Crime

[KingsFourMan]

This is an article in the Rutland Herald about the old Diamond Run Mall in Rutland. The statement highlighted in red below is absolutely incredible and problematic in many parts of the country now resulting in dramatic increases in overall crime rates. How is that acceptable to anyone? Does breaking into people's seconds homes also fall into that category as well?

We live in Somerset County NJ where car theft has become so prevalent that many of the police departments in the county now have those large digital construction signs out that say "lock your cars. take your FOBs". And if your car is stolen, the police won't do much of anything about it all other than issue you a police report to give to your insurance company. Kiss it goodbye, start shopping for another one, and hope it doesn't get stolen too. Unbelievable.

The police are demoralized and the criminals are emboldened. Again, how is that acceptable to anyone?
 

RUTLAND TOWN — Though he’s said it before, the owner of the Diamond Run Mall told town leaders on Tuesday he’s closer than ever to be able to announce some development activity at the dilapidated property.

Joe Anthony, chief executive officer of Zamias Services, which owns the mall, had been invited to speak to the select board about the state of the property.

Anthony said he can’t reveal the identity of the company he hopes will become the property’s “anchor” tenant, but if all goes well, he should be able to say something more in about a month.

He has made similar claims in the past few years. The mall closed in 2019.

Asked by the board what was different this time, he said the prospective tenant has spent money and time on designs to a level that previous potential tenants hadn’t.

The company he’s courting is a household name, he said, and it would use about 180,000 square feet of space. He claimed that if everyone in the room were to take a guess as to who it is, they’d likely hit on the right answer, but at this stage he couldn’t speak more lest the deal could fall through.

The tenant is familiar with Vermont’s market, as well as its development laws, he said.

Current designs, he said, involve some housing. He said two hoteliers are involved and considered some limited service.

“Our biggest concern is that the building has been broken into on several occasions,” said Select Board Chair Mary Ashcroft, adding that the mall’s Act 250 permit requires it to have a contract for security services.

Anthony said that Michael Sternberg serves as his eyes and ears on the property.

Sternberg said that Censor Facility Services is the company being used to watch the property, and its staff are there every day reporting issues and fixing things like broken doors and blocking up entryways when they find them open. There are cameras inside and outside the building.

It’s a large property, he said, and it attracts people’s attention. Censor has been doing a good job of monitoring the place, he said.

Anthony said he heard about a broken door a few weeks ago, but beyond that there hasn’t been anything major going on that he’s aware of.

Ashcroft asked who Censor calls when it can’t handle something.

Sternberg said they’d call Vermont State Police, but he would have to check.

Town Constable Michael Delehanty said that during the days, when town police are on, the calls go there. After hours, the calls go to State Police.

Delehanty said that he’d be shocked to learn Censor is at the site as often as reported, given how much activity he sees there. He took photos of a broken door that he stated had to have been broken for several days.

“There’s a lot of activity going on up there on the outside that, if there was security presence, it probably wouldn’t be happening,” he said.

Delehanty added that problems from inside the building do seem to have abated.

He suggested Anthony or someone contact Censor to confirm the company’s level of activity at the site. Anthony said he would.

Jim Eckhardt, president of Censor Facility Services, said Wednesday that his company has done what can be done to secure the property, going so far as to have most of the doors welded shut, the windows blocked off with plywood, and tacking up numerous “no trespassing” signs. People routinely remove these barriers, however.

“We catch them, and we turn them over to the police and the police just let them go,” he said. “Even though we tell the police we want charges filed against them for breaking and entering, the police tell us they’re not going to do that because it’s an empty property.”

His company rarely calls the police now because of this, he said. The calls, he said, likely are coming from third parties who see things happening on the property.

Censor doesn’t patrol the property per se, he said. “Either our supervisors will stop through there or an officer going by somewhere else will drive around the place, just to make sure there’s no obvious door swinging-in-the-wind type of thing,” said Eckhardt.

Police Chief Ed Dumas said Wednesday that his department won’t be making arrests on people for entering an unsecured building like the former mall. It’s on the company that owns the mall to hire security to do that so as not to burden the local police department. Even if officers did arrest people and send them to court, it wouldn’t amount to much, Dumas said.

“The Legislature has made it very clear that they don’t want us to arrest people for much,” he said. “Nothing is going to happen if we do arrest them, they get a slap on the hand and go to a restorative justice program, which I suspect is not a good solution to make this stop.”

