Understanding the Drug Epidemic in Los Angeles with Three-Time Former District Attorney Steve Cooley
October 9, 2024 • 23 mins
In the second part of the interview with Steve Cooley, the former district attorney discusses the intricate connections between drug cartels and the homeless population in Los Angeles. The conversation delves into how reclassification of drug offenses and changes in bail laws have impacted crime rates and public safety. Cooley explains the implications of recent court decisions and legislative actions, such as Proposition 47 and the AB 109 realignment, on law enforcement and the judicial system. The discussion also covers the complex relationships between international drug trafficking, local drug markets, and the role of China in the precursor chemical supply chain. The episode sheds light on the challenges of managing public safety in large urban areas and the broader societal implications of current criminal justice policies.
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(00:21):
You madea comment that was very interesting.
And it seemed to me and this comes back to
the reclassification
of possession from feloniesand misdemeanors, so people who abuse
these substances are back outabusing the system some more.
And I understood you to suggest that
(00:44):
that is indirectwhat not indirectly, but directly
maintaining a revenue streamfor the drug cartels.
Because if the users were in prison
where they didn't
have direct access to the substances,they would not be funding the cartels
sale of.
And if they were in prison,they might have a shot
at getting rid of their drug addiction.
(01:04):
They would look for famous county
is, let's say, to put it mildly,
burdened with the homeless population.
And a good chunk of that homelesspopulation are
drug addicted individuals.
If they were arrested
(01:26):
by law enforcement and put in the system
where they might have a shotat getting rehabilitated,
well,
that would be a good thing.
But that doesn't exist.
So what they do, they live in the streets,live in their tents and
live really for their drugsand their drug abuse.
(01:47):
That is a great failure of society
that we're not even providing a mechanismfor them
to deal with their addictionand their problem, just like society.
Government has absolutely failedto deal with the mentally ill
by forcibly incarceratingthose individuals who would benefit
(02:10):
from incarceration and treatment.
But we abandoned that long time ago.
The stateabandoned that historic responsibility
when they adoptedLeonard and Petra's short act.
But 40 years ago, complete abdicationof that responsibility.
It seems to me that
(02:31):
the drugcartels are not particularly benevolent.
I doubt that they're handing out drugs
to the homeless for free.
So which raises the question then
how do the homeless fund their habit,
steal the steal?
So we've got a full.
Circle, the steal or the deal.
(02:52):
And, you know,there's a lot of people between
the drug cartels
and and the ultimate substance abuser.
There's a lot of intermediate sellersand others
besides the cartels who are profiting from
the poisoning others a little bit.
(03:13):
But it's a.
It's a vicious circlebecause these people on the street
and they're fund dean their habitby stealing, hence the increase in crime.
And the money goeseventually some some criminal somewhere.
Yeah yeah it's not being taxedit's not going to the public coffers
that's for sure.
Well, let me come to one more component,which I suspect is contributing to the
(03:36):
the increase in the loss of public safety.
And that is a recent court decision
that has said it's
unconstitutional
to impose a bailwithout taking into account
the ability of the defendantto pay that bail.
And that has had the net effect of having
(03:58):
so many peoplereleased on their own recognizance now,
which puts people back on the street,I think within 48 hours
after they've been arrestedfor for particular crime.
Can you speak to that?
Well, that decision just came out
a couple of weeks agothat was made by a superior court judge.
It had been put on hold
pending appeal.
That should be appealed.
(04:19):
The I don't want to get into the
particular judge who made the decision,but let's just say
I don't think it was awell informed decision
when it comes to having
people with
experience with the justice system
and how the bail system works
(04:42):
as informing
that judge about the impact
of declaring an unconstitutional.
And I don't think
maybe that's the first steptoward some other appellate court
or the Supreme Court really dealingwith that issue of inequality.
(05:04):
But I've always had greatfaith, the bail system, and here's why.
The judges who set the bail schedulefor the whole array of crimes,
including nonviolent,non-serious misdemeanors,
they're experienced people.
They have a committee of experiencedcriminal judges
who make that determination.
