Who's on our side?

12/03/07 The crooks are running the jail house.

It's getting harder and harder to be hopeful about our city or Dallas County. Alice in Wonderland would feel right at home in our upside down chaotic local world.

I am continually amazed that a bail bondsman is the Dallas County District Attorney. My worst fears about the guy now seem optimistic when compared to the actuality of having a criminal lawyer as the County's Prosecutor.

Reese Dunklin's report, Dallas County DA re-examines murder probation (DallasNews.com, 11/30/7) is enough to scare any thinking person. For Heaven's sake, what's the point of arresting murderers and drug dealers when the DA thinks they should be back out on the street to do more harm? Obviously, there's no one on Watkins' team who can try a criminal case and expect a conviction with the way they negotiate plea bargains.

My neighborhood is quiet now because the DPD has apparently caught the burglary team, but we recently went through a rash of burglaries. Almost every other day some home was invaded from the alley side. Neighborhoods just north and east of us were experiencing the same crime wave. The police can't be everywhere, but the criminals can. Here's a really frightening story from our area crime watch net work that exemplifies just how bold the bad guys have become:

That burglar was pretty enterprising -- up and at 'em by 7:20 a.m. The woman did everything wrong: not having a deadbolt on a exterior door, leaving a screen door open, not having a dog to bark at an intruder. But, you shouldn't have to live in a fortress to be safe in your home while you are getting ready for work.

Some liberal friends of mine think crime and mayhem are part of the ambience of urban living. I didn't say they were smart friends of mine.

Where do we go for help? We can barely hire enough police recruits to keep up with attrition in our Dallas Police Department ranks. Our senior officers are retiring or moving to greener pastures, and the rookies may have good intentions, but they are still very young and inexperienced.

When DPD officers do arrest burglars, drug dealers and even murderers, they know the DA will not go for convictions and those arrested criminals are very likely to be back on Dallas streets within a few months, if not weeks or days.

My State Rep. Rafael Anchia, a very liberal Democrat who also happens to be very smart, tried to get through legislation to make car burglaries felony offenses again, but he was stymied by criminal lovers who want to rehabilitate rather than incarcerate. l remember a press conference he called to outline his initiative. A female, Hispanic reporter challenged him by asking 'shouldn't those young men be kept in the community so they can be "turned around" to be law abiding citizens'. My State Rep. Anchia didn't blink. He just looked at the dozen or so of us who were standing with him, and said "these people want the criminals out of their community" and "I'm standing with the law abiding citizens on this issue". Don't you wish our DA had that attitude?

People are having to take the law in our own hands. There's a big controversy in Houston about a man (Joe Horn) who called 911 to report a burglary in progress at his next door neighbor's and then went out and shot the burglars. The Houston police have yet to file charges against the citizen.

HOUSTON — A man who told police he planned to kill two men he believed were burglarizing his neighbor's house shot them only when they came on his property and he felt threatened, his attorney said Monday.
Tom Lambright, who represents Joe Horn of Pasadena, said his client was just going to take a look around when he went outside after hearing glass break at his neighbor's house. He had seen Miguel Antonio DeJesus, 38, and Diego Ortiz, 30, crawling into and then out of a window.
Horn went outside, armed with a 12-gauge shotgun, to see where the burglars were heading when he came face-to-face with them in Horn's front yard, Lambright said.
Horn is 61 and heavyset. The suspected burglars were young and strong enough to beat him to death with their bare hands, Lambright said. So when one or both of them "made lunging movements," Horn fired.
   "He's trying to protect his own life," Lambright said. "He's scared."
   Pasadena police were still compiling their report on the shooting and planned to present the case to Harris County prosecutors within the next two weeks, police spokesman Vance Mitchell said Monday. From there it is expected to be presented to a grand jury. In the meantime, Horn remains uncharged.
Lambright's description is partly at odds with the 911 call in which a dispatcher urges Horn to stay inside his house and not risk lives.
"Don't go outside the house," the 911 operator pleaded. "You're gonna get youself shot if you go outside that house with a gun. I don't care what you think."
"You wanna make a bet?" Horn answered. "I'm gonna kill 'em."
After the shooting, he redialed 911.
"I had no choice," he said, his voice shaking. "They came in the front yard with me, man. I had no choice. Get somebody over here quick."
Diamond Morgan, Diego Ortiz's widow and mother of their 8-month-old son, told Houston television station KTRK that she was stunned by Horn's comments on the 911 call.
"It's horrible," she said. "He was so eager, so eager to shoot."
Local activist Quanell X urged authorities to prosecute Horn.
"Mr. Horn did not have to kill those men," he said at a news conference last week outside of Horn's house. "We believe that Mr. Horn became judge jury and executioner at the same time."
... It could be a difficult case to prosecute in Texas, where many people have little sympathy for criminals and an almost religious belief in the right of self defense.
   Texas law allows people to use deadly force to protect themselves if it is reasonable to believe they could otherwise be killed. In limited circumstances, people also can use deadly force to protect their neighbor's property; for example, if a homeowner asks a neighbor to watch over his property while he's out of town.
   The question will be whether it was reasonable for Horn to fear the men and whether his earlier threats on the 911 call showed he planned to kill them no matter what, said Fred C. Moss, who teaches criminal law at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
   "That's what makes it so hard and that's why we have juries," Moss said.