The court’s response to low-level offenses has been a topic of concern at various levels in recent times.

Bills have been introduced in the Legislature this session aimed at increasing the severity of consequences for those charged with multiple low-level offenses, but those bills are being debated.

[Killington_Lover]

Liberal prosecutors and legislatures have led us here. In MA you cannot be sentenced to life without parole under 21 anymore. 327 offenders accounted for 30% of all retail thefts in NYC last year, they get a slap on the wrist and are out the next day to steal again. When a wave of theft occurs, leftists shout “you care more about property than poor people”. We need castle doctrine and to punish thieves the way we did in my ancestral homeland of Iran; cut off their hands. I refuse to leave our stocked enclosed trailers or anything other than heavy equipment on our job sites as I routinely hear of rampant theft. We have trackers on all of our equipment. Easier to track it down than wait for an insurance pay out, and police that won’t do anything.

[deadheadskier]

Junior

My brother was a contractor in Mass the late 80s through early 90s. If you think there wasn't major issues with job site thefts 30-40 years ago, you are incredibly naive.

You also should know that despite these "leftists" running the show, Boston is light years safer than 40 years ago when you didn't want to walk down Newberry Street after 7.

In terms of second home break ins, we had a home in Ludlow from 1988 to 2003. Was broken into THREE times during that stretch


You guys are Fox News casualties and suckers for the fear they sell.

Hide yo wife, Hide yo kids!

[Killington_Lover]

So 44% increase in retail theft in NYC doesn’t matter? Sure only a measly 6% increase in violent crimes here in MA last year. I guess the mega corps don’t care about theft increasing from 90 to 94 billion in 2021. Also I operate my company now, not 30 years ago when I was an infant. There are some areas of Lowell, Haverhill and Lawrence that I won’t even entertain to look at. Have you been to a Walmart or pharmacy recently? Everything is behind plexi or cages. Hell they had steaks locked up at a Walmart we went to on a trip in Maine. I can understand locking up the power tools at Home Depot (especially when the directive from the corporation is to not engage with shoplifters). But at what point do us law abiding citizens stop voting for this crap. Do you think MA shouldn’t be able to sentence a murderer or child rapist to life without parole if they are under 21?

[Bubba]

The problem in Vermont is bail law. If you can’t hold someone in jail after arrest (subject to release on bail) and you simply release with a future court date, you encourage repeat offenses. Same goes for DUI. How many times do we hear on the news of an accident with death resulting where the offender is on DUI Six or even higher?

[Low Rider]

Crime rates are actually dropping.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/homicide-numb ... =105556400

[Killington_Lover]

Property and violent crimes increased this year in MA. I’m not partisan enough to be happy for anyone being a victim of any crime. I am partisan enough to point out a lot of those major cities have increased their funding for policing since being called to defund in the wake of the George Floyd and Breonna Taylor riots. I still can not wrap my head around progressives wanting to disarm the police, or have a social worker show up to a manic person with a weapon in a busy area. We hear it all the time when someone is killed by police; I think every progressive that calls for it should go through a manual conscription like service that teaches them the danger the police actually face when responding to a myriad of calls. Funny when I listened to NPR today they didn’t mention those NYPD attacking migrants flipping the bird to cameras while they got released. I wonder who that group will vote for when they get the right to vote.

[deadheadskier]

Killington Lover

you missed my point entirely. Crime rates, almost all crimes mind you, have been in steady decline for decades nationally. Some years, some categories spike a little, but overall the trend has been down. The scoreboards don't lie.

You say you're not partisan on the issue, then why are you believing a false narrative being pushed by conservative media instead of looking at the numbers? That narrative is our country is pretty much Guatemala today and was so much safer before and that's total sh*t.

That's not to say some places and crime categories like the cited retail theft in NYC spike, but that's a local issue.

You claim this isn't a partisan issue for you, yet you blame Democrats. Last I checked we live in New England, which is about the bluest corner of the country. Where's the safest region to live in the country? Oh yeah, New England.

Look at some numbers, like violent crime rates by state. Let me know what you discover.

Look, I don't mean to minimize crime and the need to improve security. The thing is, we have been!

Look at the numbers. Stop believing a false partisan narrative being fed to you by a bought media.

[KingsFourMan]

You guys are Fox News casualties and suckers for the fear they sell.

