A California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) officer escorts an inmate on death row at California State Prison, San Quentin.
Recently, there have been a lot of assaults and robberies in California. In addition to the deaths of several elderly Chinese who were viciously beaten, robbed and even rammed, in early February, the Los Angeles City Police Department released a video showing people being seriously injured in a brazen armed robbery while out shopping. California attorney Min-Huei Tsai pointed out that this is a consequence of the state’s massive early release of prisoners and the elimination of police funding.
In the past few weeks, there have been a number of attacks on senior citizens in North and South California: a 91-year-old man was viciously pushed and landed on his head in Oakland, California; an 84-year-old man was viciously punched in San Francisco and died after failing to save his Life; and an elderly man was robbed while shopping in Los Angeles.
According to a video released by the Los Angeles Police Department on Feb. 5, a father with his 2-year-old son was robbed at gunpoint in the afternoon of Feb. 4 while shopping in the downtown Los Angeles area, and was seriously injured when he was shot in the arm. The victim was held at gunpoint, beaten and robbed of his property during the process.
In January, police also released another video showing two Los Angeles men arguing on a street corner, with one man punching the other man to the ground, who was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
LAPD Chief of Police Michel Moore has issued a report noting that the number of homicides in Los Angeles has more than doubled in the first 12 days since the start of the year compared to the same period last year. He is concerned that some high-risk probation officers may be contributing to the increase in violence.
Min-Huei Tsai said, “Now everyone is feeling uneasy, originally before COVID-19 (the Epidemic), California because of Act 47 and 57, we can clearly feel that the security has become worse compared to before the bill was passed. Now, because of COVID-19, more criminals have been released because of the prison space and the possibility that the inmates may be infected. This is really a big concern for everyone in terms of security.”
She pointed out, “(The government) generally announces, in order to reassure people, (claiming) that non-violent, misdemeanors are released first. But in general, once the state decides to release them, the lawyers of these offenders, whether they are appellate lawyers or not, will try to get them out. Especially now that they know the government intends to reduce their sentences, they will try to apply for release regardless of whether the offenders meet the conditions. So there’s no way to determine how many of the offenders released are non-violent.”
During the epidemic, the state of California shocked the community by releasing more than 10,000 inmates early, citing the response to the Communist China virus (COVID-19) outbreak. Some victims’ organizations, as well as police, said that the released prisoners also included some dangerous criminals.
On the basis of this, on February 9, the California Criminal Code Revision Commission proposed to commute the sentences of tens of thousands of inmates on the grounds of “promoting deep reform of California’s prisons and upholding racial justice”.
Min-Hui Tsai questioned the difficulty of ensuring that released inmates do not commit further crimes if they are only tracked by phone during the epidemic by California prison officials. She said, “Early release inmates, unless they’re being watched by (law enforcement), they’re out, they’re out, they’re free. They move freely, they don’t know where they’ve run off to.”
Lawyer: Police department budget cuts may lead to more unfortunate cases
In addition to the release of prisoners, Choi Min Wai believes that the disbandment of the police department or the reduction of police funding, the police department also encountered great resistance in the maintenance of law and order. Last year, due to the “Black Lives Matter” movement, the Los Angeles Police Department was cut by $150 million, and the number of police officers was reduced, causing a major setback to police morale.
The police department has been disbanded, but this is a very extreme and unthinkable approach. In case they are followed by thugs and may be violently (attacked), who can (the people) call for (protection)?” She mentioned that the proposal to replace the police with social workers is absurd because social workers do not have the skills that the police have that can protect the people.
She said, “If the police department is disbanded or police funding is unreasonably cut and our law enforcement units are not protected, it will create a very great danger for our entire community and there may be more unfortunate cases.”
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