Crime
January 4, 2024 — John Hinderaker
Compton, California, is, to my knowledge, a Hellhole. Some years ago I tried a case in Los Angeles. At that time, local lawyers were buzzing about an incident in which a lawyer who was appearing in court in Compton walked down a stairwell in the courthouse, where he was confronted by a gang of “youths” who, for no reason, beat him to within an inch of his life. The lawyer
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January 4, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Senator Robert Menendez wants to hang on to his Senate seat and who can blame him? It has served him well. The original indictment handed up against Menendez last year alleged a mind-boggling level of depravity and corruption. Among other things, he seems to have abused his chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in a disgusting manner. The betrayal of trust involved is difficult to fathom if not to
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December 28, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Minneapolis’s Star Tribune records an incident of utter depravity: “Charge: Loring Park resident injected restrained sex partner with meth, left him tied up as he died.” Center told officers that he connected with Aldridge on a dating app, and they agreed to meet at the apartment. Aldridge arrived about 1 p.m. on May 11, and “the two engaged in sexual activities including bondage,” the complaint read. Center said he had
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December 8, 2023 — Scott Johnson
A Central District of California federal grand jury has handed up a nine-count indictment of Hunter Biden on tax charges. Three of the charged crimes are felonies. The rest are misdemeanors. The detailed 56-page indictment is posted online here and embedded in Victor Nava’s New York Post story here. The gist of the case is set forth in paragraph 4 of the indictment: “The Defendant engaged in a four-year scheme
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December 2, 2023 — John Hinderaker
The facts are finally coming out on the prison attack on Derek Chauvin: The complaint states Chauvin was in the federal prison’s law library around 12:30 p.m. local time when another inmate, Turscak, attacked Chauvin with an improvised knife, stabbing him 22 times. … Corrections officers immediately responded to the assault and deployed pepper-spray to subdue Turscak, who told the responding officers that he would have killed Chauvin if they
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November 25, 2023 — John Hinderaker
I have been in Paris for the last week; hence my fewer than usual posts. What is the biggest news in France today? Derek Chauvin was stabbed by another inmate in a medium-security federal prison in Tucson. Prison employees administered life-saving first aid, and Chauvin is now hospitalized in serious condition but expected to survive. After he was convicted, Chauvin’s lawyer requested that he be isolated from other inmates, foreseeing
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November 16, 2023 — Lloyd Billingsley
The US Census Bureau conducts the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and has been sending out letters using “a scientific process to selected addresses, including yours, from all addresses in the United States.” As recipients learn, “your address cannot be replaced.” Crime often goes unreported, the letter explains, so “a Census Bureau representative will come to your home or call to interview you and other household members, aged 12 or
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October 19, 2023 — John Hinderaker
News organizations are headlining Sidney Powell’s guilty plea in the Georgia case in which she is a co-defendant with Donald Trump as if it were significant news. It isn’t, except, of course, to Ms. Powell. The Georgia indictment accuses Trump and a number of others of conspiring to overturn the apparent result of the 2020 election in Georgia. I wrote about the indictment in detail here. The problem with the
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October 3, 2023 — John Hinderaker
It’s a stiff competition. Democratic Party prosecutors who have brought frivolous charges against Donald Trump are certainly in the mix. Nevertheless, I would award that title to Mary Moriarty, the County Attorney for Hennepin County, Minnesota. Hennepin is the state’s most populous county, and it includes Minneapolis along with a number of other high-crime towns. Nevertheless, Moriarty ran for office on a platform of not prosecuting criminals, and she is
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October 3, 2023 — Scott Johnson
In the early days of Power Line John and I wrote several columns for the local newspapers decrying the murder of 11-year-old Tyesha Edwards. Tyesha was doing her homework at the dining room table in November 2002 when she was caught in the crossfire of Minneapolis gangbangers. Myon Burrell was convicted twice of Tyesha’s murder and sentenced to life in prison. In our columns we made three basic points: 1)
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September 26, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Target Corporation has been even more woke than most large companies, but there are limits. Target has been vocal about the damage that organized retail theft is doing to its bottom line. Now the other shoe has dropped. The Wall Street Journal reports: Target is closing nine stores across four states because of theft and organized retail crime. The Minneapolis-based retailer said Tuesday stores in the New York City, Seattle,
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September 26, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Senator Robert Menendez wants to hang on to his Senate seat and who can blame him? It has served him well. The pending indictment against Menendez alleges a mind-boggling level of depravity and corruption. Among other things, he seems to have abused his chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in a disgusting manner. The betrayal of trust involved is difficult to fathom. Having dodged the bullet on the corruption
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September 23, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Many criminals are dumb, and some are crazy. But virtually all criminals pay attention to what concerns them the most: the likelihood of being caught and the severity of punishment for their crimes. Even the most deranged criminal does not commit his felony in front of a policeman. And the extent to which laws are enforced is the most important variable influencing whether laws are broken. We are reminded of
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September 22, 2023 — Scott Johnson
New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez has been indicted along with his wife and three other defendants in the Southern District of New York. The detailed three-count indictment runs to 39 pages and alleges a bribery scheme benefiting Menendez and his wife in exchange for official acts undertaken by the senator. The prosecutors seek forfeiture involving hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and numerous gold bars seized from a safe
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September 16, 2023 — John Hinderaker
This video is everywhere today. Two black teenagers steal a car and go joyriding. They film themselves as they rear-end another vehicle, then spot a man bicycling along the side of the road. They deliberately run him over, killing him, as they film the murder, laughing: If you doubt structural racism can impact people’s lives, you need to watch this video. pic.twitter.com/DqJdOS797D — Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) September 15, 2023 Comment
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September 13, 2023 — Lloyd Billingsley
Back around Labor Day, the Canadian government advised that 2SLGBTQI+ persons “could face certain barriers and risks when you travel outside Canada,” because “not all countries have the same values and legal system that we have in Canada.” That is indeed true, in ways that travelers might not imagine. LGBTQ are, respectively, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer. “I” means “intersex” and + is “inclusive of people who identify as
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September 10, 2023 — John Hinderaker
On Thursday evening our time, I was on Sky News Australia’s U.S. Report, hosted by James Morrow. We talked about the sentencing of Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio to 22 years in prison, two years longer than the maximum penalty prescribed by law, for participation in an “insurrection” that he missed. We contrasted that with the 10-year sentence, half of the presumptive punishment, for an arsonist/murderer who was engaged in
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