Soft-on-Crime Prosecutors Are Creating More Victims
‘For years, the far left has zeroed in on local prosecutors and district attorneys as juicy opportunities to make America radically softer on crime… As this liberal campaign has been playing out at the state and local level, we have seen violent crime surge nationwide… Stable prices, border security, and public safety are three of the most basic deliverables that any government owes to its citizens. Strike one, strike two, and strike three for Democrats at the federal, state, and local levels.’
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding law and order:
“A few months ago, from this desk, I talked about the results of a recall election in San Francisco.
“In February, a multi-lingual, multi-ethnic coalition in San Francisco stood up for common sense and ejected three members of the far-left school board that had prioritized woke lunacy over the basics of education.
“Well, last week, those same fed-up citizens provided a sequel. Even the deep-blue Bay Area decided they’d had enough with their radical left District Attorney, a prosecutor-in-name-only who’d become nationally famous for running a soft-on-crime experiment.
“As deaths from drug overdoses skyrocketed, his office chose to almost entirely stop prosecuting drug dealing. Burglaries shot up nearly 50 percent. Chain stores had to close locations because of rampant shoplifting. One person who’d been arrested five times in six months in 2020 was let out every time until he killed two women with a stolen car.
“Liberals bragged about how they’d cut down incarceration rates, even as disorder swallowed up more and more of the city.
“So the citizens were fed up with being the far left’s guinea pigs. They flocked to the ballot box and voted for change.
“Mr. President, this phenomenon is not only playing out in San Francisco. It’s nationwide.
“For years, the far left has zeroed in on local prosecutors and district attorneys as juicy opportunities to make America radically softer on crime. According to recent news reports, for example, one far-left billionaire donated more than a million dollars each to the political campaigns of soft-on-crime prosecutors in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia.
“According to one group’s analysis, the army of soft-on-crime prosecutors supported by this one donor and his networks oversee as much as 20% of our nation’s entire population.
“Once in office, many of these prosecutors set about abusing their authority by basically unilaterally decriminalizing various crimes that neither voters nor legislators have actually decriminalized in reality. As the Attorney General of Virginia put it recently, ‘Instead of trying to change the law… these groups are electing prosecutors who simply ignore it.’
“As this liberal campaign has been playing out at the state and local level, we have seen violent crime surge nationwide.
“Here are just a few recent news reports.
“From Minnesota: ‘Robberies, assaults and gun crimes are causing waves of anxiety and fear among suburban residents across the Twin Cities.’
“From Colorado: ‘since the beginning of the pandemic… murders had gone up 47 percent, some types of property crime had nearly doubled, and seizures of fentanyl and methamphetamine had quadrupled in the past year.’
“Atlanta, Georgia, ‘saw a 30-year record in homicides last year [in 2021],’ and 2022 has been looking even worse. At least as of a few months ago, both murders and rapes were way ahead of even that 2021 pace.
“Residents of Phoenix, Arizona who try to use public transit to escape soaring gas prices have found that, ‘assaults and drug crime in and around public transportation have risen over the last five years.’
“Likewise, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is reporting, ‘an 80 percent increase in assaults aboard buses.’
“My hometown of Louisville is struggling too. ‘Over the past several years, violent crime has sharply risen across the city, breaking gruesome records including record homicides and assaults.’ And we’ve seen carjacking ‘more than tripl[e] in the past five years.’
“Last weekend alone, Louisville saw three homicides and ten nonfatal shootings. Five teenagers and a 9-year-old were shot during a single altercation at my hometown’s Big Four Bridge. Violent criminals turned a popular attraction for families and tourists into a war zone.
“Stable prices, border security, and public safety are three of the most basic deliverables that any government owes to its citizens. Strike one, strike two, and strike three for Democrats at the federal, state, and local levels.
“That explains one last headline that I’ll cite today: ‘Americans are more worried about crime than at any other time this century.’”
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Related Issues: Law Enforcement, Campaigns & Elections, Crime
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