About a month ago I posted a video that is an hour long documentary about the death of Seattle at the hands of Progressive government.

In the Left’s quest to turn Texas Blue, then destroy it the way they destroyed California, the Dallas District Attorney decided to go full Portland and Seattle on the city.

Should All Thefts Be Prosecuted? Dallas County’s District Attorney Says No
An initiative by John Creuzot is stopping prosecutions for theft of personal items worth less than $750.

Are you fucking kidding me?

If a poor person steals food or diapers or other essential items that they need but can’t afford to pay for, should they be prosecuted? Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot says no.

I cannot think of an idea to destroy business in a place faster than that.  Even socialism takes longer to wipe out a business.

We know that chain retailers have corporate policies that stop employees form preventing theft.

I was once employed as a late night security guard at a convenience store.  I could not use force of any kind to stop theft.  All I could do is say stop, call the police, and provide details.

Why would police intervene in a crime if they know the DA will not prosecute it?  It’s not worth their time and effort.

So the situation here essentially allows a person to go into a grocery store, fill it up with $749.99 worth of stuff, walk out with it, put it in their car, and drive away.

The store clerk can’t stop him.  The Loss Prevention Specialist can’t stop him.  The cops probably won’t be bothered to respond.  So the store loses money.  this will happen over and over until the store finds it easier to shut down.

Small businesses will be hit hardest.  My grandfather owned and operated a Deli and Kosher grocery in Fort Lauderdale.  I know very well the narrow margins in that type of business and the high cost of theft.

Creuzot launched his bid to unseat District Attorney Faith Johnson last year, pledging to roll back policies that lead to incarceration and disparities in the justice system, but have dubious public safety value.

Last week, he announced the changes as a first step in fulfilling his campaign promises.

In an open letter, Creuzot discussed his commitment to not charge some lower-level drug crimes, which are enforced more often when offenders are people of color. He outlined policy changes related to bail and probation aimed at reducing the number of people in jail.

And he decried a justice system that criminalizes poverty. He said some prosecutions often punish people living in poverty, who are homeless, and who are mentally ill.

It is those low level drug crimes that have destroyed Seattle and Portland and are killing San Francisco.

So by the rues of the Dallas DA, a person can sit on the street, do drugs, walk into a store, take whatever he wants, and go back outside to do drugs and eat his stolen food and the DA won’t do anything to stop him.

That can only ruing Dallas by making it a vagrant’s paradise.

An initiative by Creuzot is stopping prosecutions for theft of personal items worth less than $750. It only applies to necessary items, Creuzot says. Theft for economic gain or resale will be charged.

What theft isn’t for economic gain?  Money is fungible.  If you steal $100 worth of food, that is $100 you can spend on drugs or hookers or whatever.

“If they’re stealing $750 worth of diapers, let’s be honest: It’s going to take a lot of rear ends to put $750 worth of diapers on, so that probably doesn’t fit that category and so we would prosecute that case,” Creuzot said.

Really? Why am I suddenly reminded of the story of Florida woman, Angel Adams?

Prosecuting poor people for stealing essential items wastes taxpayer money because they won’t come out any more financially stable after they serve their sentence, Creuzot said, and prosecution doesn’t help the business that is stolen from either.

It’s not a waste of taxpayer money.  Tax payer money should be used to protect the taxpayer.  That included stopping thieves from ripping off business and people.

It’s not just business were talking about.

What stops someone from walking into a Dallas homeowner’s garage or kitchen and helping themselves to whatever they want?

I have a second fridge in my garage, I bet a lot of people in Dallas do to.

What about my power tools?  What else?

“The question is, if we put them in jail, are they going to pay restitution? You know what the answer is: No,” Creuzot said. “So we’ve burned up taxpayer money for a hungry person or a needy person under this fake premise that we’re going to get the money back. And it doesn’t happen.”

I think this is justification for bringing back debtor’s prison.

