Officers found Jemond Groves, 21, hiding and a gun in a pile of brush nearby. After checking the gun, it was determined it was reported stolen.
Thompson is charged with drug trafficking, gun possession by a convicted felon and resisting arrest. Porter’s charges are drug trafficking, gun possession and resisting arrest. Groves is charged with gun possession by a convicted felon and trespassing, since he was found in another yard, and wasn’t asked to come over. A fourth man,Jaquan Ranson, was also arrested [and] faces similar charges.

In other words, while we don’t know who shot the cop, we do know that a search warrant found nine guns, two of them stolen, and two convicted felons. But am I the only one who suspects that a search warrant of any home in that neighborhood would yield similar results? The whole area is crawling with armed felons, and you’d have difficulty finding a law-abiding citizen anywhere within a five-block radius of the intersection of S. 40th Street and W. Kentucky Street. It’s Mos Eisley, in real life.

The last Republican mayor of Louisville left office in 1969.



 

Quashawn, Rashan, and ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ in Polk County

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Say hello to Quashawn Burgess Jr. and, while you’re at it, you can go ahead and say good-bye, because Quashawn joined the choir invisible last week, bleeding out in the driveway of a Florida home:

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd called on the public for information after a 15-year-old who may have been a gang member was found shot dead Tuesday morning in a driveway near Winter Haven.
The sheriff said deputies received a 911 call around 2:30 a.m. after a boy was found dead on a driveway on St. Paul Drive.
Judd said one of the witnesses got off of work and was staying with a friend. She pulled into the home’s driveway on St. Paul Drive and called her friend to tell her there was a person lying in the driveway.
Judd identified the 15-year-old as Quashawn Burgess Jr. with permission from his mother to help with the investigation.
His mother went to bed at 10 p.m. with an infant, and Burgess was sitting on the couch. When she woke up at 3 a.m. to tend to the baby, she noticed Burgess was not on the couch and assumed he went to bed, according to Judd.
His mother said he was a good kid, but as he got older he went down the wrong path and began getting into trouble, Judd said. He was on probation for a burglary charge that was reduced to trespassing.
Judd said Burgess was violating his probation because he was supposed to be enrolled in school but wasn’t going. . . .
Burgess had been arrested twice, both since May 2023, Judd said.
“I’d rather them be alive in jail than across the street in the medical examiner’s office, dead like Quashawn is right now,” Judd said.
Judd said the violence is being encouraged by social media.
“They’re listening to this gangster rap, they’re watching these videos, they’re making their own videos,” he said. “It’s cool to do. It’s not cool to die. Death is forever. And cool warms up real quick in the morning. When the beer’s warm, it’s no more fun.”
Judd said it’s time for communities across the state and nation to step up and address the issue.
“They don’t show you the last chapter of the book,” Judd said. “The last chapter, one of you is dead, and the other is life in prison.”

Because he didn’t like going to school, Quashawn probably never read the Lemony Snicket books, A Series of Unfortunate Events. But there is an interesting and somewhat ironic narrative to how he reached that final chapter, bleeding out in a Winter Haven driveway:

Four suspects with criminal histories have been arrested in connection with the shooting death of a teenage gang member in Winter Haven.
According to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, the body of 15-year-old Quashawn Burgess, Jr., was discovered deceased around 2:30 a.m. on September 12, in a Winter Haven driveway by a woman who was on her way to spend the night at a friend’s house after work.
Deputies who canvassed the neighborhood say witnesses reported hearing a noise that sounded like a “pop” around 12:30 a.m. but thought it was fireworks.
When deputies notified Burgess’ mother of his death, she told them that she was unaware that he was not home sleeping during the evening hours. She said she saw him on her living room couch at 10:30 p.m. on Sept. 11 when she went to bed.
Sheriff Grady Judd gives an update after four suspects were arrested in connection with a 15-year-old found dead on a Winter Haven driveway.
When detectives arrived at her house, she went to his bedroom and confirmed he was not there and told them that she did not know when he had left or where he had gone.
According to Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, a series of events that led up to Burgess’ death began when Lilia Gonzalez, who is a convicted felon, contacted Jase Govia, 23, because she wanted to buy a gun. Since she is a convicted felon, she is not legally allowed to purchase a firearm. Govia lives across the street from Gonzalez in what, Sheriff Judd calls a “weed house” he runs with his cousin 34-year-old Pierre Sauveur.
Govia, according to Sheriff Judd, put Gonzalez in touch with 20-year-old Rashan Harris.
“He’s 20 years of age and he’s already got 53 felony charges against him, 25 misdemeanor charges against him and he’s been to jail,” Sheriff Judd shared. “He got one year in jail. So, we take him out of the ability to commit crime for one year and he still has 53 felonies.”
According to PCSO, Gonzalez and Harris met at a Circle K and he sold her a gun for $200 that had been stolen during a Lakeland burglary in which Harris was a suspect.
Later that evening, investigators say Harris called Gonzalez and told her he wanted to sell her more bullets. Though detectives say Gonzalez thought it was a strange request, she gave him her address.
Along the way, Harris picked up Burgess, who Sheriff Judd says wanted to buy marijuana from the “weed house” across the street.
“None of these people work. The 15-year-old is not in school. Every one of them lied about everything,” Sheriff Judd said.
According to Sheriff Judd, Burgess got out of the car and Gonzalez eventually got in the passenger side. Sheriff Judd says Harris and Gonzalez talked about bullets and sex while inside the car.
However, Sheriff Judd shared that while Gonzalez was talking to Harris, she felt like things didn’t seem right. Moments later, detectives say Burgess opened the passenger side door to rob Gonzalez at gunpoint.
According to PCSO, Gonzalez was holding onto her purse, which was strapped across her side body as Burgess is trying to pull her pocketbook off her.
“Apparently, they forgot they sold her this gun,” Sheriff Judd stated. “So, now Lillia pulls the gun out of her pocketbook because she’s being robbed at gunpoint and shoots Quashawn who’s robbing her. Did you hear what I said? You can’t make this stuff up.”
Sheriff Judd said after the shooting, Gonzalez ran into her home and Harris took off, leaving Burgess to die on the driveway.
Sheriff Judd added that Gonzalez fled the area for three days and was taken into custody when she returned.
Gonzalez told deputies that she was being robbed and was defending herself when she shot and killed Burgess.
“At this point in the investigation, she is apparently the victim of a robbery whereby she defended herself and shot the suspect, Quashawn and Rashon confirms that,” Sheriff Judd stated.
However, deputies arrested Gonzalez on several charges including possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, dealing in stolen property, tampering with evidence, grand theft of a firearm, possession of cocaine, possession of marijuana with intent to sell, maintaining residence where controlled substances are illegally kept, possession of paraphernalia.
“When you live by the gun, you die by the gun,” Sheriff Judd stated.
Harris has been charged with second degree murder, attempted armed robbery, conspiracy to commit armed robbery, dealing in stolen property, grand theft of a firearm, tampering with evidence, unlawful use of a two-way communication device, giving false info to a law enforcement officer during a capital felony investigation, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and violation of probation.
Govia has been charged with maintaining residence where controlled substances are illegally kept, possession of marijuana with intent to sell, possession of marijuana over 20 grams, possession of paraphernalia.
Sauveur has been arrested for maintaining residence where controlled substances are illegally kept, giving false info to a law enforcement officer during a capital felony investigation, possession of marijuana over 20 grams, and possession of paraphernalia.
“These folks have been in prison,” Sheriff Judd explained. “They’ve been in the jail. They all have criminal histories. At the end of the day, we’ve got a 15-year-old kid that’s dead and mom said I’ve got a 15-year-old kid I can’t do anything with him.”

In case you weren’t following all that, Gonzales is a convicted felon, but wanted to buy a gun. So she asked her drug dealer, who hooked her up with Rashan, who had a pistol stolen in a burglary. After selling her this gun for $200, Rashan apparently got the idea of robbing Gonzales — because, hey, if she’s got $200 to buy a gun, probably she’s got a lot more money, right? And so Rashan arranges a meeting, telling Gonzales some kind of story about having more bullets for the gun. Rashan picks up Quashawn, and takes him to meet with Gonzales, so that Quashawn can rob her — but oops! She uses the gun that Rashan sold her to shoot his accomplice Quashawn. It’s just so . . . unfortunate.

Lemony Snicket could not be reached for comment.



