Tag Archives: #Crime

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Why was ‘Peanut’ out on the streets in the first place?

My good friend — OK, OK, I’ve never met him in person, but with the internet, I have a lot of good friends I’ve never physically met! — Robert Stacy McCain, in his continuing series Crazy People Are Dangerous, tells us about the suicide-by-cop of Ryant ‘Peanut’ Bluford of San Francisco.

The police video of the shooting was released Friday, showing that Bluford had a pistol in his waistband, which he later aimed at police before he was shot. Despite all this, however, some people continued to ask why police couldn’t “de-escalate” the situation. The obvious answer is that Ryant Bluford didn’t want it to be “de-escalated.” Ryant Bluford was crazy and wanted to die in the proverbial hail of police gunfire.

The police have yet to confirm whether Mr Bluford actually fired a shot at the police, though Mission Local reported:

Bluford’s friends and family also said he had a gun, and fired once at the officers; they pointed on Thursday to a chalk circle on the street, where they said the casing from Bluford’s bullet had landed.

In reality, it doesn’t matter: you aim a gun at the police, and they do not have to, nor should they have to, hold their fire until first fired upon.

Mr McCain’s theme is that Mr Bluford was crazy, which he was, but that’s not the part of the story I find most important:

Bayview neighbors lament police shooting death of Ryant ‘Peanut’ Bluford

Friends, family say slain man feared, detested police after more than decade behind bars

by Gilare Zada, Griffin Jones, and Joe Rivano Barros | Thursday, July 27, 2023

Peanut, before getting shelled. Photo via R S McCain.

The Bayview man shot and killed yesterday afternoon by San Francisco police officers, 41-year-old Ryant Bluford of San Francisco, was known as “Peanut” to friends and family. They recalled him as a loving father, brother, cousin and friend — while acknowledging the violent crime in his past.Neighbors interviewed Wednesday night and Thursday morning said Bluford struggled with mental illness and had a disdain for the police, the result of more than a decade spent in prison for various serious offenses.

Bluford was convicted in the 2006 gang rape of a 16-year-old girl in San Francisco, and spent more than a decade in prison as a result. He was again charged, in 2022, for domestic violence and sexual assault.

Oh, Heaven forfend! Mr Bluford “has a disdain for the police,” he “feared (and) detested police,” because he was locked up for the gang rape of a 16-year-old girl? Apparently the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the mission of which is, “building what will become the “California Model” – building safer communities through rehabilitation, education, restorative justice and reentry,” didn’t do much correcting or “rehabilitation, education, restorative justice and reentry” when it came to Mr Bluford. After spending “more than a decade” of a 14-year sentence behind bars for the 2006 gang rape, Mr Bluford was later accused with domestic violence and sexual assault. That means at least one more person was assaulted and raped by a man who was supposed to be corrected and rehabilitated for the same crime.

The details of the gang rape, and the fact that Mr Bluford orally, vaginally, and anally raped the victim, identified only by her initials, can be found here. Mr Bluford and his codefendants were sentenced to just 14 years in a plea deal. And that makes me wonder: why were Ryant Bluford, Eddie Perkins, Vincent Timmons, and Allen Releford offered a 14-year sentence, rather than taking this to trial and getting them locked up for the rest of their miserable lives. The plea deal was:

one count each of forcible kidnapping (count 1; Pen. Code, § 207, subd. (a)) with an admitted gang enhancement (§ 186.22, subd. (b)(1)(c)), and aggravated assault (count 12; § 245, subd. (a)(1)), for fixed aggregate prison terms of 14 years.

The dropped charges were:

forcible rape in concert (count 2; §§ 261, 264.1), forcible vaginal insertion of a gun in concert (count 3; §§ 289, 264.1), forcible anal and vaginal insertions of a bottle in concert (counts 4-5; §§ 264.1, 289), forcible oral copulation in concert (count 6; §§ 264.1, 288a, subd. (d)(1)), forcible sodomy in concert (count 7; § 286, subd. (d)), gang participation (count 8; § 186.22, subd. (a)), carrying a concealed gun in a vehicle (count 9; § 12025, subd. (a)(1)), firearm identity tampering (count 10; § 12090), and possessing cocaine base for sale (count 11; Health & Saf. Code, § 11351.5). Most dismissed counts carried multiple enhancements ranging from handgun arming and use, increased risk from moving a kidnap victim, to gang furtherance. An amendment of count 1 to forcible kidnapping (§ 207, subd. (a)) from kidnapping in concert for purposes of rape eliminated sentence exposure to a life term (§ 209, subd. (b)(1)).

One thing we do not know is how willing the victim was to testifying against Messrs Bluford, Perkins, Timmons, and Releford. It has to be conceded that the plea bargain might have been reached to keep the victim from having to testify to such a traumatic assault. But the notion that Mr Bluford was ever let out of prison is repugnant; the gang rape of a 16-year-old, of anyone, should result in life in prison without the possibility of parole!

Back to Mission Local:

Neighbors described the shooting as a tragedy.

“He had four kids and a wife, two were twins. He did the best he could,” said a friend of Bluford’s, who gave his name as Tyke, saying Bluford’s mental health worsened after time in prison. “He was in the pen for 12 years; he had some mental issues from that.”

I don’t know about you, but, to me, the tragedy is that Mr Bluford got out two years early.

At the Bayview intersection, Bluford’s family lit candles. They described Peanut as a man who had been through the wringer, and criminal records show past convictions for rape and other violent crimes.

When journolists[1]The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their … Continue reading start using the subject’s nickname in an article, in other than a direct quote, you know that they are trying to raise sympathy for him!

