New York assembly speaker says 'raising penalties' isn't a 'deterrent' for criminals, rejects governor's plan to curb retail theft



New York State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D) said Tuesday that "raising penalties" is not a "deterrent" for criminals, the New York Post reported.

Heastie rejected Gov. Kathy Hochul's (D) plan to curb shoplifting and assaults against retail workers by increasing sentences. Hochul called for stricter penalties for violent shoplifters as part of the state's budget proposal unveiled earlier this year.

"I can't predict a handshake deal," Heastie said Tuesday, referring to budget negotiations between state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Hochul.

"I guess I use the analogy that when the government does a budget and resolutions that we're in the same galaxy. I think where the budget negotiations are now, it feels like we're on the same planet. I don't think we're in the same country or in the same state yet, but we're at least on the same planet on what has to happen on all of the big items," Heastie explained.

According to the assembly speaker, the biggest issue regarding the budget concerns housing, the Daily Gazette reported. Additional topics up for negotiation include Medicaid spending and increased sentencing and penalties for assaults against retail workers.

"All the other times that we've raised penalties on different classes of people, that hasn't stopped assaults. We still need to get to the root issues of what's going on. We'd be open to talking about the organized crime rings that people have, but I just don't believe raising penalties is ever a deterrent on crime," Heastie argued. "You can stop anybody in the street and ask them what is the penalty for assaulting anybody and they probably won't be able to give you an answer."

He added that New York lawmakers are concerned about the uptick in assaults on retail workers.

"I don't want to make it sound like we're not concerned about stemming what's happened to retail workers," he continued. "We care very deeply about that. We just have other ideas of how to get there."

Heastie noted that this year's budget negotiations are moving along more quickly because "it's not loaded with policy" like last year's proposal.

"I've always told you that one of the reasons why budgets take a lot of time is when you get bogged down on policy. At the end, the numbers are the numbers, money is money. You can only spend what you have," Heastie told reporters.

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Fed-up customer body-slams, wrestles shoplifting duo outside Walgreens: 'I am way bigger than you, and I will f*** you up!'



A fed-up Walgreens customer — tired of the rampant, brazen shoplifting in Alameda, in northern California, with little resistance and fewer consequences — decided to do something about it Saturday when he witnessed a man putting bottles of pills into a backpack, KGO-TV reported.

What are the details?

The customer — who requested the station use only his first name, Kevin, for its report — told KGO, "I said [to myself], 'This is a time you can make an impact, make this happen.'"

Image source: KGO-TV video screenshot

And what an impact he made.

Kevin handed his cell phone to another person in the store and asked that person to record what was about to happen. Video shows Kevin on top of the suspected shoplifter dressed in a grey hoodie.

Image source: KGO-TV video screenshot

The suspect yells out, "Leave me alone! Leave me alone!" and Kevin can be heard yelling for bystanders to call police.

"I am way bigger than you, and I will f*** you up!" Kevin growls at the suspect. "I am placing you under citizen's arrest!" He also tells the suspected shoplifter that prices are going up because of crooks like him.

KGO said after more than a two-minute struggle, the suspect begins yelling out to a friend.

"He kept calling for his friend, and I thought he was fibbin'," Kevin told the station.

But the suspect wasn't lying. A man dressed in blue soon walked up to the scene and got directly involved.

"He came behind me and tried to get me in a headlock," Kevin told KGO in regard to the second assailant. Kevin is heard on video mockingly inquiring of the suspected shoplifter, "Is that your boy?"

Image source: KGO-TV video screenshot

Kevin had no trouble with Contestant Number Two, either: "I picked him up by the groin and threw him to the ground."

Image source: KGO-TV video screenshot

What happened next?

Indeed, all good things must come to end, and this dust-up concluded with the suspects running to their nearby getaway car, the station said.

Police said when bystanders try to stop crimes like shoplifting, they open themselves up to litigation and possible charges if the suspect is arrested, KGO said, adding that many big businesses don't want to participate in an investigation.

And wouldn't you know that while police said the stolen merchandise was recovered in this latest Walgreens incident, the store didn't seek prosecution, the station said.

'It's infuriating'

"I could have been charged with assault and may be charged with assault," Kevin told KGO. "It's infuriating. We're all realizing it in Northern California — little, soft cities like this."

But would he do it again?

"My mom would kill me. My friends will kill me," Kevin told the station. "But yeah, I'd do it all over again."

Video: Shoplifters brazenly steal items off shelves at Walgreens in broad daylight as uniformed security guard just watches



Shoplifters were caught on cellphone video brazenly stealing items off shelves at a Walgreens as daytime customers — and a uniformed security guard — simply watched.

