CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“SMASH-AND-GRAB
BANDITS: OPPORTUNITY AND PERIL FOR NEWSOM “
One thing
for sure in the wake of the Thanksgiving week smash-and-grab flash mobs: The
bandits who raided high-end stores from Walnut Creek and San Francisco to
Beverly Hills and the Fairfax district of Los Angeles were not thinking about
Gov. Gavin Newsom when they sledge-hammered their way to tens of thousands of
dollars in plunder.
But they
have presented Newsom with both opportunity and peril, as evidenced by the
immediate reaction of California Republican Party operatives who blamed the
whole mess on him and his fellow Democrats.
“Gavin
Newsom and California Democrats have made our state a more dangerous place to
live, work and raise a family,” a statement from Orange County’s Republican
Party accused while the gang-burglary spree was still underway.
The GOP
blamed Newsom for endorsing the 2014 Proposition 47, which lowered many
felonies to the misdemeanor category, plus penalty-reducing measures like one
that makes theft or burglary a felony only when more than $950 worth of
material or cash is stolen.
But
here’s one reality: When somewhere between 30 and 50 cars and 80-odd persons
descend on a department store together, as happened in Walnut Creek, a lot more
than 80 people knew about it. Why did none of them warn the police or the store
itself of the highly organized raid? Was that a failure of parental instruction
in morals or a failure of public schools in educating students on personal
responsibility?
We may
learn more as questioning and trials proceed for the few bandits police nabbed.
Or not.
We
already know Newsom, also while the flurry of lawlessness continued across the
state, took action by ordering heightened patrols near stores and malls by the
California Highway Patrol through the holiday shopping season.
“The
level of organized retail theft we are seeing is simply unacceptable,” the
governor said in a prepared statement. “Businesses and customers should feel
safe while doing their holiday shopping.”
But they
won’t just now, no matter how many CHP officers Newsom stations in shopping
mall parking lots. If anything else was also unacceptable, it was the fact
Newsom took off on a family vacation in Mexico just as his office issued his
statement, rather than showing up in stores to show his support, the way every
governor from Earl Warren to Ronald Reagan to Jerry Brown would have done.
So there
will likely be stunted sales in stores, which might or might not be made up via
online orders.
For
certain, Newsom’s political opponents will use his quick exit from the state
against him when he runs for reelection next year. Republicans might even be
effective if they run someone against Newsom who’s more moderate than Larry
Elder, the right wing talk show host who was their de facto recall election
standard bearer last summer.
Kevin
Faulconer (ex-San Diego mayor who drew barely 8 percent of the recall
replacement vote), are you listening?
Newsom
still has plenty of time to recover. In fact, if he can get his ultra-liberal
appointed attorney general Rob Bonta to spearhead charging any nabbed store
raiders with felonies, not mere misdemeanors, he could end up smelling fine.
But if
judges appointed by Newsom and Brown insist on misdemeanor trials instead, the
soft-on-crime label may stick and haunt him, especially if he ever runs for
President.
Like all
other events, the store break-ins did not occur in a vacuum: They are tied to
Newsom and Prop. 47 just as they can legitimately be linked to the May 31, 2020
nationally televised criminal rampage through Santa Monica and the trendy
Melrose Avenue area of Los Angeles, which set an example for the new invasions
with very slow police responses and very few thieves caught.
For sure,
Republicans will try to hang all this on Newsom next year, making crime and
public safety as big an issue as they can.
Newsom
has the power to defuse all this if he gets more active than merely sending out
some police patrols. But he’ll never advance his career if he heads off on more
family vacations at key moments in the lives and fears of other Californians.
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Email Thomas Elias
at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most
Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It,"
is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net.