(05:25):
And then within the penal code,
there are mechanisms for an individualwho is arrested
to almost immediately have their
bail lowered significantly.
It's called a bail deviation.
Or even a juvenile release.
So it's almost like
(05:46):
the judge's decision was a complete
any nonviolent, non-serious felony
and all misdemeanors, no bail required.
I think that was
not very subtleor sophisticated or nuanced.
(06:07):
And I hope that
whoever is was a part of that action
actually appeals it to another court
who may have a better perspectiveon reality.
And more respectfor the fact that system was working
and it was put in place by thoughtful,smart, experienced people.
(06:29):
We we talk about the rate of crime,
and I haven't really given you a chanceto define what that is.
What is that rate calculated on?
Is that how many crimes are committedper 100,000
population or is it some other basis?
Well, there's the
FBI keeps statistics
(06:49):
and they have rulesfor all of law enforcement
throughout the United Statesto report certain crimes.
And there's seven
part one crimesrange from Grand Theft Auto
to murder.
And the local agencies are responsible,
(07:12):
as are the states,
to report those crimes to the FBI so they
so they can have some sort of sense
of the crime rate.
And this is publicly availableinformation.
Yeah, they publish it every year.
And I think that's probably
(07:32):
one of the most reliable statistics now.
Other crimes could be rampant,
but are not reflected in a crime rate.
You know why?
Because they don't get reported.
Because sometimes people give up.
They know nothing's going to happen.
And that's a result of Prop 47.
(07:52):
For example, if you diminish a crime tothe point where nothing's going to happen.
Why should someone waste your timereporting an.
Example of losing respector faith in the law?
Why should it?
Why should a police officer take a report?
Not going to go anywhere to big Nothing.
So I think that
statistics shows the old sayingthere's three kinds of lies,
lies, damned lies and statistics.
(08:15):
I, i, I'm always very suspicious of people
when they cite statisticsin support of some proposition.
Right.
I have a lot more faithin anecdotal experience,
in my own experience than I do.
And someone else's statistic.
I think we owe that quote to Mark Twain.
You're totally right.
(08:35):
Mark Twain. Gives a lot of good quotes.
Along with I think he said history doesn'trepeat itself, but it sure does rhyme.
Yes. That's another good.
You're a. Smart guy.
So so are the categories
of the crime changing as we move along?
You know,there are more crimes being committed
(08:56):
of a different nature than they were,say, 12 or 14 years ago.
Well, Joe Paternodid exist for over 14 years ago now.
Drug abuse occurred 12 or 14 years ago.
Different kinds of drugs.
China has been a culprit for decadesin terms of manufacturing,
the precursor drugsthat went into PCP, for example.
(09:18):
Right. And Mexico historically has been
a pretty
activelaboratory in terms of producing drugs.
And, of course, Americans,
they've got their appetite for drugs,which they have to think about,
maybe cooling their jets a little bit
and stop being consumers and abusers.
(09:39):
So it's really sort of athat all goes back right now.
The financial crisis is awe've never had as many deaths
as a direct result of a drug usethan we have right now.
And that's because the way then to know
is put out there in the marketplace,you know,
some drug dealer doesn't go down and say,hey, I got some great fentanyl here.
(10:02):
They say, Hey, man,you want some OxyContin?
yeah, I love sir, I love some.
I like that stuff.
They take the pill, only die.
It's just thenit's happening to individuals
who have no intention of overdosing.
They just want to get high on something.
But they don't realize it.
It's laced with fentanyl.
And that's really, what, 3000 deathsa year.
(10:23):
Nine states of America.
It's just it's a it's an epidemic.
So tracing the money.
Following up on your comment.
Tracing the money trail with fentanyl
has a different route
than some of the earlier drugs.
Were you suggesting thata lot of this money goes back to China?
(10:48):
Mexican cartels from China.
China suppliesthe precursors in many cases.
And then the cartels are playinga major role in distributing
it, smuggling itinto the United States of America.
