Do You Still Think the System Will Protect You?

It seems to be doing a particularly bad job in this case. How double killer who shot his grandparents and set their home on fire was released unsupervised from mental health ward before embarking on a new drug-fuelled crime spree.

He killed his grandparents and set their house on fire. He was not guilty due to mental illness, and he was supposed to be in a hospital. But just like keeping felons in prison is unfair, keeping crazy people separated from society is also unfair. Or something.

Konidaris pleaded not guilty to the murders of his grandparents on mental health grounds and was ordered to be supervised for 25 years at a psychiatric facility in 2014.

He was granted permission to leave the mental facility on escorted outings in 2016, and was eventually allowed to roam the streets unsupervised in 2019.

So 25 years turned into 5 years.

During his crime spree in September 2019, Konidaris told staff he was going to see his parents and about be back by 9pm, 9 News reported.

Instead, he went to a home in Cairnlea, in Melbourne’s north-west, where he threatened innocent homeowners with knives and demanded their car keys.

Oh, and he was high on cocaine while this was going on.

So how did “The System” let this happen?

Judge Frank Gucciardo asked why hospital staff didn’t know he had relapsed.

‘He doesn’t tell them. They don’t screen him. There’s no system in place that allows for some control. It’s a bit disturbing,’ he said.

Because the honor system for paranoid schizophrenics seems like the perfect solution for keeping everyone safe. Or maybe not.

Civil War 2.0

That’s what the Left wants, apparently. Progressives Prepare To Cross The Rubicon

When Ben Franklin emerged from Constitution Hall in 1787 at the conclusion of the drafting of our Constitution, a woman is reputed to have asked him, “Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?”. Franklin replied: “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

The Left doesn’t want a Republic. They want to rule by decree. From the Governor’s mansion of California, about electric autos, from the White House, with Obama and his pen, or from SCOTUS. They don’t want to follow the Constitution, because they know that they can’t change things via amendment.

“May you live in interesting times,” really is a curse.

It Really Was a Great City

Now it is a mess. Police: Woman riding in car shot in head on Lake Shore Drive

A young woman was shot and critically wounded Sunday afternoon while riding on Lake Shore Drive, Chicago police said.

Hat tip to Second City Cop: Aliotta Haynes Jeremiah Weep

Remember when driving Lake Shore Drive used to be fun and not a cesspool?

And for you non-Chicagoans, the reference is to a song.

“Remember, it’s only property damage”

Except for the injured police officer, that is. Second City Cop has CWB Video of an escape from Chicago police.

The video is only a couple of minutes and worth a look.

It’s times like this you realize that CPD doesn’t have a single tool available for Patrol Officers to stop a crazed out-of-control driver from running over every cop and citizen on that block. Nor from destroying squad cars and squadrols costing taxpayers many many thousands of dollars.

Unless they shot her of course. Then it’s all “She was unarmed aside from the four-thousand pounds of metal she was killing people with. We better go loot downtown to avenge her.”

In the end, she drove away. Yeah, that will make the city safer.

The First Step To Ending Democratic Rule in America

The deep state and the Dems didn’t like the outcome of an election, so they decided to try and overthrow it. One Step Closer to Despotism?

By institutionalizing Hillary Clinton’s anti-Trump operation, the former president and CIA director chose to undermine the peaceful transfer of authority and legitimize an attempted coup.

I could excerpt some passages, though I’m not sure which part needs highlighting. Just click thru and read all of it.

Hat tip to Wombat-socho at the Other McCain, who is still getting settled into his new digs. And celebrating a birthday.

New York City’s September Was a Lot Like Chicago

Of that shooting spike, how many were by NYPD? September shootings spiked 127% in NYC even as NYPD made record number of gun arrests

The NYPD accentuated the positive in its September crime statistics report by touting a record number of gun arrests during the month. Even so, shootings across New York City had also doubled from the previous year, continuing a violent summertime trend into the fall.

And like Chicago, they need to point out that overall, crime is down. And then they spoil that by admitting that certain crimes, like rape, are under-reported.

