Horowitz: Why won’t McConnell author ‘framework’ for locking up gun felons?



Here’s a novel idea for controlling gun violence and acting on “red flags.” Rather than the feds incentivizing states to “red-flag” those who haven’t committed a crime, why not incentivize states to keep those who actually shoot people with guns off the streets?

As we see again and again in America’s major cities, almost all the gun violence is committed by those with previous gun and violent felonies who commit more of the same crimes while out on parole, probation, or low-bail release pending trial. Many of them are caught multiple times illegally possessing handguns at the scenes of crimes but are not re-incarcerated.

Last week, Crime Watch Minneapolis, which constantly highlights the cases of lenient punishment for violent criminals, posted a mega-thread on Twitter detailing two dozen recent cases of violent gun felons escaping proper justice in the Minneapolis area.

\u201c\ud83d\udca5\ud83d\udca5\ud83d\udca5\nMEGA THREAD\nWe're sick of reposting these examples to the always available hypocrites in MN who bemoan "gun violence."\n\nWe hereby dismantle ANY argument from ANY Minnesota public official, representative or activist who calls for new gun laws and more gun control.\n\nShare.\u201d
— CrimeWatchMpls (@CrimeWatchMpls) 1654576216

For example, the group chronicled the case of Tasia Deanne White, who had 26 convictions, including 10 felonies for violent offenses and illegal possession of guns during a crime. She barely served time throughout the years and was recently charged with three new felonies, including felony possession of a gun, with two other felony cases still open. Yet Hennepin County state Judge Paul Scoggin granted her a downward sentencing departure and allowed her to serve three separate felony sentences concurrently.

It turns out that between 2013 and 2019, Minnesota prosecutors and judges chose to NOT pursue or issue minimum prison sentences in felony firearm cases 40% of the time. According to the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission (MSGC), the fastest-growing crime in Minnesota between 2010 and 2018 was possession of a firearm by a convicted felon who committed a crime of violence. This is the story of nearly every major city in America.

How is it that Republicans are getting sucked into the premise of the Left by focusing solely on lawful purchases and harassing gun store owners rather than holding Democrats accountable for going soft on the ultimate red flags for gun violence?

"I think if this framework becomes the actual piece of legislation, it's a step forward on a bipartisan basis and further demonstrates to the American people that we can come together, which we have done from time to time on things like infrastructure and postal reform, to make progress for the country," McConnell said on Tuesday in endorsing the new red-flag due process violations and holding gun stores accountable for crimes committed by purchasers.

Personally, I don’t believe there is a proper federal solution for this matter, but if we are going to use federal funds to incentivize states to circumvent due process, why not dangle those funds before state and local prosecutors to lock up known gun felons who exit the revolving door of our leaky justice system? Why not spend more money on expediting their trials so we don’t have repeat violent gun felons out indefinitely on low bail, many of whom contribute to a good number of the mass shootings on city streets? Why not make it about the known criminals?

Instead, McConnell and most other Republicans credulously joined with the Left in 2018 – when they had control over all three branches – to pass the “First Step Act,” which released thousands of federal drug traffickers. As anyone with a modicum of knowledge of criminal justice knows, those serving hard time for drug dealing in federal prison are usually gang members who have committed a lot of street violence with guns throughout the years.

The First Step Act allowed thousands of hardened federal criminals to go before a judge and apply for early release based on completing dubious “anti-recidivism” programs created by left-wing NGOs. A 2020 analysis by the Chicago Sun-Times shows that judges are signing off on the release of career criminals, including top gang leaders, much to the consternation of local prosecutors who are at their wits' end trying to stem the tide of gun violence.

The Sun-Times analyzed 200 cases of early release in Chicago under the First Step Act and found that "more than 60 percent" of those who applied were granted sentence reductions by judges, "including some of the nation's most notorious criminals." At the time, 75 applications for sentence reduction were granted, 45 denied, and the rest are still pending.

Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass put it best when he described "gun violence" as "a politically correct term that gives politicians wiggle room."

"It's not gun violence. It's street gang violence," Kass declared. "If we really cared about these victims and their memories, we'd have the decency to call what happened to them by its real name: gang wars."

So why isn’t this the message of GOP leaders Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn? Why are they not jujitsuing the Democrat clamor for gun control into criminal control and blaming Democrats for their de-incarceration agenda? Well, for one, it’s because these same Republicans bought into the Koch-funded pressure groups who pushed the same agenda during the Trump administration together with Jared Kushner.

Ironically, McConnell delivered a pretty good floor speech on Tuesday about the destruction wrought on this country by Soros prosecutors and the rising tide of crime. He talked about the endless shootings, carjackings, and drug overdoses.

My hometown of Louisville is struggling too. Over the past several years, violent crime has sharply risen across the city, breaking gruesome records including record homicides and assaults. And we’ve seen carjacking more than tripl[e] in the past five years.

Last weekend alone, Louisville saw three homicides and ten nonfatal shootings. Five teenagers and a 9-year-old were shot during a single altercation at my hometown’s Big Four Bridge. Violent criminals turned a popular attraction for families and tourists into a war zone.

He is absolutely right. But it’s not just the Soros prosecutors responsible for this morass. His own party spent close to a decade joining with the left on “criminal justice reform” rather than hitting Democrats over the head for the de-incarceration agenda and pursuing tougher sentences on violent criminals and repeat offenders. He complains about record drug overdoses, but he voted to let many of the worst dealers out of prison.