I'm pretty sure Fox News aren't the one's putting up those signs in quiet suburban NJ towns stating, "lock your cars, take your FOBs". The police are putting up those signs because car theft has skyrocketed here and elsewhere along with a lot of other quality of life crimes especially in major blue run cities. Why wouldn't they be skyrocketing when the police are told not to enforce the law as quoted in the article above, and you have large segments of the population touting defund the police lunacy? How could you expect anything else?

The same can be said about our southern border, why wouldn't people be breaking the law and flooding across our southern border in record numbers when there is a conscious decision on the part of the US government not to enforce our immigration laws? Is Fox News making that up too? Even the liberal mass media is now reporting on it but only because voters are stating it to be there #1 concern and Biden's polling numbers are reflecting it.

And I guess this skyrocketing inflation we've all enjoyed for the past 3 years is just Fox News fear mongering too right? I'll try and tell that to the cashier the next time I check out at the grocery store so i can get my grocery bill back to what it was before this "transitory" inflation.

The fact that an asshole like Trump is actually beating that bumbling, senile, old fool and that cackling idiot Kamala, speaks volumes. Their approval rating is abysmal for good reason. Your liberal mass media, that you consume so easily without questioning, try as they might, can't hide the fact that their policies have been nothing short of a disaster.

[deadheadskier]

Nope, you guys are absolute suckers and believing false narratives on crime. Isolated issues in certain areas like NYC do not tell the story of where we are going as a country on crime.


The data does not back your opinions on crime at all

https://www.ncja.org/crimeandjusticenew ... -narrative

[KingsFourMan]

Is it any wonder the liberal mass media has such an easy time manipulating so many. You don't think that data is manipulated to suit one's own agenda? People have been doing that for centuries on all sides. Why don't you believe your own eyes instead of what you are spoon fed or what you want to believe?

Is it any wonder that certain crimes are decreasing when the police are no longer making arrests for them? Total arrests nationwide are down yet everyone is saying that violent crime has increased significantly, especially in democratic run cities which is a major reason why people are leaving those places in droves, usually to red states. If violent crime, which is the worst of crime, is up doesn't it stand to reason to you that all crime is up?

Doesn't it also stand to reason that if you chose to ignore immigration laws that people, drugs, terrorists, and whoever and whatever are going to flood across our southern border, or do you choose not to believe that that is exactly what is happening?

Thankfully, according to recent polls, and Biden's own abysmal approval rating, most people don't agree with your thinking at the moment. Sadly the only alternative we seem to have is that asshole Trump but that asshole's policies worked a hell of a lot better than this current sh*t show.

[XtremeJibber2001]

Is it any wonder the liberal mass media has such an easy time manipulating so many. You don't think that data is manipulated to suit one's own agenda? People have been doing that for centuries on all sides. Why don't you believe your own eyes instead of what you are spoon fed or what you want to believe?

No. There's no wonder. Maybe you can provide an example of where mass media has manipulated viewers and posters here into regurgitating lies?

Here's an example for the right-wing media where it's manipulated its viewers and posters here into regurgitating lies. Happy to provide other examples if needed.

Fox, Dominion reach $787M settlement over election claims
https://apnews.com/article/fox-news-dom ... e747fb0afe

Is it any wonder that certain crimes are decreasing when the police are no longer making arrests for them? Total arrests nationwide are down yet everyone is saying that violent crime has increased significantly, especially in democratic run cities which is a major reason why people are leaving those places in droves, usually to red states. If violent crime, which is the worst of crime, is up doesn't it stand to reason to you that all crime is up?

Where are you seeing violent crime has increased across the country? I'm not seeing this.

Here's violent crimes by State: https://www.statista.com/statistics/200 ... us-states/. Lots of Red States so what's the deal here?

Doesn't it also stand to reason that if you chose to ignore immigration laws that people, drugs, terrorists, and whoever and whatever are going to flood across our southern border, or do you choose not to believe that that is exactly what is happening?

No one here is advocating ignoring immigration or the border. POTUS isn't either, but GOP is blocking a bill to help address some of the issues. Why?

Senate GOP split threatens bipartisan border deal as Trump looms large
https://www.npr.org/2024/01/31/12282295 ... ooms-large

[Killington_Lover]

Is it any wonder the liberal mass media has such an easy time manipulating so many. You don't think that data is manipulated to suit one's own agenda? People have been doing that for centuries on all sides. Why don't you believe your own eyes instead of what you are spoon fed or what you want to believe?