Meanwhile, robbery, assault and grand larceny each fell by 11.2%, 6.3% and 6.8%, respectively.

Rapes were also down 19.2%, with 139 incidents reported — but the NYPD believes the crime is being underreported.

I mean while they know that women being raped are not even bothering to inform the police, and murders/shootings are off the charts, larceny is under control, so you can feel good about yourself. Especially if you’re a Democratic politician in NYC.

For the Chicago numbers from September, see this link, and for the spin see this link.

We Are Living In The World of Fahrenheit 451

ErzaXZoro reminds us that Ray Bradbury and Fahrenheit 451 Predicted People Would Demand Tyranny.

Read Fahrenheit 451 again to discover why people wanted their tyrannical government to burn books. Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 in 1953, yet the parallels to today’s social climate for censorship are haunting.

If you’re of a certain age you might have read Fahrenheit 451 in High School. I don’t think they would include that in a reading list today; it cuts too close to home.

Anyway, click thru.

Your literary post of the day week.

Suspect Arrested in LA Ambush of Cops

Are we shocked to discover that he has an “extensive” criminal record? ‘An Extensive Criminal History’: Suspect Arrested in Ambush of LA Deputies

People don’t usually begin their criminal careers with murder. No, they start small — a robbery here, a burglary there — and cycle in and out of the criminal justice system for a few years until, one day, they commit a heinous atrocity. Then everybody looks at their arrest records and says, “Why wasn’t this monster already behind bars?”

Because keeping criminals in jail is Unfair, at least according to the Left.

I Don’t Understand Why Anyone Stays in California

Ben Shapiro: Why I’m Leaving California

Unlike Mr. Shapiro, I am not a native Californian. I moved out there in the 1980s after college; the draw of Silicon Valley was immense. Even back then, it was clearly too expensive. I was working in a good job, at a Fortune 500 company, and most of my income was going to pay for a crappy apartment. I had looked for real estate to purchase, but the sad fact was that there neighborhoods with serious gang problems that I could NOT afford to live in, so I left. But back to Ben.

We’re leaving because all the benefits of California have steadily eroded — and then suddenly collapsed. Meanwhile, all the costs of California have steadily increased — and then suddenly skyrocketed. It can be difficult to spot the incremental encroachment of a terrible disease, but once the final ravages set in, it becomes obvious that the illness is fatal. So, too, with California, where bad governance has turned a would-be paradise into a burgeoning dystopia.

When my family moved to North Hollywood, I was 11. We lived in a safe, clean suburb. Yes, Los Angeles had serious crime and homelessness problems, but those were problems relegated to pockets of the city — problems that, with good governance, we thought could eventually be healed. Instead, the government allowed those problems to metastasize.

And in Quote-of-the-Day material…

California is not on a trajectory toward recovery; it is on a trajectory toward oblivion.

Hat tip to The Other McCain – Good-Bye, Zimbabwe, U.S.A.: Ben Shapiro Explains Why He’s Leaving California. The state tuned into a Kleptocracy.

Once this trend reaches a tipping point — and Jerry Brown’s return to the governorship in 2011 seems to have been the straw that broke the camel’s back in California — the collapse accelerates.

The Violence of the Left

And the silence of the media… Shocking moment BLM organizer plows her car into crowd of Trump supporters in California and injures two – before she is arrested and charged with attempted murder

A Black Lives Matter organizer has been arrested after video showed her driving a car into a crowd of Trump supporters in southern California, injuring two.

Driver Tatiana Turner, 40, of Long Beach, was arrested and charged with attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon following the incident on Saturday in the city of Yorba Linda, about 30 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles.

The media has been silent, and I have my doubts about whether or not she will be prosecuted. (Hat tip to Ace.)

Mother Kills Her Daughter

Weep for the state of the culture. No charges yet filed in girl’s East Garfield Park stabbing death; grandfather claims mother is suspect

East Garfield Park is one of the 77 neighborhoods in Chicago.

