Solutions to reduce street crime

Not long ago, I was playing golf, and got chased into a gazebo by a passing shower. Three other men, all Black, also took shelter. I didn't know them; they didn't know me. They talked, and I just listened. One of the men said he had worked as an Illinois prison guard. A second, indicated that he had taught in the Chicago school system for 20 years. Both began talking about "gangs." The man who worked at Thomson said that if you wanted to survive in prison, you had to pick your gang. The teacher said that the same was true in the minority neighborhoods of Chicago.


Their point was that, either in Thomson prison or the minority neighborhoods of Chicago, trying to survive without joining a gang was to invite retribution of all the gangs. The teacher put much of the blame on crack cocaine. He said it destroyed families and minority neighborhoods which had previously been safe places to raise a family. Why the men chose to discuss these matters in front of me, I don't know.


But from my experience on the bench, what they said had the ring of truth. Then, one of my retired colleagues sent me an article that appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times on July 6, entitled, "Chicago's most violent weekend of 2021: 104 shot, 19 of them killed. 13 kids among the wounded."


The Sun-Times states that, "Through July 4, ... 2,019 people have been shot in Chicago this year, an increase of almost 13%, compared to the year before, and a 58% increase in shootings compared with 2019.

• " ... a 15-year old boy was critically hurt in a drive-by shooting...."

• That followed an attack when "two people were killed and four wounded, including a 12-year-old girl, and a 13-year-old boy in Washington Park on the South Side."


• "That happened around the same time that a 6-year-old girl and a woman were shot in West Pullman, and about four hours after an 11-year-old boy and a man were shot in Brainerd on the South Side."

• "A 21-year-old man, shot twice in the head, and a 26-year-old man, shot in the torso, were pronounced dead ...."

My colleague asked me, "What's the solution?"


I would begin by asking, "Who do we want to run the prisons? The guards or the inmates? Who do we want controlling the streets of Chicago? The gangs or the police?


The statistics cited by the Sun-Times provide the obvious answer for any rational person: We want the guards to run the prisons; we want the police to run the streets. But America is a democratic republic, and the voters can choose to live in cities without police protection. They can do that by electing idiots as their mayors and members of their city council. Once in office, these idiots can defund the police, strip away their immunity, prohibit the use of force by policemen and prohibit "stop-and-frisk."

That is what is happening in Chicago, New York, Portland, San Francisco, Minneapolis, etc.


In defunding and defanging the police, these idiots create a vacuum, which is quickly filled by the gangs. The results are always predictable. Over the 4th, in Chicago the result was "104 shot, 19 of them killed. 13 kids among the wounded." How many of these were shot by gang-bangers? Were any shot by police officers?


So what is my solution? My solution would include at least the following:


1. Adequately fund the police;


2. Hire enough police officers to do the job;


3. Train them to be high-quality, color-blind policemen — to judge by character.


4. Keep [or reinstate] "qualified police immunity." If an officer is going to face personal liability and jury trial every time he uses force, or intervenes in good faith, no officer in his right mind will risk using force.


5. Reinstate the use of "stop-and-frisk." No citizen likes to be stopped and frisked by an officer who believes he has reasonable grounds or a reasonable suspicion for doing a pat-down search. But gang members don't buy guns the way law-abiding citizens do. They acquire their guns via theft or the black market. A pat-down search is only a slight, albeit unpleasant, inconvenience for a person not carrying a gun. A cop cannot find what isn't there. But to the gang member carrying a gun illegally, it poses a grave risk of jail or prison. Illegal possession is an easy crime to prove. It is the most effective means of gun control for those who would illegally acquire guns. The choice is clear: brief, unpleasant inconvenience, or "104 shot, 19 of them killed. 13 kids among the wounded."


6. When officers go beyond the "qualified immunity" accorded them by the U.S. Supreme Court, prosecute them to insure public confidence in the justice system.