He had a fearful association with police, neighbors said, one borne from a lifetime of negative experiences dealing with law enforcement: According to criminal records, Bluford was charged with kidnapping, rape, assault with a deadly weapon, and various other crimes in 2006; he was incarcerated in 2008, according to criminal records, and friends and family said he spent more than a decade in prison.

Then in 2022, he was charged again, with domestic violence, sexual assault, and criminal threats. It was not immediately clear if he was convicted and imprisoned for these alleged crimes.

“You have to think about the kind of trauma someone has experienced with the police,” said one neighbor, who asked to remain anonymous. “He looked done, driven to suicide by cop.”

Oh, so Mr Bluford experienced “trauma” because of the police? Some people might be more concerned with the trauma the girl he and three other thugs raped suffered.

“He had a lot of mental health issues,” said another anonymous neighbor. “He had a family. He loved his kids. A lot of people around here have mental issues.”

As Mr McCain pointed out, Joe Biden got 85.26% of the vote in San Francisco, so yeah, a lot of people there must have mental health issues! 🙂

That neighbor, for her part, wished there had been a non-violent response initially to de-escalate the situation — or at least a less-lethal one.

“It’s like there’s no logic. They don’t ask what’s going on, they don’t even think to just ask. They need more training with people with mental health issues,” she said. “When it comes to African Americans, they use force and think later. Even if they felt he was a threat, they could have Tased him or shot him in the leg.”

Well of course the locals were upset that Mr Bluford was sent to his eternal reward. But at least Mission Local added important information:

San Francisco police, however, do not carry Tasers. And are not trained to shoot-to-wound.

Shooting someone is the use of deadly force, and if you are legally justified in shooting someone, you are legally justified in killing him. Shooting to wound is neither legally required nor very smart.

Naturally, the news source had to throw in a racial angle:

Since 2000, 19 of the 61 people shot and killed by SFPD were Black — 31 percent; 18 of them were Black men. That rate is disproportionate to the city’s population: Black people make up about five percent of San Francisco.

The odd notion that perhaps, just perhaps, black men males might engage in activities, activities such as Mr Bluford aiming at and apparently firing upon the police, which get them shot at a greater percentage of the time seems not to have entered the minds of the reporters.

At some point, people have to drop their sympathy for criminals. Who knows, perhaps the bad guys can eventually mentally reform, but that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be treated responsibly for the criminal acts that they have committed.

Releasing Mr Bluford, which seems to have occurred in 2020, which would have put it in the same timeline with the releases of prisoners due to COVID-19, was the release of a violent criminal, and it was one which led him to be able to be charged with a subsequent sexual assault crime. Someone else, at least one someone, became Mr Bluford’s victim at a time when he could have been still behind bars.

I’ll put it bluntly: releasing violent criminals early, releasing them even one day before the maximum time that they can be kept locked up legally, increases the danger to the community.
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Also posted on American Free News Network. Check out American Free News Network for more well written and well reasoned conservative commentary.

References

References
↑1 The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their objectivity. I use the term ‘journolism’ frequently when writing about media bias.
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The problem is not mass incarceration; the problem is that not enough people are incarcerated, for not a long enough time

Yes, I’ve spent a rather significant amount of bandwidth reporting on the unchecked crime in Philadelphia, the growth of which many, including me, have attributed to the lax-on-crime policies of the George Soros sponsored, police-hating and criminal loving defense lawyer now ‘serving’ as the city’s chief prosecutor, but it isn’t just the City of Brotherly Love that has been so afflicted. It has also happened in the city in which I was born:

DA Pamela Price and ultra-woke Oakland leaders blasted by NAACP over rise in violence, crime

By Marjorie Hernandez | Friday, July 28, 2023 | 5:51 PM EDT | Updated: 7:55 PM EDT

Pamela Price, photo via The Washington Examiner.

The Oakland, California, NAACP civil rights organization blasted woke city leaders for their soft-on-crime policies which they say have led to skyrocketing numbers of shootouts and violent armed robberies, forcing residents to leave the area for good.

The group issued the statement Thursday as dozens of Oakland residents packed a public safety meeting and demanded progressive Alameda County DA Pamela Price to address the alarming uptick of violent crime in the city.

In the letter, the local NAACP chapter said residents are “sick and tired” of the shootings, car-break-ins and highway shootouts and implored city leaders to declare a state of emergency.

“There is nothing compassionate or progressive about allowing criminal behavior to fester and rob Oakland residents of their basic rights to public safety,” the group wrote.

“It is not racist or unkind to want to be safe from crime. No one should live in fear in our city.”

Let’s be clear here: Alameda County voters knew what they were getting when they elected Miss Price! As The Mercury News pointed out, she is a “longtime civil rights attorney, (who) was elected on a platform denouncing tough sentencing”. To anyone who has been paying attention, it will come as no surprise that, like so many other far-left prosecutors, Miss Price was the recipient of largesse from George Soros.

The group, along with Bishop Bob Jackson of the Acts Full Gospel Church, said Price’s unwillingness to charge and prosecute serious criminals, as reported by The Post, has created “the proliferation of anti-police rhetoric and created a heyday for Oakland criminals.”

The city’s 911 system also is failing its residents, while criminals know police response is usually slow since the city is suffering from a shortage of 500 officers, Oakland NAACP officials said in the letter.

As of July 16, robberies in Oakland have increased by 22% with 1,880 reports, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Crime overall was up 15% citywide and up 42% in total since the first half of 2021.

Let’s tell the truth here: everyplace that there has been a Soros-sponsored prosecutor elected, the results have been the same: significant increases in crime. What is also true is that the primary victims of the increases in crime have been the same minority communities that the left are supposedly trying to help. Miss Price

brokered a plea deal earlier this year that had many critics alarmed. The deal would have reduced sentencing in a triple murder case from 75 years to life in prison down to 15 years.

