Crime

Will Thousands Of Police Layoffs Unleash Chaos And Anarchy Across America?

Thousands of police officers have been laid off all across America since the current economic crisis began.  Thousands more are getting ready to be laid off.  So could we be on the verge of a new era of chaos and anarchy in America as crime runs wild and there are just far too few police to respond to it all?  That is the message that one blood-smeared billboard in Stockton, California is trying to get across.  Paid for by the Stockton, California police union, the message of the billboard is chillingly clear: “Welcome to the 2nd most dangerous city in California. Stop laying off cops.”  As state, city and local governments across the United States continue to be devastated by the ongoing economic crisis, budget cuts are becoming much deeper and police forces have suddenly become a very popular target.

Officer Steve Leonesio, the president of the Stockton Police Officers Association, has announced that the police union plans to spend approximately $20,000 on at least 20 more billboards.

Why is the union putting up all of these billboards?

Well, it turns out that Stockton has been considering a plan to lay off 53 police officers in an effort to eliminate a $23 million budget deficit.

But law enforcement in Stockton has already been cut to the bone.  Recently, the Stockton Police Department dropped this bombshell….

“We absolutely do not have any narcotics officers, narcotics sergeants working any kind of investigative narcotics type cases at this point in time.”

Do you think drug dealers will be flocking to Stockton after they hear that?

But the truth is that so many of these local governments around the nation are just flat broke at this point. 

Even major cities are having to admit that they have accumulated such large debts that they cannot even afford to provide the most basic services any longer.

In Oakland, California the battle over police layoffs has made national headlines over the past couple of weeks.  Oakland has laid off 80 police officers, and now the police chief says that there are some crimes that his department simply will not be able to respond to.

In fact, Chief Anthony Batts has compiled a list of exactly 44 situations, including grand theft, burglary, car wrecks, identity theft and vandalism, that his officers will not be available to handle any longer.

What in the world?

Once upon a time in America you could get a police officer to come out for just about anything – including for getting a cat down out of a tree.

But those days are long gone.

Today it is very hard to get a police officer to come out for anything short of murder. 

The following is a partial list of crimes that police officers in Oakland will no longer be responding to….

  • burglary
  • theft
  • embezzlement
  • grand theft
  • grand theft: dog
  • identity theft
  • false information to peace officer
  • required to register as sex or arson offender
  • dump waste or offensive matter
  • discard appliance with lock
  • loud music
  • possess forged notes
  • pass fictitious check
  • obtain money by false voucher
  • fraudulent use of access cards
  • stolen license plate
  • embezzlement by an employee (over $ 400)
  • extortion
  • attempted extortion
  • false personification of other
  • injure telephone/power line
  • interfere with power line
  • unauthorized cable tv connection
  • vandalism

Not that Oakland wasn’t already a mess, but now how long do you think it will be before total chaos and anarchy reigns on the streets of Oakland?

But Oakland is far from alone.

The sheriff’s department in Ashtabula County, Ohio has been slashed from 112 to 49 deputies, and there is now just one vehicle remaining to patrol all 720 square miles of the county.

So what are the citizens of that county supposed to do to protect themselves?

Well, when asked about what they should do, Judge Alfred Mackey gave this stunning piece of advice….

“Arm themselves.”

So is that what we are left with?

Is American society degenerating into a “Road Warrior-style” wasteland where we are all left to fend for ourselves?

It gets really frightening when you start considering just how many police are actually being laid off across the United States….

*Acting State Police director Jonathon Monken has announced that the Illinois State Police will lay off more than 460 troopers and close five regional headquarters by this fall.

*Atlantic City Mayor Lorenzo Langford has proposed a plan to lay off 40 police officers.

*The police department in Vallejo, California will temporarily suspend its K-9 and SWAT programs at the end of the month in a move to delay officer layoffs.

*Last year, 18 special police units in Toledo, Ohio – including the gang task force and the mounted patrol – were eliminated or downsized in an effort to replace the 130 patrol officers who were laid off because of a $20.7 million budget deficit.

*Of 315 municipalities the New Jersey State Policemen’s union canvassed, more than half indicated that they were planning to lay off police officers.

*Four police officers in one town in New Jersey were greeted at work this past Monday morning with notices informing them that they will be laid off on August 31st.

*Police in Phoenix, Arizona have been told that more than 400 officers could be impacted by layoffs if “the worst case scenario” plays out.

*Police and firefighters in Flint, Michigan decided that layoffs were preferable to taking a 15 percent pay and benefits cut.

*The city of Maywood, California laid off all 68 of its employees July 1st and is now “contracting out” police services.

*In Colorado Springs, dozens of police positions are going unfilled and the police helicopters were put up for sale on the Internet.

The sad thing is that as local police forces across America are being stripped down or dismantled, many communities are opening their arms wide to increased federal law enforcement “assistance”. 

In recent years, we have seen a large number of examples where the U.S. military is being used for domestic law enforcement, which is supposed to be against the law.  In addition, federal government agencies are increasingly taking over the financing, training and even command of local police.

But is this “federalization” of local law enforcement a good thing?

Of course not.

Unfortunately we live at a time when almost everything is being centralized under federal government control.  Of course this is completely contrary to everything that our founders intended, but most of our “officials” don’t seem too concerned about actually following the Constitution these days.

