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Crime Tag

Authorities have reported five fatalities and ight injuries in a shooting at the Fort Lauderdale airport. Officers arrested the lone suspect. https://twitter.com/browardsheriff/status/817441537655181313 TSA has stated that an active shooter remains at the airport, but no one has confirmed that yet.

That strict gun control in Chicago has obviously worked. America's third largest city had 762 homicides in 2016, the most in two decades and more than New York and Los Angeles combined. It also saw 3,500 shooting incidents, which is 1,100 more than it had in 2015. From WGN:
According to the Chicago Police Department, there were 762 murders in the city in 2016 and 3,550 shooting incidents with 4,331 shooting victims. A department spokesman says more than 80% of the fatal and non-fatal shooting victims were previously identified by police as being likely to be involved in an act of gun violence, either as a victim or an offender. Most of the murders occurred on the city's South and West Sides.

In the summer of 2014, Justin Ross Harris left his 22-month-old son Cooper in the car for seven hours as he went to work. Harris claimed he forgot to drop Cooper off at daycare, but prosecutors revealed he sexted with numerous women, including the day his son died. A grand jury indicted Harris in September 2014. On Tuesday, Cobb County Superior Court Judge Mary Staley Clark sentenced Harris to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

`Last week, U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel granted Dylann Roof's request to represent himself at his trial for murdering nine black people at a church in Charleston, SC, in the summer of 2015. But now Roof wants his lawyers back during the guilt phase:
After a two-sentence formal motion filed by his advisory lawyers, Roof hand-penned a note to the federal judge overseeing his case. In block letters on lined notebook paper, he wrote: "I would like to ask if my lawyers can represent me for the guilt phase of the trial only. Can you let me have them back for the guilt phase, and then let me represent myself for the sentencing phase of the trial?"

On Monday, Ohio State University student Abdul Razak Ali Artan, 18, plowed his car into a crowd of people. He exited the car and stabbed bystanders, injuring eleven people, before a cop shot and killed him. Authorities have not found a specific motive, but they have started an investigation into Artan's social media posts. It appears he considered American-born Anwar al-Awlaki a hero:
"America! Stop interfering with other countries, especially the Muslim Ummah. We are not weak. We are not weak, remember that," Abdul Razak Ali Artan reportedly wrote on Facebook, using the Arabic term for the world's Muslim community.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel found Dylan Roof competent to stand trial for the murder of nine black people at a church in Charleston, S.C., last summer. Today, the judge has decided that Roof can represent himself in his trial:
Roof made the last-minute request as jury selection was set to begin this morning. U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel cautioned Roof against serving as his own attorney, noting his defense team's considerable legal expertise, but ultimately granted the request. He noted that Roof has a constitutional right to represent himself.

Media outlets & Ohio State reported an active shooter on campus, but it turns out the suspect mainly used a knife and a car. NBC has released the name of the attacker: Those transported to the hospital had stab wounds:
Ohio State Police Chief Craig Stone said the attacker purposely drove over a curb and into pedestrians. "This was done on purpose," he said. Columbus Police Chief Kim Jacobs said police were looking into whether it was a terrorist attack.
One official said the man "was a 'legal permanent resident.'"

Donald Trump earned tremendous support from the law enforcement community by promising to stand up for its members. They need an advocate like Trump in the White House. Recent reports indicate that the number of police deaths has risen significantly since 2015. FOX News reported:
60 law enforcement officers fatally shot this year, 20 in ambushes, report says A total of 60 law enforcement officers have died in firearms-related incidents in 2016, marking a 67 percent increase since 2015, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund reported.

Last summer, Dylann Roof opened fire at the historic Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, murdering nine black people during a meeting. The court started jury selection this month, but U.S. Distric Judge Richard Mark Gergel stopped the process when Roof and his defense team filed a motion "concerning the young man's competency to stand trial." A psychiatrist examined Roof and presented the findings to Judge Gergel, who released his decision today:
After carefully considering the record before the Court, the relevant legal standards, and the arguments of counsel, the Court now finds and concludes that the Defendant is competent to stand trial.

Chicago has achieved a unique distinction: the city has already had more murders this year than New York and Los Angeles combined. The Chicago Tribune reports: Chicago hit 500 homicides the other day, with more killings this year than in New York and Los Angeles combined. So...

Police have charged Oscar Morel, 35, with the murder of Imam Maulama Akonjee, 55, and his associate Thara Uddin, 64. Fox News reports:
Oscar Morel, 35, was charged with two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon, police said. It wasn't immediately clear if he had an attorney who could comment on the charges.

Authorities in Washington, D.C., arrested a Metro officer who allegedly attempted to help ISIS with material support. Officials have never arrested a member of law enforcement before for helping the group. Nicholas Young, 36, lived in Fairfax, VA, and met an FBI informant 20 times. He passed on "22 digital gift cards to this person for intended use with mobile messaging accounts that ISIS uses in recruiting."

Virginia's Democrat governor Terry McAuliffe just gave his party and Hillary Clinton a huge gift for the 2016 election by granting felons the right to vote. He did it by executive order to circumvent the state's Republican led legislature and claimed it was all about righting wrongs of the past. The New York Times reported:
Virginia Governor Restores Voting Rights to Felons WASHINGTON — Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia used his executive power on Friday to restore voting rights to more than 200,000 convicted felons, circumventing the Republican-run legislature. The action effectively overturns a Civil War-era provision in the state’s Constitution aimed, he said, at disenfranchising African-Americans.

To those of us of a certain generation, who grew up in the NY City area, the name Kitty Genovese brings chills to the spine. One of my first memories, when I must have been about 5 (I can place the age mostly because of where we were living at the time) was hearing of some woman strangled. I don't recall the name of the women, and probably was not told by my parents, but given the timeline, that woman likely was Kitty Genovese. This March 27, 1964 NY Times report tells the story, 37 Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police:
For more than half an hour 38 respectable, law‐abiding cit­izens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens.

Following reports of increasing sexual violence and general law breaking throughout Europe, including particularly in Germany, EU leaders double-down on their delusional thinking.  Apparently, they are insisting that the increased crime and sexual assaults are not linked to the Middle Eastern refugee influx. The Telegraph reports:
The sex attacks that took place in Cologne on New Year’s Eve were simply a “matter of public order” and had nothing to do with the refugee crisis, Jean-Claude Juncker’s inner circle believe. The European Commission will be the "voice of reason" and tell the public that there is no link between the migration crisis affecting the continent and attacks on women in Germany, internal minutes disclose, amid growing concerns at a “xenophobic” backlash.
Apparently, public safety is not high on their list of priorities; instead, they are focused on trying to manage and manipulate the public's perceptions.  Indeed, according to The Daily Mail, the EU  leaders want to "unconditionally reject" the link between the Cologne sexual assaults and the migrant crisis.

You may have noticed that the narrative around violent crimes changes depending on who committed the act. When someone with a Muslim sounding name is the suspect, we're repeatedly told by the media and public officials not to rush to judgement. If however, there's even the slightest chance that the perpetrator is in any way conservative, people start talking about violent Republican rhetoric and everyone right of center is suddenly urged to reexamine their views. It's a scenario we've documented on this blog multiple times: Ted Cruz is sick of this narrative and talked about the issue with Hugh Hewitt.