That deal would have allowed 31-year-old Delonzo Logwood out of prison by age 46 — if he wasn’t released even earlier under the Pyrite State’s lenient laws — an age at which he would still be quite physically active and likely to kill again. Fortunately the judge rejected the deal.

It’s actually pretty simple for the left: Mr Krasner, Miss Price, and the other Soros-sponsored prosecutors believe that “mass incarceration” has devastated black neighborhoods. What they can’t seem to get through their heads is that not locking up criminals has led to a different sort of devastation in black neighborhoods, the devastation wrought by increased murders, increased non-fatal shootings, assaults, robberies, and rapes. Zachary Faria wrote:

You do not need to look hard to find proof that the criminal justice reform movement is less about creating a more just legal system and more about fighting “mass incarceration” with pro-criminal policies. You simply need to look at how “reform” prosecutors treat murderers.

The latest example of this comes from Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, one of the many liberal prosecutors funded by Democratic megadonor and “reform” advocate George Soros . Price has previously announced that she was trying to seek non-prison punishments for gang members who shot and killed a toddler and dropped special circumstances against a convicted murderer, which removed the possibility of him serving a life sentence without parole.

Her latest entry in pro-criminal “prosecutions” comes in the case of Sergio Morales-Jacquez, who was 17 years old when he shot and killed newlywed Rienhart Asuncion in a road rage incident. Not even two weeks later, Morales-Jacquez and two other teenagers opened fire at a party in Oakland, resulting in the deaths of two teenagers.

That’s three murders that Morales-Jacquez directly participated in. But, because he was 17 and the criminal justice reform movement demands little to no accountability for juvenile offenders regardless of how heinous or violent their crime, Price refused to try him as an adult. Instead, she secured the now-18-year-old just a seven-year sentence in a juvenile facility, with the possibility of probation.

He’ll be out of prison juvie — and how wise is it to have an offender in his twenties in a juvenile facility? — by the time he’s 26, if not sooner, prime crime-committing years.

What Miss Price and the others have missed is that the people who have been convicted of felonies and imprisoned are almost all genuinely bad people. Sergio Morales-Jacquez is a genuinely bad person, and the odds are high that when he does get out, he will kill again. Will Miss Price be held accountable for any murders he commits when he gets out, when he could have been locked up for the rest of his miserable life?

We are finally seeing the minority communities begin to fight back. In Philadelphia, the more ‘progressive’ mayoral candidates, Helen Gym Flaherty and Rebecca Rhynhart McDuff, lost to Cherelle Parker Mullin in the Democratic primary, as Mrs Mullin campaigned on a tougher-on-crime platform. And now, the residents in the minority neighborhoods in Oakland are protesting Miss Price’s idiocy.

A lot of people in those neighborhoods don’t like the idea of ‘mass incarceration,’ but they are learning, the hard way, that being soft-on-crime has led to more crime. Bad guys who are in prison are not out on the streets, committing more crimes. The problem is not mass incarceration; the problem is that not enough people are incarcerated, for not a long enough time.
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Also posted on American Free News Network. Check out American Free News Network for more well written and well reasoned conservative commentary.

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Life is cheap in Lexington!

Axel Ndagijimana, photo via WKYT-TV.

On May 7, 2021, Axel Ndagijimana, then 21-years-old, was driving at nearly 80 MPH on West High Street, between Rupp Arena and Oliver Lewis Boulevard, when he lost control of his vehicle and ran off the right shoulder into a utility pole. There are warning signs in the area of an upcoming narrow bend to the left. Ralph Hirwa, aged 20 years, his passenger, never got the opportunity to turn 21.

Man charged in a deadly Lexington crash gets probation after pleading guilty

by Taylor Six | Monday, July 24, 2023 | 11:54 AM EDT | Updated: Tuesday, July 25, 2023 | 6:56 AM EDT

A man previously charged with second-degree manslaughter for his involvement in a deadly car crash has received three years of probation after pleading guilty to a lesser charge.

Axel Ndagijimana, 24, of Lexington, was arrested and charged in June 2021 after a passenger in his car died from injuries in a crash on West High Street. Ndagijimana’s was driving “at a high rate of speed” west on High Street before Oliver Lewis Way when he lost control and the vehicle ran off the right shoulder into a utility pole, police said. The crash killed 20-year-old Ralph Hirwa.

Ndagijimana was accused of driving more than 80 mph in a 25 mph zone at the time of the crash, and a blood test taken after the crash showed he had a blood-alcohol level of 0.159, a detective testified previously. The legal limit in Kentucky is 0.08.

His attorney, Bradley Clark, said his client made a “monumental error in judgment” by deciding to drive after drinking. Clark wrote that the death of Hirwa was a tragedy, and Ndagijimana had made amends to the victim’s family.

So, he was drunk as a skunk, with a BAC of twice the legal limit at however long after the accident the test was taken, yet driving anyway, in an area with narrow streets, at over 80 miles per hour. Sounds like an open-and-shut case to me!

Mr Ndagijimana was initially charged with KRS §507.040, manslaughter in the second degree, a Class C Felony. Under KRS §532.060(2)(c), a Class C Felony is punishable by “not less than five (5) years nor more than ten (10) years” in prison.

But Mr Ndagijimana was allowed to plead down to KRS §507.050, reckless homicide, which is a Class D Felony. Under KRS §532.060(2)(d), a Class D Felony is punishable by “not less than one (1) year nor more than five (5) years” behind bars.

In other words, Mr Ndagijimana was already given one break, a maximum sentence of five years.

