https://www.rt.com/op-ed/528619-crime-surge-us-democrats/

Confronted with the fact their policies are ruining US cities and
killing thousands, Dems give the usual reply: ‘Shut up, racist!’

Tony Cox

Tony Cox, a US journalist who has written or edited for Bloomberg and
several major daily newspapers.

Don’t believe your lying eyes – the bullet holes, bloody shooting scenes
and crying mothers. Don’t believe the stats or what the police say. The
leaders of America’s big blue metropolises say there’s no crime surge on
their patch.

And here’s one of the most predictable parts of the gaslighting: If you
dare to say that violent crime is rising, and especially if you suggest
that it’s scary and out of control, you’re a flaming racist. Of course.
Might as well don the white hood.

That was the message on Sunday from Kate Chatfield, a senior director in
San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin’s office. “Husbands are
‘scared for their wives’ – your reminder that the ‘crime-surge’ crowd
shares the same ideology as ‘The Birth of a Nation,’” said Chatfield,
who has since taken her Twitter account into hiding. She was responding
to a message by San Francisco native Michelle Tandler, who had said her
friends were all considering leaving the city because of crime, which
has caused parents to fear for their children and husbands to be “scared
for their wives.”

First time being trolled by a San Francisco public official. (Kate
is a Senior Director at the SF DA's office.)Guess something I'm saying
is hitting a nerve. pic.twitter.com/Vu7a2MR0rZ
— Michelle Tandler 🌁 (@michelletandler) July 5, 2021

Tandler made no mention of skin color. Chatfield apparently inferred
that, because the concerned citizen was talking about crime, she must
have meant acts committed by non-white people. This proved, once again,
that leftist, race-baiting whites are the most racist people on the
planet. ‘The Birth of a Nation’ is a 1915 silent movie that the
Washington Post called “the most reprehensibly racist film in Hollywood
history.”

Crime is apparently a touchy subject in the San Francisco DA’s office,
and in DA and mayoral offices in Democrat-run cities across the US.
Lawlessness is rampant, and people can’t help but notice. Even CNN
acknowledged on Wednesday that more than 850 people were shot, including
at least 233 fatally, while Americans celebrated the Independence Day
holiday weekend. In Chicago alone, some 100 people were reportedly shot,
and 19 were killed. Thirteen children and two police officers were among
the injured.

Homicides nationwide jumped 25% last year, according to preliminary
government data. A Council on Criminal Justice report on 32 major US
cities showed that murders rose 24% from 2020’s torrid pace in this
year’s first quarter alone.

It’s easy to see why Democrat politicians don’t want to be confronted
with news of this trend. The 13 largest US cities are run by Democrat
mayors. Out of the 25 biggest cities, only two have Republican mayors.
Playing the race card is a sign of the desperation among Democrats to
deflect attention away from their failure to perform government’s most
basic role: protecting citizens.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot bristled last Friday when a Newsmax
reporter questioned whether she believed, as she had said previously,
that crime was falling in the city. She insisted that violent crime was
“trending down” and denied the reporter’s assertion that there were race
riots in Chicago last summer. She also stood by her comment in an
interview last week that “about 99%” of the criticism against her was
motivated by the fact that she’s a black woman.

After accusing a Newsmax reporter of "making up facts," Chicago
mayor Lori Lightfoot falsely claims that her city "did not have race
riots" last summer. pic.twitter.com/7i7BXfpSYU
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) July 5, 2021

More than 2,000 people have been shot in Chicago this year, and the city
is on target to have its deadliest year in more than a decade.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, in explaining last Friday why he wouldn’t
be using any of the Big Apple’s $6 billion in new federal aid to fight
rising violent crime, said that tactic was meant for more troubled
cities. Shootings in New York have more than doubled since 2019, but
city officials decided to restore only about $200 million of the $1
billion that was cut from police funding in 2020.

