Lawlessness Abounds in California: Angry and Scared

Lawlessness Abounds in California: Angry and Scared
By Major Wesley R. Wise (Ret.)

I've watched in horror as the social compact crumbled in the Golden State and beyond. Califor-nia retailers are under siege as smash-and-grab gangs raid stores with impunity. Rachel Michel-in, president of the California Retailers Association, has likened the flash robberies to “domestic terrorism.” And it is exactly that.

In Oakland during Thanksgiving week 2021, two men died fighting what progressives have styled as petty crimes. Petty crime my ass. Kevin Nishita, a former cop who was working as a security guard for a news crew covering a gang robbery, was shot and killed. Within days, a man who confronted someone trying to steal his car died in the same manner.

Californians are angry and scared. Gov. Gavin Newsom pretended to relate to them when he revealed his own business had been broken into three times in the last year. “I have no empathy, no sympathy for these folks who do these things, and they must be held to account,” Newsom said.

You’d never guess Newsom had endorsed Proposition 47, the 2014 ballot measure that softened sentences for shoplifting and other crimes and that largely led to this epidemic. Or that he op-posed a 2020 initiative to enhance the sentences for organized retail crime and firearm thefts.

Blue cities and many states are experiencing similar lawlessness as, in the name of reform, pro-gressives reduced penalties for repeat offenders.

How to turn it around?

Spurn dangerous laws like Proposition 47, the “Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act,” which passed by nearly 60% of voters in 2014. It was the sort of deceptive reform that opened the door to this rash of smash and grabs. The Los Angeles Times endorsed the measure because it would “reduce sentences for a handful of petty crimes.” And it did - to our everlasting horror.

What it did was raise the threshold for felony convictions of theft to hauls of more than $950 — giving a green light to repeat gang grabs under $1,000 apiece.

Hedge fund billionaire George Soros helped bankroll the measure, as well as the candidacies of soft-on-crime district attorneys like LA’s George Gascon and San Francisco’s Chesa Boudin. There also are similar Soros DAs in Chicago, Milwaukee, Manhattan, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Northern Virginia.

So I ask, after gangs engaged in raids on high-end stores in San Francisco's Union Square, who’s going to go shopping in San Francisco?

Walgreens is closing five more SF pharmacies because of “organized retail crime.” Who suf-fers? Consumers in neighborhoods. I've heard erstwhile complaints from the left that low-income neighborhoods in the East Bay city were a “food desert” ignored by grocery giants. Well, no wonder.

Meanwhile, progressives’ attacks on police have demoralized the rank and file, prompted early retirements and convinced some that if they stick out their necks, little good will come of it.

So who among you is surprised by this?

A thirty-six-year veteran of the Baltimore Police Department, Wes retired in 2006 as the Com-mander of the city’s 911 System. While recovering from a stroke in 2014, he wrote two books about his experiences as a Baltimore cop. Wes has also self-published fourteen books for other writers. Need publishing help? Contact Wes at weswise78@gmail.com. A father of two and grandfather of ten, he and his wife of 49 years live near Baltimore, Maryland.