Bayou Renaissance Man

That's the unspoken question posed by a cartel takeover of a Mexican port.

A sharp increase in drug seizures has been reported at Mexico’s west coast ports with caches discovered inside containers and vessels’ sea chests, said protection and indemnity club NorthStandard.

The alert follows the seizure earlier this month of 88 tonnes of chemicals needed for the manufacture of synthetic drugs at the country’s largest container port, Manzanillo.

Ports are a “critical part” of the criminal infrastructure of one of the most powerful cartels, the Sinaloa, which uses them to receive precursor chemicals and South American cocaine for trafficking into the US, according to a May report by the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

. . .

The DEA report said that the Pacific coast port of Mazatlan was wholly controlled by the Sinaloa cartel and they charged other drug trafficking organisations to use the port.

A long history of alliances with drug trafficking groups also gave the Sinaloa access to the port of Manzanillo, said the report.

The port is “strategically significant because of its location on the central Pacific Coast and its high volume of shipping traffic due to widespread use of the port by foreign countries to exchange legitimate trade goods with Mexico and to refuel”, said the agency in its 2024 national drug threat assessment.

There's more at the link.

It's all very well to go after criminals . . . but what if the administrators and bureaucrats controlling government functions (such as a port) are themselves criminals?  Remove them, and you'll have to appoint replacements - who will doubtless be threatened immediately with death or dismemberment, for themselves and/or their families, if they don't do precisely the same as their predecessors did.  "Plata o plomo", remember?

Also, how can any honest law enforcement agent or agency work with a port administration that's so clearly criminal?  Everything the latter learns about the "good guys" will undoubtedly be passed to the "bad guys", who will use the information to target law enforcement and operate with impunity.

Most worrying of all to me, we've just "imported" what are likely to be hundreds of thousands of cartel operatives and other criminals from South America, thanks to President Biden's border policies.  They're now inside our borders, and I'm sure some are already working in our harbors, airports, etc.  How long until they take over one of our transport hubs, and operate it for the benefit of their cartel buddies back home?

Peter

I note that violent street crime, shoplifting, etc. are rapidly increasing in Britain, just as much as they are in the USA.

Shoreham-by-Sea is at the forefront of a retail theft epidemic gripping Britain, as shoplifting soars to a record high.

The number of reported cases in England and Wales hit 430,104 last year, according to the Office for National Statistics, the highest since records began in 2003.

Outside Westminster, the district of Adur that is home to Shoreham-by-Sea had the joint-highest rate relative to the population, at 22 offences for every 1,000 people. 

Neighbouring Worthing, and Mansfield further afield in Nottinghamshire, shared the unwanted crown.

Sussex Police meanwhile had the second lowest solved rate for shoplifting at 10pc, ranking only behind the Metropolitan Police. 

In Shoreham Central and Beach, 97.6pc of reported shoplifting incidents were unsolved, Telegraph analysis shows.

Many businesses all across the country will know these issues all too well. As theft rates have soared, rates of those being solved have plummeted.

Only one in seven incidents of shoplifting in England and Wales were solved last year, according to Home Office figures. The figure has halved since comparable records were first published in 2016 and is now at its lowest. 

It is not just shoplifting that is on the rise. Robberies of businesses have also risen to the highest level since 2005. 

A creaking justice system, large cuts to policing and prisons on the verge of having to turn guilty people away have laid the foundations for this crisis. 

The cost of living, rising levels of addiction and organised criminals seizing the opportunity to steal with impunity have made it worse. 

. . .

It comes as thousands of prisoners will be released early in September to relieve overcrowding.

Britain’s prisons are believed to be just weeks away from running out of space, a situation that Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood blamed on the previous government and said had left left her with “no choice” but to take action.

As a result, some offenders will be released after serving only 40pc of their sentence rather than half. Exemptions will be made for sexual and serious violent offenders.

The alternative would risk “looters running amok, smashing in windows, robbing shops”, Mahmoud said. However, this is not far from what British retailers say they are already seeing.

There's much more at the link.  It's worth reading, to tick the boxes about what Britain is seeing that we're also seeing in many parts of this country.  They're very similar - including the increasing violence of criminals.

There is, of course, another factor besides those named - one the news media dare not name, in either country, for fear of being labeled racists or bigots or whatever.  That is that both countries are dealing with a massive influx of illegal or quasi-legal aliens or "migrants".  Street crime and shoplifting is increasingly being committed by that group, sometimes almost to the exclusion of other groups.  I worked with law enforcement for decades, and maintain my contacts with them.  Almost everyone with whom I speak in that demographic tells me that it's a migrant problem - but they're not allowed to say so.  It's a firing offence if they do.  It's a politically incorrect "third rail" that they dare not touch.

I'd like to see some properly collected, collated and analyzed statistics dealing with that . . . but we can forget about that as long as left-wing progressive local, state and national governments and bureaucracy prevent them from being gathered.

Peter

Welcome to the urban world of the 2020's, in at least some American cities.  An NBC affiliate reports:

Delivery drivers in the South Bay say they're increasingly worried about becoming robbery targets.

It's happening enough that at least one company, Core Mart, is now hiring armed guards to escort its drivers.

Darrell Cortez, a retired San Jose police officer who now works in corporate and retail security, said, "Unfortunately, this is what society has become now with armed guards guarding merchandise from the retailer because there seems to be a sense of lawlessness in our society."

There's more at the link.

And we're supposed to go into those stores in those cities and spend our hard-earned money there, despite the risks posed by thieves outside and inside, aggressive panhandlers, drug addicts looking for a quick score, homeless folks with unpredictable and frequently unsafe behavior living on the streets, and who knows what else?

It makes the old Budweiser tail gunner joke sound rather more real than funny!

Sorry.  Count me out.  I prefer to live and shop in safer climes.

Peter

It seems an old sword has vanished.  It's deemed by locals (particularly those in the tourist trade) to be the original, real, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die, pinky-swear Durandal belonging to the mythically-enhanced, legendary Roland, one of Charlemagne's military governors during the 8th century AD.  The Telegraph reports:

It is southern France’s answer to Excalibur, the mythical sword that King Arthur legendarily pulled from a rock to obtain the British throne.

However, Rocamadour has no idea who managed to wrench its famed Durandal sword from the stone in which it had been embedded for centuries, particularly because it was 10 metres (32.5 feet) off the ground.

All the town knows is that one of its main tourist attractions has vanished. It is presumed stolen and an investigation has been launched.

