In the past two years, this family owned Puerto Rican restaurant in Fruitval Avenue has been robbed twice at gunpoint. The owner says he rarely sees police patrols despite the numerous armed holdups that have plagued this neighborhood for the past two years.
And enough is enough. We're proposing not to pay taxes to the city and do you give me the survey that we deserve.
Jose Ortiz, and Oakland native, says, in addition to the multiple robberies, he's seen a twenty five percent drop in business and customers are staying away because they don't feel safe. There's nothing on the books yet, but the full Council may need to consider a tax to Firman initiative for the effective businesses big and small.
Wherever you're listening, from coast to coast, Alaska and Hawaii and strange foreign lands, some of your leaders are considering so called progressive justice reform. We are here to warn you about the reality. Specifically, what was known as Prop forty seven in the state of kelun A Cornea passed according to the excellent Katie Grimes in California Globe by
tragically misinformed voters. In twenty fourteen, freight flagrantly titled these Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act by then Attorney General Kamala Harris.
I didn't remember that. That's what it was called WOW.
Which reduced a host of serious felonies to misdemeanors, including drug crimes, date rape, all thefts under nine hundred and fifty dollars, even for repeat offenders who steal every day. It also decriminalized drug possession from a felonine to a misdemeanor, removed law enforcement's ability to make an arrest in most circumstances, as well as removing judge's ability to order drug rehabilitation programs rather than incarceration.
It has been a cataclysmic disaster.
So what was it called the Safe Neighborhoods Act or whatever?
The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools And what was their spin on that? I don't even remember.
It.
People will get counseling and as people only stink it was Let's I tell you what perfect ramp on ramp to discuss Prop forty seven in the effort to reform it was Sheriff John McGinnis, who was for years and years with Sacramento County Sheriff's Department, including being the sheriff. He's now a very popular and enjoyable radio host in California and a longtime friend of the Armstrong and Getty Show.
Sheriff John McGinnis, John, how are you, sir?
Very well, gentlemen, great to be with you. Thanks.
Do you remember how they spun it to get people to unfortunately vote for it in the first place.
They did, they were in their estimation there was excessive incarceration and therefore give people a chance, give him an opportunity to assimilate into society, be treated more fairly. They'll live a better, healthier, happier life than that will make schools and neighborhoods safer. Ironically, this passed in November twenty fourteen.
It took effect immediately, so the very next day, there was a guy that went into a big box store in Santa Clarita down in Los Angeles County, and it showed that he had the intent when he entered that business to commit a theft, which makes it out of the formerly a felled burglary commercial burglary under Caifornia law, that all went away with Prop forty seven. So he was cited and released from that scene rather than being
booked in jail. He went out to a vocal school bus stop bench, where he found a young lady waiting for the bus to take her to school in a residential neighborhood. He took her into a field, raped her, and left her for dad. So this guy would have been in custody but for the passage of Prop forty spin. Now he's a bad guy that was going to do
bad deeds no matter what. But just the irony of this graphic illustration of its failure and the inconsistency with the message it purported to promise, is just It is frustrating beyond the ability to accept.
And speaking of frustrating, you'll hear from various progressive leaders that, well, actually, crime is not risen, or crime is down here and there, and you know, you know better than us that if offenders are not arrested, and if they're arrested, they're not prosecuted, and if they're prosecuting, they're not tried, et cetera, et cetera, people stop reporting crime.
They go why did they bother?
Absolutely true, and we warned about this. There were several of us that read this horrible proposition and just really urged the public to be aware, don't fall for this. This is disingenuous. You will find among the casualties you'll have under reporting. And I took that message up and down the state of California to law enforcement officers, DA's city attorneys and really truly pleaded with them to continue
to report crimes. The reality is the victims are not calling the police to report the crime in the first place because they rightfully believe no consequence, no results will come from that. So and I asked people rather regularly, just look back in your mind's eye prior to November of twenty fourteen, how often did you hear the term
smash and grab thefts? If it wasn't a thing? Frankly, how often did you see tents and encampments on the streets and residential areas and commercial areas throughout the state of California? You did not, There were none because it was tolerated. Well.
The product property, One of my favorite ones is you know, going to the nice mall and seeing an armed.
Guard in front of your stores. I mean, that was never anything I ever saw in my life.
No no, this is absolutely, un undeniably created a real mess in the state of California. And by the way, California is it's not unique to California. They're doing similar things in other states. You can see it elsewhere in New York, Illinois, Massachusetts doing many of the same kinds of things. But this is an opportunity. Now. The good news is, and it seems to have a tremendous degree of positive reception to actually reform this or to fix it,
or to meliorate the consequences of Prop. Forty seven.
It's called the pull your head out of your ass acts. Well, you know, twenty twenty four.
I can't come up with anything better. Jack, that's good.
What's it? What's it going to do? What are the reforms we're talking about?
Well, by the way, let me just warn your ratifront is not a panacea. But it'll do is reclassify THEEPS with two or more prior convictions as jail elible felony, so you get two strikes as a convicted thief before you're now eligible for a felony prosecution. We used to have a law, and ironically this Penal Code section sixty sixty six that made a subsequent theft a felony. Petty theft of the prior was a felony, and it was seldom charged. There was prosecutorial and judicial discretion, but that's
completely gone now and the crooks know it. So you can literally go into a retail store three hundred and sixty five days a year, steal nine hundred and forty nine dollars worth of merchandise and have no aggregation or compounding consequences for those thefts.
