Remember back in the summer of 2020 when social workers were supposed to be the answer to crime?
Most leftists have abandoned this sort of rhetoric, mind you, but the vestiges of it still linger. New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani seems ready and eager to revive it.
As it turns out, this only works if the social workers aren’t criminals. You’d think that’d be obvious, the same way that a cop cannot be a robber. But in Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s Chicago, we have a reminder that this sort of thing isn’t just an abstract question.
According to local crime coverage outlet CWB Chicago, a so-called “anti-violence worker” hired by the city was sentenced to 22 years behind bars after “a string of violent carjackings in West Englewood that left one victim shot and others threatened at gunpoint.”
From a Friday report from the outlet:
U.S. District Judge Lindsay C. Jenkins handed down the sentence for 23-year-old Jamari Edwards, who admitted in April to carjacking three people during a single week in August 2022. Edwards also pleaded guilty to federal firearm charges tied to the crimes.
Prosecutors said the first hijacking occurred on August 6, 2022, in the drive-thru lane of a Dunkin’ Donuts. Edwards got into the passenger seat of a man’s car, pointed a gun, and ordered him out.
As the victim walked away, prosecutors said, Edwards asked the victim why he was not scared, then shot him in the leg. Moments later, Edwards circled back, frisked the wounded man at gunpoint, and took his wallet and phone before driving off in the victim’s car.
Lovely. Too bad the anti-violence “peacekeeper” was violent during the carjacking. The state might have to cut his pay for that.
Should these “Peacekeeper” programs be closed immediately and the funds go to the police instead?
And, according to the outlet, he’s not the only “anti-violence worker” getting into trouble.
The same day that CWB Chicago ran that report, seven men were charged in a robbery that ended in felony murder, with prosecutors saying they were “part of a crash-and-grab burglary crew that killed a motorist while fleeing a break-in at the Louis Vuitton store on Michigan Avenue this week.”
While “most of the men have significant arrest records,” it turns out that one of the men was a so-called “peacekeeper” in Chicago, according to a source close to the investigation.
The men were arrested after they fled the scene of a 5:00 a.m. Thursday burglary where merchandise valued at somewhere between $500,000 and $1 million was stolen.
When the robbery group fled in six vehicles, the Chicago police took chase. A 40-year-old driver was killed after one of the escape vehicles hit an SUV at the intersection of Michigan Ave. and Ohio Street.
Mark Carlo Arceta was apparently on his way to work his last shift at Northwestern University before the expectant father went on paternity leave, WGN-TV reported.
“We’re having a baby right now. He’s supposed to be with us,” his partner, Roanne Masangkay, said. “They took a very loving father, a really good partner, and very good dad.”
The so-called “peacemaker” wasn’t driving the Kia Stinger that allegedly killed Arceta, but Keller McMillan, 35, had a significant arrest record. He was wanted on an out-of-state warrant — and now faces charges of murder, burglary, theft, and three counts of fugitive from justice with an out-of-state warrant, according to WGN.
These are the men who are supposed to keep us safe? This is the kind of thing that employing “peacekeepers” — who don’t undergo the same training or have the same background checks that cops do — is supposed to accomplish?
Many years ago, Tom Wolfe wrote a famous essay titled “Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers,” in which a bunch of militant minorities terrorize a group of bureaucrats in San Francisco’s officialdom in 1970. The title, for those of you unfamiliar, describes the oppressive and menacing tactics employed by members of the Mau Mau Rebellion in Africa against colonial rule.
In this case, we have a case of Mau Mau-ers who were Mau Mau-ed in their jobs as flak catchers. Now, as then, they seem to view the job as a way to divert money into their pocket. The difference here is that they take that money and go out and commit crimes as a side hustle. Nice work if you can get it, I suppose — especially at up to between $40,000 and $60,000 a year, if similar programs run by the same community program are any indication — but it’s probably not worth spending 22 years in the slammer.
A reminder that this is Pritzker’s baby; this is part of the leftist agenda he’s going to be campaigning for president on. (And let’s face facts: absent a reality check for the adipose wokeista, that’s precisely what he’s going to be doing in 2028.) According to The Center Square, the state was set to spend $30 million in fiscal year 2024 on the program to try supplanting cops in violent neighborhoods.
From the July 2023 article:
The group’s founder, Tio Hardiman, told The Center Square that his group in Chicago had made strides in addressing some of the root causes of crime but did suggest increased funding to expand their operation.
“My overall goal here in Chicago is to hire another 1,000 violence interrupters to hit the streets of Chicago and mediate conflicts in Chicago at an all-time high level,” Hardiman said. “So we can reduce gun violence by 50% in Chicago.”
How’s that working out for everybody? And how would that work out for America if Pritzker gets the chance to implement his policies? Let’s pray that never comes to pass.
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