Law Enforcement

Sign of the times

Featured image If there is a story/video/photo that captures the madness of the moment, it must be the one featuring illegal alien Jhoan Boda flipping off the crowd as he left the courthouse in Manhattan last week. Miranda Devine recapitulated key elements of the story in her Devine Online newsletter with the subject heading “Crazy Town.” Here is her summary of the story: Look at this charmer coming out of Manhattan Criminal »

Incentives Matter

Featured image My friend the economist John Phelan says that the entire field of economics can be summed up in the statement that incentives matter. This is a good example. Why do illegal immigrant theft rings steal in New York, go to Florida to spend their loot, and then return to New York to steal some more? »

A New Day In Support For Law Enforcement?

Featured image Minnesota was famously the scene of George Floyd’s death and the subsequent criminal prosecution of four police officers, most notably Derek Chauvin. Chauvin was convicted of second degree murder and is currently in prison, having survived an attack on his life. In my opinion, Chauvin’s conviction was wrong on both legal and factual grounds. His case was tried in an atmosphere of anti-police hysteria and threats of violence, so that »

Another Minnesota Officer Charged With Murder

Featured image Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty has charged State Trooper Ryan Londregan with second degree murder in the death of a felon that arose out of a traffic stop. Here we go again. State troopers stopped the felon, Ricky Cobb, at 1:50 am because he was driving on a major highway without proper lights. When they ran his identity through their system, they found that there was a “pick up” warrant »

Systemically Neutral Law Enforcement

Featured image The dogma that American law enforcement is “systemically” racist is one of the chief pillars of what passes for liberal thought. In truth, that theory has been perhaps the most damaging of all leftist shibboleths. A recent meta-study concludes that there is no empirical evidence that our criminal justice system discriminates against blacks, but that academics nevertheless continue to assert that claim–even in studies whose data actually refute it: An »

No Longer In Vogue

Featured image The Black Lives Matter era is over. The BLM organization turned out to be a fraud, and, worse, the anti-police movement caused a spike in crime that continues to this day. Voters have ejected Soros prosecutors, and even liberals are vowing to crack down on criminals. The story of Marilyn Mosby illustrates the downfall of BLM. Mosby was the States Attorney in Baltimore when a man named Freddie Gray died »

America’s Worst Prosecutor

Featured image 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 »

The Root Cause of Crime

Featured image 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 »

A Neoconservative Is a Liberal Who Has Been Mugged

Featured image That formula goes back, I think, to the 1980s, and while “neoconservative” has taken on a different meaning, it still holds true. The latest case in point is Shivanthi Sathanandan, a vice chairwoman of Minnesota’s Democrat-Farmer-Labor party. Like most Democrats, Sathanandan was anti-police and pro-criminal. In June 2020, she wanted to “dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department”: But that all changed on Tuesday. Ms. Sathanandan was carjacked and viciously beaten: The »

Felony murder in a good cause: Byron York revisits

Featured image I sought to draw attention to the Biden Department of Justice’s advocacy of leniency in the case of Montez Lee, the Minnesota citizen sentenced to 10 years in prison for setting a fire that killed a man during the George Floyd riots that devastated Minneapolis. I set forth the underlying facts of the case in “Felony murder in a good cause” (January 18,2022) and several subsequent posts. Byron York now »

“Be worthy” — the bodycam video

Featured image Last month I wrote about the July 14 ambush of Fargo police officers by one Mohamad Barakat. Barakat murdered Officer Jake Wallin and wounded two other officers. Barakat was prepared for mass murder. Inside Barakat’s car officers found 1,800 rounds of .223-caliber ammunition, explosives, gas canisters, and a homemade grenade with a fuse out of the top. Fargo police officer Zach Robinson saved the day. From a spot some 75 »

Blue Cities: Getting It Good and Hard

Featured image Why does anyone still live in San Francisco? Why would any group hold a convention or similar event there? Why would a tourist set foot there? That city has been so badly governed for so long that the question is no longer whether it will thrive, but rather, whether it will survive. Many San Francisco businesses have closed their doors, while others are barely hanging on. Gump’s is an upscale »

Proof That Law Enforcement Does Not Discriminate Against Blacks

Featured image In May 2020, the world was turned upside down when a massively-overdosed George Floyd died on a Minneapolis street while waiting for an ambulance that could have saved his life. The narrative that Minnesota’s criminal justice system was biased against blacks immediately took hold, encouraged by Minnesota’s own state and local officials. In response to that narrative, states and local jurisdictions across America, and even around the world, enacted “reforms” »

“Be worthy”

Featured image As the man says in the song (not that one), I was born in a small town — Fargo, North Dakota. You may have heard that Fargo police officer Jake Wallin was ambushed and murdered by one Mohamad Barakat in Fargo this past Friday as police responded to a call for help on a car accident. Officer Wallin was a native of St. Michael, Minnesota and a sergeant in the »

Can’t crack that case

Featured image The White House must be the most heavily guarded and surveilled building in the United States. Yet the case of the cocaine baggie outside the Situation Room is apparently damn near impossible to crack, if I may use that term in this context. I’m not sure if the White House is still taking the line that the area is “highly trafficked,” but that is the line that Politico persists in »

“Break the Wheel,” or something, part 4

Featured image Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s memoir of the Chauvin prosecution — Break the Wheel: Ending the Cycle of Police Violence — was published last week. It’s good to be Keith Ellison. He’s got the Star Tribune doing public relations for him. He’s got the New York Times doing public relations for him. He’s got the Washington Post doing public relations for him. He’s got NPR doing public relations for him. »

“Break the Wheel,” or something, part 2

Featured image I’m still working my way through Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s just-published memoir Break the Wheel: Ending the Cycle of Police Violence. I hope to write a formal book review that administers justice to the book. In the meantime, I want to post a series of notes on the book. This is Ellison’s second memoir and it shares certain traits in common with the first, My Country, Tis of Thee: »