And I think I thinkproduction occurs in both places,
but they're the main culpritswhen it comes to fentanyl.
(11:09):
And that's as contrasted, for example,to cocaine.
There's a contrast with cocaine,cocaine, more South America and
Colombian,
Peruvian, the Andes, where they grow itand the Colombians process it.
And they played a great role
originally in terms of distributingwith the United States.
And that was taken over bythe Mexican Mexican cartels at some point
(11:33):
because it was more efficientat distributing it.
So the Colombians just were downto essentially processing it
and getting it to the cartels
as opposed to being the primary smugglers.
And so the cartels becamethe primary smugglers, their PCP.
A lot of that was manufactured locally.
(11:56):
It's like methamphetaminewas manufactured locally,
but the precursor drugs were oftentimescoming from China to Mexico.
The I have to ask the obvious question
then communist is, to put it mildly,
not an open country.
(12:16):
To me, it seems hard to believethat there could be that type
of trafficking in the precursorout of China without
the participation
or the approval, or
at least looking the other wayby the Chinese Communist Communist Party.
Maybe yes, maybe no.
(12:38):
But you're totally that.
You're totally right.
They're effectively our enemy.
And the extentthey denigrate our society hurt us
cause us to be weaker.
Well, then then they gain.
They gain in comparison to us.
Secondly, economically, they gain.
(12:58):
China is a totalitarian state.
If they wanted to crack downon the supply of precursors
from China to Mexico or elsewhere,
they could do it in a heartbeatbecause they are a dictatorship.
Dictatorships are very efficient.
They're brutal.
(13:19):
They're horrible.
But they're efficient.
They could crack down on thethe precursor drugs
for fentanyl right nowbecause they're a totalitarian state,
but they don't want to crack down on itbecause it's hurting
who with whom they perceive the countrythey perceived to be
(13:39):
their primary enemy,United States of America.
You know,we've the national discourse on this has,
of course, focused to a very large extenton the welfare of the individual
who overdose or taking fentanyl.
And I'm not aware of anybody's everfocusing on the fact that this is also
a national security issue.
So if we're providing revenue
(14:00):
to the that
the Chinese Communist Partycan use to build another aircraft
carrier or another fighteraircraft on the one hand on the other,
and then on the other sideof the equation, taking
so many American lives in the process,it seems like by virtue of letting this
fentanyl crisis grow, that to the ChineseCommunist Party benefits twice over.
(14:23):
That's just one of our tentacles.
How about the theft of
intellectual property,
which is rampant China stealing
valuable intellectual property
and other things made in Americafor their own benefit also.
So they're going to
(14:44):
try and benefit themselves at our expense
everywhere they can, whether it be
fentanyl, manufacturing and sales,
which does gain them some money.
Besides hurting America to other things.
And I think that our country really has to
(15:07):
see if they're being
taken advantage of.
So phenol obviously is huge.
It's new, newer,
and we're focusing on roughly,I think the time frame we've identified
where things really started to get out ofcontrol was roughly about 2012 or so, 11.
11 over the weekendor maybe a little later.
(15:29):
In terms of being
the scourge that is nowadays.
And the. Crime.
But the laws in general,you can start back about 2010 with maybe
one or nine, and that's been downhillever since between
maybe one or nine, Prop 47, Prop 57,and a number of other laws
that have come out of our statelegislature.
(15:50):
And burglaries, robberies are up.
What about murders and sex crimesor those up as well?
Murders are going up,
I think sex crimes, rape,
things of that nature probably going up
slowly but surely.
But it's not like overnight.
It just takes time as individualswho should be in or out
(16:11):
to commit those crimes.
But we aren't yet to where we were
back in the mid-seventies early eighties,
and that in my view, was prompted by
the rock cocaine problems.
And people
(16:32):
fighting over distribution of the profitsof rock cocaine and the emergence
of gangs, the gangs in that in that era,the Crips, the Bloods,
the rest of them really started growingin the mid seventies, early eighties.
So you had sort of a combinationof this dramatic abuse of rock cocaine
(16:54):
and then a dramatic expansionof involvement in gangs.
