by Frank Holmes, reporter
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., just showed how effective she is at convincing people to take her advice… and how deadly her suggestions can be.
A small town police force just followed a policy she wants to be implemented nationwide — and almost immediately it put innocent people in mortal danger.
Earlier this month, the congresswoman said that COVID-19 spreads from person-to-person contact in closed, packed environments—like schools, restaurants, and prisons.
She’s worried crooks might catch the virus—so she wants jails to set prisoners free from coast to coast.
AOC tweeted on March 12 that she supports “humanitarian policies in prisons” and “decarceral policies.”
“Decarceral” is a fancy way of saying she wants to put criminals back on the streets. She calls this “detention relief.”
This is not the time for half measures.
We need to take dramatic action now to stave off the worst public health & economic affects.
That includes making moves on paid leave, debt relief, waiving work req’s, guaranteeing healthcare, UBI, detention relief(pretrial, elderly, imm)
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 12, 2020
Her fellow liberals—including one former presidential candidate—have fallen in line behind her.
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calf., has pressured Californa to release “low-risk” inmates.
Jerrold Nadler, who would have run the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry under normal circumstances, jumped on board, telling the Trump administration to ensure that “prisoners who can and should be released are released forthwith.”
AOC’s fellow Squad member, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., even said “incarcerated men” are “certainly amongst one of the most vulnerable populations.”
But when these freed prisoners prowl the streets, aren’t the only ones who are vulnerable.
“Vulnerable” isn’t exactly how people would describe Joshua Haskell, a 42-year-old prisoner who police say was released from a halfway house in Utah “due to the current COVID-19 pandemic.”
Two days later, he broke into a woman’s house and threatened to behead her.
“Using a large, serrated knife, he threatened the homeowner and tied her up with shoelaces,” court documents say. “The victim began screaming and yelling, at which point the male told her to be quiet or he was going to cut her head off.”
Police arrested him—but he’s not likely to be the last violent criminal they’ll have to deal with, thanks to AOC’s advice.
A New York judge released a man caught on video of stabbing his girlfriend to death, because he has diabetes and heart issues.
After cops arrested Vinent-Barcia for the June 2018 slaughter, officers said he asked them, “Is she dead? I hope so.”
He was supposed to wait for trial in jail. But State Supreme Court Justice Mark Dwyer wrote that “Barcia is at high risk for severe illness or death if [he] contract[s] COVID-19” and turned the accused killer loose.
New York liberals will release accused murderers, but they won’t protect law-abiding citizens, or even the police who guard the inmates. The New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision said corrections officers are “not allowed” to wear masks inside prisons, even if they bring their own, “unless medically necessary for the job.”
But it’s not just New York. At least four states have already begun to release prisoners over the global pandemic.
California, Ohio, and Florida have released inmates by the hundreds.
“Notice there’s no compassion for the normal people huddled in their homes, sitting there as thousands of criminals are released onto the streets,” said Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
But liberals don’t even think this is enough—because it doesn’t apply to illegal aliens.
The ACLU has sued ICE in Washington state to release detainees who had at least a dozen conditions that would make them susceptible to coronavirus.
You’d expect this from anti-American socialists, but why is Trump’s attorney general getting on board?
William Barr last week ordered federal prisoners to identify prisoners who would be most harmed by the virus. He said “some at-risk inmates who are non-violent and pose minimal likelihood of recidivism…might be safer serving their sentences in home confinement.”
They might be—assuming that they stay home.
Joshua Haskell is proof that’s not a safe bet.
Not every crook is waiting on the government. 14 prisoners escaped from the county jail in Yakima, Washington, last week. When they got caught, they told police they make a jailbreak, because “the virus outbreak has them all scared.”
But Sheriff Bob Udell said, “I don’t think they wanted to be there, anyway,” with a chuckle.
Soft-on-crime Democrats don’t want prisoners in jail, either. If they get her way, it’ll be no laughing matter.
Frank Holmes is a veteran journalist and an outspoken conservative that talks about the news that was in his weekly article, “On The Holmes Front.”