Maui search crews have allegedly found over 450 bodies, according to a local resident who is leading a grassroots relief effort to aid victims of the fire that decimated the town of Lahaina earlier this month. “I guarantee you right now, from what has been seen, the number is over 450 and it’s gonna get — it’s gonna get closer to 1,000,” Maui resident Dale Hermo-Fernandez, who has close contacts inside local recovery efforts, said in a recent exclusive interview with Breitbart News. “They’re not giving the number until they toe-tag them and identify them, which is understandable,” he said. “It’s guaranteed in the four hundreds. More than likely you’re going to get to 850 or 900 — with 40 percent being kids,” he said.
Dr C’s Analysis: I can’t believe that virtually no one is concentrating on this horrible, lack of response and post-incident management that the state of Hawaii and the Federal Government has done. It is very likely that we will reach 1,000 deaths in Maui. This is a colossal embarrassment for our country!
Those attending outdoor parties or barbecues in New York City this weekend may notice an uninvited guest looming over their festivities: a police surveillance drone. The New York City police department plans to pilot the unmanned aircraft in response to complaints about large gatherings, including private events, over Labor Day weekend, officials announced Thursday. “If a caller states there’s a large crowd, a large party in a backyard, we’re going to be utilizing our assets to go up and go check on the party,” Kaz Daughtry, the assistant NYPD Commissioner, said at a press conference. The plan drew immediate backlash from privacy and civil liberties advocates, raising questions about whether such drone use violated existing laws for police surveillance.
Dr C’s Analysis: Not a fan on this kind of surveillance. However, the title is a bit deceiving (like that is unusual for the media). This response is to incidents that are complaints by the public in which an officer would be dispatched. It makes sense to use technology to see if it really is worth sending an officer. What we should not tolerate in a free society is using air platforms to surveil people or property without the accompanying complaint.
A report from John R. Lott Jr., president of the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC), shows that from 2014 to 2022 armed citizens stopped active shooters eight times more often than the FBI claimed. In the report, excerpts of which Lott published on Real Clear Politics, he noted, “Out of 440 active shooter incidents from 2014 to 2022, an armed citizen stopped 157. We also found that the FBI had misidentified five cases, usually because the person who stopped the attack was incorrectly identified as a security guard.” He observed, “While the FBI claims that just 4.6% of active shootings were stopped by law-abiding citizens carrying guns, the percentage that I found was 35.7%. I am more confident that we have identified a higher share of recent cases, and our figure for 2022 was even higher – 41.3%.” Despite Lott’s findings and the findings of CPRC, the FBI’s data has not been adjusted. Lott highlighted this by pointing to an email he received in 2015 in which the FBI admitted the Lott had uncovered an example they had missed of an armed citizen stopping an active shooter. Despite the admission, “the FBI database never added the incident.”
Dr C’s Analysis: According to Dr Lott, “The FBI data on active shootings is missing so many defensive gun uses that it’s hard to believe it isn’t intentional. Errors can happen, but the failure to fix past reports shows a troubling disregard for the truth. The reality is that armed, law-abiding citizens are unsung guardian angels.”
When the pandemic began, spending on mental health services skyrocketed and it continues to rise even as use of telehealth services leveled off. That's the key takeaway from a new study published Aug. 25 in JAMA Health Forum. “If greater utilization of health services drives higher health care spending, insurers may begin pushing back on the new status quo,” said lead author Jonathan Cantor, a policy researcher at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. Cantor and his colleagues found that spending on mental health services rose 53.7% between March 2020 and August 2022 in a large group of people with employer-provided insurance. Use of mental health services increased by nearly 39%, according to research, which used claims data from about 7 million commercially insured adults. The analysis included anxiety disorders, major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and PTSD.
Dr C’s Analysis: JAMA should be more concerned with the impact of COVID shutdowns on American’s as opposed to the costs right now. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the adverse impact of the lockdowns on our fellow countrymen’s mental health! More mental health cases = higher costs. Instead, JAMA should be having health care forums on the societal and criminogenic dangers associated with lockdowns. Social Isolation leads to loneliness, lack of support, negative self-perception, rumination, reduced cognitive stimulation, stress, brain chemistry impacts, lack of physical fitness and limits feedback and perspective. More to come on the impact on crime!
Mexican cartels are behind the spike in organized retail crime and are deeply entrenched in every level of the process, according to the federal government's chief investigative agency. Retailers nationwide sustained nearly $100 billion worth of losses in 2021, the highest year on record, according to the National Retail Federation report published in September 2022. The growing number of cartel-run theft rings around the country drove that figure up from $70 billion in 2019. "Organized retail crime is leading to more brazen and more violent attacks in retail stores throughout the country. Many of the criminal rings orchestrating these thefts are also involved in other serious criminal activity such as human trafficking, narcotics trafficking, weapon trafficking, and more," said Steve Francis, acting executive associate director for Homeland Security Investigations, in a statement. HSI is part of the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Dr. C’s Analysis: Cartels look to fill voids. Need cheap drugs, need cheap labor, need sex slaves, need to establish smuggling routes across the US, and yes, need cheap merchandise? The average citizen thinks of cartels as high-end drug lords, but they are always looking for diversity in their crime activities. Open borders, lax enforcement, lax jail bonds, lax prosecution and lax judicial sentencing will only foster criminogenic behavior. It America today there is no carrot and stick system of justice, we are just passing our carrots!