Well, you know,you know, having this conversation
seems like it's a bleak conversation.
But you did say one thingthat maybe is a little bit of sunshine
and you and it's goodto have this historical perspective
because I think what you just saidis that the crime rates
(17:18):
that we're dealing with now,
even though from our perspectiveseem to be out of control,
that it's not yet as bad as it wasin the late seventies and early eighties.
What doesn't make itgood. Doesn't make it good.
But but but I think a lot of people
have the impressionthat it's never been this bad.
And so, you know.
You're right after this bad,we dealt with it.
(17:40):
We dealt with it by changing the laws,enforcing the laws, the good judges,
aggressiveand appropriate law enforcement and
professional skilled prosecutors
turned that around in the context of
a very good system calledthe determinant sentence law system.
(18:02):
Things kind of came together.
That's what caused it to godown to a 60 year low. Now,
what was the part of the equationthat came together
or being sort of taken apart by,you know, legally and and otherwise?
That's the reason we started to see crimego back up.
Well, a lack of commitmentby our governmental leaders
(18:23):
to the historic concepts of incarcerationand punishment for criminals.
Well, I haven't forgotten about good lawsand good enforcers.
And so
I think we identified 47, 57
and a, B one or nine as being examples of
not good laws that created this process.
(18:48):
We haven't talked a lotabout the good enforcers or lack thereof,
but well,let's let let's assume here we are 2023
then looking at it
solely from the standpoint of good laws.
We got out of this mess in the latebeginning in the early eighties
by determinate sentencingand other changes in the law as well.
(19:10):
What now should we be doing
to follow the pattern set 45 years ago
so that we can get this under controland start improving our crime rate?
I don't particularly have much faithin the public at large passing
laws like the historic three strikes law,
(19:31):
which was appropriately modified later on.
I don't see them.
I don't see there any force to do that.
There were many
really salutary,good initiatives undertaken
back in the seventies and eightiesto get rid
of the adverse effects of Rose Byrdand her Supreme Court.
(19:55):
Some good things were done in responseto that.
I don't see any
real movement to do that nowadays.
I have very little faith in the Californiastate legislature
as currently comprised to do anything
positive on the public safety front.
I see them continuing to pass laws that
(20:17):
make things more complicated
for the law enforcers, the prosecutors,
and easier for the criminal element.
I see them doing things that are
very insensitive
to victims. Victims?
Next of kin of murder victims.
I don't have much faithin the state legislature.
(20:38):
So how did this happen?
Because we've got a rising crimerate, rising crimes and total number.
So many people that you run into
feel a terrible loss of public safety.
Why aren't our political leadersdealing with that?
Because I think there are other factors out there that influence the voting public.
(21:01):
Besides, youknow, public safety is an important issue.
It's not the only issue that's out there.
There's lots of other thingsthat cause people to vote a certain way
for certain political partyor certain candidates.
Other than public safety.
So as important as it is,
it doesn't seem to be
maybe as important as it should be.
(21:24):
So I don't see anyI don't see any solutions on the horizon.
Well, you said, you know,
kind of our discussion were kind of bleakwhen things are bleak.
But I don't see any
anything really happening here.
Maybe we can pick offa few of these radical left wing,
erstwhile so-called progressive ideas.
(21:48):
That would be a big stepin the right direction.
And but that's the only way I can see
what we could do right now is point out
who these lousy prosecutorsare that are truly
publicsafety, endangering in and of themselves.
There's about five or six in California.
(22:10):
Probably about 14 to 20and throughout the United States
that if they disappearedtomorrow, we'd all be a lot better off.
I'm talking about New York,
St Louis, Philadelphia, Seattle,
Portland, Milwaukee, L.A., San Francisco.
Picture problem.
(22:31):
We got a couple of others in Californiathat should be knocked out.
And in San Francisco, you're referringto the recall of that D.A.?
Yeah, that. That D.A.
recall.
Now there's someone in therewho's actually pretty good D.A.
She knows she's doingshe has some experience.