Clark asked that Ndagijimana get probation. He said Ndagijimana had a low risk for reoffending and was in the United States on a student visa. If he were imprisoned, he’d be deported back to Rwanda, which he fled a decade ago amid civil war, Clark said in court documents.

Really? The Rwandan civil war ended in 1994, which is before Mr Ndagijimana was even born. From Wikipedia:

Within Rwanda, a period of reconciliation and justice began, with the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the reintroduction of Gacaca, a traditional village court system. Since 2000 Rwanda’s economy, tourist numbers, and Human Development Index have grown rapidly; between 2006 and 2011 the poverty rate reduced from 57% to 45%, while life expectancy rose from 46.6 years in 2000 to 65.4 years in 2021.

The United States Department of State Travel Advisory for Rwanda, dated October 22, 2022 and not subsequently updated, is set at Level One: Exercise Normal Precautions, noting only border area conflicts in the areas near Barundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Reporter Taylor Six’s report does not make it perfectly clear, but at least from the quoted paragraph, it would seem as though Mr Ndagijimana’s attorney, Bradley Clark, misrepresented the situation.

On Friday, Fayette Circuit Judge Kimberly Bunnell sentenced Ndagijimana to two and a half years in prison for an amended charge of reckless homicide, but probated the sentence for three years. He will be out of custody, but could be forced to serve the prison sentence if he violates his probation terms.

Ndagijimana was also convicted of driving under the influence, and was ordered to pay fines, according to the Fayette Commonwealth Attorney’s Office.

Not mentioned in the Lexington Herald-Leader’s story, but included in WKYT-TV’s version, Mr Ndagijimana will have to serve a whopping 30 days in jail.

And that’s it: 30 days behind bars for driving drunk and killing somebody.

But, of course, Mr Ndagijimana did say that he was very, very sorry!

“It is essential to emphasize that Axel has not shied away from his responsibility for the incident,” Clark wrote in a sentencing memorandum. “He stands before this court, acknowledging his error, not seeking to absolve himself of guilt, but pleading guilty to his charge. His acceptance of culpability is a testament to his remorse and personal integrity, even amidst the profound grief and regret that weigh heavily upon him.”

Does that make Mr Hirwa somehow less dead?

Is this justice?

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Another story you won’t find in The Philadelphia Inquirer (Alleged) criminal out on bail (allegedly) rapes 13-year-old girl, and the professional media are mostly quiet

We have previously noted that many people in the Philadelphia news media just don’t like Fox 29 News and reporter Steve Keeley. But when I found the story below thanks to a tweet from Fox 29, my natural inclination was to search The Philadelphia Inquirer’s website database for “Herbert Morrison”, I found exactly nothing on his current offense, though I was able to find a story on his prior offense.

Man out on bail for 2021 beating charged for rape of 13-year-old girl

Published July 13, 2023 6:29PM | Crime & Public Safety | FOX 29 Philadelphia

PHILADELPHIA – A Philadelphia man is back behind bars after authorities say he raped a teenage girl while he was out on bail for allegedly beating a man two years ago in Queen Village.

The Inquirer’s story on that is dated Sunday, August 22, 2021, and stated that the assault took place the previous Tuesday, the 17th. The obvious question becomes: why wasn’t Mr Morrison’s case tried or otherwise settled in the 23 months, almost two years, since his (alleged) offense?

Herbert Morrison turned himself in last Friday for the alleged sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl whom investigators say he met on Instagram.

Court documents show the sexual assault happened a month after the pair met while Morrison was out on bail for beating 40-year-old Zach Lean so severely he was in monthlong coma.

“One of them punched him in the head, knocked him to the ground, he hit his head on the curb and started having a seizure,” said his Zach’s wife Christine.

Mr Morrison was not some irresponsible 13-year-old punk, but legally an adult at 19, and the crimes with which he was charged, and the injuries he (allegedly) helped deal out to an innocent victim, were serious. Yet, after he made bail, there is no information in the Fox 29 story, or anywhere else I could find, telling us why Mr Morrison’s case hasn’t been tried yet. Mr Morrison had been charged with a violent crime, yet no one seemed to care that he had been left out on the streets.

Morrison, with the help of the Philadelphia Community Bail Fund, posted 10% of his $75k bail which released him back out into the public in August 2021. When reached for comment, the Philadelphia Community Bail Fund shared the following statement:

The mission of the Philadelphia Community Bail Fund is to end cash bail and pretrial detention in our city. Until that day, we post bail for our neighbors who cannot afford to pay. In addition to posting bail, we offer support to those we bail out to help them rebuild their lives and successfully return to court. We also value trauma support for victims and those who cause harm so everyone can heal by providing connections to practitioners of victim support, restorative justice, and counseling. We envision a justice system built around restorative justice practices that support and prioritize victims’ needs while holding those who have caused harm accountable and providing them opportunities to take responsibility for their actions. We do not comment on individual decisions to post bail, and we are unaware of the facts of the current incident involving Mr. Morrison. However, we are troubled that a young person was harmed, and we hope they and their family can find the healing and support they deserve.

Every time I see the phrase “restorative justice,” I know that I bovine feces is about to follow. Holding those who have caused harm accountable is done by putting them in jail!

The Philadelphia Community Bail Fund “hope” that the 13-year-old rape victim and her family “can find the healing and support they deserve”?

“I feel like he killed my daughter, and she’s not the same,” the victim’s mother said. “She has her happy days, but it’s something that won’t leave her, it’s something that will stay with her for the rest of her life.”

The victim has been injured in ways that go far beyond the physical trauma, ways which might stay with her for decades, perhaps for as long as she lives. What “restorative justice” can heal that? Is the victim supposed to sit down with the punk who raped her — that’s supposed to be a part of “restorative justice” — and listen as he makes a (supposedly) heartfelt apology?

