Victimhood, Criminals, and Entitlement Mentality

[Jolie Rouge]

OUTRAGED Shoplifter Tells Police: ‘Everyone Steals From This Store. Why Are You Picking on Me?’

Posted by Melissa Davis / May 21, 2016

The Vero Beach, Florida police had nothing else to do one day last week, so they evidently decided to purposely “pick on” a poor, helpless shoplifter in a mall just to be mean.


In the ultimate expression of victimhood, 26-year-old Prolancia Aquila Turner whined, “Everyone steals from this store. Why are you picking on me?” after she was detained for stealing earrings from a jewelry store.

Whereas most people faced with the consequences of a mistake like that would be upset with themselves and full of remorse, Turner was “crying and angry” according to the police, blaming them for singling her out for unfair treatment.

Turner, who has been arrested for theft on two previous occasions, was charged with retail theft for hiding the earrings in the waistband of her pants as she left the popular low-cost accessory chain store, Claire’s.

She is due in court on June 7 to answer misdemeanor charges that could, conceivably, carry a year in jail and fine of $1,000.

It is unknown if the police in the previous arrests also “picked on” the poor victim, Prolancia, unfairly, but apparently she failed to learn anything from the experiences.

The earrings at the heart of the case cost $12.50.

h/t: The Smoking Gun

http://usherald.com/angry-shoplifter...tore-picking/#

http://thesmokinggun.com/buster/clai...g-moron-547293

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[Jolie Rouge]

Family of Teen Shot Burglarizing a Home Asks “How He Gonna Get His Money”

By Randy Parker | March 16, 2016

Relatives of a 17-year-old are angry the teenager was shot and killed by a homeowner who police say was protecting her property.

The sister of the teen who died identified him as Trevon Johnson. She said he was a student at D. A. Dorsey Technical College.

“I don’t care if she have her gun license or any of that. That is way beyond the law… way beyond,” said Johnson’s cousin Nautika Harris. “He was not supposed to die like this. He had a future ahead of him. Trevon had goals… he was a funny guy, very big on education, loved learning.”

On Thursday, police say Johnson burglarized a home south of 79th Street near I-95 — just blocks away from where he lives.

The 54-year-old woman told police her surveillance system alerted her to the break-in of her home. She said she rushed home and found the teen climbing out of a window. “She observed a subject leaving the home through the rear,” said police Det. Dan Ferrin

“What’s wrong with her,” asked Johnson’s sister Nisha Johnson. “She did not have to shoot him.”

“It’s no reason she should have waited until I think he walked out the yard to try to shoot him,” said Harris. “If she called the police already why would she shoot him?”

Relatives said they don’t believe Johnson stole anything from the home but detectives would not confirm that. “You have to look at it from every child’s point of view that was raised in the hood,” said Harris. “You have to understand… how he gonna get his money to have clothes to go to school? You have to look at it from his point-of-view.”

Police said the homeowner is cooperating with detectives and was taken to a police station for questioning.

http://observatorial.com/2016/03/16/...-his-money-2/#

[Jolie Rouge]

Spike In Shoplifting Blamed On California Prop 47’s Reduced Penalties
May 14, 2016 11:41 AM

ROCKLIN (CBS/AP) — Perry Lutz says his struggle to survive as a small businessman became a lot harder after California voters reduced theft penalties 1 1/2 years ago.

About a half-dozen times this year, shoplifters have stolen expensive drones or another of the remote-controlled toys he sells in HobbyTown USA, a small shop in Rocklin, northeast of Sacramento. “It’s just pretty much open season,” Lutz said. “They’ll pick the $800 unit and just grab it and run out the door.”

Anything below $950 keeps the crime a misdemeanor — and likely means the thieves face no pursuit and no punishment, say retailers and law enforcement officials. Large retailers including Safeway, Target, Rite Aid and CVS pharmacies say shoplifting increased at least 15 percent, and in some cases, doubled since voters approved Proposition 47 and ended the possibility of charging shoplifting as a felony with the potential for a prison sentence.

Shoplifting reports to the Los Angeles Police Department jumped by a quarter in the first year, according to statistics the department compiled for The Associated Press. The ballot measure also lowered penalties for forgery, fraud, petty theft and drug possession.

Public Policy Institute of California researcher Magnus Lofstrom noted a troubling increase in property crime in California’s largest cities in the first half-year after Proposition 47 took effect. Preliminary FBI crime reports show a 12 percent jump in larceny-theft, which includes shoplifting, but he said it is too early to determine what, if any, increase is due to the ballot measure.

The increase in shoplifting reports set up a debate over how much criminals pay attention to penalties, and whether law enforcement is doing enough to adapt to the legal change.

Prosecutors, police and retailers, including California Retailers Association President Bill Dombrowski and CVS Health spokesman Mike DeAngelis, say the problem is organized retail theft rings whose members are well aware of the reduced penalties.

“The law didn’t account for that,” said Capt. John Romero, commander of the LAPD’s commercial crimes division. “It did not give an exception for organized retail theft, so we’re seeing these offenders benefiting and the retailers are paying the price.”

Lenore Anderson, executive director of Californians for Safety and Justice, who led the drive to pass Proposition 47, said law enforcement still has plenty of tools, including using the state’s general conspiracy law and proving that the same thief is responsible for multiple thefts that together top $950.

Shoplifting rings generally recruit society’s most vulnerable — the homeless, low-end drug users, those living in the country illegally — to steal merchandise that can be sold for a discount on the streets or over the Internet, said Joseph LaRocca, a Los Angeles-based theft-prevention consultant and formerly the National Retail Federation’s vice president of loss prevention.

While misdemeanors, in theory, can bring up to a year in county jail, Fresno Police Sgt. Mark Hudson said it’s not worth it to issue a citation or arrest a suspect who would likely be immediately released because of overcrowding.

“We’ve heard of cases where they’re going into stores with a calculator so they can make sure that what they steal is worth less than $950,” said Robin Shakely, Sacramento County assistant chief deputy district attorney.

Adam Gelb, director of the public safety performance project at The Pew Charitable Trusts, disputes those sorts of anecdotes.

“The vast majority of offenders just aren’t fine-tuning their behavior that way,” Gelb said.

His organization recently reported finding no effect on property crimes and larceny rates in 23 states that increased the threshold to charge thefts as felonies instead of misdemeanors between 2001 and 2011. California raised its threshold from $400 in 2010.

“It’s hard to see how raising the level to $950 in California would touch off a property crime wave when raising it to $2,000 in South Carolina six years ago hasn’t registered any impact at all,” Gelb said.

The study did not include the effects of Proposition 47, but Gelb and other Pew researchers said there is no reason to believe adding shoplifting to the list would spark an increase in thefts.

California is among 17 states without an organized retail crime law that specifically targets shoplifting rings with tougher penalties, according to the Organized Retail Crime Resource Center. Results vary: Of the top five states for shoplifting last year, three — Florida, Pennsylvania and Texas — had such laws, while California and New York did not.

For his part, Lutz, the hobby shop owner, has provided police with surveillance videos, and even the license plate, make and model of the getaway vehicles. “They go, `Perry, our hands are tied because it’s a misdemeanor,”‘ Lutz said. “It’s not worth pursuing, it’s just a waste of manpower.”

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/201...ced-penalties/