Durandal was the sword of Roland, a legendary paladin (knight) and officer of Charlemagne in French epic literature. According to the legend, Durandal was indestructible and the sharpest sword in all existence, capable of cutting through giant boulders with a single strike.

Its magical qualities are recounted in the 11th-century epic poem The Song of Roland, the oldest surviving major work of French literature.

. . .

Medieval “myth” has it that before it was given to Roland, Charlemagne received Durandal from an angel. Before his death at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass, Roland is said to have tried in vain to break it on the rocks to prevent his enemies from seizing it. He finally threw it into the air to save it. Miraculously travelling hundreds of kilometres, it is said to have embedded itself in the rock face of Rocamadour.

There's more at the link.

I can't help laughing at the fuss and bother.  It's patently obvious to anybody with two working brain cells to rub together that Rocamadour installed a fake Durandal to attract medieval tourists, who were rather more credulous than their modern equivalents.  It's the same sort of fake as the "pieces cut from the sail of Saint Peter's fishing-boat!" that pedlars sold to pilgrims, or the fabled "Holy House of Loreto", the purported original home of the Virgin Mary.  It supposedly flew (powered by angels) from Nazareth in the Holy Land, via two other locations, until it landed in Loreto, Italy (which proceeded to make a fortune from pilgrims thronging there to see it).

(Perhaps Boeing might like to hire the angels concerned?  They need all the help they can get right now!)

So, a long-standing fake has been stolen.  So what???  Just whip up a convincing copy of it, put it back in place, and Bob's your uncle.  It's not as if the stolen fake has any value, intrinsic or otherwise.  "Flew from Roncevaux to Rocamadour", my fundamental jujube!

(On the other hand, if President Biden turns up wielding the stolen Durandal copy during his next debate with former President Trump, all sorts of things might get more interesting!  It might help his cutting remarks . . . )

Peter

I guess this post could also be titled "Headline Of The Day":

A man was arrested Monday after he allegedly used fake IDs and information to make purchases at several St. Tammany Parish stores. 

Later that same day, his believed accomplice was also arrested for using a fake ID to try and bond him out of jail. 

One would think that, knowing your buddy had just been arrested over fake ID's, you might perhaps consider that the cops would be familiar with them and looking for more, wouldn't you?

Oh, well.  Looks like itinerant criminals are now in the business of providing entertainment to otherwise bored cops in Louisiana!

Peter

I'm sure many of my readers have had the experience of getting an "instant lube" or "fast lube" for their vehicles from businesses like Jiffy Lube and others (there are thousands of them, all over the USA).  Basically, they promise to change your engine oil and get you back on the road within ten or fifteen minutes.  Of course, that doesn't always work that way.  I've several times been accosted by a service clerk showing me a dirty air filter, and suggesting I need to change it as well.  One time I demanded to see my vehicle with an empty filter casing, and the employees (and the manager) tried for all they were worth to stop me doing so.  Sure enough, my vehicle's filter was still in place - they'd shown me another one, hoping I wouldn't check.

Thing is, twice in a couple of months I've had the service department at an auto dealer (once at Nissan, the other at Toyota) show me dirty air filters, suggesting they need to be changed.  That's never happened before, and it's making me wonder.  Are manufacturers' service departments trying the same trick these days, hoping to generate extra revenue?

Of course, I have no way of knowing that:  but if more of us are experiencing the same thing, it might be worth investigating.  Therefore, readers, if that's happened to you at a branded service department, please let us know about it in Comments, as well as roughly how long ago it happened.  I'm curious to see whether this is becoming an industry-wide racket.

Thanks!

Peter

Today's award goes to Artemio Sanchez-Ortega of New Mexico, who decided to demonstrate his burning passion for his former girlfriend literally rather than figuratively.  A full report may be found here, or you can simply watch the video below.

I'm very grateful that there were no casualties among his intended victims.  I hope the police catch him soon, before he has any more bright ideas.  Of course, he could try exercising matchless ingenuity . . .

Peter

This car chase video made me laugh.  Considering the punishment taken by the pickup being pursued, from both its driver and the police chasing it, it might as well be a video advertisement for the toughness of the truck!

I'm glad they took that driver off the road, but I daresay he'll be back . . . more's the pity.

Peter

They are indeed.  I've seen them used as fighting weapons far too many times in the Third World, and the damage that results.

Click over to Gun Free Zone's post about that, and watch the video.  WARNING:  It's not for the squeamish or faint at heart.  You'll see a hand chopped right off, among other injuries.

Keep that in mind when you're next threatened by a machete, or a sharpened garden spade, or any improvised edged weapon (not to mention conventional knives).  If you get up close and personal in a knife fight, you almost certainly will get cut, if not much more severely injured.  It goes with the territory.

That's also why I tend towards larger, heavier calibers of handgun when in environments where that sort of danger may be a threat.  I want to stop anyone heading my way with such a weapon in their hands.  Smaller calibers and cartridges may work . . . but then again, they may not.

Peter

An article in the New York Post set me to thinking.

New Yorkers are fortifying their homes with panic rooms and bullet-proof doors like never before over fears about crime, migrants and national turmoil — and it’s not just the city’s elite partaking in the trend.

“Not every [customer] is an ultra-rich stockbroker — a lot of them are just people, middle-class kind of people,” said Steve Humble, founder of the home-defense contractor Creative Home Engineering.

“I’d say the pandemic really kicked off an uptick. Business was really good throughout the pandemic time, and it really hasn’t slowed down,” said Humble, who specializes in top-of-the-line secret doors disguised as bookshelves, fireplaces, mirrors, blank walls and whatever else a client can think of to conceal a safety room behind them.

He is one of numerous home-defense contractors who told The Post that the past four years have been a boon for business, with New Yorkers from all walks of life shelling out thousands of dollars to outfit their homes with hidden rooms, bulletproof doors and a swath of other covert security systems to keep the baddies at bay should they come knocking.

The driving force is a decline in New Yorkers’ sense of safety — assaults in the Big Apple reached 28,000 for the first time on record last year  — and the perceptible shift toward volatile instability that many people feel is ramping up across all of American society, Humble and others say.

There's more at the link.

I suppose a panic room might be a defense against a psycopathic nitwit who can't add two and two together to get four.  Such an assailant might not be able to distinguish between his shoe size and his IQ.  However, for almost all other attackers, a panic room simply gives them an excuse to rob the homeowner blind while he/she/they cower in their illusory "safe place", unable to stop them.  What's more, check the police response times in your neighborhood.  It often takes cops ten to fifteen minutes or more to respond to most 911 calls.  During that time, while you're cowering in your safe room, what are the home invaders doing to you and/or your possessions?