Under Pennsylvania Title 18 §3122.1(a), the alleged crime is a second-degree felony. Under Title 30 §923(a)(9), the penalty is “a fine of not less than $5,000 nor more than $25,000, or imprisonment not exceeding ten years, or both.” For the sexual assault of a 13-year-old, that penalty seems insufficient. If it could be upgraded to a first-degree felony, the sentence could be twenty years. With his previous charges, perhaps he could be locked up even longer, which would be great, because let’s tell the truth here: this man person is irredeemable and irretrievably lost.

The Inquirer? The Fox 29 story was dated last Thursday; if the Inky was going to cover it, it would already have been done. If you only got your news from the Inquirer, you’d never have known that Mr Morrison was charged with sexually assaulting a 13-year-old at all. The professional media in the City of Brotherly Love don’t like Fox 29 News, but at least Fox 29 actually reports the news, and doesn’t try to hide it.

Mr Morrison is, of course, innocent until proven guilty, but if he is proven guilty, the Commonwealth needs to throw the book at him. “Restorative justice”? One can only hope that news that her assailant will be going to jail for a long, long time will help heal the 13-year-old rape victim, but who can know if that will actually happen? But the longer the assailant is behind bars, the safer the people of Philadelphia will be.

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It doesn’t matter how smart a criminal is, eventually he will do something boneheadedly stupid

Can we tell the truth here? Most criminals get caught because they are just plain stupid.

There can’t be more than 14 people in the country who haven’t heard about Hunter Biden’s laptop, which he took to a computer repair shop, and simply abandoned there. Mr Biden is a cocaine addict, so it’s entirely possible that he just forgot about leaving it there, but it eventually became public knowledge that it was left there, and that the contents were made public.

So, if you were a homosexual male who not only drugged and raped random men, but put the evidence on your laptop, would you send the hard drive out for repair?

Former Louisiana Catholic priest pleads guilty to drugging and molesting 17 men, sentenced to prison

Stephen Sauer was sentenced to 25 years in prison for crimes such as sexual battery, rape and video voyeurism

By Greg Wehner | Fox News | Sunday, July 9, 2023 | 9:52 PM EDT

Stephen Sauer, photo by Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office and is a public record.

A former Louisiana priest pleaded guilty to drugging and molesting 17 men he picked up in the French Quarter and was sentenced on Friday to 25 years in prison.Stephen Sauer, 61, of Metairie admitted that he targeted men who looked lost or intoxicated. He would then drug the men as he offered them help, sometimes putting drugs in their drinks at bars.

Other times, the former Catholic priest used an eyedropper to feed sleep-inducing substances to men who passed out from alcohol, according to a press release from Jefferson Parish District Attorney Paul D. Connick, Jr.’s office.

Investigators with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office learned that Sauer shared the images on a website, and sometimes traded images with others using email.

The DA’s office said many of the victims were from out of state, separated from their friends, or lost when Sauer approached them.

There’s more at the original. And then there’s this, from The Washington Post:

Soccer coach’s lost phone contained videos of him raping boys, police say

By Annabelle Timsit | Monday, July 10, 2023 | 8:43 AM EDT

A soccer coach in Tennessee has been arrested after police said they found hundreds of videos and images of him appearing to rape unconscious boys on a phone he left behind at a restaurant.

Police in Franklin, Tenn., said in a Sunday statement that Camilo Hurtado Campos, 63, recruited boys onto his soccer team and then sexually abused them. They said Campos drugged and raped at least 10 boys as young as 9 years old and recorded footage ofhis crimes.

He is being held in custody on charges of raping a child and sexually exploiting a minor, police said. In Tennessee, rape of a child is a Class A felony that carries a minimum sentence of 25 years in prison. Sexual exploitation of a minor is a Class B felony when the suspect possesses more than 100 images or materials that show a minor engaged in sexual activity. . . . .

Police said employees at a local restaurant found a customer’s phone and went through it to try to reach the owner so they could return it. After stumbling upon “unconscionable videos and pictures of children,” they called the police, the department said.

Detectives found “hundreds of disturbing videos and pictures” on the phone, the department said. “In many of them, Campos recorded himself raping unconscious boys between approximately 9 and 17 years old,” its statement said.

There’s more at the original.

So, Mr Sauer sent his computer hard drive to someone else, to someone he knew would look through it, while Mr Campos kept images on his cell phone, and then got careless and just left it around. An obvious question would be: why would Mr Campos want to carry those images around portably?

Both of the accused are in their early sixties, which raises another obvious question: for how long had they actually been doing this stuff before they were caught? Do men guys suddenly wake up in their late fifties/early sixties and say, ‘I think I’ll take a walk on the wild side’ and ‘Where can I get me some rape drugs?’ Mr Sauer was formerly a Catholic priest, who had served as pastor of Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church in New Orleans from 2008 to 2012. He was a Jesuit, who left the order at his own request in 2020, and Jesuits are not stupid, but well-educated men. All priests are well-educated, as seminary is more than just prayer and contemplation, but an intellectually rigorous collegiate education.

Yet he got caught because he somehow felt compelled to do something just boneheadedly stupid.

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Lock him up, and throw away the key

Adam Jakub Wieser, photo by Fayette County Detention Center, and is a public record.

Meet Adam Jakub Wieser, or at least meet his mugshot. If Mr Wieser is in fact guilty of the charges against him — and he is innocent until proven guilty — I would hope that you would never meet him in person, unless you happen to be a prison guard.

Charge: Lexington child care center director sexually assaulted 4-year-old in his office

by Valarie Honeycutt Spears | Monday, July 10, 2023 | 8:14 AM EDT | Updated: 12:20 PM EDT

A director at a Lexington child care and education center has been charged with raping a 4-year-old girl in his office, according to a police citation.

