Crews of burglars are smashing their way into Los Angeles’ most exclusive stores.
Robbers following their victims, including a star of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” and a BET host, to their residences to steal at will.
And this week, the fatal shooting of 81-year-old Jacqueline Avant, an admired philanthropist and wife of music legend Clarence Avant, in her Beverly Hills home. This from latimes.com.
Beverly Hills Police Chief Mark Stainbrook announces an arrest in the murder of Jacqueline Avant. (Al Seib/Los Angeles Times)
After two years of rising violent crime in Los Angeles, these incidents have sparked a national conversation and led to local concern about both the crimes themselves and where the outrage over the violence will lead.
“The fact that this has happened, her being shot and killed in her own home, after giving, sharing, and caring for 81 years has shaken the laws of the Universe,” declared Oprah Winfrey, expressing her grief over Avant’s killing to her 43 million Twitter followers. “The world is upside down.”
‘The world is upside down.’ No sh*t, you buffoon. This is the result of democrat malfeasance.
While overall city crime rates remain far below records set during the notorious gang wars of the 1990s, violent crime has jumped sharply in L.A., as it has in other cities. Much of the violence has occurred in poor communities and among vulnerable populations, such as the homeless, and receives little attention.
However, since the start of the pandemic and more rapidly in recent months, crime has crept up in wealthier enclaves and thrust its way to the center of public discourse in L.A.—against a backdrop of COVID-19 angst, evolving political perceptions of what role police and prosecutors should play in society and, now, a holiday season upon which brick-and-mortar retailers are relying to stay afloat.
And, again, the talk of California being at a turning point and further wasted brain cells thinking and talking about “criminal justice reform, rolling back tough sentencing laws and reducing prison populations.”
The true problem is the affliction from which you suffer: liberalsim. But, sadly, like an alcoholic, you fail to acknowledge recovery will require total change, not band aid touch ups.
Polls in 2020 showed that California voters largely support many of these measures, and both San Francisco and Los Angeles have elected district attorneys with strong reform agendas.
But, perhaps, common sense may yet prevail. Concern about crime has some questioning whether the liberal policies have contributed to the rise in crime. And they have chosen to become more vocal.
Dominick DeLuca, owner of the Brooklyn Projects skateboard shop on Melrose Avenue, a commercial corridor that has seen burglaries and robberies spike sharply in recent months, said things have gotten so bad that he carries a gun to work—and desperately wants ramped-up enforcement.
“I have never seen anything like it,” he said. “In the last two years, I have been broken into three times.”
At a Thursday press conference, Mayor Eric Garcetti and Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore said more offenders should be locked up and questioned pandemic-related policies that have allowed many nonviolent arrestees to be released without bail.
Moore said arrests had been made in several high-profile “smash-and-grab” burglaries but lamented that the suspects had all been released pending trial. Garcetti said warehousing criminals in jails without rehabilitating them is not a solution, but neither is ceding the streets to repeat offenders.
Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón, whose progressive policies around prosecution and sentencing many blame for the uptick in crime, was notably absent at the press conference but said through his office that he is working closely with law enforcement partners to hold perpetrators accountable for such brazen crimes.
What do you want to bet that this DA is a Soros bought-and-paid-for boy?
The heightened rhetoric marks a departure from language shared by many of the same officials just last year, after George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer.
This has set off alarms among activists who led protests, want to see progressive justice measures enacted and hear echoes of past eras when, they believe, the overhyping of crime led to overpolicing and excessive incarceration.
“They’re trying to move us backward,” said Melina Abdullah, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles. “We don’t want to move backward; we want to move forward.”
Abdullah called Avant’s killing “horrific and appalling” and said Black Lives Matter mourns with her family.
But she said officials must not be allowed to use Avant’s death or recent property crime to push for more policing, cash bail or other tough-on-crime measures that she said have been proved not to work.
Property crime is up, robbery is up, and car thefts are up significantly, however, more concerning is violent crime.
Homicides are up 46.7% compared with 2019, while shooting victims are up 51.4%, according to police data. As of the end of November, there had been 359 homicides in L.A. in 2021, compared with 355 in all of 2020. There have not been more homicides in one year since 2008, which ended with 384.
In Beverly Hills, police stress that crime is rare—and killings like Avant’s even more so. Police Chief Mark Stainbrook said that despite recent incidents, Beverly Hills remains one of the safest cities in the nation.
“People might just be noticing this, but it’s happened before,” said Ruben Urcis, 90, a 42-year resident of Beverly Hills who walks twice a day along the Beverly Gardens Park walkway, noting that his wife was robbed at gunpoint of a white-gold Rolex more than a decade ago outside their garage. Now she wears a “standard wristwatch of no value,” he added.
Urcis said the difference with crime now is that it’s occurring in public places and being recorded on camera for all to see.
“The people in this community don’t feel safe,” he said, “but that’s been going on for a long time.”
Pete Nichols, co-founder of the community group Melrose Action, said Thursday’s press conference offered few concrete solutions—one reason the Melrose retail community isn’t waiting for City Hall or the LAPD to address crime for them. Instead, local merchants are trying to obtain cameras that read license plates to help police identify burglars who drive through the area.
“It is a really awful situation,” he said.
This article could run on and on and on, but enough is enough. You catch the drift, yes?
Crime is up and it has finally dirtied the streets and minds of Beverly Hills. The bleeding-heart liberals have been caught flatfooted concerning what to do to make the problem go away.
And the only answers their elected officials can come up with are asinine ideas like “criminal justice reform, rolling back tough sentencing laws, and reducing prison populations.”
Will they ever arrive at the answer that the disease of liberalism is their problem? And George Soros-backed District Attorneys is a dead end for any city.
Bottom line: The hell-hole spots within California are spreading and like a black hole they are increasing in volume and force.
Stay away for your own damn good.