Excuse me? Two thugs crawling in and out of your neighbor's window and then they come into your yard? Damn straight, you shoot the bad guys. What was he supposed to do? Wait until they attacked him and took his shotgun from him? The bad guy's widow says "It's horrible. He was so eager, so eager to shoot." What's she smoking? What's horrible is that her "husband", the 30 year old sperm donor of her son, burglarized someone's home and then trespassed on Joe Horn's property.

If this had happened in Dallas County, DA Watkins would be going for Joe Horn's jugular and lamenting the untimely passing of these two young men (38 and 30 years old) who could have turned their thugging lives around with a little understanding from their friendly DA.

Those two thieves deserved to be shot. It was just a matter of time until they caught someone at home on one of their burglary escapades and God knows what they would have done to that person. At 38 and 30 years old, they were not candidates for rehabilitation. They were hardened criminals who had ample opportunity to change their lives, but preyed on others. It's good to be able to talk about two thugs in the past tense.

It's like the County's attitude toward drug dealers. All we heard last summer was about the "cheese" epidemic among Dallas school kids. But, what happens to drug dealers when they get arrested in Dallas County? They get probation and a stint in taxpayer funded drug rehab facilities. Is that disgusting or what?

A parent of some kid hooked on drugs they got from that drug dealer has to find the money themselves to get help for their kid, but you and I have to pay for the drug dealer's rehab.

Yes, I'm rooting for Joe Horn to be no-billed by the Harris County Grand Jury. I suspect that's what would happen in Dallas County, too -- even if DA Watkins tried to get an indictment.

I am sick of do-gooders and enablers showing more concern for murderers, burglars and drug dealers than for their victims. I say let them rot in jail.

Last week, there were 3 violent crime incidents that got to me. A woman was mugged in the parking lot of a store I frequent on Forest Lane. Another woman was robbed in her driveway after a trip to a grocery store on Forest Lane. Both woman were beat up by their robbers. Then, there's that poor woman who was beat to a broken pulp by two punks on the Katy Trail. I didn't realize how personally those incidents had affected me until Saturday when I went to the grocery store myself. As I was loading my purchases in my truck, a tall guy came running up with a wide grin on his face. I froze. Lucky for me, he was just getting something out of the truck next to mine. Although people had been around, at that particular moment it was just him and me, and no one else near to help me had I needed it.

We are under siege, and we have a DA who lets murderers and other criminals out on probation.

I got news for DA Watkins and all you enablers and do-gooders out there, bad guys aren't fixable. They are bad guys. They are defective. They need to be in jail and kept in jail.

We are in the Christmas season, and that means the bad guys are out in force to make hay while decent people are out shopping and doing regular stuff. They see us as their opportunity to take what we own. If they get to hurt us a little or a lot in the process, more the fun for them.

We need a District Attorney who puts decent citizens first and wants to put the bad guys behind bars - someone like Rafael Anchia. Instead, we have Craig Watkins, bail bondsman.

I say we recruit Houston's Joe Horn to move to Dallas. I've got great neighbors on either side of me and across the street, but I would welcome Joe Horn to my neighborhood.

sb