 

A New ‘Broken Windows’ Discovery? Violence Linked to COVID Relief Fraud

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A very interesting article from WBAL-TV:

Maryland’s U.S. attorney found a big connection between violent crime and COVID-19 pandemic fraud.
Maryland U.S. Attorney Erek Barron told the 11 News I-Team that his office found that 60% of violent criminals are also committing some type of COVID-19 fraud, and because of that, his office investigates every single violent crime target to see whether they’ve committed pandemic fraud.
Barron told the I-Team that the 20% reduction in homicides and the 10% reduction in nonfatal shootings in Baltimore City can both be explained by his office prosecuting COVID-19 fraud. Barron said that if his office can’t lock up violent offenders for those crimes, there’s a good chance his office can prosecute them for pandemic fraud.
Barron said the bottom line is to get violent criminals off the streets by any legal means necessary.
“They should know it’s a top priority for our office, and a big enough priority that we’ve also leveraged it as part of our violent crime strategy here in Baltimore City,” Barron told the I-Team. “And, you know what? Those who are also doing that and committing violent offenses in our communities, they should be held accountable doubly.”
When asked abouty the I-Team’s ongoing reporting about the now 280 Maryland residents who have contacted 11 News to report their Medicare cards have been charged for COVID-19 tests they never ordered, Barron said he couldn’t discuss any potential investigations.
However, he was able to be more candid about the work his office does investigating vehicle thefts, telling the I-Team that his office has found two big hot spots for car thefts in Maryland are in Baltimore City and Prince George’s County.
“Any case that meets the federal statute, we will prosecute. But even outside of that, we’ve been involved in helping to put together a joint local, state, federal task forces. So, there’s one here in Baltimore City and Baltimore County, and there’s also a task force working in Prince George’s County and the D.C. border,” Barron said.
“Our violent crime investigations, we found that upwards of 60% of those have at least a preliminary indication of also being involved in some form of pandemic fraud,” Barron said.
By prosecuting those violent criminals for pandemic fraud, Barron said it’s “getting violent criminals off our streets by any legal means necessary,” and he said those efforts have contributed to a 20% drop in Baltimore homicides and a 10% drop in nonfatal shootings compared to 2022.
“It’s become an automatic part of our violent crime strategy,” Barron said.

This illustrates something about the “broken windows” theory of crime prevention pioneered by George Kelling and James Q. Wilson: Criminals are not specialists. That is to say, the drug dealer is often also the rapist, and the car thief is also often the armed robber. Habitual criminals have a general disposition toward lawlessness and antisocial behavior. This insight was proven conclusively in New York City when Bill Bratton launched a crackdown on subway “fare beaters,” miscreants who would avoid paying fares by jumping over turnstiles at subway stations. Once the transit cops started arresting the people engaged in this misdemeanor crime, they were shocked to discover that dozens of the turnstile jumpers were carrying illegal weapons or had outstanding felony warrants for serious crimes including aggravated assault. Simply by enforcing laws against “minor” crimes, you end up arresting lots of dangerous felons, and why? Because people who don’t obey laws against robbery and murder also don’t obey laws against less serious offenses.

Sometimes when a criminal gets shot by cops, and the media does one of those “family demands answers” stories, the situation will be framed as a black man getting killed by police because of a “routine traffic stop.” And then the police bodycam video is released, and we discover not only that the suspect tried to run over a cop, but also that they had the proverbial criminal record “as long as your arm,” they were a felon in possession of a firearm, with outstanding warrants, etc. In other words, the “routine traffic stop” — pulled over for expired tags or failure to signal a turn, whatever — was simply the occasion by which the criminal came in contact with police. The media, amplifying the “family demands answers” message, are obscuring the basic truth involved, i.e., criminals don’t obey traffic laws. This is directly related to what the Maryland U.S. Attorney has discovered about the perpetrators of COVID relief fraud. These swindlers are also implicated in many of the violent crimes that have plagued Baltimore, so when you put them in prison on fraud charges, there are fewer shootings in the city. The determination to “get violent criminals off the streets by any legal means necessary” reflects what I’ve been saying for years: Crime is a people problem. Identify the criminals and lock them up, and you solve the problem. It doesn’t matter what charges send them to prison. What matters is getting them off the streets.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!



 

You Stay Classy, Virginia Democrats!

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The best part of this scandal involving Susanna Gibson, a Democrat running for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates (and there are many good parts) is that Luke Rosiak of the Daily Wire apparently got paid to watch the candidate’s “HotWifeExperience” videos:

A Democrat candidate for state office in Virginia appears to have been raising money for a “good cause” by performing graphic sex acts online, where she told viewers she liked “being choked” and said they could watch her urinate for the right price, according to material reviewed by The Daily Wire.

(“Material reviewed” = watching porn, because “research.”)