Libs of Tik Tok posted the clip to Twitter on Sunday and indicated the Walgreens in question is located in California's Bay Area:

Another Walgreens in the bay area in California is hit by a group of thievespic.twitter.com/Mhi2qQkTfq
— Libs of Tik Tok (@Libs of Tik Tok) 1645991469

The clip begins with a shot of three shoplifters in an aisle grabbing items off shelves equipped with hard plastic flaps — but the obstacles do little to deter the thieves, who are all wearing pink and grey jackets along with face masks.

Soon a security guard pops into the frame, but she does not approach the crew and instead stands at the end of the aisle, looking on. Someone — perhaps the security guard —apparently calls for help and requests, "I need an officer right now."

Undeterred, the crooks head to other aisles and add to the number of items in their bags as they rifle through shelves. In fact, one of the shoplifters is seen heading for the Walgreens' exit — but at the last second she decides to turn around and head to another shelf and add to her loot.

'Live from the San Francisco hellhole'

Libs of Tik Tok posted a second video Sunday showing two more shoplifters having their way in another drug store. While the clip is accompanied by text that reads, "Live from the San Francisco hellhole," the store in question isn't identified.

Similar to the first video, the masked duo here have their way in the aisle and grab items behind plastic covers at will. At one point, they both wrench open the covers, apparently breaking them, and make off with items in backpacks and plastic bags.

On their way out, one individual appears to try to trip one of them — but to no avail:

Live from the San Francisco hellholepic.twitter.com/4Z69VfZob3
— Libs of Tik Tok (@Libs of Tik Tok) 1645961978

Anything else?

Readers of TheBlaze have seen their share of viral videos showing brazen, organized looting in the Bay Area and elsewhere in California. In December, San Francisco's far-left Mayor London Breed — who in 2020 jumped on the "defund the police" bandwagon after the death of George Floyd and proposed $120 million in cuts to police budgets over two years — made a headline-grabbing speech in which she called out the "bulls**t" crime "that has destroyed our city."

VIDEO: Masked woman uses wire cutters to steal expensive purses attached to security leashes — and one store employee just helplessly watches



Yet another California retail store fell victim to shoplifters who likely were aware that employees were going to do nothing more than watch their lawlessness — and if police bother to get involved, that the worst they'd suffer are misdemeanors.

What are the details?

Lindsey Rodriguez and her husband shot video showing a woman using wire cutters to slice security leashes on expensive purses inside a Marshalls in Hemet, along with a man casually walking out of the store with his arms full of swiped clothing, KNBC-TV reported.

Image source: KNBC-TV video screenshot

The station said Rodriguez and her husband Pancho followed the purse thief outside, but the culprit ran to a dark-colored car that quickly drove off.

She called 911, KNBC said, but Hemet police said the officer who arrived a short time later and ran a license plate didn't see anyone suspicious.

Rodriguez is fed up.

"I worked every single day, 40 hours a week during this whole pandemic, and then I go in and see that, and it's disheartening," Rodriguez told KNBC-TV. "It's not Hemet."

Image source: KNBC-TV video screenshot

She added to the station that customers "were just kind of standing there watching. The only thing I figured I could do was get their identities and their license plates and give them to somebody who will do something with them."

Rodriguez noted to KNBC that while the Marshalls employees "sit there on the clock and watch these people just steal from everybody," she can't figure out why police said no one at Marshalls so far reported the crimes.

"What is this teaching our children?" she asked the station. "I don't want my kids to see that kind of stuff when we are going shopping at 7 o'clock at night."

KNBC said it reached out to Marshalls to find out why no one from the store reported the crimes to police, but the station said it did not hear back from the store.

'We need to start standing up for ourselves'

Rodriguez also told KNBC she's had it with these kinds of crimes, which is why she and her husband posted their videos on social media.

"Citizens have to do something," she added to the station. "We need to start standing up for ourselves because nobody else is doing it right now."

Anything else?

Brazen shoplifters caught on video doing their misdeeds — and getting away with them relatively easily — is becoming quite the phenomenon:

Thieves were caught on video stealing designer handbags from a Neiman Marcus store in San Francisco in July.

In June, a crook filled up a trash bag with merchandise from a Walgreens store in San Francisco and rode his bicycle right past a security guard who was recording the crime.

And after thieves casually strolled out of a T.J. Maxx store in suburban Los Angeles with armfuls of merchandise a few months back, LAPD Sgt. Jerretta Sandoz told KCBS-TV crooks appear to be "winning."

"They didn't even run out, they walked out," she noted to the station. "And so that's sending a message that we, the criminals, are winning." Sandoz added that "if they're caught, they're probably given the equivalent of a traffic ticket, so it's not taken seriously."

Under California's Proposition 47, passed in 2014, felony theft cases are reclassified as misdemeanors if the total amount stolen doesn't exceed $950.