7. And perhaps most importantly, don't vote for idiots. Judge candidates by their character.

Copyright 2021, John Donald O'Shea

First Published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus on July 22, 2021

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A Formula to Stop Violence

The Dispatch-Argus wrote last month of "an altercation among large groups of people," during which nearly 80 shots were fired in Davenport's Redstone parking ramp. "No one was known to be injured" but windows in the Figge Art Museum and the Davenport Sky Bridge were damaged.

An "altercation?" Really? I thought an "altercation" was a "noisy argument or disagreement." When 80 shots are fired it's a hell of a lot more than an argument.

Davenport's police chief, the NAACP and Davenport Peace decried the violence.

Decrying violence and/or praying for peace isn't going to get the job done.

The city has asked for help from Gov. Kim Reynolds and Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst. The city wants federal help and has asked the governor to send in Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation personnel to help with the forensics.

My mother used to say, "God helps those who help themselves."

Don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with getting forensic help from the Iowa DCI, the FBI or ATF. Careful gathering of evidence at a crime scene, and carefully analyzing evidence is always sound police practice. Getting help from experts is a good idea. But the prosecution of crime in Scott County is primarily a local issue. That means the job of prosecuting Scott County criminals is primarily the job of the local (Davenport) police, and the Scott County Attorney — and not the governor, the U.S. senators, the NAACP, social workers, BLM or President Joe Biden. And crime isn't a matter of black or white. When 80 shots are fired in a downtown parking ramp, it is a matter of miscreants wantonly endangering human life — including entirely innocent human life — and property.

The age-old purposes of having criminal laws are straight forward:

(1) Protect the public — the decent law-abiding families in the community.  

(2) Punish the offender with penalties commensurate to the crime.
(3) Deter the defendant and others from committing like crimes.
(4) Place the criminal in the facility best suited to his rehabilitation, taking account of the nature and circumstances of his crime.

If you want a formula to stop this armed violence? Here it is:

(1) When there has been an arrest, set the bond at a level commensurate with the intentional, wanton or reckless harm — or threat of harm — to the public. Pre-trial release is generally a worthy goal, but it must be balanced against the need to protect the public — especially, if the evidence of guilt of a wanton, dangerous crime of violence is great. Strike the balance.

(2) If you are a prosecutor, prosecute. Think open plea or trial, rather than plea bargain — unless you get almost exactly what you want. A criminal who wantonly sprays the neighborhood with gun fire deserves to be hammered. Your primary job is to protect the public from such miscreants. The punishment must be such that it will guarantee the defendant will not again have the chance to repeat his crime in the near future. And it must be sufficiently severe to deter every other gang-banger in the city. They have to fear that if they commit a like crime and get caught, they will lose their freedom for a substantial period. Eschew any plea bargain that does not accomplish this end. And, very importantly, if trial is required, bring the case to trial within 60 days. The longer the case sits, the greater the chance of witnesses disappearing or being intimidated.

(3) If you are the judge, give the guy a fair trial, but remember that you can undo all the good work of the police and the prosecutor by imposing a sentence not commensurate with protecting the public, punishing the wanton act, and deterring the defendant and others. Where the criminal acts, like those in the present case, intentionally, wantonly and/or recklessly endanger the lives not only of the intended victim(s), but every other innocent man, woman and child within the range of the gun shots, make your record to show that in the case, on balance, protecting the public, punishing the criminal and deterring the defendant and others are substantially more important than worrying about the possible, and perhaps illusory, rehabilitation of the defendant. In cases of this sort, there are few good excuses for not bringing the case to trial within 60 days.

No continuance should be for more than two weeks.

This sort of crime won't be stopped by well-meaning social workers, or insane schemes to "defund the police." The choice is clear: make criminal activity too dangerous to engage in, or become the next Portland.

Copyright 2021, John Donald O'Shea

First Published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus on July 8, 2021

Copyright 2021

John Donald O'Shea