Democrat mayors see huge increase in violent crime

Washington Examiner:

Mayors from around the country are facing a common threat that isn't just the coronavirus: spiking violent crime.

Across virtually every large urban area, a wave of violent crime has plagued residents as they struggle to adjust to new pandemic-related restrictions and a general decline in their quality of life. From bustling metropolises such as New York to sleepier cities like Salt Lake, violent crime has reached levels not seen for years or, in some cases, decades.

According to data analyst Jeff Asher, 51 major U.S. cities saw their murder rates increase this year by an average of 35.7% through September compared to 2019.

"Big cities tend to overstate national trends in crime, but the national change in murder in 2020 will be historically awful," he wrote on Twitter.

Some cities have seen an even more extreme increase. Take Louisville, for example, which saw 78 homicides in 2019. By Nov. 1 of this year, 139 had been murdered — a 78% increase. Madison, Wisconsin, the state's capital, saw a 400% increase in homicides. In a relatively peaceful city with a population of just under 260,000, such a dramatic change means 10 people were murdered this year. In other, larger cities, significant upticks in homicides can lead to hundreds more lives lost.

In Chicago, which has seen a nearly 55% increase in murders, 728 were killed — nearly all of which through gun violence. In 2019, when the city thought it was beginning to slow the rate of murders, 470 had been killed.

For some city residents, like those who live in Los Angeles, the increase in murders hearkens back to a time when many transplants had not even moved there yet. There, murders are happening at a rate not seen in a decade, with over 300 slain this year so far.

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The scourge of inner-city violence is not limited to homicides. In Washington, D.C., 3,137 auto thefts had been reported to authorities, nearly 50% more than in 2019. Carjackings, a separate category of crime, as an occupant must be in the vehicle at the time of the theft, is up 141% over the year.

Thieves have gotten so brazen that a member of D.C.'s city council found her car was stolen after making a quick stop at a local bakery. The culprit, who has not yet been arrested, was seen jumping out of a six-figure Mercedes sports coupe just before the incident.

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Over the last several years, a number of left-wing prosecutors who champion "restorative justice" policies, focusing on reform and rehabilitation over penalizing lawbreakers, have taken office in a number of large cities. These individuals, many of whom saw their campaigns financed by left-wing billionaire George Soros, have turned many of their jurisdictions into an experiment of sorts for a new theory of criminal justice that represents a radical break from the "tough on crime" policies of the 1990s and 2000s.

In Illinois, for example, Cook County State Attorney Kim Foxx has cut incarcerations in Chicago and the surrounding region by nearly 20% since taking office in 2016. Foxx has also implemented controversial bail reform policies that some say allow violent offenders to roam the streets before their court date.

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The Soros backed prosecutors are less likely to hold criminals pending trial.  In Houston, the prosecutor refused to hold an illegal immigrant charged with a crime, and the next day he was accused of murdering a police sergeant.  St Louis's Soros-backed prosecutor refused to hold any of the criminals arrested for rioting including those caught engaged in arson and looting.  She did charge a St. Louis couple for defending their property by displaying legally owned guns.