That's so insane, it's absurd.
Three hundred and sixty five misdemeanors they're subject to, they're issued to citation that they throw away, they don't pay any attention to. And in some of the jurisdictions in the state of California, you have hundreds of thousands of warrants for these kinds of behaviors that are unaddressed.
Two hundreds of thousands.
Great not it's incredible. You know, law of biting people get a traffic citation, they grumble at the idea, but they take care of right. The people who are living this criminal lifestyle don't care about it, so they routinely discard those citations, pay no attention to them. Whatsoever, they go on living that lifestyle. And of course one of the greatest manifestations of this is what's so oftentimes referred to as the homelessness epidemic, But when you think about it,
is really not homelessness is the final symptom. It's antisocial criminal behavior left unaddressed that has created a problem. So it really I think it adversely impacts everybody, the business community, people trying to enjoy their quality of life, and even the offenders selves are not well served by this nonsense.
All right, So given the time that we have John Sheriff, John McGinnis is on the line, why don't I hit you with some of the reforms of forty seven. You can comment for a second or two if you want. Oh, you mentioned it reclassified theft with two or more prior convictions jail eligible. Adds new laws to address smash and grab thefts that result in significant losses or are committed by multiple thieves together.
That's interesting, yeah, yeah, And that's what you see happening routinely. What's the evening news. You see graphic images of it. So this targets that because as I say, now, there is no aggregation of those individual crimes that they're all treated separately as misdemeanors. And by the way, cooks know what's worth nine hundred and fifty bucks and what's not, so they use calculators in many cases to make a determination as to how much they can take avoiding felony consequences.
Okay, so you can go ahead and aggregate those those thefts and charge felonies. I know it adds fentanyl to the list of hard drugs resulting in selny prison time.
That's good. How many people would have to die before we wake up? That amazes me.
It's absolutely insane. And this is a different kind of a poison. I still, you know, I think methan, fhetamine and fentanyl are in a race to see which is the most destructive. Fentanyl is clearly more deadly, but methan fetamine destroys communities. It destroys plumbing fixtures where this stuff is cooked, It destroys the underground water table. Do's so much damage. And by the way, it as a result of Prop forty seven that then fetamine was reduced from
a felony to a mistemeanor. So a lot of this I think would go a long way in making things better, not an absolute pantasy. I think it's a first critical step, and it's also it's a resulted I think in a collective opening of the eyes to a great extent of the voters recognize the fallacy of these propositions, and the summary entitled to call this something like the Safe Neighbors and Schools Act there gives me hope for the future.
Do you have any idea what the polling is on this, the likelihood people agree it needs to be reformed.
Yeah, this polls very favorably. In fact, when it's called the Homelessness, Addiction and Theft Reduction Act, it polls about seventy percent in the state of California, and when people hear more information, it goes up even more. Our first order of business is to get five hundred and forty six thousand signatures to put this on the November ballot.
We're knocking on that number right now, but understanding the reality of signatures being rejected, I'd like to double maybe even get to a million or more signatures in order to qualify this. Without any hesitation, it'll get there. I think it's also a kind of an emotional and a dramatic statement that that many Californians are willing to sign this.
So that's the right now, and you're having an event. Is that right in the Sacramento area? Tell us about that.
It is at the Roosevelt Automol and Suburban Sacramento tomorrow from noon to four. People can come out and from the comforty of your car. I'll be broadcasting live from there from noon to four. Sign this petition from your car. Car. You can get out and say hi and socialize whatever your druthers, or you can be anonymous and not even be recognized as being there. But this is a big drive to get a significant number of signatures tomorrow. There'll be more efforts as well.
Whenever these things don't pass, the things that I want to pass don't pass, it's often because I feel like they didn't anticipate the pushback. What a pushback do you anticipate because I can't imagine what it would be.
Well, I anticipate that the legislature will try to create something else, and they can create an initiative and put it on the ballot November as a proposition without going to the for a vote of the public. It will be titled something like the Puppies and rainbows, right, and it will look very attractive.
By the way.
They've also promised that they're going to fix this. They're beginning to recognize now that they cannot deny the effect of Prop. Forty seven and the reality in which people are living, but cannot fix it even if they were of a mind to. This was created by the voters. The voters that were lied to, absolutely lied to and duped, but the voters approved it nonetheless, So it takes the
voters to change it. And there's language in Proposition forty seven that says just that paraphrasing, nothing in this can be changed unless it's in furtherance of the spirit of Prop. Forty seven. So to some of these changes without a vote of the public would be absolutely constitutionally rejected. And they know that.
John.
We love that you're fighting against this and leading the charge and will certainly help any way we can. Michael, our favorite new co Amla Harris clip, the one we've been using lately. I think she really summons up how important it is to sign this petition. Do you have that handy Nope, he's got the oh my god, where is it look on his face.
I'd love to hear it. Yeah and again. Remember she was the Attorney general to say to California that gave this the summary entitle that it had. Right.
Well, thank you for your time. We'll keep an eye on it. John McGinnis, Saco County.
Good to talk to you, John, Thanks, Armstrong and Getty