The end is nigh!
I mean the Biblical-style end. End of times, Hell freezing over – you know, the unimaginable.
Yes, it’s in process. A task force in San Francisco, California, long the looniest tune on the Left Coast, is doing something sensible.
A new task force for San Francisco’s opioid crisis will empower law enforcement to investigate fatal drug overdoses as homicides, enabling prosecutors to charge dealers with murder, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and city officials announced Friday.
The task force will treat opioid deaths in San Francisco like homicide cases in the way it documents deaths, gathers evidence and processes intelligence to map out crime syndicates, the governor’s office said in a news release.
Authorities want to particularly target fentanyl dealers, and they could potentially be charged with murder, prosecutors said.
Dunno about you, but to me that seems logical and sensible. Dealer sells an illegal substance which kills someone… why NOT treat it as a homicide? I mean, it’s not maybe as extreme as sticking one in the dealer’s ear after a fair trial, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.
Not all agree:
Tracy McCray, president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association, said the opioid crisis “has steadily squeezed the life out of our city” and is not a new problem.
McCray said officers currently can’t respond to all 911 calls immediately or fully investigate all crimes, “because we are down 600 officers from where the Department and voters say we should be and based on SFPD’s data, next year we will be down 700 officers. That is the crisis that needs to be addressed immediately and aggressively.”?
Think we can all agree it’s not a complete solution, but at least it is a step in the right direction – and the more dealers you get off the streets, logically one would think the less crime, the less that officer shortage is as big a problem.
Mano Raju, San Francisco’s public defender, called the task force “another step in the wrong direction toward the continued revival of the failed War on Drugs in SF.”
His office urged leaders to “prioritize evidence-based public health strategies rather than throwing more public resources at a punitive approach that has failed time and time again.”
Says the man whose job depends on crime perpetuating itself. His approach has helped LAND them in this mess – think his opinion is irrelevant. And why has a punitive approach failed? We never really punished the criminal dealers. Not if they are still breathing.
Drugs are bad, mmmkay?
It makes sense to me. Charge the dealers with homicide (originally misspelled that as homocide, fitting for SF but I almost cancelled myself). The drug problem in this country is worse than ever before. I’ve shared my experiences with addicts, namely my brother and his “friends” circle and my own best friend. I don’t want to say I’ve written either off, but the pen and paper are right next to me.
Dealers are capitalists in the worst sense. They look to make the most money they can, so if that means cutting some meth or coke with fentanyl to make their product cost less to produce, they’ll do it. Need a hit? Don’t worry, I got you, but I’m taking this or that as collateral and come pay day you better have my money.
The public defender has a job to do, and obviously doesn’t want to risk representing dealers being charged with manslaughter or murder. It’s much easier to keep them on the streets, distributing their high-quality products for the masses to inject, smoke, keister, or whatever they do.
I think that too many taxpayer-funded offices conflict with each other. Prosecutors don’t want to prosecute, and when they do, public defenders don’t want to even have a trial. Meanwhile, the coroner’s office gets all the business while dealers and other criminals run free.
Keep in mind that there were over 100K drug overdose deaths last year vs 22K murders. So if all over doses were treated as murders the murder rate would increase by 450%. As bonus guns would no longer be the most used tool in homicides.
Gavin’s Kabuki theater. They can’t or won’t enforce the laws already enacted, so noisily make more they will ignore too.
SFPD is 600 bodies short? can’t imagine the mandatory OT they are choking down.
Of course this is from the same city that will now start fining you if you have a apartment that goes unrented longer than 182 days.
I’m sure it’s still tough to live there on their wages. I know a San Francisco Harbor Pilot making welllllllll well well above six figures who says if it wasn’t for his pension from 35 years at sea as a Master that he would never be able to afford living in the area.
Fuck that. Bring that cost of living down, Commiefornia, to the days of my youth (before it got ransacked by filth.)
It would be very hard to pull off here, but the Red Chinese pretty much cured their drug problem when they took power by killing every dealer and every user. No drug problem per se over there now.
Because now they’re exporting the fentanyl to the U.S.
This…eliminate the internal threat, then export your problem products to foreign markets in order to weaken them while simultaneously injecting money into your own economy. When you have weak “leaders” like our current Administration, combined with soft-on-crime policies and a seeming “America Last” mentality at all levels of government, you set the stage to finally bring America to its knees.
