A senior Los Angeles police union official slammed Democrat California Gov. Gavin Newsom in an interview Friday for saying there is no statewide crime upsurge.
“That’s a fantasy world. Where are we living in? I mean, you could look at the numbers throughout California and the rest of the country. Crime is increasing. It is surging, and there’s no consequences,” Los Angeles Police Protective League vice president Sgt. Jerretta Sandoz told Fox News’ “Fox & Friends.”
“There’s no repercussions for these criminals that feel that they could go in and do what they want. And it’s because of these laws. That statement is not true. The numbers don’t lie,” Sandoz said.
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Sandoz made her comment when she was responding to a question on Newsom’s statements to a reporter about the state’s crime problems. The video of Newsom speaking to the reporter is included in Fox News’ clip of their interview with Sandoz.
“There are some people that say that some of the policies championed by Democrats like Prop. 47 and others are making are making crime worse. What do you say to that?” the reporter asked, to which Newsom responded, “Yeah … the evidence doesn’t back it up.”
“The last three decades we have seen a significant decline in crime in the state,” Newsom, who faces a recall election, told the reporter. “You are seeing crime increase in red states that had no criminal justice reform.”
Proposition 47, also known as “The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act” was a California initiative that brought major changes to felony sentencing laws. It was part of several so-called criminal justice reforms carried out by the state’s Democrat-controlled government.
The Act reclassifies some forms of theft and narcotics possession as misdemeanors instead of felonies. Defendants serving sentences for crimes the proposition reclassified as misdemeanors are allowed to seek resentencing under the proposition. And, defendants who already served their time for the reclassified crimes can, under the Act, seek reclassification on their records.
A 2018 study by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), four years after the ballot initiative was passed, found no proof backing the claim that “violent crime increased as a result of Proposition 47.”
“While California saw an uptick in the violent crime rate from 2014 to 2016, this trend appears to have preceded the reform and is due in large part to unrelated changes in crime reporting after 2014,” the study stated. (RELATED: Video Shows Groups Of Shoplifters Looting Store, Getting Into Getaway Cars)
However, the institute found “some evidence that Proposition 47 affected property crime. Statewide, property crime increased after 2014.”
“While the reform had no apparent impact on burglaries or auto thefts, it may have contributed to a rise in larceny thefts, which increased by roughly 9 percent (about 135 more thefts per 100,000 residents) compared to other states. Crime data show that thefts from motor vehicles account for about three-quarters of this increase,” the report stated.
The 2019 average rate of automobile theft in California was one per three and a half minutes, according to a report from the California Highway Patrol.
The state has also been suffering from a rise in shoplifting, causing millions of dollars in annual losses incurred by California businesses, forcing Newsom to sign a law Wednesday that would bring back the “crime of retail theft,” The Associated Press reported.
The state nonetheless has seen a steady decline in violent crime and property crime rates starting around the 1990s, according to calculations of FBI data by the PPIC updated up to 2020.