Moreover, if he really believes the words he spoke on Tuesday, how could he surrender our leverage on negotiations about gun violence without demanding a “three strikes and you’re out” violent gun felon law and funding more prosecutions of these people? If you are going to sell out on the Second and Fifth Amendments, at least secure some “tough on crime” provisions in exchange for it. Why focus on purchases of 18-year-olds who never committed a felony instead of focusing on the youth who have attacked people with guns and are responsible for the epidemic of carjackings in every major city?

Then there is the issue of illegal aliens. If McConnell is promising a deal with Democrats, he can at least demand in return that they agree to immediately remove all of the illegal alien gun felons. Why do we need to retain other countries’ gun felons when we have enough of our own? Biden’s de facto suspension of ICE operations has cut the number of gun felons removed from the country in half. According to ICE data obtained by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), in fiscal year 2019, ICE removed 3,121 foreign nationals charged with or convicted of weapons violations. That number declined 46% to 1,662 aliens in FY 2021 under Biden and is expected to be much lower for this fiscal year, with the full suspension policies in place. As the CIS notes, because of the suspension of the 287(g) program, the number of gun felons at the apprehension level already declined 52% in FY 2021.

Rather than red-flagging people without due process, why not remove criminal aliens caught with guns who don’t have a due process right to be in the country anyway?

Why is it that Republicans never get anything in return for selling us out, even on the same issue and for the very policies that Democrats are culpable for their bad outcomes? The only conclusion we can draw is that Republicans don’t want the same things we do.

Horowitz: More insane examples of our under-incarceration problem



Victims of crime often don’t get second chances. But criminals in California get endless chances. The California criminal justice system is so weighted toward the criminal that the most violent criminals who are caught committing gun crimes are released. The case of the mass shooting in Sacramento on Sunday that killed six, allegedly at the hands of a career gun felon who used an illegal weapon, is a perfect example of the old adage, “Guns don’t kill, bad people kill.”

Smiley Allen Martin was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Jan. 12, 2018, after being convicted of domestic violence and assault with great bodily injury. He already had a big rap sheet beforehand, dating back to when he turned 18 and likely when he was a juvenile. Yet he was arrested this week in connection with a mass shooting in downtown Sacramento early Sunday morning, after police say he was caught illegally possessing a handgun modified to fire as an automatic weapon and was injured in the wild shootout.

You might be wondering how a man sentenced to 10 years in 2018 can be out in 2022 to allegedly be involved in a shooting, but you have to remember this is California. Math works differently, at least when it favors the criminal.

According to court documents obtained by the Sacramento Bee, Martin was caught illegally with a rifle in 2013 but was given probation. Ten months later, he was apprehended after committing multiple robberies in Walmart and Target stores. He was sentenced to just two years and likely got out earlier. He was caught while on parole giving false information to police and leading them on a foot pursuit. Shortly thereafter is when he was arrested for brutally beating a prostitute at his home and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. However, because of the convoluted good time credit system, he was already up for parole three and a half years later. Although he was initially denied release, he was eventually released in February of this year after serving just four years.

Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert wrote a letter to the Parole Board last year beseeching them not to release Martin. “As shown by Inmate Martin’s pattern of conduct, he is an assaultive and non-compliant individual and has absolutely no regard for his victims who are left in the wake of numerous serious offenses,” Schubert wrote last April. “He has no respect for others, for law enforcement or for the law. If he is released early, he will continue to break the law.”

Schubert and 44 other district attorneys have sued the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation over its new policies of calculating early release credits, which they say could lead to the early release of 76,000 inmates. She is now running for attorney general as an independent.

Martin is not an anomalous criminal. He has the quintessential rap sheet of a career criminal. The reality is that for all the tough talk on gun violence, the anti-incarceration crowd has no desire to lock up gun felons. They get more than second chances. It’s among that pool of criminals that you will find most of the murder and violent crime committed in this country.

The reality is that in blue states, only law-abiding citizens can’t carry guns. New York City Mayor Eric Adams recently admitted about his city, “Here’s a climate on the street that carrying a gun is no longer an illegal act and we have to stop that.” But whose fault is that? He correctly observed, “We have to look at repeated offenders. There’s only a small number of people driving crime in our city and in country. They’re repeat offenders.” Yet his party supports policies that ensure repeat offenders are not locked up because liberals hate prison more than they hate guns.

Lest you think this is only a New York and California problem, though, check out how they punish child molesters in the red state of Ohio. Lamont Baldwin, a former wrestling coach and security monitor at Princeton Middle School in Cincinnati, confessed to fondling four boys with the most satanic subterfuge imaginable. According to Sharonville Police Detective Brad Hondorf, Baldwin would give each kid a dollar bill and tell him to hide it on his person, after which he would fondle him everywhere as if to pretend to find it. Hondorf also believes there were numerous other victims during the time Baldwin spent as a security monitor in the school.

What do you think is the appropriate punishment for a demon like this? I doubt zero time in prison was on your mind, but then again, you don’t work in the corrupt judicial system. Hamilton County probation officials recommended no prison time, and Judge Alan Triggs sentenced him to just probation and community service, along with the requirement to complete a “behavioral intervention program.”

Clearly, this was not an anomaly but a mindset among both the probation staff and the judges. They have all been brainwashed into the notion that we have an over-incarceration problem, but the opposite is true.

