Tag: crime

St. Louis preparing to sue Hyundai and Kia over rampant car thefts in the city

Car thefts have skyrocketed in St. Louis in recent months, with city leadership threatening lawsuits against Kia and Hyundai for an alleged defect that makes certain makes of the cars easier to steal.

“Our drivers probably get about five of these things a day. Just Kias and Hyundais getting stolen,” tow truck driver Mark Hartmann told KMOV last week of thefts in the city. 

Auto thefts in St. Louis have doubled this year, according to KMOV. In July alone, the city averaged about 21 Kia and Hyundai theft incidents each day. That number increased to 23 thefts each day in August, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch previously reported. 

In August, St. Louis leaders threatened to sue Hyundai and Kia, demanding the car companies address a defect that allegedly makes stealing vehicles made before 2021 easier to steal. KMOV reported last week that plans to sue the carmakers over the city’s spike in auto thefts are still in the works.  

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MISSING MURDERS: Latest FBI homicide numbers OMIT New York and LA

On Wednesday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation released their national crime statistics report for 2021. However, that report leaves out key data from Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and other high-crime locales.

That report revealed that the murder rate had increased compared to the previous year.

According to a press release, the estimated number of murders nationwide increased from 22,000 in 2020 to 22,900 in 2021, a 4.3 percent jump.

The FBI explained that while murder and rape went up in 2021, robbery was down 8.9 percent, balancing things out, which they say resulted in a relatively consistent violent and property crime rate compared to 2020.

“It is important to note that these estimated trends are not considered statistically significant by NIBRS estimation methods,” they wrote, adding that “the nonsignificant nature of the observed trends is why, despite these described changes, the overall message is that crime remained consistent.”

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, however, the FBI’s latest report should be viewed with caution for a number of reasons.

Firstly, they explained, law enforcement agencies across the country have had to transition to the new National Incident Based Reporting System, which not all have done.

This has left sizable gaps in the reporting, including a lack of information from places known for having a higher than average crime rate.

Among the areas that have not switched over to the new system, and thus were not included in the 2021 report, are New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, which has stated that they don’t plan on making the shift until 2025.

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US Postal workers arrested in $1.3 million fraud and identity theft scheme, authorities say

Three US Postal employees are among four people arrested in connection with a $1.3 million fraud and identity theft scheme allegedly carried out in New York and New Jersey since 2018, according to the Department of Justice.

A further five people facing changes in connection with the case remain at large, it said.

The individuals are accused of stealing credit cards from the mail and using them to buy merchandise at a variety of stores, including high-end retailers in New York and New Jersey, authorities said.

They are then said to have sold some of the merchandise on the website LuxurySnob.com, according to a statement from the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

US postal workers Nathanael Foucault, Johnathan Persaud, Fabiola Mompoint, and civilian Devon Richards were arrested on Thursday, according to the statement.

Officials said five other people face charges, including Conspiracy to Commit Access Device Fraud, Access Device Fraud, and Aggravated Identity Theft charges, and each face lengthy prison sentences if found guilty.

“The defendants took advantage of the public trust we place in US Postal Service employees for their own financial gain,” US Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement. “Thanks to the diligence of USPIS (the Postal Inspection Service), the NYPD, and USPS-OIG (the Office of the Inspector General), the defendants will now be held accountable for their brazen criminal conduct.”

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UK Police Department Savaged For Defending Convicted Serial Pedophile Against ‘Hate’

A police department in the UK has come under fire after it appeared to defend a convicted pedophile, asserting that anyone ‘misgendering’ the individual would not be tolerated.

Sussex Police responded to posts from women’s rights campaigners who expressed concerns that the 58-year-old transgender pedophile, going by the name of Sally Ann Dixon, could be incarcerated in a women’s prison.

The individual, a biological male previously known as John Stephen Dixon until 2004, was sentenced to prison after being found guilty of 30 indecent assaults against children dating from 1989 to 1996. 

Rebel News reporter Ian Miles Cheong noted that police issued a thinly veiled threat to investigate anyone misgendering the child rapist for potential ‘hate crimes’.

The department tweeted “Hi, Sussex Police do not tolerate any hateful comments towards their gender identity regardless of crimes committed. This is irrelevant to the crime that has been committed and investigated.”

The response was swift and devastating, prompting the police department to delete their posts:

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North Dakota official says ‘no evidence’ supports suspect’s claim teen was Republican ‘extremist’

A North Dakota official said that there’s “no evidence” supporting Shannon Brandt’s claim that 18-year-old Cayler Ellingson was part of a “Republican extremist group” before he allegedly used his car to hit the teenager, who later died.

Brandt, 41, is being charged with criminal vehicular homicide, as well as leaving the scene of a crash involving a death after the incident in the early Sunday morning hours. He was held in the Stutsman County Jail until Tuesday, when he posted a $50,000 bond and was released.

The incident happened after a “street dance” in McHenry, North Dakota and Brandt told state first responders’ radio that he struck the pedestrian with an SUV because the pedestrian was threatening him,” a probable-cause affidavit states. The document also states that Brandt fled the scene, but later returned and called 911.

Brandt also thought that Ellingson was part of a “Republican extremist group,” and then allegedly hit him, according to the court document. 

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House Democrats Pass Police Funding Bills Amid Crime Crisis

House Democrats passed a package of bills on Thursday aimed at bolstering police funding and public safety after Republican lawmakers accused them of being soft on crime amid a surge in violent crime across the United States.