A television news crew was robbed at gunpoint this week in Chicago while reporting from the scene on a spate of robberies that took place across the city in recent days. A reporter and cameraman for Spanish-language station Univision Chicago were reporting from Chicago’s west side early Monday morning when they were accosted at gunpoint by three armed men wearing ski masks. The men allegedly demanded money and stole some personal belongings before they fled the scene, police told local media outlets.
Dr. C’s Analysis: It’s sad, but the irony is marvelous! We reap what we sow, Chicagoland! It’s time to dig a moat around the city and let it be. “Escape for Chicago” theme sounds about right.
Driving a car into a business at a high rate of speed to gain entry and steal items inside is now considered first-degree burglary, or burglary while armed with a deadly weapon, according to the Thurston County Sheriff's Office. The crime is traditionally considered second-degree burglary, which, under current state law, is not a pursuable offense. First-degree burglary is a pursuable offense under state law. The decision came following discussions between Thurston County Sheriff Derek Sanders, his executive staff and the Thurston County Prosecutor's Office. Sheriff Derek Sanders announced the tactic change during a video update on Tuesday, Aug. 29, in which he addressed two burglaries that occurred in Thurston County, one in the Yelm area and one in unincorporated Thurston County, earlier that day. "This is a crime trend that is becoming more popular, and what we're talking about is individuals who use stolen cars to crash into a business at a high rate of speed, do tens of thousands of dollars in damage to the business, steal everything inside and then flee in a different stolen car," Sanders said.
Dr C’s Analysis: I agree with the change in tactics by the sheriff, so kudos to him for recognizing the need for this change. Pursuit policies in my opinion should never be a cookie-cutter police approach. Instead, pursuits shoudl be considered different with every incident and should be based on a decision at the field level and based on the information in real time. The key to success in pursuits is having well trained officers and first line supervisors that can not only make the appropriate decision on the pursuit, but also ensuring their troops are well trained in pursuit tactics.
A report published Tuesday by the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute identified air pollution as the world’s top threat to public health, responsible for reducing average life expectancy by 2.3 years worldwide.
Dr C’s Analysis: And so does crime and murder in the inner city! And violent crime will kill you now! Did you know that in most urban cities, the highest percentage of homicide victims are black? Do you also know that the highest number of suspects of these homicides are black? It’s time to have an honest discussion based on the facts! But yes, by all means let’s focus on the climate again!
A 16-year-old girl was charged with fatally stabbing another 16-year-old girl outside a McDonald’s on a busy D.C. nightlife corridor this weekend in a fight a police detective said stemmed from an argument about sweet-and-sour sauce, as the city continues its struggle to quell youth violence. Naima Liggon, the slain teen from Waldorf, Md., was the 13th person younger than 18 killed so far this year in Washington, and her accused attacker represents one of hundreds of cases in which minors have been charged with committing a crime of violence. Both of those numbers have increased since the same time last year, creating what the city’s mayor has deemed an emergency among the city’s children and teenagers. Homicides overall are up 26 percent in the District over this time in 2022.
Dr C’s Analysis: Considering the raw numbers at face value, recent increases in homicides and violent crime have been attributed to three factors: (1) The lack of faith, family, and formation has had a significant sociological and psychological impact on human, especially our children. (2) The changes in prosecutorial and sentencing practices especially related to violent crime as become much more liberalism and more pro-criminal than pro-victim and community safety. (3) Less police practices in response on Black Lives Matter and other organized criticisms of police use. (4) The police defund movement has diminished budgets, police recruitment, and advanced police separations, and police retirements. And finally, (5) COVID public health measures such as travel restrictions, school closures, lockdowns, and curfews. For more information, please read my published work, called the Advent of Feral Man and you will understand what is happening in America today regarding crime!
And finally, a Kansas City, Missouri, woman accused of living off her father’s Social Security and VA Benefits will be extradited to Nevada after her father’s remains were found buried in his yard. The Nye County Sheriff’s Office in Nevada said in a press release Monday that it served a search warrant at a residence on Peggy Avenue in Pahrump, Nevada, last Friday, to search for human remains reportedly buried on the property. In a post on Facebook, authorities said the case started in April, when 95-year-old Bruce Brown went missing. The investigation had already established that Walker was living off her father’s Social Security and VA Benefits. Detectives also received information Walker buried Brown in the desert. And yes, they did find Papa!
Dr. C’s Analysis: There is nothing better than a daughter’s love for her father!
This is Dr. Currie Myers, America’s Criminologist. Please check out my work on Substack at drcurriemyers.substack.com – Stay safe and have a great weekend!
Crime, Criminology, and Criminal Justice Podcast for Friday, September 1, 2023