It gets worse.  Panic rooms offer an attacker an opportunity to murder everyone in the building, because they make it almost impossible to escape.  If the attacker simply strikes a match or two and sets fire to the place, how are those in the panic room to get away from the flames?  Panic rooms pin down their occupants, fix them in place.  It's no good saying that they can have hidden exits to escape such a fate;  those exits have to come out somewhere, and if (as it almost always is) those exits are on the same property (much less in the same building), who's to say they won't have caught fire by the time those in the panic room want to use them?  And what if they use them, only to emerge surrounded by frustrated attackers who've been looking for them?

Tying yourself down to a supposedly secure location, but one where you're unable to defend yourself against attackers, is a disaster waiting to happen.  I'd much rather harden the exterior of my home, making it as difficult as possible for someone to break in, and then defend my family and property from inside.  Even more tactically suitable would be to prevent the attackers from approaching in the first place.  This is why one should select a home in as safe a neighborhood as possible (although in today's climate of highly mobile criminals, street riots and other crimes, that safety may be illusory).

One last point.  If you're in an apartment building or condo complex, you've made yourself hostage to the security-mindedness and safety-consciousness (or lack thereof) of everyone else living there.  Trapping yourself above ground level is always a security risk.  You don't need an attacker to strike a match:  a domestic accident can start a fire just as easily as a criminal.  How are you going to get out of your apartment and down to ground level?  Are there multiple exits, and paths to reach those exits?  Is the building constructed of relatively fireproof materials?  What businesses or attractive targets are in the building that might attract criminals to it?  Unless and until those questions are satisfactorily answered (and, if necessary, their answers have persuaded you to move to a safer location), a panic or safe room is a lot lower on the priority list.

I won't worry about a panic room.  After eighteen years living (and frequently fighting) in a war zone, I'd rather arm myself and inflict panic on my attackers!

Peter

I note that the President-elect of Panama has vowed to stop the influx of migrants across his country towards the USA.

President-elect Jose Raul Mulino vowed to shut down a crucial migration gap through Panama that has been used by more than 500,000 migrants over the last year, signaling a shift in the country’s policy as the US continues to battle a crisis at its southern border, according to a report from Voice of America.

“Panama and our Darien [Gap] are not a transit route. It is our border,” Mulino said, according to the report.

Panama had previously helped bus migrants through the critical gap and allowed them to continue their journey north, a policy that has allowed thousands to reach the US border with Mexico.

There's more at the link.

That sounds like good news for us, but it's unlikely to succeed.  For a start, international organizations ranging from the United Nations to NGO's are all trying to facilitate migration from South America through Panama to Mexico, and ultimately to the USA.  To make matters worse, drug cartels in Mexico and countries south are making billions of dollars by transporting such migrants to our borders.  Finally, the Biden administration and the Democratic Party are openly admitting as many migrants as they can, in an attempt to change the future makeup of the US electorate to favor their policies.

With all those interests arrayed against him, how can President-elect Mulino hope to succeed?  I'm willing to bet large sums of money that he'll be "persuaded" through bribery and/or threats (the infamous "plata o plomo" question) to change his tune.  If he doesn't, I'm equally willing to bet that he'll be assassinated or otherwise removed from office (a fraudulent, rigged investigation for corruption, perhaps?) as quickly as possible.  He threatens too many powerful, rich constituencies with his proposal, and they won't stand for it.

I certainly hope he succeeds with his proposed policies . . . but I don't think he stands a snowball's chance in hell.  The forces arrayed against him, politically, criminally and monetarily, are simply too powerful.  I'd love to be wrong about that, but I doubt it.

Peter

Friend of the blog Lawdog has written an emotive and (I think) very important article titled "Meditations On Duty".  Here are a few excerpts.

Every day we are bombarded with news articles about District Attorneys campaigning for “No bail requirements”, “Reduced sentencing”, “Alternate sentencing”, all of which appears — in some cases outrighted stated — to give felons and habitual criminals a leg up.

We are continually shown footage of riots in major cities and at universities where the rioters arsonists, and violent thugs are treated with kid gloves.

Just or otherwise, there is a very definite perception that District Attorneys would much rather throw the book at someone with no previous criminal history, while the felons and violent thugs get deals.

On the other paw, for a man to be even hinted at any variety of sexual offence, whether it be harassment or outright rape, is to be guilty until proven innocent.

And to certain parts of the howling Internet mobs you can never be innocent — and they will make it a crusade to destroy your life.

. . .

I find myself in a position that I’ve never been in before. All of my life I have known that if people needed to be helped, I should help them — I’ve literally been a Boy Scout. All of my adult life I have known that if there is gun-fire, I will run to that sound and protect people.

I … don’t know anymore.

It’s already started. If Rita isn’t with me, I will not stop to help a female stranger, or children. I will call local law enforcement and have them sent there, but without Rita being present I will not offer aid on my own. That goes double if there are children involved.

And that mortifies me, but the risk of having my life destroyed with false allegations is not worth it.

For the first time in my life I do not know what I will do if gunfire erupts in a public place where I am.

If a spree shooter attacks a public place where I am, or am near — I will get family and friends to safety, but after that I literally do not know.

Do I run to the sound of gunfire and solve the problem? I’ve already been the victim of wrongful prosecution once, do I risk that again? Do I take a chance going up against a protected class, and earning the “mostly peaceful” wrath of the howling mob, and a legacy media that lives for stirring up rioters?

There's more at the link.  Go read the whole thing.  It's worth your time.

Remember, too, that Lawdog is a retired officer of the law.  He's spent a career fighting crime and criminals.  If he, in his position, is no longer certain that he can engage evildoers without being tarred with their brush by a politically correct or "woke" justice system, how much more so should we, private citizens, be worried about the same reality?  We can't claim prior and extensive experience in dealing with crime to justify our intervening to help its victims.  We don't have the "protection", in the eyes of the law, that Lawdog has.

Today, we have to accept that in very large parts of these United States the justice system has been warped and twisted along "woke" lines, so that it today protects the politically correct cause du jour and its adherents.  If one doesn't belong to that group, one is almost automatically at greater risk from the authorities, irrespective of the facts of the situation.  Over the past few years I've written a number of articles about this conundrum.  In case you missed any of them, I'll link them below.  I highly recommend that you take time to read them and think about them, because the situations they describe might confront you at any time in this crazy world we live in.

