On November 21, in Wisconsin, in the Great Lakes region of the United States, a red SUV passed through roadblocks and police officers and rushed into the annual festival parade in Waukesha County, a suburb of Milwaukee, causing 6 deaths and dozens of injuries.
Darrell Brooks, the 39-year-old perpetrator, is a habitual offender. He only used his red Ford Sharp SUV to crush his ex-girlfriend at a gas station on November 2. Now it can be considered a repeat of the old trick. But annoyingly, he was arrested for assaulting and beating his ex-girlfriend, but he was released on bail for only $1,000, and then committed the “road killing” the next day.
After being caught again, he was set a high bail threshold of 5 million US dollars-5000 times the bail a few days ago. What awaits him is also likely to be sentenced to life imprisonment. But all this is too late for the people who died tragically under his wheels.
Bail out doubts
Darrell Brooks, who owns a red SUV, is a black rapper who hates whites, nicknamed MathBoi Fly.
He was born and raised in Milwaukee, which is the largest city and Lake Harbor in Wisconsin, and its economic output accounts for more than 45% of the entire Wisconsin. According to the latest statistics, white residents account for 44.4% of the city’s population, and blacks account for 38.8%.
In 2016, when police officers intercepted and searched a suspicious car in a black colony in Milwaukee, two men got out of the car and fled. The police officer shot and killed the 23-year-old man armed with a gun. The pistol he was holding was later found to be a lost gun in a theft case. It stands to reason that this kind of thing in law enforcement is not outrageous, but it still attracted hundreds of blacks to be beaten and burnt on the street in protest.
Affected by such an environment, it is difficult for Darrell Brooks to have a criminal record.
His criminal history can be traced back to 1999, when he was convicted of a serious assault. In 2002, he was convicted of possession of marijuana. After that, he was twice convicted of obstructing police officers. In November 2006, he pleaded guilty to sexual temptation-he was accused of having consensual sex with a 15-year-old girl and getting her pregnant with a child. He was sentenced to probation.
In 2010, he was charged with strangulation and asphyxiation. The following year, he was charged again with possession of marijuana. Then came a series of charges. In 2016, he was also wanted by Nevada for not complying with sex offender laws.
Even more exciting: On July 24, 2020, he shot his nephew Anaji while arguing over his mobile phone. He was therefore charged with two counts of using dangerous weapons and one felony of possession of a firearm. However, due to the strange operation of the prosecutor, his bail threshold dropped from US$7,500 to only US$500. In February 2021, he paid bail. In September, his nephew Anaji pleaded with the judge to issue a no-contact order to his uncle.
What is even more bizarre is that he drove his son’s biological mother in early November. According to the ex-girlfriend, she has known him since childhood, and he disappeared when their son was almost 3 months old. So, it may be that since the emotional dispute is not like murder, a Milwaukee court allowed Darrell to be released on bail of $1,000. Milwaukee District Attorney John Chisholm said he will launch an investigation to clarify the reasons for the bail decision.
The Waukesha County police stated that the 11.21 incident was not a terrorist attack and the suspect may have been involved in a family disturbance in advance. But obviously, driving toward the dance groups, high school bands, and politicians that are marching along the main street is not as simple as “escaping from another crime scene and accidentally hitting someone.” How many elements of revenge against society are in this, as well as his status as a black habitual offender that has been obscured by the media, are worthy of further discussion.
Judicial correction?
In the judicial disposal of the United States, the court’s earlier “tolerance” is not an isolated case of repeated criminals such as Darrell Brooks. On November 9 this year, Alton Spann, who shot and killed Chinese student Zheng Shaoxiong near the University of Chicago campus, was also a black habitual offender. He was also on parole in the previous case when he committed the crime.
Why is parole abused? Partly because the Democratic Party wants to please black groups who protest against the “racial imbalance in prison.” In fact, since Democrat Chisholm was first elected as Milwaukee County District Attorney in 2007, inappropriate and dangerous low-bail-bond proposals have been a sign of his office’s reform.