She actually follows the law,
which is nice for a changecompared to that
(22:53):
boudin guy.
Jesse Boudin
could just do his own thing.
Of course, we have.
We shouldn't criticize Schumer, Cisco.
They're not even that big.They're only 7000 people.
L.A. County's got 10.4 million people.
So we're so we've got Gascon.
We are some 14 timesworse than San Francisco.
(23:14):
Well.
You madea comment that was very interesting.
And it seemed to me and this comes back to
the reclassification
of possession from feloniesand misdemeanors, so people who abuse
these substances are back outabusing the system some more.
And I understood you to suggest that
(00:44):
that is indirectwhat not indirectly, but directly
maintaining a revenue streamfor the drug cartels.
Because if the users were in prison
where they didn't
have direct access to the substances,they would not be funding the cartels
sale of.
And if they were in prison,they might have a shot
at getting rid of their drug addiction.
(01:04):
They would look for famous county
is, let's say, to put it mildly,
burdened with the homeless population.
And a good chunk of that homelesspopulation are
drug addicted individuals.
If they were arrested
(01:26):
by law enforcement and put in the system
where they might have a shotat getting rehabilitated,
well,
that would be a good thing.
But that doesn't exist.
So what they do, they live in the streets,live in their tents and
live really for their drugsand their drug abuse.
(01:47):
That is a great failure of society
that we're not even providing a mechanismfor them
to deal with their addictionand their problem, just like society.
Government has absolutely failedto deal with the mentally ill
by forcibly incarceratingthose individuals who would benefit
(02:10):
from incarceration and treatment.
But we abandoned that long time ago.
The stateabandoned that historic responsibility
when they adoptedLeonard and Petra's short act.
But 40 years ago, complete abdicationof that responsibility.
It seems to me that
(02:31):
the drugcartels are not particularly benevolent.
I doubt that they're handing out drugs
to the homeless for free.
So which raises the question then
how do the homeless fund their habit,
steal the steal?
So we've got a full.
Circle, the steal or the deal.
(02:52):
And, you know,there's a lot of people between
the drug cartels
and and the ultimate substance abuser.
There's a lot of intermediate sellersand others
besides the cartels who are profiting from
the poisoning others a little bit.
(03:13):
But it's a.
It's a vicious circlebecause these people on the street
and they're fund dean their habitby stealing, hence the increase in crime.
And the money goeseventually some some criminal somewhere.
Yeah yeah it's not being taxedit's not going to the public coffers
that's for sure.
Well, let me come to one more component,which I suspect is contributing to the
(03:36):
the increase in the loss of public safety.
And that is a recent court decision
that has said it's
unconstitutional
to impose a bailwithout taking into account
the ability of the defendantto pay that bail.
And that has had the net effect of having
(03:58):
so many peoplereleased on their own recognizance now,
which puts people back on the street,I think within 48 hours
after they've been arrestedfor for particular crime.
Can you speak to that?
Well, that decision just came out
a couple of weeks agothat was made by a superior court judge.
It had been put on hold
pending appeal.
That should be appealed.
(04:19):
The I don't want to get into the
particular judge who made the decision,but let's just say
I don't think it was awell informed decision
when it comes to having
people with
experience with the justice system
and how the bail system works
(04:42):
as informing
that judge about the impact
of declaring an unconstitutional.
And I don't think
maybe that's the first steptoward some other appellate court
or the Supreme Court really dealingwith that issue of inequality.
(05:04):
But I've always had greatfaith, the bail system, and here's why.
The judges who set the bail schedulefor the whole array of crimes,
including nonviolent,non-serious misdemeanors,
they're experienced people.
They have a committee of experiencedcriminal judges
who make that determination.
(05:25):
And then within the penal code,
there are mechanisms for an individualwho is arrested
to almost immediately have their
bail lowered significantly.
It's called a bail deviation.
Or even a juvenile release.
So it's almost like
(05:46):
the judge's decision was a complete
any nonviolent, non-serious felony
and all misdemeanors, no bail required.
I think that was
not very subtleor sophisticated or nuanced.