In particular, note the problems involved in trying to remain anonymous if you live in a "woke" judicial environment, and don't want to be connected to otherwise legitimate acts of self-defense.  The first article in the list above addresses that issue.  Also, I've said before that a revolver is no longer the optimum choice as a personal defense weapon, because it holds too few rounds to deal with a mob or gang situation.  That remains true:  but there's a countervailing argument that unlike a semi-automatic pistol, a revolver doesn't spit out cartridge cases all over the scene, which can later be analyzed.  There's something to be said for that if you're in a hostile, unreasonable, biased prosecutorial environment.  To make up for the limited number of rounds in a revolver, carry one chambered for the biggest, most powerful cartridge one can control in rapid, aimed fire.  Hitting harder is seldom a bad idea in defensive shooting.

Suffice it to say that in a prosecutorial environment that's as (or more) likely to punish the good guy as the bad, discretion is our watchword.  If, despite that, we choose to intervene, we'd better do so with our eyes wide open as to what trouble that may bring down on our heads.  We should have a good lawyer on speed dial, and refuse to say anything unless and until he/she is with us and has had an opportunity to brief us.  Furthermore, we should minimize the ease with which rogue prosecutors and shyster lawyers can go after us.  This does not include tampering with evidence (which is a crime in itself), but simply observing due caution and discretion is never a bad thing.  Our defense attorneys will thank us for that.

Finally, no matter why or how we've intervened, don't speak to police or anyone else after such an incident unless and until our lawyer(s) has/have interviewed us and briefed us about what may, or should not, be said.  It's too easy to talk ourselves into a jail cell!  Here's a law professor's view of that, and Massad Ayoob's limited corollary to that perspective.  Both are worth watching in full.

Food for thought.

Peter

I can get behind President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador whole-heartedly.  We recently discussed his crackdown on narco and gang violence in his country, leading to his re-election with an overwhelming majority of the vote.

His next step?

The 'unapologetic dictator' and 43rd President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele launched an anti-corruption investigation into the entire executive branch of his government. Just like Anil Kapoor-starrer Bollywood movie 'Nayak', the businessman turned politician ordered every single official to gather in an assembly, where he announced the decision to inquire them for bribery. The move is seen as a strike against graft back home in the Central American nation.

The video of Bukele asking the Attorney General to investigate the entire executive branch including the cabinet members for corruption has gone viral online. The faces of the officials sitting and gathered at the assembly could tell that they were shocked and taken aback by the move.

There's more at the link.  You'll find a video recording of President Bukele making his announcement here.

I love it!  It would be marvelous if we could do the same thing in Washington D.C., not to mention every one of our fifty State capitals.  The only problem would be to find enough uncorrupted investigators to do the work!

Peter

The BBC reports that Colombia's armed forces are missing a whole bunch of ammunition and weapons.

Colombia's military has lost millions of bullets, thousands of grenades and several missiles, the nation's president has said.

Gustavo Petro ... said the missing items came to light during surprise visits to two military bases - Tolemaida and La Guajira - on 12 February and 1 April, respectively.

At Tolemaida, there was a shortfall of more than 808,000 bullets and nearly 10,000 fewer grenades than the inventory listed on official records.

Meanwhile at La Guajira, the discrepancies included nearly 4.2 million bullets and more than 9,300 grenades. Mr Petro also said the base had lost two Spike missiles, 37 Nimrod missiles and 550 rocket-propelled grenades.

He told reporters that the military supplies would have been passed on to armed groups within Colombia, but could have been smuggled to Haiti or the international black market.

There's more at the link.

I'm sure the personnel at those military bases were delighted (NOT!) to have snap inspections of their facilities, giving them no warning and leaving them no time to cover up the missing items.  I'm sure many of them made a lot of money by diverting them to weapons smugglers.  I hope it'll be enough to compensate them for the years in prison that will likely be coming their way.

That sort of chicanery is a real problem in the drug wars.  Mexico's cartels are armed with full-auto military weapons that they've largely obtained from the Mexican armed forces and those in countries to the south.  When they have so much money at their disposal, it's not difficult to bribe those in charge of the weapons to turn a blind eye to wholesale theft.  Trouble is, those cartels then turn their weapons against their own authorities, and against the US as well in the form of ambushes directed against the Border Patrol, Customs officers and other law enforcement personnel.  Many such weapons have been found smuggled into this country, and in the possession of local cartel distributors.  The latest one I heard of amounted to more than 20 full-auto assault rifles, more than 100 magazines and over 5,000 rounds of ammunition, plus several hand-grenades and a rocket launcher.  That's enough to give any local police force conniption fits.  They're severely outgunned.

Of course, the gun-grabbers' answer is to blame private firearms owners for "allowing" their guns to be stolen, or selling them to the cartels.  That's largely not the case.  Private owners seldom own full-auto weapons, and almost never explosive devices.  Those are sourced from corrupt militaries more than anywhere else.  It's not a comfortable thought that law-abiding citizens like you and I might have to face up to criminals armed in that fashion.  I feel outgunned already.

Peter

First, Haiti:

Haiti’s capital has been thrown into further chaos after its top warlord ordered his soldiers to “burn every house you find” – as the nation struggles to usher in a new government.

Notorious gang leader Jimmy “Barbeque” Cherizier, 47, was heard on social media messages on Sunday inciting his men to clash against police and burn down homes indiscriminately across Port-au-Prince, including Lower Delmas where he grew up. 

“Continue burning the houses. Make everybody leave,” says a man in the audio recordings who is believed to be Cherizier.   

“No need to know which house. Burn every house you find. Set the fire,” he adds, claiming to have sent jugs of gasoline to the gangsters. 

Local residents have verified that houses have been set a blaze in the capital, with Radio Tele Galaxie reporting loud blasts and gunfire echoing across city hall as Lower Delmas has turned into “a battlefield between police and armed gangs.”

Along with the gunfights along city hall and the National Palace, gangsters also looted the State University of Haiti’s medical facility overnight, local Radio RFM reports. 

With officials and human rights groups estimating that as much as 90% of the capital is now controlled by violent gangs, fears have grown that Cherizier has united them in an effort to seize control of the nation during a period of transition.

Sunday’s order to attack came ahead of the installation of a transitional council preparing to establish a new government after Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry fled the nation. 

There's more at the link.

As we've mentioned before in these pages, successive Haitian governments (if that's a valid description of them) have allied with various gangs in order to achieve political power, then plunder the national treasury under the guise of governing.  The inevitable result is that the gangs have grown tired of ruling through middlemen, and want to govern directly, without giving up a cut of the loot to politicians.  Tragically, the people of Haiti have never risen up and demanded proper government.  If they had, this could have been nipped in the bud years ago.  They didn't;  so now they're paying the price.

