Crime Bulletin: As Violent Crime Drops, Fear of Crime Increases

     Violent crime has always been a staple of local television and newspaper news. Take out crime, sports and weather and there's nothing left. The old saying, "If it bleeds it leads," is accurate. According to researchers at the Pew Research Center, since 2007, national print and television news outlets have significantly increased their coverage of crime. In 2012, the spree shootings in Aurora, Colorado and Newtown, Connecticut as well as the Jerry Sandusky pedophile case dominated the national news for months. Murder-suicide, murder-for-hire, and police involved shooting cases always attract considerable local and national media attention. So far this year, the ex-LA cop's killing spree, the Boston Bombings, the Jodi Arias murder trial, and the three women held captive ten years in Ariel Castro's house in Cleveland, Ohio dominated local and national news coverage.

     Recently, the top story on Fox News--the Benghazi cover-up--was pushed aside by the Cleveland Kidnapping case and the Arias murder verdict. (Immediately following the Arias guilty verdict, a Fox News correspondent in Phoenix landed an exclusive holding-cell interview of the convicted killer. In true crime reporting, this is a grand slam. Jodi Arias, who looks like a mean elementary school teacher who's dying to hit you with a stick, was one of the most unsympathetic female murder defendants in history.)

     Given the nonstop reporting of gruesome crime on national television, it is not surprising that most Americans believe that over the past two decades the rate of violent crime in the country has steadily increased. This spring, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that since the mid-1990s, the rate of gun killings has been cut in half. The rate of other gun crime fell by 75 percent.

     Despite the significant decline in the rate of gun violence, only 12 percent of those surveyed said they believed crimes involving firearms had dropped over the past 20 years. Twenty-six percent think that crime has stayed the same while 56 percent believe it has increased. A poll by the Pew Research Center produced similar findings. Both studies also reveal that a high percentage of gun violence involves black males shooting other black males.

     Criminologists have attributed the drop in violent crime to a variety of factors including a decline in the use of crack cocaine, and the rise in prison incarceration rates.

     Regardless of the reasons for the drop in violent crime, if an American doesn't live in a high-crime inner city neighborhood, that person resides in a country that is relatively safe from gun and other forms of violence. But people who watch television news, and have noticed how law enforcement has become so highly militarized, understandably don't feel safe. This is exactly how politicians and police administrators want us to feel. Citizens who feel threatened by crime will put up with militarized, shock-and-awe-policing, restricted civil rights, and higher taxes.

     In the old days, police administrators and politicians had to do their own fear mongering. Today, the national media unwittingly does it for them.

   

     

Crime Bulletin: "Celebrity Swatting" in LA

     The term "swatting" pertains to a dangerous practical joke involving a false 911 report of a shooting that riggers a SWAT team response to the home of the prankster's victim. (Many of these 911 callers disguise the origins of their messages by using multiple computer servers and other high-tech tricks.) Swatting defendants are usually charged with filing a false police report, a misdemeanor offense that usually brings a fine and up to 90 days in jail.

     While the law doesn't treat swatting as a serious offense, the crime involves the potential that a police officer or an occupant of the target dwelling could get shot.  SWAT raids are tense, hair-trigger operations that frequently go wrong. If a SWAT officer is accidentally shot and killed during a raid caused by a swatter, the offender cannot be charged under the felony-murder doctrine because the underlying crime is a misdemeanor.

     Last year in Los Angeles, several celebrities were targeted by these 911 pranksters. Victims of the so-called celebrity swattings included Justin Bieber, Tom Cruise, Simon Cowell, Ashton Kutcher, and the Kardashian family. In 2013, swatters victimized Russell Brand, Sean Combs, Selena Gomez, Clint Eastwood, Ryan Seacrest, and Justin Timberlake. Nationwide, the police have reported more than 400 of these 911 abuses. (On a less serious note, a 911 caller in Girard, Pennsylvania recently asked the emergency dispatcher to divorce her from her husband. The woman was charged with disorderly conduct.)