San Francisco, which hasn’t had a Republican mayor since 1964, is among
the most spectacular Democratic failures. What was once perhaps
America’s most beautiful big city has been turned into what former
president Donald Trump might call Haiti: a s***hole.

The local NBC News affiliate reported happily last December that one
positive side effect of the Covid-19 pandemic was that complaints of
feces in public places were down 24% from a year earlier because fewer
people were on the streets. Over a seven-month period, there were only
15,656 poop reports. Yup, there were only 15,656, which was a three-year
low. There were fewer used syringes reported, too.

Unfortunately for residents, San Francisco’s lawlessness issue goes
beyond drug needles and public defecation. Theft and assaults are so
rampant and brazen that retailer Target said last week it’s now closing
its stores in the San Francisco area at 6pm each day, rather than 10pm.
Walgreens has closed several stores in the area altogether, and ordered
its security guards in those still trading to refrain from engaging with
shoplifters.

“For more than a month, we’ve been experiencing a significant and
alarming rise in theft and security incidents at our San Francisco
stores, similar to reports from other retailers in the area,” a Target
spokesperson told a local media outlet. “With the safety of our guests,
team members, and communities as our top priority, we’ve temporarily
reduced our operating hours in six San Francisco stores.”

On Monday, a group of thieves was caught on video in broad daylight
running out of downtown San Francisco’s Neiman Marcus department store
with armfuls of designer purses and other luxury merchandise.

And, along with New York City, the San Francisco Bay Area is one of the
focuses of this year’s surge in anti-Asian hate crimes. People of Asian
descent – some in their 80s or 90s – have been punched, stabbed, and
kicked in unprovoked attacks. An 84-year-old Thai immigrant was killed
in January, when a 19-year-old black man charged at full speed from
across the street and rammed him.

Interestingly, the Asian hate-crime story has lost its legs in
mainstream-media land, perhaps because most of the perpetrators don’t
fit the narrative of a white-supremacy crisis.

If it seems like criminals are running roughshod, stealing, or maiming
with impunity, it’s because they are. A man arrested last month for
stabbing a 94-year-old Asian woman in San Francisco’s Tenderloin
neighborhood had been released from jail nine days earlier. His rap
sheet included a long list of burglary arrests and an alleged homicide.
He was arrested five times last year and was being monitored with an
ankle bracelet at the time of the stabbing, after being released by a
judge. One local man was arrested for car theft at least 14 times in 18
months.

🚨 This is a photo of the suspect arrested in the stabbing of a
94-year-old Asian woman that was circulated among @SFPD officers. Police
arrested 35-year-old Daniel Cauich, who has a long criminal history.
@KPIXtv 11 pm pic.twitter.com/dgXWGE8YxJ
— Betty Yu (@BettyKPIX) June 17, 2021

Boudin, who was elected DA in 2019 with financial backing from an
associate of billionaire George Soros, has called for “rapid
decarceration,” including a plan to reduce San Francisco’s jail
population to around 600 from 1,100. On taking office, he stopped
pursuing harsher sentences for most repeat offenders and gang members –
a practice he called racist – and quit prosecuting some offenses, such
as prostitution and public urination, altogether.

Soros, by the way, has helped get radical DAs elected in major cities
across the US. One of the candidates he bankrolled was Philadelphia
District Attorney Larry Krasner, who preceded Boudin in stopping the
prosecution of many crimes. The city has had 285 homicides so far this
year – up 36% from the same point in 2020.

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Amid San Francisco’s collapse in public safety, Tandler is far from the
only resident who is thinking about moving. A poll commissioned by the
San Francisco Chamber of Commerce showed that more than 40% of residents
planned to move away within the next few years. Eight in 10 cited
concern that crime has increased, and nearly that many said their
quality of life has deteriorated.

As one measure of supply and demand for living in San Francisco, the
current rate to rent a 20-foot U-Haul truck next Saturday to move from
the Bay Area to Nashville, Tennessee, is $4,823. The same rental in
reverse will cost $2,255.