Contrast this with El Salvador, where the people got fed up with the gangs, the corruption and the criminality of their society, and did something about it.

The man who transformed El Salvador from one of the most dangerous countries in the world to one of the safest, President Nayib Bukele, is despised by liberals.

. . .

In 2022, after a gang war resulted in the deaths of 87 people over a period of just three days, Bukele took action against crime. He constructed the country’s largest prison, the Terrorism Confinement Center (Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo or CECOT), with a capacity for 40,000 gang members. And he began filling it.

Out of gratitude for restoring peace in the country, voters reelected him with 85% of the vote. Human rights groups, who live in safe, wealthy Western nations, have criticized Bukele for violations of the rights of suspects.

But the logic is flawless. Only gang members have gang tattoos. If anyone else gets a gang tattoo, they will be killed by the gang. The same is true for tattoo artists.

They would be killed for giving gang tattoos to non-gang members. Additionally, part of the initiation to joining a gang is to commit a serious crime, often murder. Once they become a member, their full-time job is to commit crimes. So, logically, anyone with a gang tattoo is a gang member and has committed crimes.

. . .

The state of emergency he declared in 2022, and has renewed several times since, suspends the constitutional rights of the gang members and bypasses the corrupt courts and justice system, which had allowed the criminals to reign for decades. Since then, 75,000 gang members have been arrested, and 7,000 have been released.

Again, more at the link.

Notice how President Bukele's measures completely bypass and render impotent the corrupt liberal institutions of "justice".  You won't find progressive prosecutors letting off offenders with a token slap on the wrist, or setting them free the same day they're arrested after making them promise to attend court when summoned.  Those offenders, under El Salvador's system, are checked for gang tattoos, and video of them outside and inside jail is scrutinized.  One gang tattoo, one flashed gang sign, and they're automatically classified as gang members and imprisoned.  They have the right to argue their detention, and about 10% have been released;  but most can't demonstrate their innocence, and they're still locked up.  The people of El Salvador, delighted to be able to venture outside their homes in safety for the first time in years (if not decades), have just shown whose side they're on by re-electing President Bukele and his party with overwhelming support - to the distress and hand-wringing of said liberals and progressives, who see all their favorite soft-on-crime approaches being ground into the mud.

Now look at the USA.  States and cities where liberal, progressive attitudes are applied are drowning in crime.  Don't believe the "official" crime statistics, either - they're deliberately flawed, biased and under-reported.  Ask the people who live there.  They'll tell you the reality.  Contrast those states and cities with those where law and order takes a higher priority, and see the difference.  People from the first group are migrating to the second group as fast as they can afford to.

Tragically, the Biden administration is admitting millions upon millions of migrants from high-crime, low-trust societies (including Haiti) into the USA, without so much as a background check.  That's going to make our crime situation much, much worse.  It already is in some places.  What will we, the people of the USA, do about it?  Will we demand our own Bukele to rein in the criminals?  Or will we roll over, supine, and let the gangs dominate?

The liberals and progressives do have one accurate point in all this.  Throughout history, whenever a "strong man" appears offering a solution to crime and other ills, he's ended up becoming more or less a dictator, and often has had to be removed violently in his turn.  That's a real danger here in the USA right now.  Tragically, those same liberals and progressives don't seem to realize that their insistence on unfettered immigration from high-crime, low-trust societies is paving the way for such a dictator to arise here too.

President Bukele didn't come out of nowhere.  He rose to power through offering a relatively simple, yet Draconian, solution to El Salvador's crime problem.  How will this nation react if someone offers that recipe here?  Can our constitutional republic survive such an authoritarian figure any better than it can survive chaos and criminal anarchy?  Your guess is as good as mine . . .

Peter

An incident in California demonstrates just how vulnerable much of our critical infrastructure really is.

An internet outage that caused massive delays, some hours long, for flights at the Sacramento International Airport (SMF) started after AT&T wires were intentionally cut, officials said.

. . .

"It looks like someone who knew what they were doing," [Sergeant] Gandhi said. "So this wasn't just a couple of teenagers ... ripping some wires out as a prank. [It] looks very deliberate ... like they knew what they were doing."

There's more at the link.

I hate to think what proportion of our critical infrastructure (airports, sewage and water plants, power stations, dams, factories, refineries, rail interchanges, etc.) are dependent on Internet connections for part or all of their operations.  I suspect it's most of them.  Those Internet connections mostly run over cables, or via satellite.  Given how easy it is to take out a major fiber-optic cable (dig down to it, set off explosives, and Bob's your uncle) or use a local EMP weapon (as already possessed by many hostile powers and nations) to interrupt satellite communications in a given area, and all those critical points are suddenly offline.  How long will it take to reconnect them all?  Will it even be possible, if it can't be done in a hurry?  Many of them can't take too much of an interruption before they have to shut down their plant, and once that's done it can take a heck of a lot of maintenance and preparation before machines can be turned on again.  (Just as one example, if you shut down a crucible in a metal plant, the metal still inside it will solidify.  Getting that back to a liquid, and decanting it, can take weeks or months - if it's possible at all.  Another example:  re-energizing an electrical grid.  That takes a lot of power just to restart everything, but if generating plants have all been shut down, where's it to come from?  What about transformers that blow during the process?  Are spares on hand?)

Emergencies aren't just caused by storms or earthquakes.  Determined enemies can create emergencies that take weeks, if not months (and perhaps years) to sort out.  Hence, emergency preparations need to take such elements into account.  If you live near or are dependent on (e.g. for employment) any of those critical infrastructure elements, your emergency preparations should take that reality into account.  Being thrown out of work due to your employer having to shut down operations is just as much of an emergency, in its own way, as having water or power cut off to your house.

Also, consider how much of our daily lives now depend on the Internet.  Home security systems, banking, shopping, entertainment . . . if we lose the Internet, how will we do all those things?  Have you checked where the nearest physical branch of your bank is, and its hours of operation, and how to get there?  It might surprise you to see how difficult it will be to conduct your financial affairs if you have to go there in person, rather than tap at your keyboard.  (That's one reason why keeping a reasonable stash of cash at home, just in case, is anything but overkill.  It may be essential.)