As one of the first progressive reformers elected as the chief prosecutor of a major city in the United States, Chisholm almost immediately implemented the “evidence-based approach” and implemented the “Deferred Prosecution and Early Intervention Program” aimed at getting suspects out of prison. Its office no longer requires family members to pay high bail for suspects or even no longer prosecute them for crimes.
Prosecutor Chisholm refused to admit that his reforms were failing, calling it “a deliberately manipulated terrible story about rising crime.” He said: “We can never underestimate the power of fear to create bad policies.”
Chisholm understands that this kind of “returning the tiger to the mountains” will result in the loss of the innocent, but he believes that this is a necessary sacrifice because it can “stop mass incarceration.”
As a result, more than 200 people in its jurisdiction have been charged with serious crimes such as sexual assault felony, armed robbery, severe assault on police officers, child abuse felony, and large-scale trafficking in cocaine, but have never been prosecuted. A suspect who had admitted to sexually assaulting a two-year-old girl had never served a day in jail because a psychologist had testified to help him out.
Another suspect faces a felony charge of cocaine trading, and less than six months later steals another car, violating his agreement to postpone the prosecution. But instead of prosecuting him for these two crimes, the assistant district attorney extended the deferred prosecution agreement against him for drug charges and gave him a new agreement that also involved allegations of car theft. The suspect, who was supposed to have served more than 13 years in prison, now only has to pay $123 in court fees.
Chisholm boasts that his office is “committed to reforming and redesigning our systems to achieve more just results”, and for this “prosecutors prioritize addressing the root causes of criminal behavior—drug use, mental health issues—and look for The substitution of punishment is true even for some violent criminals.” The advocate wrote: “Under his supervision, the total number of misdemeanor prosecutions in Milwaukee County has dropped from 9,000 to 5,200… Since 2006, the number of African-American residents sent to state prisons on drug charges in the county, Cut it by half.”
The goal of “minimizing sending people to jail” has been achieved, but what is the original intention of “maintaining public safety”? The Massif Institute found that a person who raped a child returned to Milwaukee Street after paying $750 bail. On the other hand, the felony charge of hit-and-run causing injury requires only $250 to be released on bail; while hit-and-run, resulting in death, only need bail of US$5,000. So, what’s weird about Darrell Brooks, who was released on bail for $1,000 after he smashed his ex-girlfriend while driving, and then knocked down dozens of people?
With so many violent criminals being released on bail or delayed prosecution, it is no wonder that Milwaukee is more dangerous than ever. In 2020, there were a record 189 homicides in the city-more than double the previous year. A total of 919 people were shot and killed in the city last year, an average of 2.5 people per day.
In response, prosecutor Chisholm refused to admit that his reforms were failing, calling it “a deliberately manipulated terrible story about the rising crime rate.” He said: “We can never underestimate the power of fear to create bad policies.”
Policeman lying flat
The crime rate in Waukesha County, Wisconsin has soared, which is nothing in the United States.
Since the reopening of the epidemic, the crime rate in San Francisco, California has soared. Beginning on November 19, a total of 8 specialty stores in the San Francisco Bay Area were ransacked by gangs for three consecutive days, with about 80 robbers taking part in the most. Among them, some of the robbers who were arrested after placing orders were “frequent visitors” of the police station. As long as the amount of robbery does not exceed US$950, they meet the state’s definition of a “misdemeanor” and will be released after a while.
California is not the only place that has been “smashed and looted” frequently. In mid-November, 14 robbers broke into a Louis Vuitton store on the outskirts of Chicago and stole handbags and other goods worth more than $100,000. And this kind of thing is commonplace in Chicago. In August last year, hundreds of people even participated in the “zero-dollar shopping” in the city’s famous “Magnificent Mile” shopping area. They also ganged up with the police, causing the authorities to suspend public transportation to prevent the riots from spreading.
New York City is even more deeply mired in the criminal quagmire of shopping districts-thieves do not worry about the consequences at all, but the police do not receive sufficient support from the authorities-if prosecutors are unwilling to prosecute suspects in theft, why do the police waste their time? A survey of 5,935 New York police officers found that 56% of respondents would not be a police officer if they could choose again.
