Crime and Violence Reign

In many American cities, law enforcement is in a state of collapse. A combination of anti-police activism, spineless politicians, and left-wing prosecutors has turned the streets over to violent criminals. Yesterday in Manhattan, a gang of 25 to 50 “youths” attacked a vehicle stopped at a light:


It is hard to understand why the driver of the car didn’t hit the gas. The Daily Mail reports:

The BMW was adorned with medical license plates, but that did nothing to deter the gang of brazen teens.

… By the time cops arrived at the scene, the teens had sped off. No arrests have been made.

One witness said Torgovnick’s mother was ‘shaking and in tears’.

‘We were trapped, there was so much violence, I thought I was going to die,’ she reportedly said.

Torgovnick says he has lived in New York all his life and could never have previously imagined such a scenario occurring on the streets of his home city.

Law enforcement, under continuous attack from Mayor DeBlasio, who apparently has no problem with this sort of chaos, was nowhere in sight.

Then we have the weird events in Fife, Washington, a suburb of Tacoma. A group of far-leftists has taken over a Travelodge motel and finally, at last word, are being cleared away by police. I won’t try to summarize, but My Northwest has the story.

The Antifa-style activists have the usual delusions of grandeur:


Much more at the link, but for now, this:

Police Chief Pete Fisher is speaking now to explain why they’re acting today to remove the radicals. …

The chief also says they didn’t act because of a lack of staffing and if they made arrests, it’s not like the jails would take the suspects anyway.

If public officials, including prosecutors, have no problem with criminal violence, law enforcement is hopeless.

As a result of the left-wing social forces that have been unleashed this year, violence in our cities has skyrocketed. Hans Bader has the numbers, relating specifically to murder:

Murders have skyrocketed this year, as local governments have become softer on crime. In the 57 major cities for which data is available, the murder rate is up an average of 36.7%. Murder went up in 51 cities, and down in only six cities. Murder is up 74.1% in Seattle, 72.3% in Minneapolis, 55.5% in Chicago, 54.1% in Boston, 39.2% in New York, 34.5% in St. Louis, and 30.4% in Los Angeles.

This huge rise in murder occurred as progressive prosecutors became softer on crime, parole became available to more murderers, and the death penalty stopped being used in most states.

Hans has chapter and verse at the link, but the bare numbers are eloquent. If you go woke, you may or may not go broke, but you are far more likely to get shot. Still, even worse than that is the lawless chaos that now governs the streets in many American cities. I can’t explain why voters stand for it, but apparently the short answer is liberalism.

STEVE adds: Here’s a table I was saving for the Geek in Pictures of the changes in the number of murders—

Also—the New York Times thinks the Coronovirus caused the crime spike:

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