No. There's no wonder. Maybe you can provide an example of where mass media has manipulated viewers and posters here into regurgitating lies?

Here's an example for the right-wing media where it's manipulated its viewers and posters here into regurgitating lies. Happy to provide other examples if needed.

Fox, Dominion reach $787M settlement over election claims
https://apnews.com/article/fox-news-dom ... e747fb0afe

Is it any wonder that certain crimes are decreasing when the police are no longer making arrests for them? Total arrests nationwide are down yet everyone is saying that violent crime has increased significantly, especially in democratic run cities which is a major reason why people are leaving those places in droves, usually to red states. If violent crime, which is the worst of crime, is up doesn't it stand to reason to you that all crime is up?

Where are you seeing violent crime has increased across the country? I'm not seeing this.

Here's violent crimes by State: https://www.statista.com/statistics/200 ... us-states/. Lots of Red States so what's the deal here?

Doesn't it also stand to reason that if you chose to ignore immigration laws that people, drugs, terrorists, and whoever and whatever are going to flood across our southern border, or do you choose not to believe that that is exactly what is happening?

No one here is advocating ignoring immigration or the border. POTUS isn't either, but GOP is blocking a bill to help address some of the issues. Why?

Senate GOP split threatens bipartisan border deal as Trump looms large
https://www.npr.org/2024/01/31/12282295 ... ooms-large

After reading (allegedly) that they are trying to tie Ukraine and Israel funding to it as well as a 5000 per day cap before shutting down the border I’m not surprised the house won’t touch it. Not good enough. Should be simple enough to say put Americans first and close the whole thing. No path way to citizenship. No terrorists from al Shabab roaming because of being falsely identified. I would rather see us beef up social programs for Americans than provide 2 year free rent in the case of Maine. Or the burden they put on emergency rooms that we all pay for. I’m sure the children in NY don’t mind to go remote learning so the migrants can sleep in their high school when they are done assaulting NYPD and fleeing to CA.

[XtremeJibber2001]

I can tell by your postings where you get your information from. Even below you cite falsehoods presented to you by the news outlets you frequent. Your making your own case all on your own.

After reading (allegedly) that they are trying to tie Ukraine and Israel funding to it as well as a 5000 per day cap before shutting down the border I’m not surprised the house won’t touch it. Not good enough. Should be simple enough to say put Americans first and close the whole thing.

Why do you think Ukraine aid tied to the border bill?

It's a bipartisan bill so saying House won't touch it is incorrect. Here's Dan Crenshaw saying the GOP plan to walk away from the border deal because Trump asked them to is "The height of stupidity".

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4443 ... stupidity/

To my knowledge, the public hasn't had access to read the border bill. However, it's being reported across right/left outlets that the bill does include provisions that would shut down the border entirely if a certain threshold is hit, but those are border encounters, not crossings. The bill ensures no migrants trying to enter the U.S. illegally would be allowed into the country (unless they passed asylum interviews or were being held under government supervision).

I think where the 5,000 number comes is from is because the border will close when DHS reaches a seven-day average of 4,000 or more border encounters. A seven-day average of 5,000 or more would mandate a border closure. If the number exceeded 8,500 in a single day, there would also be a mandatory border closure.

No path way to citizenship. No terrorists from al Shabab roaming because of being falsely identified. I would rather see us beef up social programs for Americans than provide 2 year free rent in the case of Maine. Or the burden they put on emergency rooms that we all pay for. I’m sure the children in NY don’t mind to go remote learning so the migrants can sleep in their high school when they are done assaulting NYPD and fleeing to CA.

From what I've read on the border bill, it accomplishes what you want to do above. So why are you against it? Do you think America should not offer asylum to anyone?

[Killington_Lover]

Don’t try to guess where I get my news, I spend as much if not more time on liberal leaning news such as NPR and CNN. It’s funny that until Gov of Texas started bussing migrants the left’s head in the sand narrative that “the border is secure” shifted to “we have a crisis” when every day Americans in blue states can now see it around them, and directly impacting state budgets. 9.5m encounters during Bidens presidency sure sounds like an invasion to me.

And don’t be obtuse- when I said house won’t touch it, I implied the majority party.