Adam Wieser, 27, was charged Friday with first-degree rape and first-degree sexual abuse of a child under 12 in a May 1 incident at the victim’s school. He was in the Fayette County Detention Center Monday, according to jail records.

Sharon Price, director of the Community Action Council which oversees the child care center, said the organization considers the safety and security of Head Start students its top priority. The Community Action Council received a report about the site director at One Parent Scholar House and immediately removed him from the position, Price said.

The Community Action Council made a formal report to the appropriate regulatory agencies, she said. . . . .

On Friday, the council learned that criminal charges were brought against Wieser as a result of the ensuing investigation.

The police citation said Wieser engaged in sexual intercourse with a 4-year-old girl and also had sexual contact with her. He touched her inappropriately, the citation said.

According to the Fayette County Detention Center website, Mr Wieser remains incarcerated, with bail set at $150,000.

Mr Wieser is charged with:

  • KRS §510.040 Rape, First Degree. Rape in the first degree is a Class B Felony, unless the victim is under 12 years old or receives a serious physical injury, in which case it becomes a Class A Felony. Under KRS §532.060, the sentence for a Class A Felony is not less than twenty (20) years nor more than fifty (50) years, or life imprisonment.
  • KRS §510.110 Sexual Abuse, First Degree. Sexual abuse in the first degree is a Class D Felony, unless the victim is under 12 years old, in which case it becomes a Class C Felony. Under KRS §532.060, the sentence for a Class C Felony is not less than five (5) years nor more than ten (10) years imprisonment.

According to the Detention Center’s records, Mr Weiser, who will ‘celebrate’ his 28th birthday this coming Friday, is 6’3″ tall and weighs 215 lb. To a 4-year-old girl, he must have seemed a veritable giant! If he is actually guilty, he could get out of jail when he is still just 48 years old, and even that assumes that he would not have early release credits.

If this gentleman is guilty, he should be sentenced to the maximum of 50 years on the first degree rape charge, and 10 years on the first degree sexual abuse charge, with the sentences to run consecutively. Everything that can be done under the law to keep this man person locked up for the rest of his miserable life needs to be done.

And the last thing that should happen is for the Commonwealth’s Attorney to offer him a lenient plea deal.

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Killadelphia: What the Philly media won’t tell us

With the Kingsessing mass shooting being a Philadelphia story, it’s unsurprising that The Philadelphia Inquirer would have several follow-up stories on it.

As soon as the name of Kimbrady Carriker was released, his social media were investigated, and photos of Mr Carriker in female dress led to immediate speculation that he was, like Audrey Hale in Nashville, yet another transgender killer. Well, that led to Philly officials quickly denying it:

While he acknowledged the social media images that appear to show Carriker wearing women’s clothing and jewelry, Asa Khalif, a member of the LGBTQ advisory committee for the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, condemned the “violent” language coming from the “conservative press” about Carriker’s gender identity and shared what the district attorney’s office knows firsthand about Carriker’s gender identity.

“Appear to show”? No, there’s no “appear to show” here, but actually show. Why would Mr Khalif, who supports the homosexual and transgender community, and must surely not be offended by, or see anything wrong, with cross-dressing, want to mealy-mouth things?

“The suspect has not identified themselves as trans. They have only identified themselves as male,” Khalif said at Wednesday’s news conference. “But the language spewed out by the conservative press is violent and is dangerous, and it’s targeting trans women of color. It’s rallying the community to be violent, and we’re better than that.”

I saw a video of Mr Khalif’s statement, and while he stated that Mr Carriker had not identified as transgender or anything other than male, I also noticed that he went out of his way to use “they/them” pronouns to refer to the suspect. Did Mr Carriker express a preference for such to be used? If so, it hasn’t made the credentialed press, but speaking with the District Attorney at his side, he might have been clued in to something the DA’s office knew but hasn’t been made public.

Khalif condemned those who label trans people as “killers.”

“They are the most vulnerable to violence,” he said. “They want to live their lives, and they have every right to do so, and we will not allow conservative bigots to use that type of language to attack trans people.”

District Attorney Larry Krasner expressed similar sentiments.

“There are some people for whom hate is a full-time job,” Krasner said. “And if they can stay away from the facts and talk about nonsense, that’s what they’re going to do.”

Mr Khalif, who tweeted on the Fourth of July, “So when i say Fuck The Police..don’t tell me that’s disrespectful..the violence against black people is beyond disrespectful!”, keeps telling us, through multiple tweets, and retweets that the alleged shooter isn’t transgender. The Philadelphia Inquirer also jumped on that bandwagon:

Conservative media outlets claimed Carriker was transgender based on Facebook photos of him dressed in feminine clothing. However, Carriker is identified as male on public records and district attorney officials said Wednesday that he identifies as male.

I actually avoided making such a claim, writing on Independence Day:

Everybody who pays any attention to Philadelphia news had heard, hours before the Post’s article was time-stamped, that the (alleged) shooter has been identified as Kimbrady Carriker, a 40-year-old black male, and he has a history of posting photos of himself on Facebook in women’s clothing, including earrings, tank tops, and at least one in which the outlines of a bra are showing. It has not been reported that he somehow thinks he’s really a woman, whether he’s just a cross-dresser, or whether he’s just clowning around, but that’s part of what we do know, and have known since well before the Post updated this article, yet the newspaper has kept this information from readers, readers who are paying good money for their subscriptions, because, Heaven forfend!, it isn’t politically correct.