Peter

We've mentioned Selco Begovic in these pages several times.  He lived through the Bosnian war from 1992-1995, and has written three books incorporating his and others' stories from that war, plus lessons learned that we can apply in other emergency situations.  He's one of the few writers in that field who's "been there and done that", and speaks with the authority of hard-won experience.

This morning's snippet is from his book "SHTF Survival Stories:  Memories from the Balkan War".  I highly recommend it, and Selco's other books as well.

The blurb reads:

There are many books out there on all the different aspects of preparedness and survival that can provide you with information, checklists, and theoretical solutions to potential problems. But no matter how much you read or how well-researched the books you choose are, there’s only so much you can take away from these tomes. Getting your information from someone who has survived a "sh*t hit the fan" crisis will take your preparedness to an entirely different level. Meet Selco, a legend in the preparedness world. He survived in a city that was under siege for more than a year. He had no power, no running water, no stores for supplies, and every day, he ran the risk of meeting a violent death, whether by shells, sniper fire, or a person intent on hurting others. This book is a collection of memories from the darkest days of the Balkan War, where each moment could have been his last. This isn’t a cheerful and uplifting guide to survival. There’s no misplaced optimism. There’s only Selco, the darkness he faced, and the grim reality of an SHTF scenario most of us can’t even fathom. But if you can grasp it all before it happens, you’ll be much further ahead than those who are frozen in shock. Please note that Selco's first language is not English. These stories have been lightly edited for clarity, but they still retain the "accent."

As the blurb says, this isn't light, easy reading at all:  but it's very accurate in describing how civilization can (and does) go to hell in a handbasket when things go very wrong.  I've experienced that in three nations in Africa, and therefore I can verify what Selco says from my own experience.  The misery war brings is pretty much the same all over the world, no matter where it takes place or in what language its stories are told.

I've chosen just one of the stories Selco tells in this book.  This is "Laura's Story".  WARNING:  This discusses brutal violence, rape, and a number of other very dark topics.  If any of those subjects offend or upset you, you should not read further.

“Laura” was 42 years old at the time of the event, a clerk at the local bank, two kids in school, and her husband was a driver for the city bus services.

She is now 64 and the house where we are having this conversation is small and wet. On the floor there are several pots, probably used for catching rain from roof leaks. She looks like she is sick, smoking homemade cigarettes. The smell is awful.

She looks like she has given up, like she is going to kill herself right after our conversation.

She told me her story of the war.

Do you remember the period of hyperinflation when you could buy with credit and when that check came to payment it would be worth maybe 10% of the original value, some few months before killing and chaos started?

Inflation was like a toy for some folks.

Now when I remember that I feel like an idiot because I did not realize that everything was going to shit when something like that is possible.

Women from bank, my colleagues, were bragging how they bought extra stuff that way with almost no money, I was proud because I did not do that.

You know, my father was one of the first who organized an uprising against the Germans here in the big war, a real Communist. He even went as a volunteer in Spanish civil war there, fought against Franco.

He told me a story that once he met Marshall Tito in war, at some Communist conference. It was deep in the Bosnian woods in the winter of 1943, while they were encircled by Italians and Germans.

He told me that he was not like a man, he was an idea, he was the state. The movement that you just need to follow because he knows best.

I was raised to believe in the state, in the communist system, in the ideals of the state for workers and peasants.

When the war started in Croatia, I, just like most of us, believed that somehow someone will recognize that we are all same people, Socialists and Communists, and that we just needed to stick together, and everything would be fine.

But I did not know that the Western world did not want us to have Yugoslavia. We were simply too strong for them. They wanted us to hate each other, and to pull out that old hatred between Yugoslav nations.

And then one day my husband came home earlier from work. He looked badly shaken.

He told me that his coworker was absent from work for two weeks, officially he was ill, with pneumonia.

Rumors were that he was volunteering as a fighter in Croatia. Some people believed and some did not believe.

But when he came back to work, he had golden necklaces around his neck, golden rings, and big smile on his face.

Some folks said that he was bragging around that there in Croatia if you are willing to fight there were a lot of things to plunder, money and gold, and he whispered with sick smile that if you have the will and if you wanted there were lot of “available“ women, too.

Husband said that guy was always bit weird when it came to women and alcohol, but after he returned from that “weekend fighting“ for money, he always had a sick smile on his face, like he had seen that you can get money, gold, and women in much easier ways than standing all day long in a decades-old bus and selling tickets to angry workers and confused school kids.

My husband never was a brave man. He was good man, but he liked to pull back from situations where people used fists or knives.

You could say that he was coward in some way.

After few stories he heard from that colleague, the fear installed in him for real and forever. Anyway, that forever did not last too long.

S*** moved from Croatia to our town pretty soon. One morning I realized that my coworkers who were other nationalities were missing from work.

And I realized too, that their workplaces were empty more or less. While I was talking about how we should stick together in the spirit of socialism, they were organizing how to get the hell out of town.

I still believed in life together between people of different nationalities.

And then one morning my husband came earlier from his job. He told me that people in uniforms came and confiscated the buses in the name of the “Cause” and the state. Nobody said what cause or state, but he saw that they had blood in their eyes, and nobody was willing to ask too many questions.

They told the workers that they need to go home and follow the orders of the local “crisis government.”

In that time there were already several of those crisis governments, each with their own agendas, militias, and orders. People still tried to understand which of those government represented the state.

What they did not understand was that the state was already gone. There were wars between those people too.

My husband finally beat his fear and went to the local criminals to buy a rifle. He gave almost half the money that we had saved for new car for that thing.

When he came home with the rifle, he was even more afraid.

He did not talk too much, but I understood that he was more afraid to use that rifle than to be without it.

He was a weak man. He could not help it.

Somewhere around that day when he bought the rifle, we sent our kids to my sister, some 200 km from our place.

It was the first and probably last time when my husband’s fear was used to make a good decision. I did not want to be separated from my kids, but he just kept on telling me, “Laura, you do not know what is happening, and what are people saying outside. The kids need to go away from here.”

They left town in one of the last of the Red Cross organized convoys. Their small faces were confused behind the glass. While I was waving them at the local market where the transport was organized, my husband was in our backyard trying to kill beer bottles with bullets from his rifle.

Our neighbor was trying to teach him how to operate the rifle. Rumors in town were that this neighbor had some violent history. Some even said that he was in the French Foreign Legion.

My husband was a cook during the basic training in army, and he forgot even the basic stuff that he learned in the army.

After we got word from the Red Cross that our kids got to their destination in good order, we were kind of more relaxed, but silence moved into the house.