Lawmakers voted to pass four bills as part of the package: the Mental Health Justice Act of 2022, the Invest to Protect Act of 2022, the Break the Cycle of Violence Act, and the VICTIM Act of 2022.

The Mental Health Justice Act of 2022, sponsored by Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.), creates a grant program for states and local governments to train and dispatch mental health professionals to respond to emergencies involving behavioral health, as opposed to police.

Elsewhere, the Invest to Protect Act of 2022, sponsored by moderate Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), raises funding for smaller police departments that employ fewer than 200 law enforcement officers.

The Break the Cycle of Violence Act, sponsored by Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), provides grants to fund community violence intervention initiatives in areas with higher rates of homicides and community violence.

Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.), who introduced the VICTIM Act, called its passing a “major win for America’s public safety,” and said it passed the U.S. House with support from Democrats and Republicans.

The bill provides funding to local police departments to hire victim support personnel along with investigators to aid in solving unsolved homicides and violent crimes.

Specifically, the legislation would “establish a Department of Justice grant program to hire, train, and retain detectives and victim services personnel to investigate shootings and support victims,” Demings said in a statement.

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AOC’s GOP rival is CRIME MOLL: Aspiring US rep. railed against bail reform and woke DAs – but has serial criminal husband and son who used family’s NYC drinks firm as front for huge drug-dealing operation

An aspiring GOP congresswoman running against Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with attacks on the US Rep’s soft-on-crime stance has a husband and son who have both been convicted of serious crimes.  

Tina Forte, 52, has blamed increasing crime rates on bail laws that New York State liberalized four years ago, saying that she will be tougher on crime than AOC.

She has even shared finger-jabbing campaign videos of herself targeting the so-called Squad member’s progressive beliefs on law and order.

But Forte makes no mention of the repeated disgrace heaped on her family by her close relatives’ grubby criminal antics.  

Forte’s husband Joseph ‘Joey Snapple’ Galdieri, 55, has been in and out of jail several times.

Her son Joseph Jr, 28, has also spent time in the slammer – despite trying to avoid prison by moaning about his food allergies. 

The father and son ran a huge cannabis dealing operation from the family’s beverage company in the Bronx, according to the Daily Beast.

A gun with its serial number filed-off was found on the same premises, even though Galdieri Sr and Jr’s prior felony convictions ban them from owning firearms.

Forte, who bills herself as a fervent Donald Trump and police supporter, has been accused in the past of using her maiden name to distance herself from her ‘crime family’, with the hashtag ‘galdiericrimefamily’ being widely used online.

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FBI Whistleblower Alleges Bureau Took Agents Off Child Sex Abuse Cases To Pursue Political Probes

The House Judiciary Committee Republicans released a letter this week that they sent to FBI Director Christopher Wray that featured claims from a whistleblower from the Bureau who claims that FBI agents were moved off child sex abuse cases to work on political investigations.

“We continue to hear from brave whistleblowers about disturbing conduct at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, including politicization within the Washington Field Office (WFO),” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Ranking Member on the Committee, at the start of the letter. “On July 27, 2022, we wrote to you about protected whistleblower disclosures that FBI officials including an Assistant Special Agent in Charge from the WFO-were pressuring agents to reclassify cases as ‘domestic violent extremism’ (DVEs) even if the cases do not meet the criteria for such a classification.”

The letter stated that since then, the Committee has learned of new whistleblowers who allege that the Bureau is “deliberately manipulating the way case files related to January 6 investigations are maintained in order to create a false and misleading narrative that domestic violent extremism is increasing around the country.”

The letter goes on to state how the FBI allegedly overstates the domestic violent extremism threats in the U.S. and how the Bureau has allegedly “not followed regular procedure” with respect to January 6 cases.

“The manipulative casefile practice creates false and misleading crime statistics,” the whistleblower stated. “Instead of hundreds of investigations stemming from a single, black swan incident at the Capitol, FBI and DOJ officials point to significant increases in domestic violent extremism and terrorism around the United States.”

“In other words, the FBI’s case categorization creates the illusion that threats from DVE are present in jurisdictions across the nation, when in reality they all stem from the same related investigation concerning the actions at the Capitol on January 6,” Jordan’s letter stated. “Such an artificial case categorization scheme allows FBI leadership to misleadingly point to ‘significant’ increases in DVE threats nationwide. These allegations are consistent with disclosures we have received from other whistleblowers that high-ranking FBI officials–including a senior WFO official–are pressing front-line agents to categorize cases as DVE matters to fit a political narrative.”

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41-year-old driver admits to intentionally running over and killing Republican teenager in North Dakota due to political dispute

Early Sunday morning, 41-year-old Shannon Brandt allegedly ran over 18-year-old Cayler Ellingson with his car following a political dispute in McHenry, North Dakota.

After being charged on Monday with vehicular homicide and leaving the scene of a deadly accident, Brandt admitted that his actions were politically motivated. 

According to InForum, Ellingson had been participating in a street dance Saturday night, and when it wrapped up, he noticed that Brandt was following him. 

Ellingson called his mother to ask for help, but it was too late. Moments later, Brandt slammed into him with his car in an alleyway, killing the teen.

Brandt later called police himself to report the incident. As InForum reports, he claimed that Ellingson had been part of a “Republican extremist group,” and had ordered others to come after him following a political argument.

According to police, Brandt was drunk at the time, however aside from that, very little is known about what transpired.

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