By refusing to fund more prisons, courts, and prosecutors to accommodate the growth of the population – as we’ve done with every other policy issue – lawmakers have been faced with a false dichotomy of backlogs or jailbreak. Well, it’s time for another “infrastructure project” to build jails and prisons and to start filling them up with the people who belong there.

Veteran NYPD cop: NYC has 'turned against' the police, so expect crime to stick around for a while



We've seen the fallout of the left's incessant "defund the police" diatribes. More crime. More fear. Less hope.

Though citizens often believe they're bearing the brunt of leftists' anti-police agenda, it's important to remember what cops are experiencing, too.

Scott Welsh spent 29 years as a cop for the New York Police Department before his recent retirement. He grew up in Queens and still lives in Gotham. He loved serving and protecting the people of New York.

But he noticed something insidious happening the last few years: The city has "turned against" the police, and he detailed his experience in an op-ed for the New York Post.

The piece, headlined "As a retired NYPD officer for 29 years, I watched the city turn on us," began with some optimism about the new mayor, but that very limited positivity soon gave way to reality:

Mayor Eric Adams was elected largely based on his promise to return order to New York City. While early indications point to his moving in the right direction, I fear that factors beyond his control will hinder reaching that goal.

Welsh noted that when he came on the job in the early 1990s, the city had more than 2,000 homicides, and Gothamites were begging then-Mayor David Dinkins to "do something!" — which he did by putting 6,000 new policemen on the streets.

Then came the election of Rudy Giuliani and appointment of Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, which brought a "seismic shift" to the NYPD and the street of New York.

"And it worked," Welsh wrote. "Crime, especially homicides, plummeted. The city came back. Construction and tourism soared."

But things the last few years have taken a turn, and "there has been another seismic shift — this one against the police."

"Even those who once supported us seem to have turned against us," Welsh said, linking to a February story of New York City Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou's recent comments ripping cops attending a funeral for slain NYPC cop Jason Rivera.

He then offered a personal story of the moment he realized the city had turned on the police.

One morning my partner and I were flagged down by a young woman. She told us that a male whom she didn’t know had walked up to her and repeatedly punched her in the face, breaking her nose. We called an ambulance for her, got a description, and went looking for the perpetrator. We spotted the perp, a white male, a few blocks away. As soon as we exited the car, he attacked us. After I got one cuff on his wrist, he managed to get out of our grasp and punched me in the head with my own handcuffs, opening a laceration on my forehead. We managed to get him down and cuff him, but he was still trying to fight.

So as per procedure, we called for an Emergency Service unit to bring leg restraints. As we were waiting for ESU, a crowd gathered. Building supers, people on their way to work, mothers with strollers, the people whom I was there to help and protect. And they began verbally abusing us. Yelling about police brutality as I was holding down a struggling perp with blood pouring out of a cut on my head. Calling us racists despite the fact that both myself and the perp were white. Yelling “Let him go” despite not knowing that he was being arrested for assaulting an innocent woman for no reason.

As I waited in St. Luke’s emergency room to get stitches in my head, I was far more troubled by the reaction of the community than I was by the cut on my head. That day, for the first time, I began contemplating retirement.

Welsh then ended with an admission and a warning.

"I hate to admit it, but just before I left, I ignored people who I knew based on my experience were probably carrying guns," he said. "I knew that as soon as I, a white police officer, stopped a black person, 10 people would whip out cellphones and start recording as they shouted about racial profiling and hurled abuse at me."

"So while Mayor Adams can do his part to back the NYPD, unless we can get our communities on board, we will never be able to restore public safety," Welsh concluded.

Horowitz: When setting someone on fire is considered a low-level crime



So, what would you define as a “nonviolent, low-level” crime eligible for cheap bond? How about setting a pregnant woman on fire and breaking out of jail on just $5,000 bond?

Devonne Marsh, 42, had a two-decade violent criminal record under his belt when he allegedly poured lighter fluid on his girlfriend and set her on fire in his Malcomb, Michigan, home. The victim was 27 weeks pregnant with twins and remains in the hospital in critical condition with burns on more than 60% of her body. According to the Macomb Daily, police say the victim was being held against her will and tortured. The total list of charges against Marsh last Friday includes attempted murder, assault and battery of a pregnant individual, domestic violence, assault with intent to do great bodily harm, delivery/manufacturing of controlled substances, felony possession, felonious assault, and felony firearm.

Now, one would expect someone like this to be held without bail, you know, like those military veterans held without bail in D.C. for trespassing charges, even though they have no prior criminal history. Instead, his bond was set at just $50,000, which means he was released on just $5,000 cash deposit. This, despite the fact that not only is he a convicted violent felon, but according to the Michigan Department of Corrections, he absconded from probation since 2020 and has an outstanding arrest warrant from the Livonia Police Department.

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy announced she is filing a motion to have Marsh's bail increased. She said: “His original bond was woefully inadequate, and we will be seeking a more appropriate bond given these charges.” However, like all big-city prosecutors, Kym Worthy is part of a political party that supports the de-incarceration agenda, which has created a culture of leniency up and down the criminal justice system. Sure, they will get embarrassed by bad PR from low bail requirements after heinous crimes are committed, but why are these criminals given so many chances to commit these crimes in the first place? The judges in the big urban centers reflect these values and have continuously set bail at appallingly low levels for such dangerous criminals.