But, you know what I also haven’t seen in the Philly media? You know what Mr Khalif, a member of the LGBTQ advisory committee for District Attorney Larry Krasner, hasn’t yet told us? Mr Carriker’s grandmother said that he was homosexual:

Ms Carriker said her grandson was gay and would sometimes dress in women’s clothing, but had not undergone gender transition surgery or treatment.

She said she made it clear to Carriker that she disapproved of him wearing women’s clothes due to her Christian beliefs.

“I saw him one time in female clothes, and from the expression on my face, from that point on, he never came in female clothes around me because he knew how I felt about it,” she told The Independent.

“He was trying to find himself. He didn’t know where he belonged. I used to talk to him about it, but he didn’t like to converse with me about things like that.”

The Philadelphia media, so quick to tell us some of Mr Carriker’s political views, his support for the Second Amendment, admiration of Tucker Carlson, and hating of President Biden, but soft-peddling his support of #BlackLivesMatter and the riots in many cities in the wake of the unfortunate death during the arrest of the methamphetamine-and-fentanyl-addled convicted felon George Floyd, and telling us that he wasn’t transgendered, never mentioned, at least as far as I could find, that he is homosexual. It took a report from a newspaper in London, England, for us to get that news.

It is not a surprise to anyone who pays attention to the Philly media that they would keep such under wraps.

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Out-of-control ‘wilding’ teens run Wawa out of Center City, so Josh Kruger blames not the brats, but Wawa

I’ve said it before: Wawa coffee is the best you can buy! Better than Starbucks, better than Doughdaddy’s, better than Dunkin’ Donuts. And in Philadelphia, Wawa sponsors the Independence Day fireworks, as though the city can’t produce fireworks on its own. But Josh Kruger is mad at Wawa!

Hey Wawa, we’ll take Center City stores over fireworks, please

The way Wawa has treated us is hardly worth a parade or fireworks or title sponsor recognition.

by Josh Kruger | Independence Day, July 4, 2023 | 6:00 AM EDT

By now, you’ve seen the commercials and swirling, groovy banners for Wawa Hoagiefest. You might’ve even eaten one of the beloved local brand’s sandwiches at a discount as part of this year’s 15th anniversary of “Hoagie Love” — at least that’s what the convenience chain calls it. Or maybe you’re participating in any one of over 40 Wawa Welcome America community events celebrating America’s independence.

That’s all well and good — if you don’t mind fraternizing with a company that sees you as the enemy.

If you’re confused, that’s OK. I, too, was disconcerted when I came to the realization that Wawa is no good anymore.

Really, folks, if we have any respect for ourselves, we’ll stop this charade and simply speak the truth: It’s time that we as a city broke up with the idea that we are into Wawa because Wawa is definitely not into us. Not when it counts, at least.

Good heavens, what has Wawa done that has so upset Mr Kruger? After a paragraph in which he trashes Wawa’s quick foods, he continued:

Bad food is one thing. Bad manners exhibited by a company that scapegoats the community we live, work, and play in is another matter altogether. This, unlike the terrible food, is personal.

You might remember this dastardly move as Wawa announced the closure of some Center City locations, citing public safety concerns. Just recently, it announced the impending July 16 closure of the landmark Second and South Streets location, too, following neighborhood complaints of public disorder and crime.

After news of the first two closures, The Inquirer’s own Editorial Board somberly wept that the action was a “dire statement about public safety in Philadelphia.”

To me, it was more a dire statement about the ethics of the privately held corporation’s executive leadership.

One would hope that this alleged “dire statement about the ethics of the privately held corporation’s executive leadership” is a statement that the corporation’s executive leadership doesn’t want to see its employees assaulted, injured, or even killed. Such would seem to me to be a pretty positive statement about the leadership!

Mr Kruger combitched that, Heaven forfend!, Wawa was moving into more suburban areas, and starting to sell gasoline. As we have previously noted, at least some Wawas are also installing Tesla charging stations. Gosh, moving into areas with less crime, and meeting a potential customer demand? How evil is that!?!

But then the author complained that Wawa was moving into other dangerous areas:

Also see: Robert Stacy McCain: Democrats Kill Each Other in Baltimore; Mayor Blames … Texas, Florida, Alabama?

In 2019, Wawa cheerily announced it was expanding into Baltimore, despite Baltimore’s murder rate of 58 homicides per 100,000 residents. Philly’s rate was a comparatively less horrific 22 that year. Likewise, Wawa has moved aggressively into locations in Florida — such as Jacksonville, where the homicide rate is only slightly better than Philly’s. Other Florida cities like Miami Gardens — also home to multiple Wawas — have homicide rates that are nearly identical to Philly’s.

This is hugely oversimplistic. Yes, the homicide rate in ‘Charm City,’ as Baltimore has sometimes been called, is horrible, far, far worse than Philly’s, but it isn’t just the homicide rate. The editorial Mr Kruger cited pointed out:

The closings come just weeks after about 100 teens ransacked a Wawa in Mayfair. In February, a man was stabbed to death outside of a Wawa in South Philadelphia. On Thursday, a Wawa employee in University City was pepper sprayed during a robbery involving five suspects. In 2020, Wawa cited the pandemic as the reason to close its flagship store at Broad and Walnut Streets.

What foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia is seeing is not just a terrible homicide and shooting rate, but stores robbed and simply trashed, and a law enforcement system that just flat doesn’t care. Philadelphia’s District Attorney, Larry Krasner, a police-hating former defense mouthpiece who believes in ‘restorative justice‘ rather than punishing criminals, has aided and abetted the crime, and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw is, put as charitably as possible, overworked and overwhelmed in Philly, though many would say that she’s just plain incompetent and marking time until she can get another job. The Philadelphia Police Department is seriously undermanned, and crimes like ransacking a Wawa just fall far down the ladder in police priorities.