Representatives from local law enforcement groups offered a mixed review of Creuzot’s policy changes, but were unequivocal about the theft policy. Mike Mata, from the Dallas Police Association, said functionally legalizing some thefts could have collateral consequences, like making store owners feel they need to stop people from stealing themselves if they don’t think that the crimes will be prosecuted.

“Either that shop owner is going to have to take matters in his own hands, or he’s going to have to let $600 worth of merchandise walk out of his store,” Mata said. “And so that might force him to get engaged into an altercation that he shouldn’t.”

No.  Fucking.  Shit.

I am not a lawyer, but the Dallas DA is.  Maybe he needs to familiarize himself with Texas Penal Code – PENAL § 9.42. Deadly Force to Protect Property.

A person is justified in using deadly force against another to protect land or tangible, movable property:
(1) if he would be justified in using force against the other under Section 9.41 ;  and
(2) when and to the degree he reasonably believes the deadly force is immediately necessary:
(A) to prevent the other’s imminent commission of arson, burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, theft during the nighttime, or criminal mischief during the nighttime;  or
(B) to prevent the other who is fleeing immediately after committing burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, or theft during the nighttime from escaping with the property;  and
(3) he reasonably believes that:
(A) the land or property cannot be protected or recovered by any other means;  or
(B) the use of force other than deadly force to protect or recover the land or property would expose the actor or another to a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury.

Since the DA admitted that “‘are they going to pay restitution? You know what the answer is: No.‘”

So that goes straight to (3)(A).

So pretty much the Dallas Police Association said that small business owners are going to find it necessary to start shooting shoplifters.

Good job Dallas DA, well done.

So who has the Dallas DA pissed off with this genius idea?

Business owners have mixed reactions to Dallas County DA’s new policies

That’s being generous.

The announcement drew an immediate reaction from small business owners who are worried that word of the policy will encourage shoplifting.

While the Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot tried to clarify his new policy on Friday, some business owners are worried about what the DA’s new policy will mean for them.

Cody Ellison and his business partner own three shops in the Bishop Arts District. The DA’s letter to the people of Dallas County does not sit well with him.

“To have the thought of someone being able to come in and steal $750 from us and there be no consequence is unfathomable to me,” Ellison said.

“They say essentials,” Ellison said. “For us, essentials are clothing. People have to have clothing.”

Ellison questions why the DA set such a high dollar amount for prosecution.

“This is not a victimless crime,” he said.

“People are going to become more and more confident with stealing, opening a floodgate for more and more theft in the future,” Ellison said. “If it grows, there will be no more small business owners.”

Yep.  So business owner are not happy.

Who else?

Texas police union calls for Dallas DA’s removal over his plan not to prosecute certain crimes

Pretty much all the cops in Texas.

A statewide police union, one of Texas’ largest, called Wednesday for the removal of Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot, who last week announced plans not to prosecute certain low-level crimes.

Austin police Sgt. Todd Harrison, president of the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, said in a written statement that Creuzot’s plan was “unacceptable.”

“When he was campaigning for the office, we don’t remember not prosecuting crime as part of his platform,” Harrison said in the statement.

He was a Progressive, you should have seen that coming

That message didn’t sway local police union leaders who criticized the plan a day after Creuzot’s announcement, saying the decriminalization of lower-level theft cases will kill small businesses.

Sgt. George Aranda, a Dallas police officer and president of the Greater Dallas chapter of the National Latino Law Enforcement Organization, said in a statement Wednesday that he was disappointed that Creuzot “has opened up many windows to allow the common criminal to feast on the business retail community.”

When asked whether CLEAT or NLLEO had any plans to attempt to remove the district attorney, Aranda said that union leaders wanted to have a meeting with Creuzot to try to persuade him to reconsider his stance on not prosecuting those theft offenses, which Aranda said would take away powers of arrest for everyday patrol officers.

