Posted on 09/06/2007 8:15:51 AM PDT by SmithL
It took someone with a gun to put an end to Allen Broussard's auto burglary spree - something San Francisco prosecutors, probation officers and judges had been incapable of doing.
Broussard, 37, a high school dropout who grew up in San Francisco's housing projects, was arrested at least eight times over the last year and a half, mostly for breaking into cars to get cash to feed a drug habit.
Each time, Broussard would be released - within days, weeks or a few months - to resume stealing and breaking into cars parked in Bayview-Hunters Point.
Until police found him dead Aug. 17 - still clutching a just-stolen car stereo - Broussard's life exemplified how San Francisco's pervasive problem of smash-and-grab thieving is fed by its own criminal justice system, which frequently fails to reform or punish offenders.
"We see the same individuals out returning to the community and committing the same kind of crime over and over again," said Capt. Al Pardini of the Bayview police station, referring to the use of probation releases in cases of repeat offenders.
"Probation should be an opportunity for someone who has made a mistake and wants to get back on the right path - we can't let it become a way of life," Pardini said.
But a way of life is what it had become for Broussard until he was slain shortly after committing a last auto burglary, just blocks from the Hunters Point projects where he was raised.
"We can't force the court to send somebody to state prison," said Jeff Ross, a top prosecutor in District Attorney Kamala Harris' office, suggesting that prosecutors are as frustrated as police.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I think San Francisco, and the entire state, would be better off if they just fired ALL the judges, from the 9th Circuit down to the municipal courts, and started all over again.
I’m just surprised that we don’t see more of this.
LMAO!!
There is a curious part of this paragraph though. It is where a bystander identified Broussard to the police, and Leggalet as the perpetrator. Leggalet was the victim.
[. . .Broussard was caught in a stolen car but claimed to be watching it for a friend. He wasn’t charged with a crime. And even though he was on probation, prosecutors didn’t seek to have him returned to jail. . .District attorney’s office spokeswoman Bilen Mesfin said prosecutors had no evidence to prove Broussard actually intended to drive the stolen car, as there were no keys found.]
So can the drug legalization folks explain how this problem would have been solved by their ‘solution’?
A poorly written sentence, but you added a comma. They meant: The bystander identified Broussard to (police and Leggalet) as the perpetrator. ;)
OD
(sigh) If only all drugs were legalized, then addicts with no jobs or income wouldn’t commit crimes to buy their daily fix(es). /sarc
Much better.
I love a story with a happy ending.
har
at first I was thinking “OD” was some cryptic freep acro-phrase
get it now
back to my knap....
A good friend of mine in Arizona and his wife were from there. He thanked the Army for getting him out to begin with and swore that the "street culture" that was then just developing, was the single greatest danger to Black America by creating an entirely separate world. He now points to Hip Hop and Rap as fulfillments of his prediction.
I wish others would see his point.
A “twofer”; one thug-like mammal gone and another cast from the same mold is in the slammer charged with murder. Two off the street ain’t bad.
Sure. Legal drugs would be supplied to guys like this in the form of government welfare benefits to the poor. ;)
But you see, when drugs are legal, addicts will simply be able to walk into the nearest drug store and buy the narcotic of their choice.
Of course, that still doesn't address the issue of where they'll get the money to buy the legal drugs, or how the problem of addiction itself will go away once drugs are even more easily obtained, or how addiction renders a person much less likely to be able to hold a job and be financially stable so as to buy drugs without resorting to crime, etc.
Oh c'mon now, we all know that the problems in, ahem, urban America stem from white racism and a lack of sufficient affirmative action programs.
Several years ago I saw an interview with a car thief from the LA area. He said that he never stole cars in the poor section of town because they didn’t’ bother to call the cops on you; they used “street justice”.
Patience....patience.
Vigilantiism (is that a word?) may make a comeback if things continue down the socialist/liberal path....
There are just so many thugs, criminals and low life to work with. If every one in the system is to remain gainfully employed (police, DA, attorneys, judge, counselors, etc.)they have to keep recycling them through the system and the streets as quickly as possible to get the most out of them. It’s fairly easy to do by blaming everyone else in the system.
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