Susanna Gibson, who is running for a seat in the narrowly divided Virginia statehouse, was as recently as last year posting as “HotWifeExperience” on the website Chaturbate, where men could pay tokens to get her to perform specific sex acts. In one video recorded shortly after she launched her campaign last year, she told her husband, “I’ll let you f— me in the a– doggy style in a private room if someone wants to pay. That’s the deal.”
In another video, she appears to say that for the right price, viewers could watch her urinate. “Y’all can watch me pee if you tip me and some tokens,” she said. “Again, I’m raising money for a good cause.”
“I like being choked. I like being hit. I do,” she said in one video posted exactly a year ago, on September 11, 2022. . . .

(A video which Luke Rosiak got paid to watch.)

In the videos, she appears to be filmed with her husband, lawyer John David Gibson, who ensured that the raunchiest acts were reserved for the biggest spendings, saying “no anal outside of private.”

(Democrats have such high standards, you see.)

The Washington Post first reported the story on Monday afternoon, and The Daily Wire independently obtained the videos.

(Videos that Luke Rosiak got paid to watch.)

Gibson did not return a request for comment from The Daily Wire asking whether the “good cause” was her Senate campaign. But she appears to acknowledge to The Washington Post that the videos are authentic, claiming that they are “an illegal invasion of my privacy designed to humiliate me and my family.”

(When you post videos of yourself to the Internet, how is it an “invasion of privacy” for people to watch them, as Luke Rosiak did?)

Though she posted the videos online for her nearly 6,000 followers on Chaturbate, she now claims it to be a “sex crime” to shed light on the existence of her account.
“My political opponents and their Republican allies have proven they’re willing to commit a sex crime to attack me and my family because there’s no line they won’t cross to silence women when they speak up,” Gibson told the Washington Post.

We don’t yet know whether the videos will hurt or help the chances of Mrs. “HotWifeExperience” getting elected, because as Democrats have demonstrated, they can manufacture 81 million votes for a senile dimwit notorious for plagiarism, corruption and groping little girls. Shouldn’t be too difficult for them to steal a mere state legislative election.

My podcast partner John Hoge offers some free public relations advice: “Don’t put anything on the Internet that you don’t want other people to find.” As for me, I’m still wondering how I can get one of those Daily Wire jobs so I can be an investigative journalist who gets paid to watch “HotWifeExperience” like my new hero, Luke Rosiak.



 

Looting Nordstrom and Other Recent News From Zimbabwe, U.S.A.

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Another weekend in the decline and fall of Western civilization:

Shocking video captured a mob-style smash-and-grab robbery at a mall in Topanga and police are now searching for up to 30 suspects involved.
Police said it happened around 4:15 p.m. Saturday at the Nordstrom store inside Westfield Topanga Mall.
Video shared by an Instagram user shows the large group of suspects smashing display cases, grabbing merchandise and running out the door.
Police said a security guard at the store was sprayed with either Mace pepper spray or bear spray. Between 20 to 30 suspects were involved and all fled the scene in several vehicles, including a BMW, a Lexus and a Honda, police said.
“I really didn’t understand at first what was going on and then I recognized what was really happening when all the security … everybody was going to the one area,” said a witness.
Investigators said the group stole between $60,000 and $100,000 worth of merchandise.
“We were sitting having coffee and all of a sudden, we saw so many people running out of the store,” said another witness. “We were not in the store. We were at the entry of the store … so many people coming out.”
Meanwhile, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass issued the following statement Saturday evening:

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

“Absolutely unacceptable,” says the mayor who was elected by these same criminals. That’s just it — California has become the world’s first mass kleptocracy. All the honest people have left the state, and the criminals have taken over. Everybody is stealing everything:

Proposition 47 . . . reduced penalties on property thefts less than $950 from a felony to a misdemeanor. This means no prison time. Charges for grand larceny (a felony) now require thefts of more than $950 – more than double the previous threshold of $400.
Now, not only will a thief steal more without facing a felony charge, they may steal again, and again, and again, without serious consequences. Each theft is counted as a single incident. The law allows for serial thefts. Thieves can repeat their criminal behavior as long as they don’t steal more than $950 in each larceny.

Proposition 47 passed with 60% of the vote in 2014, and opponents of the measure clearly warned that this would happen, so it’s not as if the people of California are victims — they inflicted this disaster on themselves.

More than a decade ago, I began comparing California to the kleptocratic regime of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe:

The thievish, parasitical mentality of liberals, who view taxpayers only a source of plunder, eventually runs head-on into economic reality. Capital is portable, and predatory governments will eventually cause disinvestment, as investors seek opportunities elsewhere. As investment flees, private-sector employment stagnates and declines, and smart young people leave to find someplace where they have a chance to get ahead.

