Roy Exum
With two more days remaining in what has been an unbelievably bloody year in the Windy City, it is now official: Murders in Chicago have hit a 25-year high and Keith Thornton, a heroic dispatcher, just made a viral video that lays the blame squarely in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s lap. “This lady is disgraceful!” Thornton’s quick thinking this summer saved the lives of two officers and he was hailed as a hero. But on Christmas Day he aired a video that endeared him to far more Chicago residents.
As it was being watched and making its way to the media, over the Christmas weekend three people were murdered and another 22 shot.
Thus far there have been 791 shot and killed and another 4,504 seriously wounded this year in Chicago. Yes, all in 2021. (Chicago is a city with 2.7 million people. By comparison, New York City, which has a population of more than eight million, has had 479 murders to date.)
Listen to the dispatcher: “I'm hot about it because this mayor does not care about Chicago police officers, period. She doesn't care about any first responders. She does not care about the d*** city. It doesn't matter if you're white, black, Asian, Hispanic, other, straight, gay, Democrat, or Republican. She don't even care about her city workers. All that lady cares about is her (expletive) self,” Thornton said in the camera’s eye.
''And I pray you're watching this because you're a disgrace and I'm tired of it,” he said, directing his words at Lightfoot. “and your city is tired of it. Matter of fact, it's not your city. The city of Chicago is tired of it … And I know you don't like me, and that's OK, because I love you,' he added, 'but I'm tired of you because you're an absolute disgrace to everyone within the city.”
He ended the video by saying the 'city is burning' and that it was time to 'stand up' and 'do something.'” He has offered to meet with city officials, saying: 'We've got to come together for our area because this is bull ***.”
Thornton said his ire comes at a time “when you dial 9-1-1 officers aren’t coming to you …we are that short-handed. A shooting came up a few days ago and we couldn’t get a unit over there. A unit could not get to the scene until 10-plus minutes later because there was no one (available.)
“These are not petty crimes … women being beaten, stabbings, shootings.” Criminal sexual assault in Chicago is up 132 percent over 2020, and murder up 50 percent over last year.
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LIBERAL PROSECUTORS SCRAMBLE TO DEFEND RECORDS
From The Washington Times: Liberal prosecutors who have argued against their predecessors’ “tough-on-crime” policies are suddenly scrambling to defend their own records and results as shootings, thefts and homicides surge in major cities.
In Baltimore, where the numbers of homicides, carjackings and aggravated assaults are up, the city’s top prosecutor, Marilyn Mosby, fired off a scathing 37-page open letter to Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican who said her lax handling of prosecutions is contributing to the violent crime.
"Every single day my prosecutors go up against voluminous case dockets, uncooperative witnesses, and demanding judges to ensure accountability against violent individuals in this city,” Ms. Mosby wrote. “How dare you say otherwise?”
The governor said last month that Baltimore “needs a prosecutor who will actually prosecute violent criminals.”
Governor Hogan, who is considered a potential Republican presidential contender in 2024, also launched an investigation into funding for the prosecutor’s office and demanded that Ms. Mosby turn over detailed statistics on plea deals with defendants and case dismissals.
He is also a frequent critic of Ms. Mosby’s decision to stop prosecuting low-level drug possession, prostitution and other minor offenses.
Ms. Mosby, a Democrat who has been in her position since 2014, defended herself as homicides in Baltimore topped 300 for the seventh year in a row. She told Governor Hogan to “stop finger-pointing” and said the city’s crime rate cannot be resolved through his “antiquated tough-on-crime and zero-tolerance policing proposals.”
“‘Re-funding’ the police and more mandatory minimums do not deter crime,” she wrote.
In San Francisco, District Attorney Chesa Boudin tried Tuesday to deflect criticism that his liberal policies are to blame for the rash of smash-and-grab thefts at luxury retail stores.
“Some have wrongly accused progressive prosecutors like me of not pursuing accountability despite my office’s high prosecution rates on these kinds of crimes and our transparency on filing rates,” Mr. Boudin wrote in an op-ed for SFGate.
“The all-too-common response to these crimes has been calls for more policing and attacks on progressive reforms, but these knee-jerk reactions are short-sighted,” he said.
Mr. Boudin, a Democrat who has ended cash bail and dramatically reduced the city’s jail population since taking office in 2020, faces a recall vote in June peddled by critics who say the former public defender is too soft on crime.
Mr. Boudin’s op-ed was headlined “We’re blaming the wrong things for San Francisco retail theft” and included suggestions for “addressing the root causes of crime.” It was published a week after San Francisco Mayor London Breed, a Democrat, appeared to take a jab at Mr. Boudin while discussing efforts to combat crime.
“We need everyone to get on board, not just cops and frontline workers, but prosecutors and the courts as well,” Ms. Breed said. “Our residents should not see the same criminals back on the streets of the Tenderloin again and again, in an endless cycle of fear and frustration.”
When police make arrests, she said, it is “critical that our entire criminal justice system holds these individuals accountable.”
Betsy Brantner Smith, a spokeswoman for the National Police Association, echoed the mayor’s sentiments in a statement to The Washington Times.
“American law enforcement is short-staffed and often beleaguered, and yet as police officers continue to attempt to enforce criminal law, in many areas, progressive prosecutors decline to bring the offenders to trial. This malfeasance exacerbates the crime crisis America is currently experiencing,” said Ms. Brantner Smith, a retired police sergeant.
Baltimore, San Francisco and Philadelphia are among 22 large cities where the number of homicides was four percent higher during the first nine months of this year than in the same period in 2020 and 36 percent higher than in 2019, according to a report by the Council on Criminal Justice.
Rasmussen Reports released a report last week that shows 89 percent of likely U.S. voters are concerned about violent crime, including more than half (69 percent) who are “very” concerned.
royexum@aol.com