Charges have not yet been filed in the death of a 5-year-old girl, who was allegedly fatally stabbed by her own mother in East Garfield Park Saturday morning.

The young girl’s grandfather claims his 27-year-old daughter is responsible for fatally stabbing her daughter on Chicago’s West Side.

There are few details, and the usual shocked neighbors.

Hat tip to Second City Cop, in a way, though he references a story with even fewer details. The March to 600

The media says “stabbed.” We have two e-mails saying the only thing keeping this poor baby’s head attached was her spinal column – after Mommy cut her neck almost all the way through. Hopefully the Department is offering the Officers the appropriate counseling services after having to see that. Paramedics and Firefighters, too.

The 600 number references the number of murders in Chicago so far this year. As of 7 AM this morning, HeyJackass! puts the number at 592.

When The System Fails

Criminal Justice Reform is not making things better. Retired Seattle judge believes murder by prolific offender Travis Berge was ‘preventable’

Travis Berge, a man who had at least 35 felony convictions and who was profiled in the “Seattle is Dying” documentary from KOMO, allegedly committed a murder-suicide Wednesday night at Cal Anderson Park in Seattle.

Retired Seattle Judge Ed McKenna told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson Show that he first got word of this story late Wednesday from some police officers he knows. Basically, McKenna says, they told him that Berge killed his wife or girlfriend and then holed himself up in a water supply place in the park.

35 convictions and he was on the street. He killed someone else, then he killed himself. So who did the Criminal Justice Reforms that are so popular on the Left help? They didn’t help Berge; he killed himself. They really didn’t help the woman he killed first.

The Left wants to help, and that is fine, but what they are doing is most definitely not helping anyone, least of all the people who really need help.

“One of things that I’ve been an advocate for, for a long time, is an in-custody inpatient treatment facility where judges can order people to long-term treatment, where they can get the services that they need, and then only when they’re stable, should they be released,” he said. “And Mr. Berge might be alive today had we actually had something like that.”

But that wouldn’t be fair, or something. And the Left will fix the problems as soon as the police are replaced by a bunch of social workers. Or something.

Those Peaceful Democratic Arsonists

The Democrats are all peaceful. Or mostly peaceful. Or something. Suspicious Fire Destroys Trump Supporter’s Garage, Truck; Pro-Biden, BLM Graffiti Left At Scene

Burn Loot Murder once again living up to its name.

The family’s garage, trucks and trailer were burned just after 3 a.m. Wednesday. Graffiti on the garage read, “Biden 2020,” “BLM” — shorthand for Black Lives Matter — and the anarchy symbol of an “A” with a circle around it. Two 3 x 5 Trump flags were on the trailer and truck.

You are NOT allowed to have a dissenting opinion. You WILL believe exactly what we tell you believe.

That is pretty much the Democratic party in 2020.

So does this constitute a hate crime?

Citizens Lose Faith In Chicago

They don’t believe the “authorities” can keep them safe. Probably they have good reason. Community activists call on Lightfoot to give kids bulletproof backpacks amid Chicago gun violence

Some community activists in Chicago want children to carry bulletproof backpacks in an effort to stem the growing number of young gun violence victims.

This is after another child, 8-year-old Dajore Wilson was killed by gunman while she was riding in the back of her parents’ car.

Hat tip to Second City Cop – Desperate Measures, who notes…

Groot is looking to set records as a baby-killer, assisted by the useless Crimesha who keeps releasing gun offenders, knife offenders and every manner of killer she can find.

Accused Murderer a “godly child” According to Family

Because families rarely judge their own rationally. ‘He’s not a monster’: Family in Chicago defends freshman accused in Western Illinois campus shooting.

Poplous, 18, of Englewood, is charged with attempted first-degree murder, aggravated battery and aggravated discharge of a firearm in McDonough County.

There are probably a half-dozen other laws not mentioned, since Illinois has a whole bunch of gun-control laws.

The family says it is “out of character.” That he is “not a monster.” But shooting someone with the intent to kill them sounds monstrous to me.

The 18-year-old shooting victim underwent surgery for a gunshot wound.

