Category: Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement
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Checking up on Steve Descano
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Contributors and many readers of this blog have been highly critical of Steve Descano, the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Fairfax County. They belittle him as being a Soros-backed, “woke” prosecutor, soft on crime. They seem to have missed Descano’s involvement in a recent high-profile case. As described by The Washington Post, the defendant…
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Dems Want to Block a Tough-On-Crime Parole Board Chief
by Kerry Dougherty Virginia Democrats are audacious. You’ve got to give them that. During the lawless McAuliffe-Northam years, Virginia’s Parole Board was headed by bleeding hearts, who specialized in releasing criminals. They were rewarded for their soft-hearted approach with judgeships. Because that’s how Democrats roll. You’d think the party that favors criminals over victims wouldn’t…
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Too Many Pieces of the 14th Street Pier Puzzle Don’t Fit
by Kerry Dougherty Day two and we have more questions than answers about what happened Saturday morning on the 14th Street pier in Virginia Beach. Yes, we know an SUV drove through two barriers and off the end of the pier. We learned that strong ocean currents and murky water are creating problems for those…
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From Sanctuary to Stooge
by Jon Baliles Most of us have tried hard to block out Mayor Stoney’s July 4th fiasco, when his then-police chief tried hard to impress the boss and concocted a fake foiled mass shooting plot at Dogwood Dell on July 4, 2022. The Mayor denied he ever knew about it. The chief said he knew…
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Roanoke’s Murder Crisis
by Scott Dreyer Roanoke City, with about 97,000 residents, suffered a record-breaking 31 murders in 2023,causing some to question the city’s leadership and direction. Based on public announcements and appearances, how concerned are Roanoke’s leaders about the Star City’s murder pandemic? In Mayor Sherman Lea Sr.’s (D) announcement that he will not run for re-election…
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Virginia Bill Would Allow Even Serial Killers to be Released After 15 Years
from the Liberty Unyielding blog On January 9, a bill was introduced to let Virginia prison inmates be released after 15 years with the approval of a judge. Even serial killers serving life sentences without parole would be eligible for release. In 2022, a similar bill easily passed the Democratic-controlled state senate, only to die in…
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A Nice Story Turns Out Not to be Such a Nice Story After All
by Dick Hall-Sizemore A recent podcast produced by VPM, Richmond’s public radio station, is both fascinating and disheartening. Admissible: Shreds of Evidence deals with the early days of the use of DNA as forensic evidence. In particular, it is the story of Mary Jane Burton, a long-time serologist for what is now called the Department…
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Another Murderer Released On Parole!
by Dick Hall-Sizemore The Parole Board just released a convicted murderer. Yes, this Parole Board. The one that Glenn Youngkin appointed to crack down on the release of all those violent criminals. And not a peep out of Kerry Dougherty or Hans Bader, who ordinarily go on a rant when a convicted murderer is released…
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Insufferable and Dangerous Nonsense in Academia – Antisemitism Sector
by James C. Sherlock I read this morning in the latest issue of Chronicle of Higher Education a particularly smarmy article by a Keith E. Whittington. He is, among other things, “professor of politics at Princeton University and founding chair of the Academic Committee of the Academic Freedom Alliance”. Good to know. He addressed in…
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Governor’s Chronic Absenteeism Task Force – Part Three – Vital New State Roles
By James C. Sherlock I have found in 18 years of reporting on education in the Commonwealth that each school, each school division and each region is to some degree its own ecosystem. Taking the example of chronic absenteeism, an individualized assessment of causes could be attempted: if a single school‘s chronic absenteeism can be…
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Stuck in the Secretary’s Office
by Dick Hall-Sizemore The Youngkin administration is sitting on regulations needed to implement important legislation enacted by the General Assembly in 2020. The delay constitutes a violation of that law. In its 2020 Special Session, the General Assembly expanded the grounds for decertifying law-enforcement and jail officers. The background of this legislation was described in…
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Slasher Ordered to Reimburse Medical Bills of his Victim
by Kerry Dougherty Several things strike me about this crime and restitution story out of Patrick County. First, after Larry Puckett nearly stabbed Justin Hawkes to death in the fall of 2019, Mr. Hawkes incurred about $120,000 in medical bills. Because the injured man was indigent, Medicaid stepped in and negotiated the price down to…
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‘Defund the Police’ and Other Nonsense
by Joe Fitzgerald “Defund the police” is a stupid slogan. Give its proponents the benefit of the doubt, however. Maybe what they meant was return police to their core mission of protecting life and property, remove their frequent role as social worker or mental health counselor, demilitarize their responses to all but the most dangerous…
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“Who Exactly Is the University of Virginia Protecting?”
by James A. Bacon A week ago The Jefferson Council publicly questioned the decision to withhold publication of the investigation into the University’s failure to prevent the Nov. 13, 2022, mass shooting. We were particularly perplexed by who made the decision to delay release of the report until after the trial of the defendant, Christopher…