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From the Police Blotter: ‘What Were They Thinking?’
A serial bank robber in New York has been released under the new bail law. From Fox News:
New York’s new bail-reform law is being blamed for the release of an accused serial bank robber who may have struck another bank after he got out of jail.
Gerod Woodbury, 42, was charged Wednesday with robbing four Manhattan banks since Dec. 30, according to reports.
After being locked up, he was sprung the next day under the new law, which did away with bail in cases involving so-called nonviolent crimes, according to the New York Post.
The paper reported that after Woodbury was released from jail Thursday, sources quoted him as saying, “I can’t believe they let me out. “What were they thinking?”
NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea highlighted Woodbury’s case to slam the bail reform law.
If the new bail reform law has done nothing else it has confirmed that no one’s life, liberty, or property is safe when the New York Legislature is in session, or out of session for that matter.
Published in Policing
Maybe if someone is killed in the process, it will change minds . . . nah, probably not . . .
Never
https://www.ammoland.com/2017/05/american-dream-turned-into-foreign-nightmare-for-murdered-doctors/#axzz6Awofirvs
If our republic is truly a laboratory of democracy, several states are demonstrating what happens when the far left gets their way. It should be a wonderful example for the rest of us to see what to avoid. The problem is that no one seems to notice. It’s double down all the way.
“What were they thinking?” Probably more about the self-congratulatory press conference when they passed the law than about the actual effects of the law. Because lawmakers were probably more interested in the press than the law itself, I doubt they looked into such legislative details such as what constituted a “non-violent” offense. Lawmakers apparently also didn’t consider the consequences of the law’s language that prohibits judges at a bail hearing from taking into account a variety of factors that would suggest whether or not the accused will actually show up for his trial.
In terms of the future mayoral decision of NYC residents, we’re still 22 1/2 months out for that, so the current kerfuffles will be in the distant past unless new outrages continue to happen. Crown Heights resonated in the 1993 rematch election between Dinkins and Giuliani because it was part of a pattern which by then had been going on since the mid-1960s, and had by 1991 reached the level of six murders per day in the city.
Bad as the most recent attacks have been, we’re still a long way from that low a quality-of-life level. The only mitigating circumstance here is that in the early 1990s, the left in NYC could argue the high crime rate and lower quality of life were systemic to the overall American lifestyle and the problems were intractable. You couldn’t hope to solve them — you could just manage the decline as best as you could (and electing a Republican to try and solve it would only make things worse). That’s out the window post-Giuliani and post-Bloomberg, especially since both ex-mayors haven’t exactly retired to go to an assisted living community in Florida. The voters know crime rates can be controlled, and they also seem to have figured out in the last few weeks that de Blasio, Cuomo and other Democrats have been adjusting the laws in an attempt to make sure a new Giuliani can’t come in and use the same efforts Rudy and William Bratton did to lower the crime rate.
They’re not happy about it, which is why the Dems are talking about reforming their bail reform laws just two weeks into the new year. But they may not be talking about it by November 2021, and enough voters might again decide to elect the guy or gal not based on them fixing the problems, but based on how much they hate Trump and conservative policies.
Has the New York legislature not heard of the word “recidivism”?
No, sir. That’s one bonehead name.
Since when has robbing banks been known as a “non-violent” crime?????????
See the James gang, Bonnie & Clyde, John Dillinger, and the many whose names are lesser known (such as John Wojtowicz and Salvatore Naturale whose exploits were fictionally told in Dog Day Afternoon).
So, you think he will show up for his court date?
Exactly! Robbery is a violent crime.
According to what I have read (I am a lawyer, but do not practice criminal law), the robbery was “non-violent” because 1) the robber never touched anyone; and 2) he did not display a weapon (he merely issued an unspecified threat). Though some of what I read suggests that even if he had displayed a weapon, but did not actually use it, his activity might still qualify as “non-violent” according to the statute. This is why I conclude that the legislators did not read up on what the effects of the law might actually be.
This type of distinction between “violent” and “non-violent” is also relevant to other aspects of criminal justice reform. A threat of violence is not necessarily classified as a “violent” offense. An explicit threat might be in some statutes be classified as “violence,” but an implicit or implied threat may not be.
Of course. Everyone in America always obeys the law (so said one or more Democratic presidential candidates in connection with gun control). :)
So this means I can make jokes about bombs again at La Guardia? Great!
I’m more familiar with the laws in Oregon.
The maximum penalty for a Class B felony is 10 years.
So if I took a swing at one of these “woke” legisators and didn’t connect, I didn’t commit a violent act? Sweet!
No, absolutely not. Real world data has no impact on the leftist mind.
Back in 2009-ish, one of these lefty journalist compared Obama to Spock. I vehemently disagreed. Other than an aloof detachment from humans. Spock would check that his experiment is producing the data he expected. Leftists experimental policies – no matter the data – are never discontinued.
You only have to look at democrat support of unlimited undocumented immigration for evidence of this theory. No matter the body count they still pretend that Immigration Enforcement is evil.
I’m living this right now in NYC. This is insane. It is the stupidest thing I’ve seen in a long time. Judges have no power to hold back criminals, and they are let out on the street and go do the same thing over. Unless you live in NYC, you don’t realize how radically left the city government is.
BRING BACK RUDY!!!