Meanwhile, in Houston, Emmanuel Mallard, 27, is charged with a similar crime, allegedly brutally beating his wife and then burning down the house with her in it. She managed to escape, and the suspect is still on the run. But again, such behavior doesn’t occur in a vacuum. From 2013 to 2019, he racked up a rap sheet that included charges related to theft of property, burglary of vehicle, obstruction or retaliation, terroristic threat in a public place, and various charges of assault of a family or household member with bodily injury. How could someone like that have been out of jail enough to commit that many crimes?

According to police, the victim claims the husband was attempting to kill her to prevent her from testifying against him in a previous case. He allegedly tied her up in her father’s home, stripped her clothes, stabbed her in the stomach, hit her with a crowbar, and threw a cloth doused with lighter fluid on her as he set the house ablaze.

Notice he was trying to prevent her from testifying about a previous case. This is what happens when criminals are constantly released. Not only are they free to commit more crimes, but it makes it harder to convict them on the previous crimes because they are able to constantly threaten victims and witnesses.

What about child sex crimes? Do you think relatively low bail is a good idea for those criminals? Are they also considered low-level? Moss Worthington is charged with two counts of luring a minor for sexual exploitation, 11 counts of sexual conduct with a minor, and two counts of custodial interference in connection with the kidnapping of two teen girls in Tucson. He was originally held on $250,000 bond in December, but was released on Friday after bail was reduced to just $50,000. What do you think this does to the ability of the victims and their families to testify against him?

Then there is the juvenile crime crisis. In the Houston domestic violence case, Mallard also had a record when he was a juvenile. That is another facet of our broken justice system and failed deterrent. It begins when they are juveniles, as minors are increasingly committing more numerous and violent crimes than ever before. Once they learn not to fear the justice system as minors, that behavior is never deterred when they are adults.

Just a day before the alleged Mallard incident in Houston, 17 year-old Frank Deleon Jr. is accused of shooting his girlfriend Diamond Alvarez 22 times. Despite the heinous murder charge, he was released the very next day after posting a $250,000 bond. I would say this is another example of lax juvenile justice laws, but we now see adult murder suspects being released as well. And if murder suspects who are juveniles are released on bail, you can only imagine those who commit “lower” level crimes, such as carjackings, are free in perpetuity.

The nation is suffering from a carjacking crisis, nearly all of which is committed by juveniles. According to Philadelphia police, there have been 90 carjackings just during the first half of January in the City of Brotherly Love. They say most of the carjackings are being committed by juveniles between the ages of 14 and 17. But these are not children’s crimes. They are holding people up at gunpoint. If they go undeterred at this age, their criminal careers will only deteriorate with age.

But fear not. These are not the sorts of juvenile “criminals” the police are interested in. The NYPD is now enforcing vaccine passports on little boys in restaurants. Once again, we must ask, what is the purpose of the big-city police if the only thing they succeed at is enforcing immoral and inhumane edicts of tyrannical mayors? The only thing worse than abolishing the police is abolishing prison, appointing liberal judges, and electing pro-criminal district attorneys who neuter all the positive work police do in affecting an arrest. For in that case, police can only become a liability to serve as a conduit for tyranny rather than an indispensable tool for ordered liberty.

Horowitz: The pandemic of de-incarceration



People are sitting in solitary confinement in the D.C. jail for a year for trespassing on public property on Jan. 6, yet in Chicago, nearly 90 murder suspects are out on bail.

Last Monday, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart revealed that in his county alone, 90 murder suspects, 40 people charged with attempted murder, and 852 people charged with aggravated gun possession are out free on bail indefinitely, waiting for their trials. What do people like this do while they are free? Commit the next crime. In 2021, 133 people were arrested for crimes committed while out on this electronic monitoring program.

Once again, it’s clear that we face a crisis not only from the war on cops, but from the war on incarceration. So many of the most heinous crimes are committed by career criminals out on pretrial bail. In New York City, a new law has abolished bail for most crimes. This has led to the creation of new programs of supervised release designed to have social workers monitor criminals and ensure they show up for trial. But what happens while they are out free?

According to The City, data compiled by the state Office of Court Administration and the state Division of Criminal Justice Services reveals that 41% of all criminals out on supervised release from Jan. 2020 through June 2021were re-arrested. Yet despite violating the terms of release, almost all of them are released again without having to post cash bail. The City found that more than half of those re-arrests occurred within four months of the defendants being freed, with 4,467 re-arrested within weeks of their release.

There is simply no deterrent left in America’s major cities. It doesn’t matter how many times they commit the crime. Darrell Johnson, 23, had more than a dozen arrests and was out pretrial for attacking a woman when he allegedly attacked two more women in broad daylight on Dec. 2. One woman was knocked unconscious and lost a tooth. Now he is out free again!

This week, the NYPD arrested Simon Martial and charged him with second-degree murder for allegedly shoving 40-year-old Michelle Alyssa Go to death from a subway platform.This happened in the heart of the Times Square subway in broad daylight. Go was killed instantly when a train hit her while she was on the tracks. Why are there so many brazen crimes like this being committed on subways? According to police, Martial had a criminal record dating back to 1998 and had an outstanding parole warrant.

Aside from the abolishing of bail, the Soros prosecutors are constantly downgrading serious violent crimes, so even if a criminal amasses a robust rap sheet, the severity of the charges is never serious enough to trigger cash bail or tougher sentencing. This is done by design. After promising to downgrade numerous felonies to misdemeanors, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg made good on that promise and reduced charges for a career criminal arrested for holding up a drug store clerk at knifepoint.

