In the last couple of months there have been two rather extraordinary developments to do with American crimes committed long ago.

First up, in New York the disgraced Governor, Andrew Cuomo, as he went out the door, granted clemency to David Gilbert, a member of the Far Left terrorist Weather Underground group. They had been most active in the late 60’s/early 70’s but Gilbert was jailed for life for his role in the murder of a security guard and two cops during an armoured car heist in 1981.

His partner in the murders, Kathy Boudin, was set free in 2003 and became a professor at Columbia University in New York City. Pretty standard for the US Left actually.

The other one happened in California and the release of its criminal is still uncertain since it’s the decision of the Governor whether to follow the state parole board’s grant of parole to Sirhan Sirhan, who famously assassinated Robert Kennedy in 1968.

But both of these high profile cases are merely the tip of the iceberg that is the increasing decriminalisation of criminals across the USA, or at least in large cities controlled by the Democrat Party. This is related to the Defund The Police movement that gained some traction in the wake of the George Floyd murder.

But it’s far more about simply going easy on many types of criminals, and doing this through control of the District Attorneys who prosecute them after they’ve been arrested. This shows up in several ways:

  • Reduced thresholds for laying charges.
  • Quality of Life crimes ignored.
  • Gun “Control”.
  • Bail Reform.
  • Dropping charges
  • Releasing prisoners and Reduced Sentences

I’ll cover the first three in Part 1 and the other three in Part 2.

Remember as you read these, that most of this is coming to NZ via the current Labour government.

Reduced thresholds for laying charges.

This has mainly focused on “small” crimes, particularly shoplifting, where the threshold was raised from $300 to $1,000 (Chicago):

So far this year [2019], Foxx’s office has rejected 69% of Chicago police officers’ requests for felony retail theft charges, according to data released by her office. And that only applies to those situations where the store signed a complaint. As noted above, that increasingly does not happen in the Chicago area.

I already covered this in the 2020 post, Deck The Halls with Chutzpah, but since then they’ve gone even more upscale than Marshalls. The result is the likes of Macy’s and Disney have left even the high profile shopping area of The Magnificent Mile (Michigan Avenue) because of ongoing mass shoplifting, and police have issued a formal warning about robberies. A stretch of North Michigan Avenue remains vacant and locked up, something I never imagined could happen there.

In San Francisco and LA it’s $950. The result is the huge drug store chain Walgreens closing 17 stores and Target closing all six SF stores because of rampant shoplifting. There is now no doubt that this is organised looting as many individuals attack a store at once and run out to waiting cars, places like Louis Vitton and Nordstrom’s. And it’s spreading to the tony suburbs of San Francisco (Santa Rosa), LA (Canoga Park, Walnut Creek) and Chicago (Oak Brook): all were daytime attacks.

“They don’t care. There’s no consequences. Literally zero consequences. I’ve kicked out… I’ve been here since 9 AM today. I probably have already kicked out eight or nine people and I’ve recovered a thousand dollars worth of stuff alone off of that. Whether we kick them out, tell them they can’t come back, whether I put them in handcuffs and take them down to the county jail—there is no difference. Because they will not be prosecuted by the district attorney. Therefore, there is nothing documented that they can’t come back here. You know, they get no time in jail to think about what they did, right? There is zero consequence.

Plenty of other small businesses in SF are getting destroyed for the same reason. Just the other day Kevin Nishita, a former police officer working as a security guard, was killed by a group that pulled up on the KRON news crew to rob them in the Bay Area as they were doing a story about all this.

Quality of Life crimes ignored

It’s the West Coast cities where this has shown up the worst.

… former San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon decriminalized anti-social behaviors – open-air drugging, urinating and pooping on the streets. He refused to enforce the law and, indeed, wrote Proposition 47 – passed by voters – that has made the homeless problem even worse.

Aside from having screaming drug-users crapping in front of your house this impact has shown up on things like public transport:

The grand jury connected rising crime to four “interrelated quality of life issues” in the BART system: homelessness, cleanliness, fare evasion, and “security and perception of safety.” These factors reflect broader challenges for the city, which struggles with one of the nation’s largest homeless populations and a prolific waste-management problem.

It should come as no surprise that annual ridership on the BART system has declined by 10 million people over the last decade.

These people are not just harming themselves however, as one young couple found out in a Santa Monica carpark when some meth head attacked them once at their car and then when they got away, attacked at the exit (I guess he wasn’t so addled as to not know how to beat the car to that point):

He again demanded he have sex with the girl before they could leave. And again, started dragging her out of the car. The boyfriend jumped out and knocked him off her. At this point, the vagrant ran around to the driver’s seat, and jumped in the car. The girl then jumped out. The vagrant sped away, and the boyfriend chased him down Colorado. The vagrant abruptly stopped the car, and threw it in reverse. He then ran over the boyfriend, back and forth, several times.

The boyfriend survived, with multiple major injuries. This incident was more violent than most but this is now everyday life for people in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago.

Gun “Control”

For all the Democrat screams for more gun control, the evidence of the cities they run is that they don’t mean criminals with guns. Baltimore:

The Baltimore PD released data showing that the average homicide suspect arrested in Baltimore has eight previous arrests. They don’t have the resources to closely monitor all of the violent criminals who are out on parole, so the same shooters wind up being arrested over and over again.

But it’s the same in Seattle“

They both have previously been arrested and charged with drive-by shootings and unlawful possession of a firearm in 2018. So the courts knew full well that these were gun-toting gang members. Why did our justice system let them walk free? 

Chicago:

Chicago police seized four weapons and a 50-round ammunition magazine after officers saw four men openly displaying guns amidst a large gathering outside a Near West Side housing complex early Saturday, authorities said. But prosecutors only approved felony charges against one of the accused men. All of the others, charged with misdemeanor unlawful use of a weapon, were released on recognizance bonds.

In San Francisco the latest brilliant plan is to pay people not to shoot others:

That’s the principle behind the city’s new Dream Keeper Fellowship, which will enroll 30 individuals deemed at high risk of shooting or being shot and pay them a $300 monthly stipend. They can collect an additional $200 per month for completing such milestones as taking job interviews