SAN JOSE (CBS SF) — Mayor Sam Liccardo unveiled a comprehensive crime fighting plan Thursday, including a crackdown on “frequent flyers” who are fueling San Jose’s troubling rise in violent crime, shutting down online fencing of stolen property and ending the pandemic era bail-and-release policies.
While property crimes have been declining, Liccardo says violent crimes have actually been on the rise.
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San Jose police report that “a troubling 10.4% increase in violent crime–felony assaults, robberies, and sexual assaults–in 2021, and an equally worrying acceleration in early 2022.”
Those impacts appeared most acute in San Jose’s most vulnerable, underserved neighborhoods.
“Some routinely point to SJPD’s thin staffing, and to the pandemic,” the mayor points out in a news release. “While we would all prefer to see more officers in the chronically understaffed SJPD, that factor does not explain this recent upswing in violence.”
The main culprit, according to Liccardo, is the relatively small number of individuals who commit the vast majority of violent crime.
“It would not surprise anyone that prior arrests, and frequent drug use might be factors that could help us identify those ‘frequent flyers,’” the mayor’s press release stated.
He said the crime surge has also been fueled by the bail and release policies put in place during the COVID pandemic. Habitual criminals are being released under those policies.
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“Frustrated SJPD officers frequently complain about a ‘revolving door’ at the jail,” the mayor’s release stated. “They describe felony arrests of individuals on assault, burglary, and other charges, only to see them released at booking, and back on the street within hours. In other instances, criminal defendants will be released at arraignment, only to reoffend soon thereafter.”
According to Liccardo, the San Jose police surveyed their arrest records from April 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021, and found 30 arrestees who had incurred at least 10 arrests in that duration. One arrestee, remarkably, was released and re-arrested 19 times —- many of those
charges for felonies.
Among the cases the mayor cited was that of Kevin Jones.
Jones was released after a domestic violence arrest and had multiple prior arrests for assault, robbery and other charges. He invaded his parents’ Alviso home on March 13 and stabbed them both, killing his father.
Fernando Lopez, meanwhile, committed a violent felony in San Joaquin County and then violated his probation by committing another crime of domestic violence in Santa Clara County in June of 2020.
He was released without bail, over the objection of the district attorney, and weeks later, failed to appear for court. In November 2020, while apparently under the influence of methamphetamine, Lopez stabbed and killed multiple residents of a downtown homeless shelter.
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“We appreciate that unique circumstances with the pandemic made many pretrial releases inevitable, or nearly so,” Liccardo said in his plan. “But we needn’t make the problem worse. If we had sufficient options–such as many more inpatient drug treatment beds — depopulating the jail would make more sense. Until then, vacating the jail further leaves us all less safe.”
Source: sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com.