Once this trend reaches a tipping point — and Jerry Brown’s return to the governorship in 2011 seems to have been the straw that broke the camel’s back in California — the collapse accelerates. Decent people refuse to live in such conditions, and now that California has chased away every decent person who formerly resided there — my friend Dianna Deeley left the San Francisco Bay area and moved to Valdosta, Georgia — they are living with the nightmarish consequences. And they still don’t get it.

When a woman in San Francisco took to TikTok to share her shock at having someone spit in her face when she went to the grocery store, the Twitter account Comfortably Smug pointed out that just a couple of years earlier, this same woman had urged her fellow liberals to “vote as if you were the most marginalized, oppressed person you know.”

Yeah, how’s that working out for you, sweetheart?



 

‘Huddled Masses’ Update: Why Is This ‘Crisis’ Costing New York Billions?

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Our moral and intellectual superiors:

New York City’s surging migrant population is set to double by June 2024 — meaning the city will be on the hook for 100,000 homeless immigrants — as costs are estimated to rise to a mind-boggling high of $12 billion over the next three years.
“We are past our breaking point,” Mayor Adams declared in a dire address at City Hall Wednesday, pleading with the feds and everyday New Yorkers to help mitigate the crisis.
The city currently spends a nightly average of $383 per 25,600 asylum-seeker households, including families with kids, adult couples and singles — for housing, food and other services, according to officials.
“With more than 57,300 individuals currently in our care on an average night, it amounts to $9.8 million a day. Almost $300 million a month and nearly $3.6 billion a year,” the mayor said.
“This is the floor, not the ceiling,” he warned, revealing the city’s current expenses could rise even further.

(Hat-tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)

Apparently, no one else has bothered doing the arithmetic here. Saturday night on The Other Podcast, this topic was raised by John Hoge who had a post about a similar “crisis” in Massachusetts. The reason Democrat-controlled “blue” states are now caterwauling about their “crisis” is that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, whose state has been coping for years with the flood of illegal immigrants caused by the failure of the federal government to secure the border, decided to start sending busloads of these asylum seekers to the places where liberals vote for “sanctuary laws” and elect liberal Democrats who embrace such policies.

Yes, but what about the arithmetic? Adams speaks of “25,600 asylum-seeker households” costing the city $383 per day or, by another calculus, “57,300 individuals” who cost the city $9.8 million a day — which simple division tells me amounts to $171.03 per “individual.” Multiply that by 365 days of the year, and this means that New York City is spending $62,425.83 per year on each member of its “surging migrant population.”

Every man, woman and child of these “huddled masses” is consuming, at taxpayer expense, a sum nearly $10,000 a year greater than the median household income in Alabama. Of course, the migrants themselves get nary a nickel of that spending, which is funneled through a vast bureaucracy and into the coffers of non-profit social-service charities, so that what most of this money actually goes to is keeping sociology majors employed. Also, a lot of the money is paid to rent hotel rooms for the “57,300 individuals,” so that spending $9.8 million a day functions as a subsidy to hotel owners, and also guaranteeing employment for the hotel maids whose job it is to clean up after the “huddled masses.”

While it is not my habit to offer advice to liberal Democrats, perhaps Mayor Adams will heed this suggestion: New York City can help these migrants, and ultimately end the city’s refugee “crisis,” by the simple expedient of (a) giving money directly to the migrants, on condition that (b) they leave New York. Basically, offer them a free one-way plane ticket and guarantee them $3,000 a month for the first six months in their new place of residence, on condition that they never return to New York.

For a lump-sum expenditure of less than $20,000, you thereby save the taxpayers of New York $40,000 a year going forward. Oh, and I should add, that’s $3,000 a month for each member of the migrant household, including children, so that a family of four would get $12,000 a month for six months after their relocation from New York. And you know something, Mayor Adams? There are lots of places in this country — certainly Alabama is among them — where any family with a monthly income of $12,000 would be considered wealthy. Hell, these migrants could be living it up like the Kardashians, if only you’d do it my way.

Perhaps readers now understand why it’s not my habit to offer advice to liberal Democrats — my ideas are just too pure genius for them.



 

News From San Francisco: ‘A Lot of People Around Here Have Mental Issues’

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Say hello to Ryant Bluford of San Francisco and, while you’re at it, go ahead and say good-bye, because Mr. Bluford shuffled off this mortal coil last month in a manner that seems to be increasingly common. When a police officer points an AR-15 rifle at you and yells, “get your hands up,” this is not merely a suggestion. But the circumstances that led to this fatal encounter require us to contemplate law enforcement policy in many aspects, including the importance of maintaining public order.