I think a step in the right direction is to take the lead from all these anti-second amendment folks and start suing the manufactures!!! Hold the dealer culpable unless he can identify who manufactured the stuff, then go light on him and go after the manufacture/distributors (i.e. Cartels)!!!
Make it a monetary things, sell it as a means to grab the illegal cash (politicians always love to take other peoples money)
BWAHAHAHAHA…. as if San Fran’s finest has oodles of time to track down every dead doper’s dealer mule. Hell, last month they were talking about bringing back private police forces just to stop the daily looting at high end retailers.
https://abc7news.com/san-francisco-police-department-patrol-specials-sf-crime-sfpd-staffing/13817155/
The department is currently operating at about 63% strength. Why? Because they defunded the police, got rid of qualified immunity and all the smart officers quit and retired. Then three years later the same idiots are screaming for more police, because she literally thinks that her people are more important than other people:
“And I’ve been told time-and-time-and-time-and-time again there are no officers that we can send to Mission. And then I see these numbers protecting shoppers, and it hurts. It hurts. And I feel betrayed by the department,”
Beach, it’s not betrayal when you succeed in getting rid of the police.
https://13wham.com/news/nation-world/san-francisco-official-who-pushed-to-defund-police-pleads-for-more-officers-in-her-district-hillary-ronen-mission-district
Something the politicians making the suggestion fail to understand is that mandating an investigation is one thing, having the people to actually do it is another. If you cannot handle the current call load and investigative load as it exists not, adding the equivalent of at least tripling the load isn’t going to be very feasible.
It would also require either creating a new felony statute (which is outside of the city’s legal authority) that does not have intent as a part of it because prosecuting a person for killing another must have intent presently or simply have the folks who get arrested merely beat the charge in court because you cannot prove intent to kill the customer.
Lastly, the current prison population is already maxing out the facilities available. Where are you going to put the new convicts, assuming you can convict them in the current judicial system? Especially since the liberal thought is that drug addictions are “victimless crimes”.
Triple? Triple? no, no, no…. In 2022 there were 56 murders in San Fran and 647 deaths from drug overdoses. They would have to create a special unit just to investigate drug overdose deaths. Considering how resource intensive homicide investigations are the work load will skyrocket.
The average cost of a murder from commission through completion of sentence is around $9,000,000 each in California. Using the 647 as a baseline you are looking at around $6B a year in increased costs. Although in the long run they may end up saving some cash as the overdose death rate should plummet.
California is closing prisons, the facilities exist. Need to prove intent? Most states, “homicide” can have two meanings. A) death caused by any reason directly attributed to another person and B) ‘murder 3’ accidental non-intentional homicide. Paraphrased, probably since I am not a ‘lawer’ but I did stay at a Holiday Inn on occasion.
Voluntary or involuntary manslaughter is the proper charge. Drug dealers don’t intend for their customers to die. Intent to kill is an essential element of the crime of murder, both first and second degree. I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn, but I was a real lawer for over 35 years. Homicide is merely the death of a person caused by the actions of another; that action my or may not be a crime.
That’s right. If I kill a mofo who breaks into my house, the cause of death is listed as “Homicide” on the death certificate even if no charges are ever filed.
Was hoping you would shed some light on it.
This is completely untrue. Drug dealers kill their customers all the time on purpose. Could be the bill is way overdue, could be they are talking to the police, could be they are running drugs for a competitor, could be they just got tired of their shit, could be a lot of things.
For a lawyer I’m really surprised you would say such a thing.
I am not ruling out cases where a dealer gives his customer a hot shot. But dealers are like anyone else selling a product to a consumer of it. Dead addicts don’t buy more dope. I am certain the incidents where a street dealer deliberately kills one of his customers is relatively rare. If you have proof to the contrary, let’s see it.
Depends upon what you mean by “rare” and “proof”. Murder itself is relatively rare so I agree with you in that regard; however it literally happens every single day. A lot of the time it is depraved indifference where the dealer knows he is killing people but doesn’t care. This is also homicide in most states. Proving it OTOH is certainly a challenge. Surprisingly few people involved in a life of crime like talking about it to the police.
