GANGBANGERS, FENTANYL, SNAPCHAT, AND WHY TEENAGERS ARE SITTING DUCKS

Does Watertown have a crime problem?

I asked that question in my previous post: Here’s Why the Next Crime Boom is Headed Our Way. I suggested that many residents would answer yes but that they haven’t yet become alarmed because they believe that crime is currently at an acceptable or tolerable level. Or, to put it another way, they’re not ready to raise hell about it because crime hasn’t intruded on their lives.

What will make the crime level unacceptable and intolerable is when serious crime hits close to home for enough residents that it gets the attention of the politically uninvolved − those who are too busy going about their lives to pay attention to who’s getting elected to city council or school committee and how those representatives are prioritizing issues.

The position I’m staking out is that crime is on the verge of hitting close to home for many of the politically uninvolved, which includes parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles and anyone connected to those residents most targeted by dealers of deadly fentanyl-laced opioids − teenagers.

This is happening everywhere and to think that Watertown is an exception is to be blind to the crime epidemic of our time. To see the evidence, you don’t have to look far but you do need to look beyond our four-square miles.

The following story appeared in February in a Newton Police Department announcement on their Facebook page. For me, it raised some important questions. Here’s the headline:

“Another huge case involving a Newton Police Task Force Officer that resulted in the arrest of two individuals and more than 50,000 counterfeit oxycodone pills suspected to contain fentanyl seized.”

What most popped out to me, after reading the full announcement, was that the two men arrested were from the Providence, Rhode Island area, and the counterfeit pills were seized from their Providence area homes.  

So why was a Newton police officer involved?

I asked that question through the department’s Facebook page. The answer provided was that the Newton officer was assigned to the Boston area task force of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and he “was a significant asset in assistance with the investigation.”

I also asked if the fact that a Newton police officer was involved in the case meant that some amount of those counterfeit pills was intended to be distributed in Newton. Because if Newton was one of the communities being targeted, residents of Watertown might have reason to be concerned that some of those counterfeit oxycodone pills, laced with fentanyl − a drug 50 times stronger than heroin − would have gotten into the hands of some unsuspecting Watertown residents, including school kids.

Here’s the answer I received from the Newton Police Department:

“We have no direct information that any of the drugs seized were heading to Newton, but with that large amount, I'm sure some would have definitely made it this way!”

A news release by DEA provides more details but there is much they are not telling us about the case.

Here are three unanswered questions that, for me, stand out:

First, were the “alleged” drug traffickers members or associates of a nationwide street gang with a regional headquarters in Providence (of which there are several)?

The answer is almost certainly yes.

Second, does that street gang include the Newton-Watertown area as part of their drug distribution territory?

And third, is there evidence that some of their fentanyl has already made its way to the Newton-Watertown area?

Along with the counterfeit pills, the police also seized two pill presses used to turn bulk powder into pills made to resemble prescription oxycodone, so we know that the “suspects,” (as we are supposed call them until they plead or are found guilty) were not just distributors. They were also manufacturers.

Most fentanyl in the U.S. is smuggled over the border by Mexican cartels and is distributed across the country by violent territorial street gangs. This Providence area drug trafficking organization or DTO, as they are commonly referred to by law enforcement, has allegedly been distributing their product throughout three states − New York, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. That size operation is in some way gang affiliated, or it would not be allowed to exist.

No street gang can allow a large-scale independent DTO to insult and embarrass them by blatantly stealing customers on gang-owned turf.

We will learn a lot more about this case, including details about specific gang-involvement and maybe about any past or present impact on the Newton-Watertown area as the investigation develops. Future news releases from DEA or the Department of Justice will provide more answers.

In the meantime, another case − this one to our north − which has already reached the sentencing phase and may also have implications for residents of Watertown and neighboring communities, focused on a DTO on the North Shore and should absolutely be made into a movie.

This case, which is rich in details, brings us a big step closer to understanding how lethal drugs find their way from urban area gangs into the hands of suburbanites who look a lot like you and me and even more disturbingly, like the kids who live next door.

Here’s the headline from the Boston Globe, January 20, 2022:

“Lynn Man And His Mother Charged With Running Drug Ring That Sold Thousands Of Fentanyl-Laced Pills”

I am a huge fan of family-owned and operated businesses but there is nothing heartwarming about this story. In fact, it’s downright frightening.

Victor Caruso (26) known on the street as “Fatz” and “Big Boy,” is head of the family business, referred to by authorities as the Caruso DTO. His mother, Laurie Caruso (52), handled the money laundering side of the business.

