Greater than two years after instituting insurance policies to maintain extra nonviolent offenders out of jail to cut back populations through the pandemic, California’s greatest metropolitan areas are making a U-turn within the midst of rising crime.
Los Angeles, San Diego and Santa Clara are among the many counties that just lately stopped setting zero bail for sure misdemeanors and nonviolent felony offenses.
Such pandemic-era insurance policies had been separate from broader prison justice reform strikes over the previous few years which have included legal guidelines limiting using bail and new approaches by district attorneys who gained workplace on platforms de-emphasizing incarceration.
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San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, who stated the pandemic jail insurance policies led to folks being arrested after which launched with out bail repeatedly, participated in a information convention in January.
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Dai Sugano/The Mercury Information/Getty Photos
These had been pushed by advocates and lawmakers who stated that harsh jail sentences did little to cut back crime and that bail was unfair for folks too poor to pay it.
The insurance policies instituted in the beginning of the pandemic, in the meantime, had been public-health measures meant to rapidly depopulate jails, which had been residence to quite a few outbreaks of the then-new coronavirus. The U.S. jail inhabitants plunged 25% in 2020 from mid-2019, to about 550,000, its lowest stage in almost a decade, based on federal knowledge.
California made such insurance policies non-compulsory in mid-2020, a couple of months after instituting them that spring. However counties which are residence to a few of the state’s greatest cities stored the insurance policies in place till this summer time, after will increase in crime sparked public requires a more durable strategy. In San Jose, Mayor
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Sam Liccardo
stated the pandemic jail insurance policies had been among the many causes that 43 folks had been arrested after which launched with out bail on a minimum of 10 separate events between January 2020 and April 2022. Officers of Santa Clara County, which incorporates San Jose, have disputed his claims.
“The zero-bail experiment largely failed,” stated Mr. Liccardo, a Democrat. “There’s a compelling purpose to rethink money bail to make sure it doesn’t perpetuate the racial and financial inequities inherent within the prison justice system, however we’ve got seen too many violent and repeat offenders put out into our neighborhood with out enough supervision, drug therapy or constraints.”
Nationwide, jail populations have risen however had been 15% beneath their prepandemic ranges as of the tip of 2021, based on the Jail Coverage Initiative, a nonprofit that advocates for lowering jail populations.
Murder charges have elevated nationwide over the previous two years, however have edged down within the first half of 2022, based on the Main Cities Chiefs Affiliation.
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Covid-19 quickly unfold by means of New York Metropolis’s jail system in the beginning of the pandemic, overwhelming its principal facility, Rikers Island.
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ed jones/Agence France-Presse/Getty Photos
That has put district attorneys often known as progressive prosecutors, in cities together with Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia, on the defensive. Former San Francisco District Legal professional
Chesa Boudin
was recalled in June by voters offended over rising crime.
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New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams desires the state to do extra and has been drawing consideration to examples of suspects who had been launched and went on to commit different crimes.
“Again and again our law enforcement officials are making arrests, after which the one who is arrested for assault, felonious assault, robberies, gun possession, they’re discovering themselves again on the road,” Mr. Adams stated at a press briefing earlier this month.
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Earlier this 12 months, New York state lawmakers allowed judges to set bail for a higher variety of offenses and make it simpler to carry repeat offenders pending trial, partially reversing a 2019 legislation that ended money bail for many misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies.
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Some criminologists have stated anecdotes aren’t proof that bail insurance policies are behind the nationwide rise in homicides. In a examine of adjustments to the bail system in Cook dinner County, Ailing., which incorporates Chicago, researchers from Loyola College discovered a brand new coverage lowering using money bail didn’t result in a rise within the share of these launched who had been later charged with a brand new violent crime. It remained at 3%.
“If the rationale for transferring again from bail reform is to cut back crime, I don’t assume there’s a lot proof to justify that strategy,” stated Richard Rosenfeld, a professor emeritus on the College of Missouri-St. Louis, who research murder tendencies within the U.S.
A homeless man on parole for an assault conviction dragged a jogger by her hair on a beach near Los Angeles before attempting to rape her earlier this week, police said.
The alleged incident occurred at around 7:15 a.m. on the Ocean Front Walk in Santa Monica. Witnesses told a 911 dispatcher that a woman, who lives in nearby Venice Beach, was being dragged on the ground by her ponytail.
She was jogging southbound on the beach path when the suspect grabbed her ponytail from behind, knocking her to the ground, authorities said.