What became known as “Broken Windows” policy, based on the influential work of James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling, was based on the insight that enforcement of seemingly “minor” laws — against loitering, vandalism, public intoxication, etc. — had the effect of making neighborhoods safer and reducing violent crime. Explaining how and why this correlation functions would require more time than I’m willing to spend on the subject today, but the proven effectiveness of “broken windows” theory, as evidenced by the dramatic reduction in crime in New York City during Rudy Giuliani’s term as mayor, is beyond dispute.

This came to mind because bodycam video of this incident in San Francisco was posted to the YouTube channel Police Activity with the subject line, “Man Gets Shot by Police After Trying to interfere in an Arrest and Pointing a Gun at Officers.” The description posted with the video makes clear what happened, but I didn’t read the description until after watching the video. As a subscriber to the Police Activity channel, I watch nearly all of their videos, and thus probably see 150 or more police shootings a year. As I watched this one, it wasn’t immediately clear to me what was happening or where it was happening. I didn’t realize it was San Francisco. Anyway, the police are arresting someone who was wanted on a warrant, a routine activity that police do everywhere every day, and which very rarely leads to the shooting of anyone, much less a random dude who walks up and tries to stop the arrest.

The first impression I got from the video was a sense of disorder. When the police (whom I later learned were with the city’s anti-gang unit) went to arrest the wanted suspect, he was standing near a street corner talking to five or six other people. Cops handcuff the suspect and are apparently waiting for a patrol car to arrive and pick up the suspect. But here’s the thing — instead of dispersing, the group of people to whom the suspect was talking continue to hang around in close proximity to the officers. Dude, if the cops show up to arrest one of my buddies, I’m going to casually saunter away, like I barely know the dude. Probably because of my own past as a teenage dopehead, I always get nervous around cops, and so the behavior of these people in San Francisco made no sense to me. Why are you hanging around? The cops are here. Get moving.

It wasn’t one of the suspect’s buddies who got shot, however. About six minutes into the video, Bluford shows up and immediately starts shouting obscenities at the cops: “What y’all doing? What the f**k y’all doing in my neighborhood? . . . Uncuff him right now!”

 

Who behaves like this? Who thinks it is a good idea to accost police officers in an aggressive and threatening manner? The answer — perhaps you won’t be surprised to learn — is crazy people:

The Bayview man shot and killed [July 26] by San Francisco police officers, 41-year-old Ryant Bluford of San Francisco, was known as “Peanut” to friends and family. They recalled him as a loving father, brother, cousin and friend — while acknowledging the violent crime in his past.
Neighbors interviewed Wednesday night and Thursday morning said Bluford struggled with mental illness and had a disdain for the police, the result of more than a decade spent in prison for various serious offenses. . . .

(“Peanut” was loved by family and friends, despite his criminal history and mental illness, which finally got him shot by police.)

Bluford was convicted in the 2006 gang rape of a 16-year-old girl in San Francisco, and spent more than a decade in prison as a result. He was again charged, in 2022, for domestic violence and sexual assault. . . .

(Whoa! Gang-raping a 16-year-old? Do friends and family of “Peanut” not care about his victim? Click here to read the details of that crime.)

Neighbors described the shooting as a tragedy.
“He had four kids and a wife, two were twins. He did the best he could,” said a friend of Bluford’s, who gave his name as Tyke, saying Bluford’s mental health worsened after time in prison. “He was in the pen for 12 years; he had some mental issues from that.” . . .

(Who considers it a “tragedy” when a gang rapist gets shot by police? As for the “mental issues” which the friend blames on Bluford’s 12 years in prison, would the friend care to think about the “mental issues” suffered by a 16-year-old girl who was grabbed off the street, shoved into a van, threatened at gunpoint and sexually assaulted by four men in every manner imaginable? Because that was Bluford’s crime.)

At the Bayview intersection, Bluford’s family lit candles. They described Peanut as a man who had been through the wringer, and criminal records show past convictions for rape and other violent crimes.
He had a fearful association with police, neighbors said, one borne from a lifetime of negative experiences dealing with law enforcement: According to criminal records, Bluford was charged with kidnapping, rape, assault with a deadly weapon, and various other crimes in 2006; he was incarcerated in 2008, according to criminal records, and friends and family said he spent more than a decade in prison.
Then in 2022, he was charged again, with domestic violence, sexual assault, and criminal threats. It was not immediately clear if he was convicted and imprisoned for these alleged crimes.
“You have to think about the kind of trauma someone has experienced with the police,” said one neighbor, who asked to remain anonymous. “He looked done, driven to suicide by cop.”
“He had a lot of mental health issues,” said another anonymous neighbor. “He had a family. He loved his kids. A lot of people around here have mental issues.”