“F*** you, I’m taking everything,” William Rolon allegedly said to the female manager of a drug store on the Lower East Side as he filled up his bag without paying. Can you really blame him? He’s not wrong because he essentially can take anything without facing punishment.

Although blue states like New York are the most crime-ridden areas, red states are not immune to the growing crime wave. Harris County, Texas recorded over 600 murders in 2021, a 70% increase compared to 2019. A 2020 report from the Texan found that 57 victims have been murdered in Harris County over the past two years by defendants who had been released on multiple felony bonds and personal recognizance bonds. Texas badly needs to pass a more robust overhaul of its bail system than it did during last legislative session.

Even in states like Alabama, we have murderers getting let out on ineffective electronic monitoring. Dayvon Bray is now accused of killing his teenage girlfriend after having posted bail last August when he was arrested for murder. This November, voters in Alabama will vote on “Anita’s law,” which gives judges more discretion in denying bail for violent criminals. However, with so many liberal judges on the bench, there is a need to start mandating denial of bail in certain cases.

Then there is the coming torrent of federal prison releases. Pursuant to the jailbreak bill signed by President Trump, known as the “First Step Act,” the DOJ submitted a new policy to the Federal Register that will grant inmates 10-15 days good time credit for participating in “evidenced based” anti-recidivism programs. In other words, we will have left-wing NGOs create critical race theory types of curriculum, and that will be used to truncate federal sentences. The federal prison population is already down nearly 30% since 2013. Not surprisingly, the BOP announced that all the people released due to COVID will be able to remain free even after the pandemic.

Unless we get a handle on catch-and-release, people charged with political crimes will be the only ones left in jail.

Horowitz: Manhattan DA to downgrade armed robbery to misdemeanor amid growing crime wave



Last year, New York City experienced its worst crime wave in recent memory. Naturally, the response of the Soros DA in Manhattan was to make a New Year’s resolution to keep even more criminals out of jail.

As the NYPD is patrolling businesses to enforce “vaccine passport” mandates and drag 5-year-olds out of restaurants, don’t think that real criminals will get the same attention from law enforcement. Alvin Bragg, the newly elected Manhattan district attorney, sent out a memo to his staff on Monday directing prosecutors to not seek prison time for most criminals.

“This rule may be excepted only in extraordinary circumstances based on a holistic analysis of the facts, criminal history, victim’s input (particularly in cases of violence or trauma), and any other information available,” wrote Bragg in the memo obtained by the New York Post.

So, this is just for low-level crimes, right? Wrong! Bragg ordered prosecutors to charge armed robbers with petty larceny, which would have the effect of downgrading the maximum prison time from 25 years to one year. He also abolished life in prison without parole, even for the worst murderers and sex offenders. He further seeks to dramatically downgrade charges for certain residential burglars, drug dealers, and convicted criminals caught with weapons.

In other words, he is stepping on the gas pedal of every policy that has turned around the Giuliani miracle and has made many parts of Manhattan, including the subways, dangerous for the first time in a generation. This decision comes at a time when crimes of murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny, and grand larceny auto in New York rose above 100,000 incidents for the first time since 2016. According to NYPD data, felony assaults rose nearly 10% in 2021 – to the highest level since 2001. Car thefts were at the highest level since 2010, and incidents of gun violence were up 101% since 2019.

Many of these people who steal or maim on the streets in broad daylight that we have seen all too often in viral videos put out by the NYPD are mentally ill or homeless. Yet Bragg’s memo intimidates assistant district attorneys into not pursuing those criminals. “ADA’s should use their judgment and experience to evaluate the person arrested, and identify people: who suffer from mental illness; who are unhoused; who commit crimes of poverty; or who suffer from substance use disorders,” wrote Bragg. In other words, they shouldn’t prosecute them.

The reality is that the criminally insane are often the most dangerous and violent people who commit indiscriminate, heinous crimes on the streets. Liberals want to have it both ways. On the one hand, they treat them leniently because of their mental illness, but on the other hand they refuse to confine them in mental hospitals in lieu of prison. Absent a mandatory system of imprisonment or confinement in a mental hospital, these people will be free to harm others. Politicians in states like New York and California want them released on the streets to commit more crimes that they supposedly just can’t help committing. The fact that they have a mental illness is no solace to victims of crime and most certainly doesn’t make them less of a public safety concern.

There have been numerous examples of mentally ill homeless individuals engaging in dangerous crimes on subways, including attempted rape in broad daylight. They almost always have a litany of prior arrests within a few years, but never serve time. In 2020, there was a viral video showing Rashid Brimmage, a man with 103 prior arrests who was a convicted sex offender, striking a 92-year-old Bronx woman to the ground. He is mentally ill and lived in a homeless shelter but was allowed to remain on the streets for years.

These people pose an even greater public safety threat than other criminals who are more targeted in their crimes. The fact that they “can’t help but commit crimes” makes it an even greater imperative to get them off the streets.

The other poignant aspect of this memo is that it comes at a time when the NYPD is patrolling restaurants and demanding that people show their papers in scenes reminiscent of a very dark time. Violent career criminals are being treated with compassion as 5-year-olds are being dragged out of restaurants for not having a Pfizer passport. At some point, New York cops need to engage in some introspection about their own purpose. If they are going to be handcuffed in going after real criminals, why do they exhibit a sudden alacrity to enforce immoral and inhumane discriminatory acts against ordinary citizens?

