Montgomery County police responded to yet another report of a stolen vehicle in Bethesda early Friday morning. This time, a car was stolen from the driveway of a home in the 7800 block of Winterberry Place in the Burning Tree Valley area. The theft was reported to police at 6:30 AM, according to crime data.
14 comments:
Congratulations SJW's! You thought voting Democrat would leave crime up County "where it belongs" but your chickens have come home to roost.
People thought voting Democrat would allow them to virtue signal how much better they are for it. So I'm on Team Auto Theft now. Until the corrupt MoCo Cartel actually takes action to address this crime wave of vehicles with serious measures and serious jail time, I want there to be more cars stolen until they do. Oh did that offend you leftist snowflakes? When did you all become law and order bigots?
Well you allowed the BLM defund the police marches in Bethesda and Montgomery County Council listened to you
Good Bye Cars
As far as I can tell from Robert's reporting, the auto theft blitz is a newish phenomenon in the down-county area. Sure, there were always such crimes, but the numbers were never like they have been in the past 12-18 months.
I hate raining on anyone's parade, but the fact is the Montgomery County has been run by Democratic County Executives and Councils for the majority of the last half century --many, many, *many* years more than there has been this undeniably alarming spike in auto thefts down-county. 1978 was the last time MoCo had a Republican County Executive, the late James P. Gleason. Howard Denis was one of only *three* R's to serve on the Council since 1971, and was the last R standing when he was defeated in 2006 by Roger Berliner. If my Sunday math is correct, since 1971, of the total of 460 cumulative years available to serve as either Executive or on the Council, [50 yrs Executive, 20yrsx7 for 7-seat Council, 30yrsx9 for 9-seat Council] Republicans have held those positions for a total of 36 years --eight for Gleason, and a total of 28 for Betty Ann Krahnke, Nancy Dacek, and the aforementioned Denis. That's compelling evidence to suggest this recent crime wave is not because voters suddenly abandoned Republicans and swept into power a bunch of tree-hugging Democrats. Dems have been the county government majority for virtually all the last 50 years, and for about 48.5 of those there wasn't a car theft problem.
One might better suggest the crime spree is a consequence of Covid. After all, the theft spike does overlap neatly with the beginning of lockdowns and isolating, ca. 18 months ago.
I am merely pointing out the coincidence. Whether or not it rises to causation I leave to the reader to determine.
Setting all that aside, the question remains of what to do about stopping the thefts. I have yet to read any concrete suggestion from commenters here about what to do to get the problem in check.
**Do you double the police personnel? Okay, how will you pay for that, given the already ever-increasing tax burden carried by county residents? You would cut other funding to cover the costs? Fine. Which ones and what is to be done to address the needs those now de-funded programs were addressing?
**Perhaps neighborhoods can band together to hire private security, who will be authorized to challenge anyone seen late at night; a curfew, in effect, where all must explain their movements and prove their innocence before they are allowed to drive to the 7-11 for a late-night quart of ice cream.
**What about having checkpoints near the neighborhoods where fancy cars can be found. Dicey. I'm not lawyer, (although surely Robert's readers include a fair number who are, so please, chime in and spell out the law,) but my impression is the Supreme Court ruled in Indianapolis v. Edmund that police can't set up roadblocks unless it is to check for a specific crime --e.g. look for an escaped convict, pass out informational fliers at the scene of an unsolved crime-- or for DUI enforcement or to secure the borders. Now, given that federal law perversely defines the border region as anywhere within 100 miles of an international border, perhaps Montgomery County can legally call in the USCBP to set up checkpoints on River Road, to investigate all the drivers drivers who pass by. That would solve the county police budget issue, certainly. Good luck with the national headlines and the fury over such scenes, but perhaps it might be a way to get the criminals without bankrupting the community. .
All of which is to say the solution to stopping this crime wave is a bit more complicated than the facile, standard-issue replies that @6:28 and co. paste in at every new report. I
9:45 making us Republicans look bad again. "Team Auto Theft" and trolling MCPD on every article. Pathetic. Grow up. No democrats are in favor of crime. Only you are. And you're a Republican - proving the exact opposite of your claim.
While I agree we've had D's in power for years, the difference in the last year is the utter disdain for police. You have the Council voting to kick SRO's out of schools, and councilmembers like Jawando who seem to blame police for everything. BLM is part of it of course -- they are so anti-police yet MCPD does a pretty good job. All officer-involved shootings are investigated by a third-party (Howard County attorney office) and they wear bodycams. All the bodycam footage I've seen shows them to be professional and acting properly. Why are they being blamed just because other police departments don't have their act together?
If you were a cop, how would you feel? Would you be running stakeouts and doing extra patrols to stop the car thefts? Probably not -- you'd just respond to calls for service as usual, since you can't turn those down.
They used to run stakeouts. This is how they caught the ring of people stealing from cars night after night in the Wood Acres and Springfield neighborhoods. They were caught at 3am because a cop was staking things out.
