We have often asserted that a very, very basic and important function of any government entity is to protect the lives and property of the people it is in charge of. Failure to protect the lives and property constitutes a total failure of those politicians and bureaucrats in charge. No matter how well they perform other government functions they are still still a failure if they cannot deliver on this basic protection government premise.
And given what is going on around the country from a crime and homicide perspective, we have a lot of failures currently underway:
Through March 29 of this year, robberies involving a gun have gone up a whopping 44% compared to last year in Los Angeles.
According to the LAPD: “Over the course of this year, the Department has experienced an increase in robberies taking place in various communities in the City of Los Angeles. Most concerning is that there has been an increase in the levels of violence used during these robberies and the frequency in which a firearm was used.”
This year saw almost 2,000 total robberies vs. 1690 last year, an 18% increase.
74% of the total robberies involved a firearm.
According to the LAPD chief: “There’s been a marked increase of armed robberies involving victims wearing expensive jewelry, as well as just other individuals whether they’re at commercial stores such as mini markets, convenience stores, gas stations, or on the street.”
A lot of the violent crime increase has been blamed on city district attorney, George Gascon, for his timid handling of violent crime cases.
In fact, 97.9% members of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys for LA voted to support a recall of Gascon.
These numbers are just robberies, we have previously reported on the increase in bodily harm and homicides in the city. In fact, in a throwback to the old West, train robberies in the city are up 356% over the past year. You know that when train robbers are out of control, a city’s politicians and bureaucrats are total failures when it comes to protecting the lives and property of its citizens.
2) The failure of the politicians in Los Angeles to protect the lives and property of the city's citizens has not gone unnoticed by those citizens:
Apparently, wealthy homeowners in the city have started a trend of building “safe rooms” in their own houses to protect their families from the rampant criminal elements in the city and the possibility of home invasions.
According to Dean Cryer, the vice-president of international operations at Building Consensus/Panic Room Builders, told The Hollywood Reporter, “Our influx of inquiries has increased more than 1,000 percent over the past three months. … It’s gone insane. Hidden rooms are definitely trending right now. Building Consensus/Panic Room builds various safe spaces ranging in security levels from one through eight. Safe rooms at level three may be protected with Kevlar, while a level eight is encased in thick steel. Just the doors can be 2,000 to 3,000 pounds. And then we’re installing steel within the room. So, we’re generating up to 10,000 pounds in a room. … You could kit out a small closet for about $100,000, $150,000. And then it’s north of there. We’ve done one in London that had two rooms, full suites … and that was over a million dollars.”
For the wealthier residents of the LA area, having a safe room is now considered an asset in the selling of high end homes.
More insight from Mr. Cryer: “Within the room itself, you could be in there for up to 24 hours. I mean, it depends where you are in the world. And in most of L.A., you could be waiting a couple of hours before the police get to you. … We’ve even done bunkers and tunnels. We’ve done a project out in Malibu. They wanted a secret tunnel out to the beach. So they could escape, like a secret bunker.”
When residents feel it necessary to spend big bucks to protect themselves because they believe that the city politicians and government bureaucrats cannot, despite the high taxes, you have a failure of a basic tenet of government, to protect.
3) In a previous post, we discussed the comment by the LA Sheriff's department that warned tourists not to come to Los Angeles because law enforcement could not guarantee their safety, that's how bad crime had become. In the previous point above, we discussed the reality that city residents, especially wealthy ones, have had to take expensive steps to protect their lives and their families by building safe rooms in their homes to combat the violent upsurge in crime.
That news was bad enough but now we find even worse news and the defeatist attitude to the politicians and bureaucrats running the city: the LAPD has officially warned residents not to wear jewelry while out in public in the city since that could make them the target of robbers. Specifically: “Over the last year there has been a marked increase of armed robberies involving victims wearing expensive jewelry while in public," an LAPD statement reads. "If it is visible, it can be a target.”
At least the politicians and bureaucrats who are failing to protect the lives and property of its residents are finally being honest about their failure to maintain a safe environment.
4) Let’s move from Los Angeles to our favorite and most discussed criminally infested and most failed politicians in the city of Chicago:
In a recent weekend, 22 Chicago residents were shot and four of those shot died from their wounds.
This brought the total number of homicides in the city to 112 during the time period from January 1 to March 21.
At this rate over 500 people will be killed in Chicago this year.
But Chicago is not alone in this homicide race. By March 10, Philadelphia had experienced 100 homicides within its city limits. This comes on the heels of setting a homicide record in the city last year.
We all pay high taxes to the American political class and a large assumption in that payment of high taxes is that they will provide the necessary protection of our lives, our families, and our property. Unfortunately, that understanding is only being held up by one party, us, while the other party, politicians, fail miserably in this simple yet very important government tenet and responsibilities.