So what are you seeing in your own local community?  Is the police force being slashed where you live?  Is crime on the rise?  Feel free to leave a comment with your opinion….

If The U.S. Economy Goes Into The Toilet Will It Result In A Complete And Total Collapse Of Society?

If the United States experiences a horrifying economic collapse (and it most definitely will), will that cause a complete and total collapse of society?  Will we experience crime, violence, riots and social unrest on a scale that is unprecedented in U.S. history?  Before you dismiss such notions as utter foolishness dreamed up by a few bloggers with too much time on their hands, perhaps you should consider what one of the biggest credit rating organizations in the world is saying.  According to a report on sovereign debt by Moody’s, the world’s five biggest AAA-rated countries (including the United States) are all at risk of soaring debt costs and will have to implement austerity plans that threaten “social cohesion”.  In case you are wondering what happens when “social cohesion” starts to break down due to economic factors, just check out the recent examples in Iceland and Greece.  If even Moody’s is warning that there is a realistic possibility that “social cohesion” in the United States may break down due to economic factors, perhaps we should all start listening.

Or if you will not listen to Moody’s, then perhaps you will listen to the man who has been called the top trends researcher in the entire world.  Gerald Celente is the CEO of Trends Research Institute, and he is convinced that we are heading into what he calls “The Greatest Depression”.  The picture that he paints of the future of America is extremely alarming and extremely sobering.  It would be easy to dismiss his forecasts as just the ramblings of another useless “talking head”, but unfortunately Celente has been dead-on accurate time after time after time in the past.  Considering his exemplary track record, what Celente says is coming next for America is incredibly frightening….

At this point you may be tempted to think that America has been through extremely tough economic times before (The Great Depression for example) and came through them okay.

So what is so different now?

Well, the truth is that the character of the American people is dramatically different.  At the time of the Great Depression, the American people were tough, self-sufficient people who knew how to live off the land.  Today, most Americans are weak, spoiled little children who will throw a temper tantrum whenever anyone tries to take their toys away.  The character of the American people has been decaying for decades, and there is no way that the current crop of Americans has any chance of weathering a horrible economic depression the way Americans back in the 1930s did.

Already we are seeing early signs of what the rest of America could soon be like.  The city of Detroit is a rotting, crime-ridden war zone that has a “real” unemployment rate of somewhere around 40 to 50 percent.  The state of California has become a cesspool of gang violence, rampant unemployment, rising foreclosures, unchecked drug dealing, and depressing economic decline.  Even in New York City we are seeing early signs of what is ahead.  Residents are quite alarmed about the dramatic rise in violent crime that is happening throughout the city.  Many New Yorkers were convinced that the days of “The Rotten Apple” were behind them, but economic problems are going to cause an increase in crime in just about any city.

But it just isn’t crime that is on the rise.  Millions of normal, law-abiding Americans are angry.  This anger is coming out in various ways – including the Tea Party protests that are sweeping the nation.  The majority of the American people are frankly disgusted with the government, and the approval ratings for both major parties continue to hover around record lows.  As things continue to get worse for the U.S. economy, the anger of the American people is going to continue to rise.

All of this is causing many in the U.S. government to view “troublemakers” inside the United States as one of the greatest threats to national security.  In fact, according to FBI Director Robert Mueller, “homegrown terrorists” represent as big a threat as al-Qaeda.

As big a threat as al-Qaeda?

For a top U.S. government official to come right out and make a statement like that is absolutely mind blowing.

Not only that, but now former U.S. President Bill Clinton is comparing Tea Party members to Timothy McVeigh.

Considering the fact that Timothy McVeigh received the death penalty, that is a very frightening parallel for Clinton to draw.

Does Clinton actually believe that Tea Party protesters should receive the same treatment as McVeigh?

Even more alarming is new legislation being pushed in the U.S. Senate.  A new bill introduced by Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman would allow the U.S. military to round up large numbers of Americans and detain them indefinitely without a trial if they “pose a threat” or if they have “potential intelligence value” or for any other reason the President of the United States “considers appropriate”.

The reality is that as “necessary” as bills like that may seem to many as we edge ever closer to the breakdown of society, the reality is that the United States is quickly becoming just like so many of the other horrific totalitarian regimes that we have seen rise throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.

In fact a time may soon be coming when authorities in the U.S. may soon be able to legally utter this bone chilling phrase: “Your Papers Please!”  Lawmakers in Washington D.C. working to create a new immigration “reform” bill have decided on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card that all American workers would be required to obtain.

Can you imagine being forced to carry around a national identification card?

Or worse?

A startup company developing “chipless RFID ink” has already tested its product on cattle and laboratory rats.

Could one day we all be required to sport an “RFID tatoo” to prove our identity to authorities?

Let’s hope not.

But many of us never thought that the day would come when we would see things such as the Patriot Act, “no fly” lists, the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program, DNA databases, Guantanamo Bay or full-body scanners at airports that reveal the graphic details of our naked bodies either.

America is quickly changing.  The next Great Depression is coming, and society is not going to be able to handle it.  How the U.S. government (and governments around the world) handle the coming social problems is going to be very interesting to watch.  Let’s hope that all of this does not degenerate into the absolute societal nightmare that many are projecting that it could be.

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