@12:42 PM – You’re assuming that the Democrats of old are these same Social Justice Warriors, (Marc Elrich and Will Jawando for example), we have today. The current crop of Democrats wouldn’t be recognized just 20-years ago. Since the election of the 44th president who singlehandedly wrecked 40-years of racial progress, we’ve had a significant increase in tensions by dividing people by race, gender & class.
“**Perhaps neighborhoods can band together to hire private security, who will be authorized to challenge anyone seen late at night; a curfew, in effect, where all must explain their movements and prove their innocence before they are allowed to drive to the 7-11 for a late-night quart of ice cream.”
Prove their innocence? This is seriously stupid and would bankrupt the county fighting lawsuit after lawsuit.
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” - Benjamin Franklin
For the THIRD TIME – Most new cars have proximity keys which can be read by cheap third-party devices sold online and cloned so cars can be driven away without breaking into them or the house. Put ALL proximity keys inside a Faraday pouch, (also purchased online), and you eliminate a large percentage of car thefts.
@2:11 PM – I’ll type slow so you can understand. Democrats indirectly allow crime to happen by idiotic policies that reduce the consequences of their actions OR hinder law enforcement by way of budget cuts and morale crushing prosecutors that release criminals as soon as their arrested.
@2:11 PM: I'm on "Team Auto Theft" because I have become Atlas Shrugged. I will no longer stand on my principles of law and order in the spiteful face of this Clown World of lawlessness and its woke hypocrisy when the community leadership doesn't care as much as I do about it. I don't want other crime to go up. I believe in fully funding the police. So until the police are provided with the tools and directives to seriously fight auto theft and lock these criminals away for a long time, I want more cars in MoCo to be stolen. That's all. I don't care that this offends you.
@5:05, I'm not super-sure how it is that eliminating SRO police, who spend their entire shifts sitting in schools while kid are in classrooms, has any bearing on catching auto thieves who seem to usually strike in residential neighborhoods and at night, but I'm happy to learn. I'll grant you the Council *SHOULD* have re-allocated those SRO positions to street patrol or to SAT, the Special Assignment Team, which is the plainclothes group who conduct the surveillance and stakeout operations.
@5:05 and @5:16, are you familiar with the "No true Scotsman" fallacy? It's interesting and perhaps worth your taking a moment to acquaint yourself with. @5:16, I think you may also have misinterpreted that bit about "prove their innocence," which I am pretty sure was written sarcastically by @12:42.
@5:16, I agree entirely about the electronic key fobs, and have been saying this on here for months. These clowns aren't stealing 30 year-old Chevys that start with traditional-looking keys, they're swiping luxe rides, which these days are almost universally equipped with wireless transmitter fobs that an be effortlessly cloned by anyone who has invested the --nominal-- fee to acquire the requisite technology. Then, it's just a matter of wandering the neighborhoods, checking for a radio signal being broadcast from one of those little fobs that was left inside the car or even too close to a window or door inside a house and BOOM! you've found yourself a nice, new car to drive. Until drivers with these types of wireless ignition fobs really embrace the flaws with this technology, the cars will continue to disappear at disconcerting rates.
@5:16 PM: That's exactly right. Democrats actively foster and create circumstances in which crime is inevitable and permissible. Then they play dumb and say "I don't know how that happened, but it doesn't matter because you're a bigot, so shut up." Take sanctuary cities for example, a product of Democrats that harbor illegal immigrants who are in violation of federal law. This encourages more illegal immigrants to come of course, but Democrats play dumb about what the word "Illegal" means. They say "No one is illegal"or "Hate has no home here" and call anyone who points that out a bigot. As you said, defunding the police inevitably results in increased crime. Woke prosecutors also result in increased crime. So I accept their challenge on this. I want more cars stolen in MoCo. I don't want more crimes against people. I just want more cars stolen, especially their cars. See you and raise you, you woke clowns.
Regarding Anonymous @12:42 PM pseudo-analysis: I am a native Californian, and lived and worked in the city of San Francisco in the mid-1970s, right after graduating from college. By that time, Democrats already dominated the city government -- the last Republican mayor of SF served until 1964. When I lived in SF, it was a wonderful city. There was no visible homeless problem, the streets and sidewalks weren't being used as public toilets, and petty shoplifters were prosecuted. Now SF has become a crime-ridden ****hole. The lesson is clear. Once the Democrats gain permanent control of local government, it is only a matter of time before the place goes into terminal decline. Bet on it.
@5:16 PM There's a huge typo in your diatribe, you meant to type 45th president. The insurrectionist. There, I fixed it for you.
@8:28 AM - You probably had to google who the 44th was. Put down the crack pipe and actually read something instead of regurgitating CNN talking points. How's that Russia investigation going?
It never bothers liberals that perceived good intentions don't ever have the advertised effect yet like blind drones keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. 44 must be doing backflips now that Biden/Harris has screwed everything he touches so now he can only lay claim to the second worst in history.
@8:28 AM: Your vehicle should be stolen before everyone else's because then you'd have to call the police you wanted to defund. Your vision of the world results in a lawless anarchy of grievance politics and woke hypocrisy. I don't care that this offends you. Go on, show me how triggered you are.
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