Victor Caruso pleaded guilty a few weeks ago. Here’s the DEA press release headline from March 15, which provides some insight into how he got caught:

“North Shore Drug Trafficking Leader Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy Involving Pressed Fentanyl Pills and Machine Guns

Defendant Boasted The Operations In Photos And Videos On Social Media Depicting Machine Guns And Thousands Of Counterfeit Prescription Pills He Manufactured Using Pill Presses”

Caruso was an enthusiastic user of social media, which he used mostly to brag about his drug-dealing success while displaying piles of ill-gotten cash and flashy jewelry in the background. So once investigators got possession of his cellphones and the self-incriminating pictures and videos they contained, his goose was cooked.

You might want to check out this very detailed affidavit from an FBI special agent, involved in the case, containing much of the video and photographic evidence, as well as transcripts of colorful phone conversations that provide an up-close look at what it’s like to be a high-rolling, ruthless gangbanger entrepreneur.

In at least one video, Caruso bragged about his specialty, which was making “Perc 30s” − counterfeit 30 mg Percocet pills, laced with cheap fentanyl. He used multiple presses to crank out the pills while applying the stamps and dyes needed to make them indistinguishable from the real thing.

The presses had the capacity to make hundreds, if not thousands, of pills per hour.

So far, he doesn’t sound like the brightest bulb on the tree but his business model could be described as somewhat sophisticated.

Caruso was a self-admitted member of the Crips street gang but he ran his DTO as a separate entity, employing a loose network of associates to obtain and manage “stash houses” for his drugs, cash, and weapons, and he used at least one other violent street gang, the Tiny Rascals, to widen his area of distribution. The Tiny Rascals have a presence in Cambridge and Somerville, where they are known for drive-by shootings involving rival gang members.

Caruso’s scale of manufacturing gave him the volume of product that allowed him to sell both retail and wholesale.

 Counterfeit pill prices in the Greater Boston area retail at between $10 and $20 per pill and wholesale prices are between $4 and $8 per pill. Caruso based his price per pill on the quantity of “the buy” and only sold to high volume buyers. He was not a small-time drug dealer. His price structure left enough room for plenty of small-timers to buy his product and run their own home-based drug business.

I don’t think anyone really knows just how many Caruso-style DTOs are currently operating in our area or anywhere else in the country. And certainly, no one could possibly know how many small-timers have sprung up to fill the growing demand for illicit drugs.

But we do know how most of those small-time dealers find and connect with their suburban customers − especially their teenage suburban customers. They do it through the internet, which is why you will probably will never see gangbangers from the Crips, MS-13, the Latin Kings, or the Tiny Rascals hanging around the middle school, the high school, or the Boys and Girls Club.

Gang members can use Instagram, TikTok, or Snapchat to sell directly or they can wholesale their drugs to small-time dealers who are fluent in the language of teenagers on social media.

Please don’t get the impression that the Providence area DTO and the Caruso DTO are in any way unique or that putting them out of business solves most of the gang-driven drug problem posing a threat to our neighborhoods.

If you ever want to take a look at the arrest and investigation announcements − just involving fentanyl pills − by the state police of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire and the local police departments of Newton, Waltham, Cambridge, Somerville, and Boston, you will get a sobering view of the scope of the problem.

There are millions of counterfeit opioid pills in circulation all around us that we know about and possibly millions more that we don’t. And all indications are that the demand for illicit opioids is going up, especially in the suburbs and especially among teenagers.

According to the CDC, the stress caused by social isolation and disruptions of daily life has led to a spike in drug use by first time users of all ages but most significantly by teenagers. Since the beginning of covid, fentanyl overdose deaths have tripled among teenagers and have increased by five times among black teenagers.

What is the profile of a teenage drug user? There isn’t one. It can be a straight A student headed for college or a standout student athlete. Addiction can begin with prescription painkillers that were taken for sports injuries, recovery from surgeries, or from dental procedures. Or it can begin by stealing samples from their parents’ medicine cabinet or from pills passed around in school bathrooms.

A miniscule dose of fentanyl − the size of a grain of sand − can be lethal. You would think that profit-driven drug dealers would take pains not to kill their customers, but dead customers are easy to replace, thanks to the advertising and marketing power provided by social media − especially Snapchat.

When fentanyl doesn’t kill you, it raises your tolerance level so that you will need more of it to avoid the very debilitating effects of withdrawal and dealers are there to milk your addiction for all it’s worth.

Snapchat has over 88.5 million users in the U.S. alone and reaches an astounding 75% of Gen Z − those born between 1997 and 2012. Gen Zers right now range between 10 years old and 25 years old.

All middle school and high school students are members of Gen Z.

Snapchat is considered to be the most popular app for buying and selling drugs, because it offers users an unusual level of privacy, because user profiles can be quickly created and deleted, and because most parents of teenagers are not on it.