(06:07):
And I hope that
whoever is was a part of that action
actually appeals it to another court
who may have a better perspectiveon reality.
And more respectfor the fact that system was working
and it was put in place by thoughtful,smart, experienced people.
(06:29):
We we talk about the rate of crime,
and I haven't really given you a chanceto define what that is.
What is that rate calculated on?
Is that how many crimes are committedper 100,000
population or is it some other basis?
Well, there's the
FBI keeps statistics
(06:49):
and they have rulesfor all of law enforcement
throughout the United Statesto report certain crimes.
And there's seven
part one crimesrange from Grand Theft Auto
to murder.
And the local agencies are responsible,
(07:12):
as are the states,
to report those crimes to the FBI so they
so they can have some sort of sense
of the crime rate.
And this is publicly availableinformation.
Yeah, they publish it every year.
And I think that's probably
(07:32):
one of the most reliable statistics now.
Other crimes could be rampant,
but are not reflected in a crime rate.
You know why?
Because they don't get reported.
Because sometimes people give up.
They know nothing's going to happen.
And that's a result of Prop 47.
(07:52):
For example, if you diminish a crime tothe point where nothing's going to happen.
Why should someone waste your timereporting an.
Example of losing respector faith in the law?
Why should it?
Why should a police officer take a report?
Not going to go anywhere to big Nothing.
So I think that
statistics shows the old sayingthere's three kinds of lies,
lies, damned lies and statistics.
(08:15):
I, i, I'm always very suspicious of people
when they cite statisticsin support of some proposition.
Right.
I have a lot more faithin anecdotal experience,
in my own experience than I do.
And someone else's statistic.
I think we owe that quote to Mark Twain.
You're totally right.
(08:35):
Mark Twain. Gives a lot of good quotes.
Along with I think he said history doesn'trepeat itself, but it sure does rhyme.
Yes. That's another good.
You're a. Smart guy.
So so are the categories
of the crime changing as we move along?
You know,there are more crimes being committed
(08:56):
of a different nature than they were,say, 12 or 14 years ago.
Well, Joe Paternodid exist for over 14 years ago now.
Drug abuse occurred 12 or 14 years ago.
Different kinds of drugs.
China has been a culprit for decadesin terms of manufacturing,
the precursor drugsthat went into PCP, for example.
(09:18):
Right. And Mexico historically has been
a pretty
activelaboratory in terms of producing drugs.
And, of course, Americans,
they've got their appetite for drugs,which they have to think about,
maybe cooling their jets a little bit
and stop being consumers and abusers.
(09:39):
So it's really sort of athat all goes back right now.
The financial crisis is awe've never had as many deaths
as a direct result of a drug usethan we have right now.
And that's because the way then to know
is put out there in the marketplace,you know,
some drug dealer doesn't go down and say,hey, I got some great fentanyl here.
(10:02):
They say, Hey, man,you want some OxyContin?
yeah, I love sir, I love some.
I like that stuff.
They take the pill, only die.
It's just thenit's happening to individuals
who have no intention of overdosing.
They just want to get high on something.
But they don't realize it.
It's laced with fentanyl.
And that's really, what, 3000 deathsa year.
(10:23):
Nine states of America.
It's just it's a it's an epidemic.
So tracing the money.
Following up on your comment.
Tracing the money trail with fentanyl
has a different route
than some of the earlier drugs.
Were you suggesting thata lot of this money goes back to China?
(10:48):
Mexican cartels from China.
China suppliesthe precursors in many cases.
And then the cartels are playinga major role in distributing
it, smuggling itinto the United States of America.
And I think I thinkproduction occurs in both places,
but they're the main culpritswhen it comes to fentanyl.
(11:09):
And that's as contrasted, for example,to cocaine.
There's a contrast with cocaine,cocaine, more South America and
Colombian,
Peruvian, the Andes, where they grow itand the Colombians process it.
And they played a great role
originally in terms of distributingwith the United States.
And that was taken over bythe Mexican Mexican cartels at some point
(11:33):
because it was more efficientat distributing it.