     In April 2013, the media relations spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department announced that the agency would no longer issue press releases regarding celebrity swatting cases. Police administrators believe that the publication of these incidents has produced copycat offenses. The media spokesperson, in further justifying the news blackout, expressed concern over how this reportage intruded on the celebrity victims' privacy. (Celebrities, by choice, are not private people. They are however, rich and wield a lot of influence in southern California.)

     On April 9, 2013, a California state Senate committee unanimously approved a bill to require people convicted of swatting pay for the cost of the police response. (Some of these SWAT deployments cost up to $10,000.) The Senate bill also imposes a stiffer sentence for convicted swatters. Under the proposed legislation, an offender will receive a minimum of 120 days in the county jail. (These local politicians are either unaware of California's shortage of jail space, or are simply grandstanding for attention and votes.)

   

     

Crime Bulletin: The Great American Ammo Shortage

     There is currently a nationwide shortage of handgun ammunition. The handful of gun stores and online sites that have ammo in stock are charging gun enthusiasts an arm and a leg for .22, .38, and .45 caliber and 9 mm rounds. Many stores limit purchases to one box per person per day.

     Six months ago, standard .22 caliber rounds--the most common type of round produced--could be purchased in bulk for about five cents apiece. But that price has gone up to fifty cents each.

     When Obama first took office, gun and ammunition sales went through the roof because Obama is perceived by many to be a left-wing politician who doesn't like guns or gun owners. His re-election, along with several high-profile shooting incidents liberals have tried to exploit, reignited fears of severe gun control legislation. Once again the demand for guns and ammo has shot up significantly.

     There have been rumors that the Department of Homeland Security is buying up tens of millions of rounds to keep ammo in short supply for gun owners. There is also speculation that the federal government has limited the quantity of ammunition that manufacturers are allowed to produce. People who believe the federal government is manipulating the ammo market see it as a sneaky, backdoor form of gun control. You can have your handguns, but you have nothing to load them with.

     Government bureaucrats who have spoken about the bullet drought blame it on hoarding and speculation. They say it's a simple matter of supply and demand. Whatever the cause, the shortage is real, and it's making a lot of gun owners uneasy, and suspicious.

Targeting Pilots With Laser-Beam Pointers

     According to the Civil Aviation Authority, from 2009 to 2012, there had been more than 4,500 reports of pilots being targeted by laser-beam pointers. These commercially available devices produce a narrow, high-intensity light that grows in diameter with distance. If hit in the eyes, pilots could be temporarily blinded. In February 2012, Congress made aiming a laser-beam at an aircraft a federal crime.

     On March 29, 2012, a 19-year-old North Hollywood, California man named Adam Gardenhire aimed his laser pen at the pilot of a NetJet Cessna Citation as it approached for landing at the Bob Hope Airport in Burbank. According to the pilot of the business jet, the beam impaired his vision for several hours.

     Gardenhire compounded his crime when he targeted the pilot of a Pasadena police helicopter dispatched to locate the source of the laser-beam. Because he wore protective eye gear, the chopper pilot was not affected by Gardenhire's laser attack.

     In April 2012, following his identification by Los Angeles County detectives, a federal grand jury indicted Gardenhire for pointing his laser-beam device at the aircraft. He faced a maximum sentence of ten years in prison. Six months later, the laser pointer pleaded guilty to the federal charges.

     The Assistant United States Attorney, at Gardenhire's March 2013 sentence hearing, characterized the defendant's behavior as a criminally reckless disregard for aircraft safety. Gardenhire's attorney claimed that his client had no idea the borrowed laser pen was powerful enough to distract a pilot thousands of feet away. The defense attorney asked that Mr. Gardenhire be sentenced to two years probation, a fine, and community service.

     The federal judge sentenced Adam Gardenhire to thirty months in federal prison. Targeting that police helicopter had not been a good idea.

     Adam Gardenhire was the second person to be convicted of this federal crime. In August 2012, a Florida man went to prison for six months for the same offense. If one of these laser pointers actually causes a plane to crash, Congress would probably ban the device.

    In May 2015, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that Adam Gardenhire's prison sentence was too harsh. The appellate court justices rule sentence should not have exceeded ten months.