A Travesty of Criminal Justice

By Judson Berger

Friday, July 22, 2022

 

Sometimes you have to scream to be heard.

 

Arabella Foss-Yarbrough, a Minneapolis mother, proved that last weekend as she confronted Black Lives Matter activists gathered in support of the man who allegedly shot into her apartment while she and her kids were inside.

 

Viral video of that encounter, if you haven’t seen it, captures better than almost any on-camera moment the primary obstacle for the progressive criminal-justice project: the visceral frustration and anger on the part of people whose real-world experience clashes daily with the abstract vision of activists and policy-makers.

 

In this case, the Minneapolis mother had to shout at activists milling around that “this is not a George Floyd situation,” after Tekle Sundberg — a black man who allegedly had been firing inside the building — was shot dead by police during a long standoff. Somebody can be heard telling her that “this is not the time or the place.” When an activist approaches the mother and an argument ensues, Foss-Yarbrough loses all control — understandably.

 

“My black kid is in the car! . . . He tried to kill me in front of my kids!” she screams as loudly as a person can scream, enunciating and slamming her chest, desperate for those words to be understood by the protesters demanding body-cam footage, since released. She screams it again, and again, hammering her own body, as the activist says whatever it is one says to explain how the account of the mother with bullet holes in her kitchen isn’t instantly dispositive.

 

Municipal leaders and the activists who pressure them would be wise to study this tape, as well as other signs from the universe that the constituency for inverting the treatment of victims and criminals — for treating culpability as something fluid — is diminishing.

 

Take Chesa Boudin, the erstwhile San Francisco district attorney who was recalled last month, rebuked by otherwise sympathetic residents fed up with social decay. As Ryan Mills reported at the time:

 

[Boudin] ended cash bail, stopped prosecuting drug-possession cases stemming from “pretextual” traffic stops, stopped using “enhancements” to extend prison sentences for convicted gang members, and stopped prosecuting so-called quality-of-life crimes — things such as prostitution, public camping, public defecation, and open-air drug use. Supporters of the recall say that sent a message that San Francisco was a consequence-free place to engage in low-level crimes, which simply encouraged more crime in the city generally.

 

Such lawlessness is affecting daily life for shop owners and residents well beyond the Bay. Isaac Schorr reported on a string of 7-Eleven robberies that prompted the company to encourage Los Angeles stores to briefly close. Starbucks, meanwhile, plans to permanently shutter 16 city locations over safety concerns, Brittany Bernstein reports, with “many” more to follow. Explaining this, CEO Howard Schultz accused government leaders of having “abdicated their responsibility in fighting crime and addressing mental health.” Few might shed a tear for the Starbucks CEO. But the experience of your average barista or store clerk resonates — which is why the warped justice on display this month in New York City struck a chord. The Manhattan DA faced an immense backlash from bodega workers after he tried to prosecute one of their own who fatally stabbed his attacker in apparent self-defense. Afflicting the afflicted, again, has a small, if cruel, constituency. On Tuesday, Alvin Bragg at last backed off the charges. (“Best news of the week,” Rich Lowry noted.)

 

More introspection is required in tackling crime, and the infectious culture of crime. America, it is true, has a mass-shooting problem; revisiting gun laws and mental-health policies should be part of that solution. More fatally, yet receiving less attention, America has an unrelenting violence problem, one that law enforcement is best equipped to confront. You’ll find no objection here to demanding accountability and transparency from those entrusted with extraordinary power. As seen in the case of George Floyd, or the catastrophe in Uvalde, police officers sometimes do the patently wrong thing. But not every police-involved killing is George Floyd all over again. And not every effort to ease penalties for criminal offenders — or turn them into martyrs — is a blow for justice. Ask San Franciscans. Ask Arabella Foss-Yarbrough.