So the Colombians just were downto essentially processing it
and getting it to the cartels
as opposed to being the primary smugglers.
And so the cartels becamethe primary smugglers, their PCP.
A lot of that was manufactured locally.
(11:56):
It's like methamphetaminewas manufactured locally,
but the precursor drugs were oftentimescoming from China to Mexico.
The I have to ask the obvious question
then communist is, to put it mildly,
not an open country.
(12:16):
To me, it seems hard to believethat there could be that type
of trafficking in the precursorout of China without
the participation
or the approval, or
at least looking the other wayby the Chinese Communist Communist Party.
Maybe yes, maybe no.
(12:38):
But you're totally that.
You're totally right.
They're effectively our enemy.
And the extentthey denigrate our society hurt us
cause us to be weaker.
Well, then then they gain.
They gain in comparison to us.
Secondly, economically, they gain.
(12:58):
China is a totalitarian state.
If they wanted to crack downon the supply of precursors
from China to Mexico or elsewhere,
they could do it in a heartbeatbecause they are a dictatorship.
Dictatorships are very efficient.
They're brutal.
(13:19):
They're horrible.
But they're efficient.
They could crack down on thethe precursor drugs
for fentanyl right nowbecause they're a totalitarian state,
but they don't want to crack down on itbecause it's hurting
who with whom they perceive the countrythey perceived to be
(13:39):
their primary enemy,United States of America.
You know,we've the national discourse on this has,
of course, focused to a very large extenton the welfare of the individual
who overdose or taking fentanyl.
And I'm not aware of anybody's everfocusing on the fact that this is also
a national security issue.
So if we're providing revenue
(14:00):
to the that
the Chinese Communist Partycan use to build another aircraft
carrier or another fighteraircraft on the one hand on the other,
and then on the other sideof the equation, taking
so many American lives in the process,it seems like by virtue of letting this
fentanyl crisis grow, that to the ChineseCommunist Party benefits twice over.
(14:23):
That's just one of our tentacles.
How about the theft of
intellectual property,
which is rampant China stealing
valuable intellectual property
and other things made in Americafor their own benefit also.
So they're going to
(14:44):
try and benefit themselves at our expense
everywhere they can, whether it be
fentanyl, manufacturing and sales,
which does gain them some money.
Besides hurting America to other things.
And I think that our country really has to
(15:07):
see if they're being
taken advantage of.
So phenol obviously is huge.
It's new, newer,
and we're focusing on roughly,I think the time frame we've identified
where things really started to get out ofcontrol was roughly about 2012 or so, 11.
11 over the weekendor maybe a little later.
(15:29):
In terms of being
the scourge that is nowadays.
And the. Crime.
But the laws in general,you can start back about 2010 with maybe
one or nine, and that's been downhillever since between
maybe one or nine, Prop 47, Prop 57,and a number of other laws
that have come out of our statelegislature.
(15:50):
And burglaries, robberies are up.
What about murders and sex crimesor those up as well?
Murders are going up,
I think sex crimes, rape,
things of that nature probably going up
slowly but surely.
But it's not like overnight.
It just takes time as individualswho should be in or out
(16:11):
to commit those crimes.
But we aren't yet to where we were
back in the mid-seventies early eighties,
and that in my view, was prompted by
the rock cocaine problems.
And people
(16:32):
fighting over distribution of the profitsof rock cocaine and the emergence
of gangs, the gangs in that in that era,the Crips, the Bloods,
the rest of them really started growingin the mid seventies, early eighties.
So you had sort of a combinationof this dramatic abuse of rock cocaine
(16:54):
and then a dramatic expansionof involvement in gangs.
Well, you know,you know, having this conversation
seems like it's a bleak conversation.
But you did say one thingthat maybe is a little bit of sunshine
and you and it's goodto have this historical perspective
because I think what you just saidis that the crime rates
(17:18):
that we're dealing with now,
even though from our perspectiveseem to be out of control,
that it's not yet as bad as it wasin the late seventies and early eighties.