The idea of a moral drug dealer that cares whether his clients live or die is an invention of the media paired with people being strung along by their dealer.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fentanyl-poisoning-deaths-dealer-sentenced-prison-billy-ortega/
There will always be more customers. Many people are too stupid to not do drugs.
Addiction doesn’t discriminate. I have met plenty of youth from wealthy, stable, church going, 2 parent homes. Most of the time, their families had no idea they were using drugs.
Another large group are folks who became hooked on opiates after a severe injury and/or those who had a Doc who over prescribed narcotics.
There are many pathways to addiction. Judgment and stigma only makes the problem worse by making users more resistant to treatment.
I know too damn many folks who’ve been destroyed by drugs.
Yes, they made bad choices, but have no problem holding the dealers responsible – with the death penalty.
On the good news side of this topic, I know of one who is getting free from his addictions and getting back to Christ. There is hope for the addict.
Yes there is GB. Any addict can change if they genuinely want to. Non judgmental support is a big help too.
* Dr. Conrad Murray, Michael Jackson’s personal physician, was convicted of invouluntary manslaughter, sentenced to four years in prison and paroled after serving almost 2 years. Jackson died from acute propofol intoxication (Murray administered propofol to Jackson).
* Dr. George C. Nichopoulos, Elvis Presley’s personal physician, was indicted in 1980 on 14 counts of overprescribing drugs to Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and twelve other patients. The district attorney ruled out murder charges because of the conflicting medical opinions about the cause of Presley’s death. In the first eight months of 1977 alone, Nichopoulos had prescribed over 10,000 doses of amphetamines, barbiturates, narcotics, tranquilizers, sleeping pills, laxatives, and hormones for Presley.The jury concluded that he had tried to act in the best interests of his patients. He was acquitted on all counts.
*Dr Michael Todd Schulenberg, Prince’s personal physician, was accused of illegally prescribing an opioid painkiller for Prince a week before the musician died from a fentanyl overdose. He agreed to pay $30,000 to settle a federal civil violation.
* Dr. Sandeep Kapoor, Anna Nicole Smith’s physician, was alleged to have prescribed Smith with methadone and Vicodin, among other drugs. In 2009, he was charged with eight felonies, including conspiring to furnish controlled substances, unlawfully prescribing a controlled substance and obtaining fraudulent prescriptions. He was eventually cleared on all charges after the court found no significant evidence of wrongdoing.
Oh FFS, more proof positive it is over. Jordan is requesting PATRIOT Missiles from the US. Not certain who they are trying to protect themselves from.
Fears of war. They are requesting assistance from the United States (msn.com)
SF, my sympathy level is zero, and if I had any fucks left, you wouldn’t get one. You voted in the people that created this, you can now live with your choices. Portland, Seattle, you’re not far behind.
Here ya go, SFC D. I’ll make a contribution in your name…
OK, that’s pretty fookin’ awesome!
Yeah, I want a bunch of them. Hand ‘em out to muh-fuggers who piss me off.
Does it also come in Crypto? You patent Fukcoins and you could be sitting on a virtual gold mine.
I need to start a new crypto exchange called FUCKBUCKS.
First and foremost, it doesn’t matter what the governor’s office and cops do if city prosecutors refuse to file charges. Anyone here think the Soros financed DA’s are going to vigorously prosecute these fentanyl dealers? For murder? I think not. Betcha there will not be a fentanyl drug dealer going to prison for even 2nd degree murder.
You’re probably right. The DA that took over for Bill Ayre’s adopted kid isn’t really a “law and order” type, even if she is something of an improvement.
Now it’s a conspiracy. Michelle Wu, Boston Mayor and Rabid Police defunder wants her some police to go do policing.
The old Wu:
https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/michelle-wu-talks-bostons-protests-police-funding-pandemic-response-and-more/2144448/
You’ve been very vocal about defunding the police departments. How do you envision a future with defunded police departments?
Well Surprise, Surprise, That didn’t work out so good. So now:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/blue-citys-methadone-mile-to-be-dismantled-after-progressive-mayor-makes-order
The only difference now being that they are down 1/5 of their officers and lack the manpower to even fulfill their regular shifts.
The chief doesn’t understand why it is hard to attract people to come to his city and work for a mayor that hates them.
https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/boston-police-officer-shortage-residency-requirement-michael-cox/