Then there’s Mayor Jim Kenney, who has just plain checked out, marking time until he’s no longer in the job. Mr Kenney says stuff, but doesn’t actually do anything.

With all that money coming in, you’re telling me the company had no more resources to devote to safety in Philly? Was it even efficiently protecting Philly stores?

Can we tell the truth here? The out-of-control teens who have been trashing the Center City stores have been primarily out-of-control black teens, and any resources that Wawa put into “efficiently protecting (its) Philly stores” would quickly be characterized as racist attempts to keep black teens out of the stores, and the Inquirer, the Editorial Board of which so lamented the closing of Center City Wawas, would be among the first to point that out. A committed leftist — or so I judge from his Twitter feed — Mr Kruger probably would as well.

You know, I get it: Mr Kruger, who has admitted that he “used to do a lot of meth,” loves his Wawa coffee — I do, too, and was heartened by the news that Wawa is expanding into the Bluegrass State — but he’s blaming Wawa and its corporate executives for abandoning Center City, when the truth is that Philadelphians, the out-of-control teens and the rotten parents who reared them, have actually run Wawa off.

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Crime, like any other cancer, left untreated, metastasizes Philadelphians have no one else to blame; they've done this to themselves

I have previously said that the greatest loss I have suffered in moving away from the Keystone State was the loss of freshly baked, hot Philadelphia pretzels. Coming in as a close second is the loss of Wawa coffee. Yes, you can buy Wawa coffee in K-cups, but even though we use filtered water in our Keurig, it just isn’t the same.

Wawa in Philly’s Headhouse Square to close

Neighborhood groups had complained to Wawa about aggressive panhandling, crime, and drug use at the store.

by Mike Newall | Friday, June 16, 2023 | 11:15 AM EDT

The Headhouse Square Wawa will close July 16, a company official told The Inquirer. The move comes after neighborhood associations had complained to Wawa about aggressive panhandling, crime, and drug use at the store and outside on the sidewalk.

The site will become the sixth Center City Wawa to shutter since 2020.

“While closing a store is always a difficult decision to make, Wawa constantly conducts careful and extensive evaluations of business performance and operational challenges of all stores on an ongoing basis,” said Wawa spokesperson Lori Bruce in a statement Friday, confirming the pending closure of the Wawa at Second and Lombard. “We continue to invest in our home market of Philadelphia.”

Also see: Ben Mannes on Broad + Liberty: Can cities rebound from lawlessness to cultures of responsibility and compliance?

This isn’t exactly a poor neighborhood! A 585 ft² rear apartment is listed for $305,000, while a 4 bedroom, 5 bathroom, 2,516 ft² upscale row house, with basement parking, is listed for $1,270,000. Yet the area is suffering from street crime and junkies. Who wants to fork out well over a million bucks to be tripping over junkies laying out in the street?

Joe Dain, cofounder of the Delancey Square Town Watch, which was formed earlier this year, said his group and other neighborhood organizations had met with Wawa officials in April to discuss ongoing concerns at the Headhouse Square Wawa. By that time, the company, he said, had already taken measures to curb panhandlers and other public nuisance issues, including curtailing its hours, hiring private security and working with city police to provide patrols.

“There were certainly efforts being made,” Dain said. “What we were addressing was the fact that more needed to be done.”

Wawa notified the group that it would be instead closing the location, he said. The closure will be only the latest vacancy to hit the historic cobblestone district. A CVS across the street from the Wawa also closed its doors in recent years. The drugstore had been battling many of the same concerns, Dain said. In 2019, Giant Heirloom said it planned to open a supermarket at Abbotts Square at Second and South, around the corner, but that project has since fallen through. The property sits vacant.

Crime affects everybody, not just the immediate victims. Owners see the value of their properties decline, shoppers have fewer options, including the loss of Wawa coffee, and things just generally deteriorate. Trouble is, among the good Democrats of the 5th Ward, which includes Headhouse Square, sort-of progressive but not wild-eyed crazy Rebecca Rhynhart McDuff received 4,777, 47.1%, of the votes in the May primary, while police-hating, hard, hard left progressive Helen Gym Flaherty came in second at 2,908, 28.7%. Primary winner Cherelle Parker Mullin, who campaigned on fighting crime among other things, came in fourth, with 931 votes, 9.2%.

The adjacent 2nd, 8th, and 30th showed similar results.

Simply put, the liberal Democratic voters of the area voted for their own problems!

Wawa has been shrinking its Center City presence.

In October, when Wawa announced it was closing stores at 12th and Market Streets and 19th and Market Streets, the company cited “continued safety and security closures.

Then, even further down, we get to the part where the Inquirer amused me:

Dain, of the Delancey Square Town Watch, said the Headhouse Square store had become more of a problem for residents in recent years.

“We would have groups of kids coming in and ransacking the place at night,” he said. Some of the panhandlers that often congregated outside the store had become aggressive, he said. The store had also become a gathering spot for people in addiction, he said, who would then camp in the historic Shambles structure or by the Headhouse Square Fountain.

“(P)eople in addiction”? That isn’t listed as a direct quote, and I had to chuckle; is that the newspaper’s stylebook phrase for junkies?

This is what you get when you tolerate crime, even the ‘little’ crimes, in what have been mostly minority neighborhoods. Sure, junkies camping out on the streets at Kensington and Allegheny Avenues aren’t bothering anyone in Center City . . . until now, they do. Someone knocking over a bodega in North Philly doesn’t really concern the people in Headhouse Square, and doesn’t even make the news unless a Temple University student gets hurt, so they can safely vote for soft-on-crime, police hating politicians like Mrs Flaherty, or District Attorney Larry Krasner, but crime, like any other cancer left untreated, metastasizes.