What doesn't make itgood. Doesn't make it good.
But but but I think a lot of people
have the impressionthat it's never been this bad.
And so, you know.
You're right after this bad,we dealt with it.
(17:40):
We dealt with it by changing the laws,enforcing the laws, the good judges,
aggressiveand appropriate law enforcement and
professional skilled prosecutors
turned that around in the context of
a very good system calledthe determinant sentence law system.
(18:02):
Things kind of came together.
That's what caused it to godown to a 60 year low. Now,
what was the part of the equationthat came together
or being sort of taken apart by,you know, legally and and otherwise?
That's the reason we started to see crimego back up.
Well, a lack of commitmentby our governmental leaders
(18:23):
to the historic concepts of incarcerationand punishment for criminals.
Well, I haven't forgotten about good lawsand good enforcers.
And so
I think we identified 47, 57
and a, B one or nine as being examples of
not good laws that created this process.
(18:48):
We haven't talked a lotabout the good enforcers or lack thereof,
but well,let's let let's assume here we are 2023
then looking at it
solely from the standpoint of good laws.
We got out of this mess in the latebeginning in the early eighties
by determinate sentencingand other changes in the law as well.
(19:10):
What now should we be doing
to follow the pattern set 45 years ago
so that we can get this under controland start improving our crime rate?
I don't particularly have much faithin the public at large passing
laws like the historic three strikes law,
(19:31):
which was appropriately modified later on.
I don't see them.
I don't see there any force to do that.
There were many
really salutary,good initiatives undertaken
back in the seventies and eightiesto get rid
of the adverse effects of Rose Byrdand her Supreme Court.
(19:55):
Some good things were done in responseto that.
I don't see any
real movement to do that nowadays.
I have very little faith in the Californiastate legislature
as currently comprised to do anything
positive on the public safety front.
I see them continuing to pass laws that
(20:17):
make things more complicated
for the law enforcers, the prosecutors,
and easier for the criminal element.
I see them doing things that are
very insensitive
to victims. Victims?
Next of kin of murder victims.
I don't have much faithin the state legislature.
(20:38):
So how did this happen?
Because we've got a rising crimerate, rising crimes and total number.
So many people that you run into
feel a terrible loss of public safety.
Why aren't our political leadersdealing with that?
Because I think there are other factors out there that influence the voting public.
(21:01):
Besides, youknow, public safety is an important issue.
It's not the only issue that's out there.
There's lots of other thingsthat cause people to vote a certain way
for certain political partyor certain candidates.
Other than public safety.
So as important as it is,
it doesn't seem to be
maybe as important as it should be.
(21:24):
So I don't see anyI don't see any solutions on the horizon.
Well, you said, you know,
kind of our discussion were kind of bleakwhen things are bleak.
But I don't see any
anything really happening here.
Maybe we can pick offa few of these radical left wing,
erstwhile so-called progressive ideas.
(21:48):
That would be a big stepin the right direction.
And but that's the only way I can see
what we could do right now is point out
who these lousy prosecutorsare that are truly
publicsafety, endangering in and of themselves.
There's about five or six in California.
(22:10):
Probably about 14 to 20and throughout the United States
that if they disappearedtomorrow, we'd all be a lot better off.
I'm talking about New York,
St Louis, Philadelphia, Seattle,
Portland, Milwaukee, L.A., San Francisco.
Picture problem.
(22:31):
We got a couple of others in Californiathat should be knocked out.
And in San Francisco, you're referringto the recall of that D.A.?
Yeah, that. That D.A.
recall.
Now there's someone in therewho's actually pretty good D.A.
She knows she's doingshe has some experience.
She actually follows the law,
which is nice for a changecompared to that
(22:53):
boudin guy.
Jesse Boudin
could just do his own thing.
Of course, we have.
We shouldn't criticize Schumer, Cisco.
They're not even that big.They're only 7000 people.
L.A. County's got 10.4 million people.
So we're so we've got Gascon.
We are some 14 timesworse than San Francisco.
(23:14):
Well.
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