With a dangerous wave of crime surging across the country, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, argues that Democrat-led cities need new leaders because their “frightening” policies have led to organized crime and legitimized violence.
“It doesn’t take a genius to figure this out. When you get rid of bail, you shouldn’t be surprised when you get more crime,” Jordan said.
“When you defund the police, you shouldn’t be surprised when you get more crime. When Democrats spent an entire summer calling rioters and looters ‘peaceful protesters,’ you shouldn’t be surprised when you get more crime.
“And when Democrats, those same peaceful protesters, raise money to bail them out of jail, you shouldn’t be surprised when you get more crime.”
He continued, “The scary part of all this is it’s intentional. The Democrats have legitimized crime now — that is what is so frightening.”
Smash-and-grabs spread across country
Business leaders and congressional Republicans are slamming far-left “squad” member and New York Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over comments she recently made over a spate of “smash-and-grab” thefts taking place across the country.
In an interview with the Washington Times newspaper, Ocasio-Cortez said that “a lot of these allegations of organized retail theft are not actually panning out. I believe it’s a Walgreens in California cited it, but the date didn’t back it up.”
Walgreens announced in October that it would be closing five stores in San Francisco after a rash of threats at its stores. At the time, Walgreens announced, “Due to ongoing organized retail crime, we have made the difficult decision to close five stores across San Francisco.”
According to Walgreens spokesman Phil Caruso, “Organized retail crime continues to be a challenge facing retailers across San Francisco, and we are not immune to that. Retail theft across our San Francisco stores has continued to increase to five times our chain average in the past few months.
“During this time to help combat this issue, we increased our investments in security measures in stores across the city to 46 times our chain average in an effort to provide a safe environment.”
Retail theft has spread across the state and to cities across the country, including Philadelphia and Minneapolis.
In response to Ocasio-Cortez’s statement, Republican Congressman Rodney Davis said, “All you need to do is walk down the street to the CVS in Eastern Market,” referring to the area of the Capitol where the public market is located.
“I’ve seen on multiple occasions when I’ve been in there buying things; someone will come in and raid a shelf and walk out,” Davis said.
California Republican Congressman Darrell Issa also spoke out about Ocasio-Cortez’s statement saying, “It’s important that people use appropriate words when something is clearly happening.
“Law enforcement may have to say ‘alleged’ because no one has been convicted, but I think people who know better should use more appropriate words. But she’s not known for appropriate words.”
Issa added that Ocasio-Cortez’s “credibility continues to fall.”
Indiana Republican Congressman Jim Banks told the Washington Times that Ocasio-Cortez’s remarks are “tone-deaf and offensive.” Banks cited the example of a news team’s security guard who was murdered while protecting the crew covering a smash-and-grab robbery in San Francisco.
The Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) also spoke about the New York Democrat Congresswoman.
“Respectfully, the congresswoman has no idea what she is talking about. Both the data and stack of video evidence makes fairly clear that this is a growing problem in need of solutions. If she is not concerned with organized theft and increasingly violent attacks on retail employees, she should just say that,” said Jason Brewer, RILA’s senior executive vice president of communications, wrote in an email to the Washington Times.
“If she is not concerned with organized theft and increasingly violent attacks on retail employees, she should just say that.”
According to the National Retail Federation (NLRF), “organized retail crime” has cost businesses an average of $719,548 per $1 billion in sales in 2021 alone. The cost of lost merchandise has been over $700,000 for the past five years, the group said.