SUSPECTED NYC RAPIST AT LARGE AFTER VIDEO SHOWS WOMAN LASOED FROM BEHIND ON DARK STREET
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Malcolm Jimmy Ward, Jr., 48, allegedly dragged a female jogger on the ground by her ponytail and tried to sexually assault her, police said. (Santa Monica Police Department)
Responding officers found the woman and the suspect, identified as Malcolm Jimmy Ward, Jr., 48, near some restrooms, the Santa Monica Police Department said. Several witnesses intervened in the attack, police said.
The woman wasn’t injured. At the time, Ward was on parole for assault with a deadly weapon.
Investigators believe Ward was trying to sexually assault the woman. He has been charged with kidnapping, assault with intent to commit rape and violating his parole.
He is being held with no bail.
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Kashaan Parks, 39, was arrested Saturday at 10:00 a.m. and charged in connection to the rape of a 45-year-old woman in The Bronx, NYPD said. (Richard Harbus for Fox News Digital)
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The alleged crime mirrors an incident in New York City where a man was caught on surveillance cameras throwing a looped belt around a woman’s neck before choking her unconscious and dragging her away on a dark Bronx street.
Police arrested 39-year-old Kashaan Parks over the weekend for allegedly attacking the 45-year-old victim.
When University of California police arrested Beckner-Carmitchel while he was filming UC police arresting students in a UCLA parking garage, that arrest violated Section 409.7, Sean’s First Amendment right to film police, and his Fourth Amendment right to be free of unlawful arrests. After I fired off a quick email to UCLA police, the school’s comms department, and the UC administration that Sean’s arrest and jailing violated Section 409.7, UCLA released him later that day. So the law worked to free Sean, but he should have never been arrested and jailed in the first place.
They also took away his cellphone, but I told UCLA that using a search warrant to search his phone would be illegal, and they gave it back within a few hours.
At the University of Southern California, the campus police and Los Angeles Police Department violated Section 409.7 earlier this month when they blocked student journalists and faculty from filming the police raid on the encampment and threatened to take away some of the students’ press passes.
However, Section 409.7 worked very well on May 15, 2024, at UC Irvine, where the press office worked closely with the local law enforcement to make sure journalists had access.
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Can you explain why Section 409.7 was enacted and what it does? And tell us about any cases you’re aware of where California journalists have invoked it to try to prevent law enforcement from dispersing them from protests. Has it worked, and why or why not?
Reporters pushed for the passage of Section 409.7 after many reporters were arrested, shoved, and shot with munitions by police while covering the Black Lives Matter protests (in 2020).
Before it was passed, California law said that reporters were legally permitted to cross behind police lines during public disasters without being arrested, but it didn’t say anything about public protests where police declared an unlawful assembly and ordered everyone to disperse. So some reporters were getting arrested for failure to disperse when they were filming protests and police.
Section 409.7 says that where police “establish a police line, or rolling closure at a demonstration, march, protest, or rally where individuals are engaged in activity” protected by the First Amendment and California Constitution, a “duly authorized representative of any news service, online news service, newspaper, or radio or television station or network may enter the closed areas.” The law says that police cannot arrest reporters for “failure to disperse,” violating a curfew, or filming police.
If a reporter is arrested, the reporter has the right “to contact a supervisory officer immediately for the purpose of challenging the detention, unless circumstances make it impossible to do so.”
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Section 409.7 doesn’t prevent police from “enforcing other applicable laws if the person is engaged in activity that is unlawful.”
Big Pond was a big deal at Santa Anita Park over the winter, winning the Feb. 18 Spring Fever Stakes in fast time after a nose defeat when second in the Dec. 26 La Brea Stakes (G1).
Now George Krikorian’s homebred 4-year-old daughter of Mr. Big battles five East Coast rivals in the $175,000 Vagrancy Stakes (G3) May 18 at Aqueduct Racetrack. Her principal foes in the 6 1/2-furlong dirt sprint are stakes winners Hot Fudge , Leave No Trace , and Beguine .
Saturday’s race marks Big Pond’s first start for Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott and her second outside California, where she was foaled. All seven of her prior starts previously came for trainer Tim Yakteen, including a recent seventh in the April 6 Madison Stakes (G1) at Keeneland that came after an awkward start. She recorded three wins and two seconds for Yakteen.
KEM Stables’ Hot Fudge, a three-time stakes winner over the winter at Aqueduct, will attempt to rebound from a fifth-place finish in the April 6 Distaff Stakes (G3).
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“In her last race, she stumbled away from the gates, grabbed a quarter badly and pulled a shoe off and ran last,” trainer Linda Rice said.
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Leave No Trace, a March 17 allowance optional claiming winner, seeks her first stakes victory since taking the Spinaway Stakes (G1) in September 2022. Beguine returns to action after running fourth in the Oct. 1 Gallant Bloom Stakes (G2).
Entries: Vagrancy S. (G3)
Belmont at the Big A, Saturday, May 18, 2024, Race 9