“We want to know the why,” Aranda said. “Why was this done without consulting with your local law enforcement officials?”

It’s like everybody who has their boots on the ground sees this as a terrible idea.

The district attorney did say that his office is trying to partner with academic institutions to track crime numbers to see if the new policy is causing an increase in crime. Those numbers could prove hard to track though if people stop reporting the crimes.

Once again, it is time for my favorite Orwell quote:

There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.

So a Progressive DA is working with college professors, in the most out of touch way, to figure out the effects of a policy that main street business and patrol cops say will be a fucking disaster.

This is the kind of shit that makes me hate academia.

One day I want to publish a paper on “Deprioritizing the use of Eurocentric derived light metals in aviation in preference for density shamed anti-colonial plumbate alloys.”  Using the language of social justice to justify lead balloons.

It got so bad that this headline had to be published.

Dallas County DA Says It’s Still Not OK to Steal

Until the policy is reversed, those are just words.

Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot would like would-be thieves to know that they can’t steal anything they like without fear of prosecution.

Last week, Creuzot’s office announced a series of sweeping reforms, including declining to prosecute most low-level marijuana offenses, cases in which someone is found with trace amounts of drugs or thefts of “personal items” valued at less than $750.

In a public letter released Wednesday, Creuzot clarified that “personal items” doesn’t cover anything you might like to steal as long as it’s valued at $749.99 or less.

What the fuck is that?

That’s not a reversal, that is just clarifying exactly what thieves can get away with.

“Personal items are limited to necessary items,” he wrote. “Personal items would include items such as necessary food, diapers and baby formula.”

Those who steal for economic gain will still be prosecuted, Creuzot wrote. Those who steal lower-value necessary items are most likely doing so out of hunger and poverty, he wrote, while those who steal more expensive merchandise are more likely doing so for economic gain.

Well if I ran a store that sold formula and jewelry, the theft of either still hits me right in the bottom line.

Since last week’s announcement, Creuzot has taken fire from a number of directions for the change. In a tweet posted Monday, Gov. Greg Abbott said the policy amounts to “wealth redistribution by theft.”

Even the governor is pissed at this.

Dallas Co. District Attorney stokes crime by refusing to prosecute theft of personal items worth less than $750. If someone is hungry they can just steal some food. If cold, steal a coat. Where does it end? It's wealth redistribution by theft. #txlege https://t.co/dqfYogr4NX

— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) April 15, 2019

You want to stress test your heart?  Click on the Tweet and read the responses of just how many people thing this is a terrible and heartless thing for the governor to say and are calling him Javert and a Dickensian villain.  That the poor have every right to steal what they want and the state isn’t giving away nearly enough in welfare, which is why people are forced to steal.

That turns welfare into Danegeld.  Either the state pays huge sums of money in welfare to the indolent poor, or the indolent poor have the absolute right to help themselves to whatever necessities they want from the private property of others.  At which point all working taxpayers just live at the mercy of the thieves.

This is essentially the state of the tax paying citizens of Seattle and Portland.  They live at the mercy of the homeless, drug users, and criminals.

Remember the post I wrote about the people in San Francisco putting signs up in the windows of their cars begging thieves not to break in because the state goverment refused to prosecute car window smashing as a felony?

Welcome to Dallas were Liberals are going to be begging the poor not to steal from them, with no recourse if it happens.

Frankly, I don’t believe in the Nobel Thief.  That is just as much a Victorian fiction as the idea of the Noble Savage.  The people who are going to be walking out of stores with arm fulls of groceries are not Jean Valjean.  They are scumbags who are ripping off hard working people and hurting small business owners and their families.

What is the lesson here?

Don’t let Progressives run your cities.

Also, if a few scumbags end up taking dirt naps under § 9.42, I’m not going to feel bad about that at all.

Maybe if that happens, the DA should be tried for criminal homicide for facilitating a theft that resulted in the death of a person.