For days we listened to the radio on our car battery. Electricity, water, and all other services were gone. We still were trying to figure who was fighting, who was defending who was liberating, and who was representing the law in our city.

And then one night we awakened to strong kicks at the door.

“Police!” they shouted. “Open the door, now!”

My husband shouted at me, “Where is the rifle?”

I did not know of course, and I still believe that he simply forgot where he put it. He was completely lost in fear.

Anyway, he opened the door. They told him that they were newly organized police and that they trying to organize law in the city.

Of course, he believed them.

They had uniforms, helmets, weapon, and authority. He simply was that kind of man. He wanted to trust.

He even remembered where he left his rifle when they asked him. And then they told him that he needed to go with them to the police station and fill out some simple paperwork because that rifle, nothing more.

I never saw him again.

I still remember how he was very calmly putting his jacket on while he was having a conversation with those guys. He had trust on his face. He was happy there was someone finally who he could trust, who would tell him what to do.

What else does a law-abiding citizen need? F***!

I never saw him again.

But I saw those people again the very next night.

They did not knock or yell this time. One of them simply crushed the doorknob with his boot.

When they entered house one of them punched me in the face right away, and he said to me just one word. “Gold?”

He kicked me with his boot few more times before the meaning of that word finally got through my brain and then he kicked me few more times before I caught my breath and strength to tell him where my gold necklaces and rings were.

You are asking me did they do anything more to me? You mean did they rape me?

Yeah, they did. Two of them raped me while the two other guys were collecting interesting stuff in my house.

I still do not remember if the other two guys raped me, or if they did not.

After the second one somehow, I kinda left my body. It was like I was floating next to the ceiling while he was on me.

I remember the words “Let’s just kill this bitch.”

Much later I realized that those words were spoken about me.

Did I want to be killed after that?

No, actually not. In that moment I felt only physical pain, but I still had the will to live. I did not want to die. Not yet.

I survived that, just like hundreds of other women in that time.

I do not remember how I lived the next month or two.

I mean I remember everything in a way: black market, famine, diseases, endless killings, side switching, rumors about peace and everything else.

But from the moment when those guys left my house, everything was blurred. I simply pushed on and on.

I learned how to treat wounded in one of the local militias, I found a man who protected me, not because he loved me or because he was a good man. It was because I was a woman.

I remember endless wounded guys screaming and in pain.

And then one day peace came, I was hearing from all sides that peace has come, and finally everything was gonna be fine.

And that was moment when I broke.

I was an old woman. My husband was dead, but actually officially he was still missing. I could not even get a pension from state because officially he was not dead. He was not founded in one of the thousand improvised graves.

He was probably killed immediately after he was taken from our house, maybe 500 meters from our house. Turned to dust or just pile of bones somewhere in someone abandoned well, or on the bottom of the river.

Where are my kids?

One is in America. She is some kind of small boss in a local fast food restaurant. Whenever I speak to her on phone, I understand her less. Each time she uses more English then our language, and each time I am happier.

Why?

I want from her to forget this country, this language. I want from her to forget me, to never come back here, I do not want her to be one day outside her body while some guy is on top of her and another searching her home for gold in the name of state.

My other kid?

Well, he is some kind of musician. Lives in Italy. I think he is homosexual.

What are my feelings about that?

I do not care, as long as he does not come back here. I do not want him to be taken from the house in the middle of the night in the name of the cause, in some future “Balkan conflict.”

Sometimes I have a dream that he might be on the other side in some future war here. What if he was one of the guys who searched for gold and valuables after he killed a woman’s husband?

And next morning when I wake from that dream, I even more want from him to hate everything that is here, country people, system, even me.

Just as long as he does not come back.

What do I do for living?

I do what I learned in that time. I care for sick folks. I have a few older people that I take care of. I wash them, clean them, take care for this disease, and similar.

It is enough for cigarettes and beer and that food that I eat.

I’ll be fine.

Do I trust in living together with harmony between different people?

Hmmm, I do not care for that. I do not give a s***.

Well, there you have it.  A family who had never prepared for the complete collapse of the society in which they lived . . . and paid the price for it.  If you think that can't happen anywhere else, even in America, you're deluded.  I've seen it happen elsewhere, and experienced for myself the consequences.  In some of our inner cities today, conditions very like those Laura describes are a daily fact of life.  I'm not joking.  They really are.

Read, and learn . . . and ask yourself:  "If this happened to my family, tomorrow, how well are we equipped and trained to survive it?"

Peter

I (and many other independent observers) have been complaining that crime's getting worse - much worse.  Liberal and progressive commenters, on the other hand, are insisting that it's getting better.  Their view may be typified by this article, which I'm posting just as an example.

Homicides Are Plummeting in American Cities

Nationwide, homicides dropped around 20% in 133 cities from the beginning of the year through the end of March compared with the same period in 2023, according to crime-data analyst Jeff Asher, who tabulated statistics from police departments across the country.

. . .

The declines so far in 2024, on top of last year’s drop, mirror the steep declines in homicides of the late 1990s.

“There’s just a ton of places that you can point to that are showing widespread, very positive trends,” said Asher, co-founder of criminal justice consulting firm AH Datalytics. “Nationally, you’re seeing a very similar situation to what you saw in the mid-to-late ’90s. But it’s potentially even larger in terms of the percentages and numbers of the drops.” 

There's more at the link.

Sounds great, doesn't it?  Well . . . until one looks at the reality behind the numbers, that is.

The Collapse in Law Enforcement: As Arrest Rates Plummet, People Have Been Less Willing to Report Crime

The American news media has been working overtime to convince people that violent crime is dramatically falling.

. . .

But, there is a big problem with using the FBI Uniform Crime Report data on crimes reported to police because victims don’t report most crimes ... More importantly, the number of crimes reported to police falls as the arrest rate declines. If people don’t think the police will solve their cases, they are less likely to report them to the police ... This divergence arises for several reasons. In 2021, 37% of police departments stopped reporting crime data to the FBI (including large departments for Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York), and others are underreporting crimes. But also because of the dramatic decline in arrest rates.

Figure 1, presented at the top of this post, illustrates the dramatic drop in arrest rates for violent crimes reported to the police. If you compare the last five years before COVID-19 to 2022, the arrest rate for violent crime across all cities fell by 20%. But for cities with over one million people, it fell by 54%. The drops in arrest rates by type of violent crime ranged from 15% to 27% for all cities and from 38% to 58% for cities with more than one million people ... Comparing the five years from 2015-2019 to the arrest rate in 2022 shows a drop of 33% for all cities and a 63% decline for cities with more than a million people ... only 14.6% of violent crimes result in an arrest ... only 8.4% of all violent crimes resulted in an arrest. For property crimes, the numbers are even worse. With 31.8% of property crimes reported to police and only 11.9% of those reported crimes resulting in an arrest, that means that only 3.8% of all property crimes result in an arrest. For large cities with over a million people, only 1.4% of all property crimes result in an arrest.