Joe Biden got 85% of the vote in San Francisco, so yeah, we fully understand that a lot of people there have mental issues.

What part of ’cause and effect’ do I need to explain?

The police video of the shooting was released Friday, showing that Bluford had a pistol in his waistband, which he later aimed at police before he was shot. Despite all this, however, some people continued to ask why police couldn’t “de-escalate” the situation. The obvious answer is that Ryant Bluford didn’t want it to be “de-escalated.” Ryant Bluford was crazy and wanted to die in the proverbial hail of police gunfire.

Why? You know why. Crazy People Are Dangerous.



 

The Preventable Death of Khaliyah Jones

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Khaliyah Jones (left); Cameron Hopkins (right)

A year ago — July 16, 2022 — Khaliyah Jones was kidnapped:

Two people are in custody following a kidnapping at the Lovejoy Walmart Saturday, July 16.
Khaliyah Jones, 18, was allegedly taken from the store’s parking lot by her ex-boyfriend Cameron Hopkins, 19.
Witnesses told police Hopkins broke a window of a vehicle Jones was in with a handgun, pulled her from the car and forced her into his vehicle and then fled.
Later, Hopkins left his vehicle and called Demarco Jennings to pick him up. When Jennings arrived Hopkins allegedly forced Jones in the car and they began traveling to Albany.
Police said Jones was able to escape the car and ran to a nearby business for help while providing police the location the two were heading to.
With the help of the Albany Police Department and information from Jones, both Hopkins and Jennings were arrested and returned to Clayton County where they remain in jail. . . .
Hopkins is charged with making terroristic threats, kidnapping, criminal damage and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. For his part, Jennings is facing kidnapping charges.

This was obviously a very serious crime, and Khaliyah Jones was fortunate to escape. What happened a year later has provoked outrage:

A man accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend was out on bond at the time of the alleged crime after the Clayton County District Attorney’s Office missed a crucial administrative deadline, court records and District Attorney Tasha Mosley confirm.
Cameron Hopkins faces malice murder and other charges after allegedly abducting and fatally shooting his 19-year-old ex-girlfriend, Khaliyah Jones, on July 16.
At the time, court records show that the 20-year-old Hopkins was out on bond for similar charges from one year earlier. On July 16, 2022, arrest warrants allege he abducted Khaliyah from a Lovejoy Walmart at gunpoint. In the warrant application, the investigator wrote: “After kidnapping the victim… Cameron Hopkins was contacted via phone at which time he said if the police attempts[sic] to pull him over as he flees with the victim that he will shoot and kill her.”
Khaliyah’s family is now left wondering how Hopkins was ever released on bond.
“Why? Why was he let out?” asked Khaliyah’s mother, Bridgette Jones.
An error made by prosecutors may be responsible.
Under current Georgia law, a felony defendant cannot be held in jail without bond for more than 90 days after their arrest without an indictment. If prosecutors do not obtain an indictment within that 90 day timeline, a judge is typically required to grant the defendant bond — regardless of the charges.
“You’re on the clock,” said Danny Porter, who served as Gwinnett County’s district attorney for decades before leaving office in 2020.
“DA’s offices have to have some kind of a system,” he said. “You have to track these.”
Clayton County prosecutors did not obtain an indictment until March 2023 — more than seven months after Hopkins’ July 2022 arrest, according to court documents obtained by 11Alive.
Court records show that a magistrate court judge initially denied Hopkins bond on his July 2022 kidnapping and related charges, but after more than 90 days passed without an indictment, a superior court judge reversed course in October 2022 and granted bond.
In a phone interview, Clayton County District Attorney Mosley said “we did miss the 90-day time period to indict.” She called the oversight “a mistake.”
“My child is dead because of a ‘mistake’?” asked Bridgette Jones. “I do not accept that.”
According to the October 2022 Clayton County Superior Court bond order granted after prosecutors missed their 90-day deadline, Hopkins was ordered to wear a GPS ankle monitor, stay out of Clayton County except for court dates or attorney meetings, and stay away from Khaliyah Jones — in addition to meeting a $150,000 bond.
“We did everything that we could with the bond conditions to ensure that she was as safe as we possibly could,” District Attorney Mosley said.
While out on bond from those 2022 charges, law enforcement says Hopkins abducted Jones once again. This time, they allege, he led law enforcement on a high speed chase that ended at Lovejoy High School. Police say he fatally shot Khaliyah in the school driveway.
It’s the same school where, one year earlier, she received her diploma.
“In my eyes, the police did their job. They caught the criminal,” Bridgette Jones said. “But between the prosecutor and the courts, y’all failed.”
Hopkins has pleaded not guilty to all of his 2022 charges, according to his attorney Steve Frey. He has not yet had an opportunity to enter a formal plea for his 2023 charges, according to Frey.
District Attorney Mosley says that her office has changed its procedures in an effort to prevent an oversight like this from happening again. They’ve implemented changes in the ways they interact with magistrate court, including “a shared email just going to… the top command so that we get those cases and start working on them quicker,” she told 11Alive.
Bridgette Jones says those changes came too late for her daughter.
“We lost a great human that was going to help a lot of people,” she said. “Khaliyah just wanted to help people.”

