It’s hard to beat the arrogance of Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, who actually admitted back in 2007 that his low-bail policies would someday see a beneficiary “go out and kill somebody.” Though “it’s guaranteed to happen,” he argued, “it does not invalidate the overall approach.”
Ouch. That has to be cold comfort to the survivors of the Dancing Grannies and others slain in the attack on the Waukesha Christmas parade, including little Jackson Sparks.
Chisholm’s concession that the $1,000 cash bond given Darrell Brooks just days before Sunday’s parade carnage was “inappropriately low” won’t help, either.
But his arrogance is rivaled by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Carolyn Maloney and Jamie Raskin, who just wrote the five city district attorneys demanding answers on “excessive bail” supposedly trapping innocents on Rikers.
The three congressfolk seem unaware that Rikers’ population is at its lowest in decades (other than after the early releases when COVID hit) thanks to criminal-justice reforms that rule out any chance of jail for most perps, as well as those same DAs’ refusal to even prosecute many low-level crimes. Only (some of) the truly violent can be given high bail and remanded to Rikers.
As Bob McManus notes, “Darrell E. Brooks has become the latest face of America’s deranged campaign against reasonable law enforcement.” AOC & Co. should consider that face — and those of his alleged victims — before posturing again. But they won’t and never will.