Again, more at the link.  Plenty of statistics are provided in graphic form to illustrate the problem.

As to why people are reluctant to report crimes, the answer's obvious.  Left-wing District Attorneys and public prosecutors are minimizing prosecutions, reducing charges, eliminating cash bail, and generally making life as easy as possible for the criminals, rather than the cops.  It's not unusual in a big city to see criminals commit multiple crimes a day, because every time they're arrested, they're out on the street again within a couple of hours.  Here's one example.

Given that reality, store security often doesn't report shoplifting, because the penalties have been reduced to no more than a slap on the wrist.  Police don't bother arresting offenders that they know will be out on the street within hours, or at most a day or two, after being charged.  Citizens don't bother reporting crimes that they know won't be dealt with by police.  All that makes criminals bolder, and boosts the chances that they'll graduate from low-level, non-violent crime to more aggressive offenses.  They develop an attitude of invincibility ("The cops can't touch me!"), and proceed to test it on more and more serious crimes.  I've heard them boast about it in jail (that used to be my job, remember?).  

The same applies even to homicides.  There are plenty of them that are never reported as such.  I know cops who are quite blatant about it.  To paraphrase one of them:  "Look, I find a body on a street in the hood. Nobody saw anything, nobody heard anything, and if I try to pin anything down, everyone who lives there will get aggressive.  That leads to the precinct boss coming down on me for causing a fuss, and him having to send cops he can't spare to sort it out, and do all that extra report writing and explaining to his bosses.  I just can't win.  So, I call it in as a body I found, without mentioning anything suspicious.  The coroner comes and collects it, and I go on my way.  The coroner won't make a fuss, even if he finds a gun or knife wound.  He's got too much work as it is, and he knows most of those cases are never solved.  Result is, it'll just be filed as another random fatality - anything simple and believable to enter into the books.  I recall one case where a cop and the coroner agreed that a gunshot killing would be entered as an overdose.  Nothing criminal was reported, they both had minimal paperwork, and the precinct was happy because our statistics still looked good.  What, you think someone might dig up the body five years later to check?  Doesn't happen."

Murders involving someone with a family who cares, or someone of influence, will be investigated.  The rest?  There'll be a token effort, but it won't get very far, because detectives can't get very far with such investigations in big cities.  They each have too many cases to start with, and that means their attention is spread so thin that it won't be enough to resolve many of them.  What's more, many poorer families (and those who may not speak English very well, if at all) regard the police as their enemy.  Why would they report a murder of one of their family members when it means they have to deal with the enemy?  Even worse, if a gang is involved, it'll deal harshly with any family that implicates it or its members.  Simpler to just bury their dead, mourn as a family, then move on.  Again, I speak from experience, having dealt with rather a lot of such people.

If anyone tells you crime rates are down and big cities are safer, you know at once that they're either misinformed or lying.  Don't believe them.

Peter

It's hard to feel much sympathy for the deceased in this faked crime.

Rasshauud Scott, 22, was seen on surveillance footage late Jan. 27 running up to a couple filling up their car at a Chevron gas station in Houston, Texas, according to court documents shared by Fox News Digital.

After seemingly robbing the pair of a purse and wallet, he turned and ran — before an alarmed witness pulled out a gun and shot him in the head, killing him, the affidavit notes.

However, a series of messages later showed that Scott wasn’t even really robbing the couple — with his widow, Sade Beverly, telling cops it “was a set up” as part of an ongoing crime ring, the docs said.

His alleged accomplice, William Winfrey, 30, told Scott the fatal robbery would be the “usual gas pump s–t,” telling him to “make all that s–t look real,” according to the affidavit.

In a police interview, one of the pretend victims “confirmed that the robbery was in fact a set-up, and the purpose of the scheme is to obtain a U-visa,” the affidavit said.

That refers to “U Nonimmigrant Status,” which is granted to victims of certain crimes who have suffered mental or physical abuse and are helpful to authorities investigating or prosecuting suspects.

Police then realized there was a “pattern” of similar reported robberies — and that the victims “had applied for, or been granted U-visas due to their status as victims of these crimes,” the affidavit said.

Winfrey was arrested Wednesday and charged with murder in connection with Scottt’s death. He was denied bond Monday.

There's more at the link.

I've learned to assume that at least one in five of the people I see around me every day in north Texas are armed.  It used to be less, but now that Texas is a constitutional carry state (i.e. not requiring a permit to carry a gun), it could well be more.  People are fed up with criminals trying to make an easy buck off locals;  and they're ready, willing and able to do something about it.  Texas grand juries, too, have frequently proved to be less than sympathetic to deceased criminals, often no-true-billing those who shot them even when strictly speaking, they didn't have sufficient legal grounds to do so.  (See this recent case, also in Houston, for an example.)

Congratulations and thanks to the bystander who shot the criminal.  He obviously feared getting into trouble for his actions, because he initially fled, but he later handed himself over to police and was exonerated of any offense.  Scott's partner in crime, however, now stands accused of murder, because he was part of a crime that resulted in a death.  That's entirely as it should be, IMHO.  The late Mr. Scott thought he could get away with the same fake crime, repeatedly.  He learned better - or, rather, his surviving family and friends learned better.  It's a pity he no longer has that opportunity, but that's his own fault.

Peter

Today's award goes to the mayor of St. Louis, Tishaura Jones, who spoke thus at the Black Mayors’ Coalition on Crime:

“We have a lot of violence around convenience stores and gas stations. So how can we hold those business owners accountable and also bring down crime? Some of the things are already doing, we’re finding other mayors are doing as well.”

Er . . . um . . . come again?

You're going to hold business owners accountable for the actions of criminals in and around the areas where those business owners operate?

WHOSE FAULT IS CRIME, ANYWAY?

If you're going to go after business owners for crimes committed by others, pretty soon you won't have any business owners within your city limits.  Then your citizens won't be able to buy food, get their vehicles serviced, or do anything else that requires a business to provide the service.  Then where will your precious city be???

I repeatedly think that we've plumbed the absolute depths of human stupidity . . . only to be proved wrong again and again by doofi such as Mayor Jones.

*Headdesk*

Peter