Before we get to the matter of the prosecutor’s error that led to this murder, let me ask something: Who posted bail for Cameron Hopkins?

Last time I checked, bail bondsmen required 10% of the bond amount to be paid in cash, so if the bond for Cameron Hopkins was $150,000, somebody had to pay $15,000 cash to get him out on bond. Now, suppose one of your kids got messed up and committed a heinous crime like this. Would you pay $15,000 so your child could be released from jail while awaiting trial? As for me, the answer is hell, no. My children better not ever do anything like that, but if they did, they could just sit their ass in jail, because I sure as hell don’t have a spare $15,000 laying around.

Now what about that Clayton County district attorney, whose “mistake” — oops! — let Cameron Hopkins get out of jail, because her office missed the deadline to get him indicted so he could be held without bond? It took seven months for them to get the indictment, by which time Hopkins had been out of jail for more than four months. Shouldn’t there be some kind of accountability for such a failure? Georgia legislators thought so, which is why they passed a law creating a commission with the power to remove local prosecutors who “refuse to uphold the law.”

Guess what? The lawless officials are suing:

A coalition of Georgia district attorneys is suing to challenge a state law that created a commission to remove and discipline state prosecutors.
The group of four district attorneys is challenging a recently signed bill that established the Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission (PACQ), which holds the power to remove local prosecutors who “refuse to uphold the law.” At the time, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) said the commission would curb “far-left prosecutors” who are “making our communities less safe.”
The effort is being led by DeKalb District Attorney Sherry Boston and also includes Towaliga District Attorney Jonathan Adams, Augusta District Attorney Jared Williams, and Cobb District Attorney Flynn Broady. The prosecutors in a press release said that Senate Bill 92 (SB 92) “overrides the will of voters, threatens prosecutorial independence, and violates federal and state constitutions.” . . .
The lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday in Fulton County Superior Court, questions the constitutionality of the bill and says it oversteps by requiring district attorneys to review every single case. It says that it violates the separation of powers clause in the Georgia Constitution, noting that district attorneys fall within the jurisdiction of the judicial branch.
“This duty is practically unworkable, limiting district attorneys’ ability to define enforcement priorities and approaches and distracting from the prosecution of meritorious cases,” the lawsuit states. . . .
“Not only is SB 92 unconstitutional, this new Commission is also unnecessary and wasteful,” Boston said. “Georgia already provides other ways to address misconduct by prosecutors — including Bar discipline, impeachment, and ultimately, the ballot box.”
Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr vowed to defend the law in court, saying that district attorneys are “not immune from accountability.”
“I have great respect for the important role District Attorneys play in protecting Georgia’s citizens,” Carr said in a statement. “Unfortunately, some District Attorneys have embraced the progressive movement across the nation of refusing to enforce the law. That is a dereliction of duty, and as a result, Georgia’s communities suffer.”

What about the murder of Khaliyah Jones? Isn’t this a clear example of the kind of “dereliction of duty” that Attorney General Carr wants to prevent? And where are the “social justice” activists? Where is Black Lives Matter? Why aren’t they protesting outside the Clayton County courthouse, demanding that District Attorney Tasha Mosley resign? As for the feminists who love to lecture us about “violence against women” — Amanda Marcotte, Jessica Valenti, et al. — they haven’t said say a word about the murder of Khaliyah Jones, for some reason.