While he did turn himself in, that doesn’t alter the facts of the case. He shot another human-being in cold blood with the expectation that he would kill that person.

This Will Be a Local Story

No national media attention will be forthcoming. Woman pleads guilty to killing infant son, dumping body in trash can. She apparently thought killing babies wasn’t against the law.

Vernita Jones killed her 6-month-old son, Anthony Frost.

Jones, according to investigators, admitted to suffocating Frost and throwing him away.

She was sentenced to 30 years in prison. How many years that actually comes to before she’s paroled is anyone’s guess.

Post Office Casualties in Chicago

Out-of-control violence can’t be ignored by the people who work in the cities where the violence has been allowed to spread. Chicago Mail Carriers Threaten To Stop Delivering Mail If City Fails To Control Violence

“The 24-year-old woman, who works as a United States Postal Service mail carrier, was shot at 91st Street and Ellis Avenue just after 11:35 a.m. while on the job,” ABC 7 Chicago reported earlier in September. “Chicago Fire Department officials said she was critically hurt after being shot multiple times.”

The mail carrier was not the shooting’s intended target, Chicago police officials said, but her southside route put her in the middle of a neighborhood wracked by gun violence. She is, ABC 7 added, the second mail carrier wounded by gunfire while walking her route.

Mayor Groot, also known as Lori Lightfoot, will no doubt say it is “unfair.” But some would say that about the way she has Chicago PD protecting her home. (Hat tip to Whatfinger News)

Disintegration of the Social Fabric Continues in Baltimore

“Authorities” haven’t got a clue. Surge of violence in Baltimore continues, with fatal shootings in Federal Hill and East Baltimore/Midway

The fatal shootings of a 39-year-old man at the popular park overlooking the Inner Harbor and another man in the 2300 block of Homewood Ave., as wall as the nonfatal shootings of three other people, mean that at least 52 people have been shot in a nine-day span, 14 of them fatally

There is quite a lot of info on that shooting in the park, including how residents would not help an injured man for fear of the shooter.

As for the “authorities” they have the same platitudes I’ve heard for decades.

“We have to change that culture of violence, but we have to do a better job of figuring out how to interrupt these violent interactions before they happen,” [Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael] Harrison said. “But that takes a great deal of intelligence and community support to feed that information to us so we can be in the right place and be with the right people.

I’m almost surprised he didn’t say that they need to win over the “hearts and minds” of the people of Baltimore.

When crime was spiraling out of control in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the crime statistics were not reduced by “interactions” unless by that you mean all of the “get tough on crime” measures that are so out-of-favor today. Minimum sentencing. Tougher sentences. More policing. So when everyone is talking about Defund the Police, what exactly do you think is going to happen to crime?

Lawlessness in Louisville

The Breakdown of Civilization™ continues. Black Lives Matter Activist Wearing ‘Justice for Breonna Taylor’ Shirt Walked into a Louisville Bar and Murdered Three People

He walked into a bar, owned by a retired cop, and murdered 3 people.

Of course this is only a local story. Nothing of interest on the national scene.

The shooter was wearing a “Justice for Breonna Taylor” t-shirt. Naturally, the national media has completely ignored this story — which certainly would not have been the case if a mass shooter had been wearing a “Trump” shirt.

Hat tip to The Other McCain – 3 Killed by Louisville Gunman Wearing ‘Justice for Breonna Taylor’ T-Shirt

The Decline and Fall of Minneapolis

It was such a nice city. Two Campaign Staffers For Ilhan Omar’s GOP Challenger Shot In Minneapolis, Suspect Arrested

“It is shocking and unnecessary acts of violence like this that prove why change is needed now more than ever in our community,” Johnson said, adding that the shooting didn’t occur during any campaign events and that they believe it has no connection to the campaign.

So either this was a politically-motivated hit and the cops are ignoring that aspect, or the breakdown of civilization has proceeded to the point where random violence is the order of the day.

The two victims were standing outside of a service station Monday afternoon

And yet there is apparently no security video, or stills from a video to show what happened.