Horowitz: The crisis of violent criminals out on bail and parole is worse than you think



In case you thought the endless catch-and-release of Darrell Brooks, the suspect in the Waukesha parade massacre who reportedly killed 6 and injured 60, was an aberration, think again. It’s a rampant problem in all 50 states, particularly in Indiana.

Last week, 20-year-old Deonta Williams was arrested on two counts of attempted murder after he allegedly stabbed two Indianapolis police officers near the Indiana State Fairgrounds on Wednesday. Williams told investigators that he lured the officers to the area by calling in a fake report of a white man harassing him. When the officers went to search for the phantom attacker, Williams admits he stabbed the officers in the neck and chest. Both officers are expected to recover, but Williams told investigators he wanted to kill one police officer because he was upset about a medical bill the city of Indianapolis sent him.

According to WTHR, Williams was arrested for burglary in January and had his bail reduced from $25,000 to $750 by a local judge. Then, he violated the terms of his release and was arrested again in July for reported criminal mischief. The obvious question is why people already given a second chance are released again when we know they are the most likely to commit violent crimes.

It turns out that the Bail Project, a pro-violent criminal organization that strives to keep violent criminals on the streets at all costs, bailed him out in March. As WISH reports, the Bail Project had previously bonded out two other violent career criminals who are now accused of murder.

The sad reality is that these are the sort of NGOs that have been driving the criminal justice policy on both sides of the aisle in all 50 states over the past decade. As Rick Snyder, the head of the Indianapolis Fraternal Order of Police, observes, these organizations need to be subjected to the same regulations as private bail bondsmen. All too often, they bail people out and the suspect never shows up for court and is able to remain free. These NGOs need to be held responsible.

It is becoming abundantly clear that we need to toughen mandatory minimums for repeat offenders, tighten — not loosen — bail laws, and create a much stronger three-strikes-and-you're-out law than we did in the 1990s. The time has come for all 50 states to pass legislation in January when the legislatures reconvene that will toughen bail laws in general and end bail for anyone who already violated their bail terms after the first crime. This would likely prevent the majority of violent crimes in this country.

Most violent criminals don't come out of nowhere. They are known wolves. One study in Sweden in 2014 found that 1% of the criminals were responsible for 63% of all violent crime convictions. Researchers found that if all violent criminals were locked up after a third conviction, "more than 50% of all convictions for violent crime in the total population would be prevented."

Just how much is the “bail reform” movement responsible for the growing crime wave? CWB Chicago, which reports assiduously on the Chicago crime scene, created a list of 53 known Chicago criminals who were arrested for murder or attempted murder this year, affecting a total of 75 victims after having been released on bail, or without even having to post any cash bail. Many of these victims were children. The latest bailed-out criminal charged with attempted murder is 19-year-old Maalik Lumpkins, who is charged with shooting a 1-year-old. Several months ago, Lumpkins was charged with felony aggravated unlawful use of a weapon. But because in Chicago they don’t take gun crimes seriously and only oppose guns for those defending themselves from these criminals, Lumpkins was released on his own recognizance.

The release of violent criminals has become the catalyst for reversing New York’s once miraculous decline in crime. Last week, a Columbia University graduate student and an Italian tourist were stabbed in unprovoked attacks in what used to be a very safe part of Manhattan. The suspect was on supervised release for viciously beating another innocent person and had been arrested 11 times since 2012. Second chances, you say?

Fox News reported last week that Jacqueline Avant, wife of Grammy Award-winning music executive Clarence Avant, was killed in her Beverly Hills home by another paroled career criminal. The suspect, Aariel Maynor, was released from prison just weeks before, after serving three years of a four-year sentence for a 2018 robbery and grand theft, which in itself was only made possible his early release from a 2013 sentence for robbery and causing great bodily injury.

Another way the pro-criminal crowd is flooding the streets with criminals is by letting them off on mental health diversion programs. Eric Ramos-Hernandez was seen on video in 2020 punching, kicking, and shoving 84-year-old Rong Xin Liao off his seated walker while waiting for a bus in Santa Clara County, California. Despite the victim suffering life-altering wounds, Ramos-Hernandez was released seven months later and actually re-arrested and released for another crime thereafter. He was released because the DA’s office claims the victim went along with a plan to place the suspect in a mental health diversion program, a claim the victim’s family vehemently denies. If someone truly is incorrigibly violent because of mental health problems, then he certainly needs to be taken off the streets – whether in a traditional prison or a mental ward.

Last week, Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm blamed the release of Darrell Brooks on a “human error,” but the only human error involved is a decadent ideology that believes in de-incarceration at all costs. This gutter ideology has permeated both parties, including allegedly conservative think tanks and even the Trump administration. It’s time to reverse this fatal error.

Horowitz: FL man released early after heinous child murder charged with grisly murder of Broward woman



"And you shall not corrupt the land in which you live, for the blood corrupts the land, and the blood which is shed in the land cannot be atoned for except through the blood of the one who shed it." —Numbers 35:33

There's a reason why biblical values dictate an "eye for an eye" in murder cases. It's not just punishment, but deterrent as well. For if you release a murderer, you now have blood on your hands for allowing someone with such a uniquely demonic proclivity to murder again. This is now happening all over the country, with "elderly" murderers being released and going on to murder again. The latest case from Florida demonstrates just how weak our criminal justice system is, even in red states.

