A task force in Los Angeles has been investigating a surgeon.
What's being referred to as a follow home robberies.
And these robberies are pretty terrible because it seems as though
individuals who want to commit these robberies are kind of stalking certain
individuals as they're eating at cafes.
If they look like they might have money, they'll follow them home and
essentially rob them.
Oftentimes there is a weapon involved.
We've seen cases of victims being pistol whipped.
I mean, it's awful.
So the authorities wanted to investigate this and figure out, ok what's behind it?
Is there organized crime and here's what we've learned.
So according to Captain Jonathan Tippett who spearheads the task force
police have identified at least 17 gangs, most based out of South L.A.
and operating independently that are involved.
There were 165 such robberies in 2021.
And so far this year,
there have already been 56 including several over this past weekend.
So in a four week period from September to October, there were 45 follow off or
follow home robberies, in November there were another three 39, Tippett said.
So shots have been fired in at least 23 of the cases.
And yes, there have been fatalities.
Two victims have been killed said, Tippett who also heads the LAPD's
robbery homicide division, which investigates high profile crimes.
So their report also got into some specifics.
So look, we're gonna get into the anecdotal evidence,
which by itself doesn't mean much, right?
Because it's very easy to take independent cases or
a few stories and then kind of sensationalized.
And I wanna avoid doing that.
But aside from looking at specific cases, I do think it's important to step back and
take a look at what's happening in California overall when it comes to
various crime trends that we're seeing.
So first the anecdotal stuff, so 18 year old Matthew Adams was involved in eight.
Let me repeat that eight separate follow off robberies over a six month
period starting last fall, during the course of the eight robberies,
which occurred between September and February, Adams was arrested three times.
The first time was on January nine when Adams was found in a car that had been
used in one of the robberies and where a gun was also found.
Online court records show no charges were ever filed against Adams in that case.
Okay, no, no, let's come to me,
no charges were ever filed against Adams in that case.
So he does the follow home robbery.
He's in the car that he used to do the follow home robbery and
he has a weapon in that vehicle.
Why weren't there any charges filed?
I wanna know?
And this is a guy who has been in eight of these follow home robberies.
Does that make sense to you guys?
Is that like justice?
Is he being rehabilitated?
Is this considered rehabilitation when you've been arrested eight times and
seemed to have absolutely no remorse for what you're doing and
victimizing these people?
Imagine someone following you home with a gun to rob you.
Okay, let me give you more details.
Adams was arrested again on January 27 and a third time on February 21 and
in both cases charged with illegal gun possession,
court records show he was ordered released each time without having to pay bail.
The reason was a pandemic related rule aimed at reducing the jail population.
That requires LA County defendants to be released without posting bail for
certain offenses.
Now look, totally cool with that.
If we're talking about non violent stuff,
we're talking about a dude who has loaded weapons,
follows people home, threatens them with the weapons to rob them.
Okay, so if the argument here is, listen, our prison system in California
is overcrowded, we're dealing with COVID, it's deadly.
So we want to limit the prison population in order to ensure that
people who are incarcerated are not getting sick and dying.
I get that.
But is there any monitoring to make sure
that people who commit violent crimes don't do a similar crime later?
Like apparently there was nothing, no monitoring, nothing.
Okay, so you're free to go, you've done this eight times you're free to go, but
it gets worse.
More details.
Adams was finally, eventually charged on April 4th with seven counts of robbery.
And two gun enhancements and his bail was set at $450,000.
He faces more than 20 years in state prison if convicted.
Okay, so authorities had obtained a warrant to search his home and
there were two other individuals that he would do these
robberies with Eric Wilson and Jan Sparks.
And so they did this search of their homes and
I just wanna show you the kind of weapons they found.
So these are the kinds of weapons that they've been using
to intimidate people as they robbed them.
Great, I feel real safe.
This is awesome.
Restorative justice, right?
In a separate case, a man named Cheyenne Hale 25 was arrested this month
on suspicion of participating in the armed robbery of
a man in downtown L.A in October in which two watches were stolen.
Police said they recovered a loaded gun from hail during his arrest.
And that in detectives and tip it's unit later found seven additional handguns,
$21,000 in cash and a large quantity of drugs including cocaine and
methamphetamine when they served a search warrant at Hales home.
Now I wanna show you a disturbing
video of what hale and
his buddies did to one individual
in downtown L.A. okay,
this is what the follow home or
follow off robberies look like.
Has since been released from custody according to court records.
So, am I allowed to be upset about that?
Does that do away with my lefty cred?
And if it does great, take my lefty cred away,
that is not justice, that is not okay.
And that does not keep a community safe and worse yet,
minimizing stuff like that reverses any possibility
of passing real criminal justice reform.
That actually does make sense.
So prominent activists think that these types of reports or being concerned
about these types of issues is just buying into coppa ganda or sensationalism.
I'll give you examples.
One prominent activist Hamid Khan on Tuesday, accused the LAPD of week after
week of sensationalism about crime in the city, suggesting police were blowing
crime trends out of proportion to maintain their grip on the city's budget.
LAPD has to constantly legitimize itself, constantly has to make itself
useful to the community by raising this specter of people running wild.
I mean, I think there is an important use for policing.
I think policing absolutely needs to be reformed.
But I would love to ask Khan, what community do you live in?
What kind of privilege offers you the safety that people in
low income communities do not have the privilege of having?
Who do you call when you're worried about someone committing a violent crime that
will victimize you?
I wanna know, because you would call, who you would call authorities,
they would be pretty useful in that situation,
like literally zero focus on reforming policing.
But all the focus seems to be on minimizing
these instances of serious violent crimes.
I ain't here for that.
And so I promised you, I'd take a step back and
give you actual numbers about what's happening in California.
So we're not just focusing on one or two anecdotal pieces of evidence, right?
So let's take a look at what's happening in Sacramento.
In just Sacramento County from March 2020 through September 2021,
5,100 inmates were released on zero bail.
The total number of rearrests was 4400 awesome.
Mary Kay Tibbetts was sexually assaulted and killed along with her two
dogs in her Sacramento home in September her accused killer is Troy Davis.
He had two felony strikes but
was still released without needing to pay bail just a few months prior.
That's just Sacramento County.
Maybe I'm being a little unfair.
Maybe I'm being unfair.
Let's go to San Diego, in San Diego County repeat offenders are also common.
It looks like close to 65% were re arrested after
being released on zero bail.
District Attorney Summer Stephen or Stephan said.
And of those that were re arrested, 65% were also re arrested on a felony crime.
This ain't it?
This isn't rehabilitative at all.
This is not restorative at all.
And all this does is just paint a picture of the left as individuals who
are totally fine or activists, I should say like Hamid khan paints them
as individuals who are just totally fine with this kind of crime standing.
Because to be quite honest with you guys,
I don't know what kind of restorative programs are being implemented right now.
So if people are being led off, right, whether it's no cash bail,
whether it's a refusal to prosecute in an effort to
substitute prosecution with other programs to help people out.
Great, great, where are the programs?
I wanna know the details about that.
But there's a bunch of mealy mouthed individuals who claim
that there's restorative justice going on.
I don't see it, I don't see it.
And it's infuriating because I don't want me as someone who wants criminal justice
reform to be lumped in with individuals who minimize garbage like this.
I ain't here for it.