When only 18% of Americans support policies that defund police departments, what does it say about Democrat councils, judges and prosecutors in San Francisco and Chicago – those purveyors of systemic nonchalance toward unprivileged arrestees? It says they don’t care about law-abiding residents, businesses that pay employees and taxes, and private property. Just compare these two Democrat-run cities to Tampa, Florida.
An 80-person mob executed a mass burglary in San Francisco’s Union Square on November 21, which police called “clearly a planned event.” It’s obvious would-be criminals have done the calculus to determine social justice “progress” equates to low-or-no bail, higher thresholds for felonies, and fewer “minimum mandatory” sentences. It gets worse: Cook County just surpassed 1,000 homicides for the year, the most since 1994.
Poor San Francisco. It lost net population in 2019 and 2020, and The Hill recently reported 56% of residents want to leave – with 71% telling pollsters the quality of life “is worse now than five years ago.” Democrat district attorney Chesa Boudin is (at least) partially to blame, decriminalizing drug dealing and prostitution that’s resulted in urban dystopia – so bad that residents left, stores closed, and tourists have gone elsewhere.
In Chicago, murders and shootings are up 36% in two years of Democrat leadership. State’s Attorney Foxx ran as a “reformist” and removed cash bail for “minor” crimes and pre-trial detention for “non-violent” crimes. Mayor Lightfoot said “creative action” would stop rising murder rates. Governor Pritzker says Chicago is “nearly at a state of emergency.” Kumbayah incompetence has helped Chicago become the 8th fastest-shrinking metropolis in America (source: New York Times).
Hooray for Florida, where police and prosecutors know how to keep law and order. Quinton Joiner is currently in Hillsborough County Jail after her arrest for TWO violent crimes on November 3rd – because a Florida judge ordered jail in lieu of $32,000 bail. Joiner’s from Chicago – and here’s her story.
Joiner’s criminal court file in Cook County has over 20 entries, including many “dropped cases” after arrests for battery, firearms and robbery dating back to 2007. In August, she got misdemeanor probation after stabbing a CTA worker. Still on probation in October, she was arrested again for walking into a Millennium Park wedding and stealing a woman’s purse at knifepoint. Then, after being released from CPD custody, she took her knife skills to Florida for the winter.
In November, Joiner stabbed an elderly man walking in a Wal-Mart parking lot, left him with a lacerated spleen, and fled the incident on a mountain back. 15 minutes later, she rode her bike over a man’s dog leash, threatened his fiancee at knifepoint, stabbed him, eviscerating his intestines, and biked away. Police found Joiner hiding in nearby woods, and the knife and bike abandoned elsewhere. This is madness, because Chicago exported its problem to Tampa.
Don’t racialize this horror story, because Joiner and the stabbed transit worker are both African-American. No, fault “criminal justice reform” in Cook County, which is run by Democrats, and the liberal thinking trap that blames income inequality and too few social programs for violent crime. Maybe Boudin can use that meme for the hot mess in San Francisco (not really) but Democrats are defunding more than just police departments.
In 2019, the exodus of good people cost Chicago $6 billion in tax revenue. In 2021, San Francisco will lose $1.4 billion in property taxes alone. Wanna talk defunding? Google occupancy and rental rates, store closings and unfilled jobs, and lost sales taxes in Chicago and San Francisco. It’ll make you cry.