In 1995, Eric Pierson was convicted of strangling 17-year-old Kristina Whitaker to death just one year after being released from prison for a prior attempted murder charge. At the time, he only served four and a half years for the attempted murder. Fast-forward 25 years, and Pierson was released again and is now, once again, being charged with murder within a year of release. Police say Pierson confessed to stabbing Erika Verdecia, 33, a single mother, four times with a screwdriver on Sept. 25. He confessed to the murder last month, but he was only charged with first-degree murder last Saturday when Verdecia's body was found in a canal near Sunrise, Broward County.

The obvious question is: How does a man convicted of strangling a girl to death after already having served time for attempted murder get released? Well, he was sentenced to 40 years in 1995, but was released September 2020, after serving just 25 years. This is happening everywhere in the country. The craziest thing is that the first victim could have been saved had Pierson served more time. In 1985, Pierson had broken into a home and slit a woman's throat, but was paroled just four and a half years into his 18-year sentence.

It is true that Florida has since updated its truth-in-sentencing laws and currently requires 85% of the sentence to be served; however, this story underscores the problem with good behavior credits across the board. Let's face it, there aren't too many opportunities for an incarcerated man to have "bad behavior." Good time credits have become a joke – a standard formality that is accorded to every single criminal, no matter how heinous and violent his crime was or his risk of reoffending. There is no reason why any part of the sentence should be diminished for murderers. The entire concept of good time credits needs to be reformed and needs to be applied only for lower-level crimes. This is especially true with sentences getting shorter and shorter up front.

Just like with COVID fascism, Republicans in red states have internalized all of the false arguments of the left regarding criminal justice. They claim there are too many people in the prisons and that they need to release even more criminals. But if that is truly the case, then the answer is to build more prisons and actually get tougher on criminals to deter even more of them. Their argument is akin to someone waiting too long to make a left turn onto a busy street and declaring, "I've waited long enough, I'm just going to make the turn anyway."

A recent study from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (table 14) found that among those murderers released from state prison in 2008 and rearrested within 10 years (a majority of them), they served a median of 10 years and 9 months in prison. In other words, aside from not properly deterring other violent criminals, we are not even locking up murderers for that long, and we are clearly paying the consequences. The answer is to execute those convicted of murder to make room in the prisons for other criminals. It is not to release them.

Yet paroling murderers is the new coolness across the country. As Virginia attorney Hans Bader warns, Virginia state Sen. Joe Morrissey (D) has introduced a bill for next year's legislative session that will retroactively reinstate parole for murderers and make them potentially eligible for release after just 15 years. Virginia has already passed numerous pro-criminal bills, including offering generous parole for juvenile murderers. Even Florida Republicans recently passed a bill calling for sweeping expungement of juvenile criminal records, a bill that Gov. DeSantis felt compelled to veto.

This entire movement began with the de facto shredding of the death penalty. "Well, life without parole is just as good." Then they claimed we needed to release "nonviolent offenders." But then when they discovered the obvious — that most of the prisons are full of high-level, repeat violent offenders — they began releasing murderers too. Eventually, a life sentence will just mean a few years behind bars, and those are just among the few who actually get sentenced to life. Which is why the death penalty was always the best way to deal with murder. There is no parole from the grave, just like there are no second chances for the victims of murder.

Horowitz: Alleged Texas school shooter released very next day on $75,000



Who needs jails? Those are reserved for people like you and me who don't cooperate with COVID fascism. The culture of leniency on violent crime even in red states has gotten so bad that a high-profile school shooter in Tarrant County, Texas, was released the very next day on just $75,000 bail.

Since the FBI released data last week showing that murders increased in 2020 by nearly 30%, the sharpest single-year jump on record, the media has been feigning ignorance as to the culprit of the rising violent crime. However, as this story illustrates, there is no mystery when nobody is deterred or punished and there are thousands more violent criminals on the streets than there used to be, thanks to "criminal justice reform."

Timothy George Simpkins, who attends Timberview High School in Arlington, is accused of pulling out a firearm and shooting his fellow classmates during a fight that spiraled out of control on Wednesday. Four people were injured, including Calvin Pettitt, a 25-year-old English teacher who was shot in the back, suffering broken ribs and a collapsed lung. A day later, Simpkins walked straight out of jail into "home confinement" on just $75,000 bail.

Can't remember a time where a school shooting suspect is released the next day. https://t.co/OnxBNS0aoz
— Rach ❤️🤍💙 (@rachisawake) 1633632606.0

We already know as a given that juvenile murderers and dangerous criminals barely receive any punishment, but Simpkins is reportedly 18 years old. It appears that the only people held pretrial in jail these days are those caught "trespassing" in the United States Capitol without even assaulting anyone or damaging anything. Simpkins is already partying at home while nonviolent protesters at the Capitol remain in jail for months on end. Even Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller was held in jail longer than Simpkins for simply critiquing Biden's Afghanistan policy.

The bottom line is that there is a culture of leniency that has permeated the court systems of all 50 states, and few red-state governors have even shown a desire to get tough on crime. In a previous generation, the FBI report showing a 30% increase in murder in one year after nearly three decades of uninterrupted declines in murder would have set off alarm bells and impelled major tough-on-crime initiatives in the states. Sadly, we are seeing the opposite.

