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In 2020, in the wake of widespread rioting, the Democratic Party added a new position to their official platform: "Democrats support eliminating the use of cash bail."
Since the summer of 2020, mainstream Democrats in Congress have pushed to end cash bail and pretrial detention. Michigan Democrat Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s BREATHE Act would provide grants to states that end the bail system, eliminate pre-trial detention entirely for most federal felonies and "provide a roadmap for prison abolition."
LEFT'S PHILOSOPHY ON CRIME IS ON FULL DISPLAY IN BLUE STATES AS DEMOCRATS PROMOTE 'CHAOS': PAVLICH
In October 2021, President Joe Biden followed suit with a "National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality," which calls for ending cash bail.
While Democrats embraced radical, soft-on-crime policies, homicides jumped more in 2020 than they have in a single year in American history and continued to rise in 2021. Sensibly, American voters took the opposite position—crime became the number one issue they were most concerned about, per a July USA Today poll.
Democrats in Congress haven’t passed a bill to end cash bail. But the left still managed to bypass voters and unilaterally put criminals back on the street—with disastrous results.
Recently in Indianapolis, Indiana, my home state, a man named Deonta William stabbed two police officers while out on bail. The bond was initially set at $25,000 but lowered to $750 for unknown reasons.
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A left wing group called "the Bail Project" then paid Williams bail. Both those police officers survived, thank goodness, but in 2021 in Indianapolis alone, the Bail Project paid to release two men who murdered while awaiting trial. In 2019, Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett gave $150,000 in taxpayer dollars to the Bail Project.
Unbelievably, after Deonta Williams stabbed two police, the Bail Project released a statement sympathizing with the attempted cop killer.
The Bail Project told WISH-TV, "it is clear from the recent events that he’s struggling with his mental health and this is a cry for help." Like Williams, the people in charge of the Bail Project are deranged, but that hasn’t stopped Democrat politicians from empowering them.
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The same tragic and avoidable story is familiar in cities across America. It goes like this: Liberal judges and District Attorney’s either refuse to press charges or, in the case of more serious crimes, set an obscenely low bail. That allows groups like the Bail Project to pay for the release of 12,000 criminals, while only spending about $14 million a year. At the same time, liberal state and local politicians defend groups like the Bail Project, and even send them taxpayer dollars.
A more high-profile example came three weeks ago, in Waukesha Wisconsin, when a terrorist named Darrell Brooks murdered six innocent people.
Brooks was a serial felon, who’d been arrested for jumping bail, sexually abusing a child and trying to run someone over with his car. He was arrested, again, in early November for violent assault but was then released after posting an only $1,000 bail, which is a tiny sum for a violent felony.
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Brooks should’ve been in jail awaiting trial, but he wasn’t, because of left-wing Milwaukee District Attorney John Chisholm’s commitment to, in his words, "not keeping individuals held unnecessarily on cash bail," in jail.
Chisholm is one of many progressive DA’s who have taken it upon themselves to end pretrial detention, without the consent of voters. In 2016, progressive billionaire donor George Soros spent $3 million on district-attorney campaigns around the country—an enormous sum for a local election.
Soros has elected DA’s in San Francisco, now infamous for crime, St. Louis, now the most dangerous city in America, and Chicago, which saw a 34% increase in its murder rate in 2020.
Cook County in Chicago, home to Soros-backed DA Kim Foxx, who refused to press charges against the recently convicted actor Jussie Smollet, has had 56 criminals arrested for murder, attempted murder, or shooting someone while out on bail just this year.
Americans are worried about crime, and Democrats have responded by standing up for criminals. We must call out the policies and the politicians that have worsened America’s murder crisis.
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