The criminal justice system has some weak links, and the police component is not one of them.
The ongoing lunacy regarding liberal enclaves and their district attorneys and/or judges handing out go-free keys to bona fide criminals’ zero intent on going straight pervades communities, imperils police who keep repeating the cycle of crime-fighting, and endangers the public at large.
Following is one of myriad examples of a system working against itself and, instead, on behalf of miscreants who can interpret how easy it is to get away with malice after menacing society.
According to the Ramsey County Deputies’ Federation, a repeat offender known for fleeing police in stolen automobiles was yet again out and about in a stolen car, was detected by law enforcement officers, engaged in a police pursuit, and had every intention to maim or kill police and any citizens who happened to be innocently traversing the community.
When an agency is compelled to start a press release or on-air TV broadcast with the following quote, it is to be interpreted as a clue-in to debunk fictions and twisted details pervaded by typical anti-police propagandists: “Once again, we need to correct misinformation put out to spin the real facts.”
Who are the usual suspects? Mainstream media players.
Per reports from the Ramsey County law enforcement authorities, “[On March 17], while responding to a call to assist another agency [and provide mutual aid], a patrol deputy was hit broadside by a fleeing stolen vehicle. The stolen vehicle was driven by a repeat offender with a felony warrant for fleeing police in a motor vehicle.
“The suspect appears to have escaped the entire incident unscathed.” Funny how that most always seems to happen.
The facts continue: “The same cannot be said for the deputy who suffered a broken kneecap, broken toe, possible head injury, fractured ribs, and a bruised lung.”
(Photo courtesy of the Ramsey County Deputies’ Federation.)
As this publication and others in the police community have been saying and will continue to justifiably bellow, the police are not the problem. Yet they are painted as a plague while being maimed and/or murdered by unmistakable evil-doers intent on destroying everyone and everything after receiving countless get-out-of-jail-free cards. Complicit in monopolizing mayhem are gutless adjudicators.
The conclusion to the Ramsey County law enforcement statement punctuates what we all have witnessed for several years now—a go-soft-on-crime approach exercised by jellyfish judicial officials lending leniency and gavel-bangers whose demonstrated consistency is betraying an oath to safeguard the public via jurisprudence.
Instead, we keep getting prude without juris: “The systematic failures of the criminal justice system are not the failures of the police who continue to arrest the criminals. The failures are a direct result of our elected officials’ refusal to hold criminals accountable for their actions.”
Has our so-called criminal justice system gone so far off the reservation that it is blind to the graphic victimization caused by bona fide violent offenders who care not one iota for humanity? Does meteing out justice mean anything nowadays? Are some judges that politically swayed? Certain DAs gone goofy?
Well, I submit our cover photo is a depiction answering that query; it is one among many such illustrations filling TV, computer, and cell phone screens…portraying out-of-control members of society wreaking havoc while innocents are made to dart and duck such atrocities.
Despite the criminal justice system’s rusty and reckless adjudicators, cops continue to toe the line, show up at roll call rooms, receive notices announcing who is out and about (released recidivists), and which Stop signs are being ignored (per residents), likely by the types who believe rules do not apply to them. The usual gambit of matters foisted upon the backs of law enforcement…cops going through the same ole motions while all the while knowing the usual outcome.
I say that not out of cynicism (although justified) but based on reality, even after years of enduring the same cycle of arrested and regurgitated criminals. After a handful of freebies from jail, those I arrested would see me on the beat and, with sly smirks on their faces, gleefully offer me birds (in digit form)…like an eye poke, all emboldened by a penal code seemingly fished from the bottom of a Cracker Jack box.
Ironically, one of the usual suspects I referred to above had a street name of “Big Bird,” because his gangly height reached 6’-6” and his pedigree was to steal SUVs with extra compartment space to accommodate his lanky length. Thanks to many of the lenient judges at whom we are pointing an accusatory finger, Big Bird was quite often a free bird. It literally became a weekend romp for Big Bird: get out of county jail, select a ride belonging to a rightful owner, tool around town like a reckless idiot, have fun being pursued by police, take another trip to jail, get fed, receive bond, start the cycle again.
The biggest joke that wasn’t.
Such a system can easily wear-down a cop, playing with his/her psyche, tormenting the professional public safety officials whose next-in-line criminal justice links seem to simply shrug off punitive measures and instead endorse RORs (release own recognizance).
Think about it: In any profession, how would you be positioned to do a job, get it done accordingly, submit your prized work, to then be informed it was futile, often without any explanation, and made to go do it all over again…perpetuated by the same wasteful cycle? That’s what cops go through, with extraordinary perils unparalleled by other worker bees in varying industries.
Incidentally, the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office deputy whose physical body was maligned and whose twisted patrol cruiser was reduced to an auto junkyard square heap footed by taxpayers are in Minnesota, roughly 30 miles from Hennepin County (Minneapolis). A clue which sums up the mentality in that jurisdiction and other clones around America.
There are many instances mimicking this one, and many district attorneys and judges making a mockery of a system whose consumers stare at the scales of justice and discern the woeful lean. Surviving victims, and loved ones of victims who did not survive grotesque events carried out by criminals who should not have had liberty to afflict chaos and mayhem and murder, are just as dismayed as police officers who are out there doing their part in the criminal justice infrastructure.
The time to pushback on this taxpayer-funded nonsense is yesterday. This is not an isolated incident; this is a glaring miscarriage of justice with undeniable plurality, the metastasis of which is infecting constitutional guarantees afforded citizens chronically betrayed by non-objective misguided elements of the judiciary.
Here’s another glaring example close to home, publicized as I edit: “Clearwater Police homicide detectives have arrested a 19-year-old chronic offender in a March 8 drive-by shooting that left one person dead and three others injured.”
Since this one was in my area, I observed the crime scene after visiting a relative in Clearwater:
(Photo courtesy Clearwater Police Department.)
Per Clearwater detectives, “Derriontae Ward faces one charge of first-degree murder and three counts of attempted first-degree murder in the incident” after investigators “were able to identify Ward, who has been arrested 37 times, as a suspect in the case.”
37 arrests at age 19! Terrible judicial system; excellent police work, again!
“At the time of the shooting, [Ward] was out on bond from multiple previous criminal cases, including aggravated assault with a firearm, grand theft auto, burglary and leaving the scene of a crash with injury,” each of which signals someone who cares nothing for other humans and their earned belongings.
And police reports included some interesting features which typify the revolving door syndrome we are discussing today (although it did help police capture the murderer): “While out on bond, Ward was wearing a GPS-enabled ankle device. That device showed that he was at the same restaurant as the victims before the shooting; it also places him at the scene of the crime, where nearly two dozen shots were fired. Ward cut off the ankle device the day after the shooting.” As absent-minded as some who foolishly let him have freedom to revictimize.
From a Clearwater top cop’s perspective aligning with our thoughts exactly: “You often hear about initiatives to reduce sentences for people who have chosen a life of criminality. There is no doubt that a criminal like Ward is the beneficiary of those initiatives and the safety of the general public is sacrificed, said Clearwater Police Chief Dan Slaughter, adding, “the recent increase in gun violence is directly related to ward and a small band of criminals. There will be more arrests, but what we hope to see are consequences in the form of incarceration for the safety of the public.” Ding, ding!
Chief Slaughter speaks on behalf of America’s cops and the U.S. population (minus said criminals and family members who may aid and abet them in their misdeeds).
Let’s get the scales balanced!
Let’s expend every effort to see that these liberal-minded DAs and judges copiously oiling the revolving doors of justice are publicized and excised like cancer.
Let’s stand for the good guys and denounce the bad guys (including politicos who give them their own express lane).