Last year, when the “black life is at stake” protest turned into a nationwide riot, the police were slandered as enemies. The idea of ”disinvesting the police” sounds like a joke, but cities across the country have slashed police department funding in response to the demands of activists. The city of Minneapolis, where the “big black man” Freud was “crunched to death” tragedy, cut $8 million from the police station.
When the predictable peak of crime arrived, voters in these cities voted to reject the proposal to replace the police station with the Public Safety Agency, which was supposed to adopt a “comprehensive public health approach” to criminal activities.
However, the morale of the police station has been low. For fear of being prosecuted or receiving unfair disciplinary actions, not many police officers are willing to actively fight crimes. Retailers plagued by theft can only watch insurance rates and private security costs rise-these costs will eventually be passed on to consumers.
Folk shot
After the police approached the masses and lay flat, American public opinion, who was expecting the restoration of law and order in the city, began to take a positive look at the news that Kyle Rittenhouse, a white teenager who “killed two people with guns,” in Kenosha was acquitted.
The Rittenhouse case was politicized from the very beginning, because Kenosha, where the incident occurred, is a key constituency in southern Wisconsin and is the focus of the nation in 2020. In August of that year, after being called to the police by his ex-girlfriend for “breaking into a private house”, black Jacob Black walked away from two policemen who pointed their guns at him, and then opened the cab of the private car. At this time, police officer Seski realized that Black was going to get a weapon (it was later discovered that it was a knife), so he fired 7 shots in the direction of his back, causing him to suffer half-body discomfort.
After cheering for the death of Freud’s bad policeman Chauvin for “all three crimes convicted,” Americans must also accept that Rittenhouse, a “juvenile hero” who “killed for the people”, was not convicted of the six crimes of conservatives. .
The incident was suspected of “death of human life” and occurred three months after George Floyd’s death in the neighboring state of Minnesota. The enraged black people set fire in Kenosha.
Later, the 17-year-old Rittenhouse who came to Kenosha from neighboring Illinois to act as a “volunteer policeman” fell down after being chased by a group of protesters. He shot and killed two white men who surrounded him and wounded him. Another gunpoint was aimed at his white man. Rittenhouse was arrested for this reason, and was released on bail pending trial after nearly three months in jail.
At the time, Trump called Rittenhouse fired “in self-defense.” On November 19 this year, Rittenhouse, who was facing six charges, was found not guilty by a jury, which shocked the Biden administration.
But the case is not complicated. The two dead and one injured white people were habitual offenders with previous convictions. At that time, they threatened to kill Rittenhouse, so the judge in this case even forbidden to call them victims; and the injured white man admitted that he had pointed a gun at the time. Rittenhouse fell to the ground.
As for the prosecution’s most well-conceived allegation that anyone under the age of 18 who possessed or carried dangerous weapons was guilty of a Class A misdemeanor and could be sentenced to up to 9 months in prison, it was also overturned because of the defense lawyers. Point out that there is an exception in the law that allows young people to own shotguns and rifles (such as AR-15 in this case), as long as they are not short-barreled guns.
Therefore, after cheering for the “three crimes” of the bad policeman who killed Freud, the Americans have to accept the six “juvenile heroes” of Rittenhouse, who “killed the people” in the eyes of the conservatives. Neither was guilty.
In fact, Biden finally reluctantly admitted to respecting the American jury mechanism.
Of course, due to the possible misleading of the witnesses, the jury is not eloquent and without omissions. On November 23, a judge in Missouri in central America overturned an old unjust case; Kevin Strickland, a black man who had been in prison for more than 40 years, was acquitted.
The turning point was that the testimony of the sole survivor of the 1978 shooting that identified Kevin’s presence was questioned-she later asked experts to help her prove that she was wrong, but at that time, Kevin had been ruled by a jury with all white members. Guilty, although the other two men convicted in the same case stated that Kevin was not at the scene of the shooting.
American justice is far from perfect. As revealed by the Simpson Wife Murder case, between tolerating crime and accidentally hurting the innocent, the most easily correctable path requires careful identification.