The Louisville Courier-Journal reported last week that through August, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear released 1,704 inmates due to COVID policies and nearly one-third of them have already been arrested for felonies! When including arrests for misdemeanors, almost half of the original 1,700 have had a brush with the law. Any wonder why there is more crime than ever before?

The problem is we are finding a crime surge in states with Republican governors as well. Texas already has a crisis of dangerous criminals being released on zero or low bail, just like New York. Its major cities are therefore seeing an unprecedented rise in crime. Homicides have increased 56% in Austin over the past year. The city is facing a crisis of retiring cops. Houston has experienced a 30% increase in homicide this year and a 73% increase since 2019.

This is the result of several years of the bipartisan obsession with de-incarceration. Earlier this year, the Vera Institute of Justice celebrated the plummeting incarceration rates with quite revealing statistics:

The number of people incarcerated in state and federal prisons and local jails in the United States dropped from around 2.1 million in 2019 to 1.8 million by mid-2020 — a 14 percent decrease. This decline held through the fall. This represents a 21 percent decline from a peak of 2.3 million people in prison and jail in 2008. State and federal prisons held an estimated 1,311,100 people at midyear 2020 — down 124,400, or 9 percent, from 2019. Prisons declined by an additional 61,800 people in late 2020, bringing the total prison population to 1,249,300 people, a 13 percent decline from 2019 to late 2020 (the end of September or beginning of October).

Well, what they view as a worthy mission accomplished, normal people see as a bloodbath in the streets. It's truly hard to suggest that the unprecedented spike in crime is not related to the fact that more of the people most likely to commit violent crime remain out on the streets.

I have previously outlined numerous policies red-state legislatures should pursue to attack rising crime, but few legislators seem to have an appetite to push back against the criminal-industrial complex. Until we get dangerous criminals off the streets, crime will continue to spiral out of control.

Who would have thought that the media would no longer be concerned about school shootings when it comes to furthering their de-incarceration agenda?

Horowitz: How lockdowns created more deaths from murderers



If the shutdown of schools was the evilest part of the lockdown, the shutdown of the court system is a close second.

Throughout the past year, liberals have wrongly blamed skyrocketing crime on the pandemic rather than on their criminal release policies and BLM rioting. However, there is one important way that the pandemic — or more aptly put, the response to the pandemic — will continue to contribute to more crime for years to come. Thanks to the lockdown, politicians and judges shut down our court system for months in some cities, leading to a dangerous backlog of murder cases, which can result in many of the most dangerous criminals walking free.

Thanks to the severity and duration of the Michigan shutdown, just in Genesee County, Michigan, alone, there is a backlog of 1,300 criminal cases. As a result, the office of Prosecutor David Leyton is planning to offer more plea bargains. As I've reported over the years in numerous crime cases, plea deals create a cascading effect of leniency that allows criminals to get back on the streets for longer and commit many more crimes before being locked up.

The Fulton County, Georgia, prosecutor, Fani Willis, said that if she cannot complete enough cases by mid-September, up to 1,433 defendants charged with violent crimes could be released, of which 70%-90% are gang-related. Ever wonder how many murderers will potentially be released if the backlog continues?In King County, Washington, there are more than 250 pending murder cases and 400 sexual assault cases, out of a total of 3,000 violent crime cases. The president of the King County Superior Court said that felony trials were shut down for an entire nine months, a completely indefensible move not based on any science.

This problem is raging in red states too, where the court systems shut down for almost as long. Wonder why Houston is experiencing a 40% increase in homicides? KRIV-TV reports that the current criminal case backlog in Harris County stands at 140,000, with more than half involving felony offenses. Crime was already going up because so many Harris County violent criminals were let out with little or no bond, but the shutdown exacerbated it. Defendants out on multiple felony bonds are suspected responsible for 127 murders.

According to ABC13 news, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo "said she does not believe that building more prisons and using taxpayer dollars to support the mass incarceration of nonviolent offenders is going to fix the increased crime in Black and brown communities." Which means that is exactly what we need to do.

Even more important than funding the police is for the states to use their enormous amount of COVID funding to fund prosecutor offices, build prisons, and hire more judges and makeshift courtrooms to get these trials rolling. There is no use spending more COVID funding on testing, tracing, vaccines, ineffective treatments, and empowering the respective state departments of health. Prosecutors need the resources badly, but in order to ensure that the extra funding doesn't go toward "criminal justice reform" programs, the funding should be conditioned on landing the maximum convictions, not accepting plea bargains.

It's interesting that when it comes to the Jan. 6 protesters, our government has spared no resource in churning the wheels of justice against them. With states flush with more printed cash from the feds than ever before, where is the sense of urgency to protect victims of crime and lock up the backlog of violent criminals? It's amazing how our budget on welfare, health care, and education constantly increases well beyond the growth of the population, but when it comes to prisons, the politicians have decided they will cap the number regardless of the consequences.

Indeed, the spike in crime has nothing to do with the emotional toll of the virus, but the fact that our response to it aggravated the existing cause of already-increasing crime: namely, a lack of deterrent. Since the middle of last decade, most major cities — from the prosecutors to the judges — adopted a pro-criminal culture that stigmatized incarceration the same way our political system stigmatized parole and release in the 1990s. The COVID jailbreak simply turbocharged those existing policies and telegraphed the message to violent criminals that the law will never catch up with them. It's just one of many other ancillary side effects of the lockdowns we will be enduring for years to come.