When parents do decide to take a look at Snapchat, they discover a strange universe of young users speaking in code. Drug dealers call themselves “plugs” but using that word can trigger banishment from Snapchat, so dealers just display a picture of an electrical plug along with pictures representing their menu of drugs.

The nimblest dealers are quick to adapt to Snapchat oversight by changing up their lingo and their methods to stay one step ahead of Snapchat’s drug spotters. Law enforcement officers have tracked shifty internet dealers starting their drug deals on one platform, like TikTok or Instagram, and finishing the deals on Snapchat.

Despite the layers of privacy, enough parents have been able to tie Snapchat to the overdose deaths of their children to put the parent company, Snap Inc., on the hot seat. Snap Inc. has responded by ramping up efforts to block drug dealing on its platform. How successful they will be remains to be seen, but they have made one very eye-opening contribution to understanding why their users are easy prey for online drug dealers.

They commissioned a survey, titled: Key Findings from Research on Dangers of Counterfeit Drugs and Fentanyl among Teens and Young Adults

Here are few eye-opening highlights:

Only 40% of Gen Zers knew that fentanyl was used in counterfeit painkillers.

Only 37% believed fentanyl is extremely dangerous, while 61% believed that heroin is dangerous and 50% knew that cocaine is dangerous.

15% said they had already abused prescription drugs. 20% had thought about doing it and 40% said that they knew a peer who had abused prescription drugs.

84% said that coping with stress and anxiety is a reason people may abuse prescription drugs.

Who would they go to discuss their stress and anxiety?

74% would talk to a close friend. 57% would talk to a trusted adult. Only 28% would seek help from school-based resources.

Provisional data from CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics indicate that there were an estimated 100,306 drug overdose deaths in the United States during the 12-month period ending in April 2021, an increase of 28.5% from the 78,056 deaths during the same period the year before.

No data exists that can tell us how many people are currently opioid dependent. When families discover that one of their own is an addict, they tend to view it as a dirty little secret that would bring shame and ridicule if it became known.

No data exists that can tell us how many teenagers, in the last 12 months, have used the internet to purchase what they thought was Xanax, Percocet, or OxyContin just to take the edge off the stress and anxiety that they are struggling to cope with.

No data exists on how many shoplifters, catalytic converter thieves, porch pirates, and internet scam artists stealing from Watertown residents and businesses are drug users trying to support their habit.

No data exists on how many drug-related crimes, especially violent crimes, have been prevented by proactive police work or what increase in resources are required to prevent those crimes in the near future.

No prediction can be made as to when the first fentanyl-related overdose death will happen here. And, unfortunately, that’s what it might take to get the attention of the politically uninvolved and even our elected representatives.

Maybe we will get some kind of early warning − a middle schooler caught sharing opioid pills, he or she bought from a Snapchat dealer, with a friend in a school bathroom or outside in the parking lot.

Or a parent performing a public service by going public about their athlete son or daughter becoming addicted to fentanyl while coping with the physical and mental pain of a season-ending injury.

Those are just a few of the early warnings that happen every day, somewhere in suburban America, as urban gangbangers, supplied by Mexican cartels, continue getting richer without ever having to show their faces.

 

 

Bruce Coltin, The Battle for Watertown 

HERE’S WHY THE NEXT CRIME BOOM IS HEADED OUR WAY

 Most of the following crime reports were taken from Watertown News Police Logs, others from local news media and police department press releases.

On February 3, 2018, at 10:03 p.m., a man wearing a mask, entered Victoria Spa on Mount Auburn Street, and pulled out a knife. He then pushed his way behind the counter, grabbed the clerk by the neck, pressed the knife to the clerk’s face, forced the clerk to the end of the counter, opened the register, and stole a large amount of cash. About nine people ran out of the store after the suspect told them to “get the (expletive) out.”

On May 8, 2019, at around 9:45 p.m., two women were robbed at gunpoint, across from Intelligentsia Coffee. Since the crime took place just over the line in Cambridge, the Cambridge Police answered the call and began an investigation.

On June 28, 2019, at around 7 p.m., a man, wearing a mask and brandishing a gun, entered Behind the Hair Salon on Main Street, where he fired the gun into the air, grabbed an undisclosed amount of cash, and fled the scene.

With assistance from the Newton Police Department, Watertown Police arrested Joseph Boyda (44), most recently of Worcester. Boyda was well known to both the Newton and Worcester Police Departments. He had been given prison sentences in 2007, 2010, and 2013 and faced additional charges in 2018.

Collectively, his crimes and charges included: resisting arrest, assault and battery of a police officer, the kidnapping, assault, and intimidation of a witness, possession of burglary tools, and drug possession.

On May 19, 2021, at 2:08 a.m., a police officer checking on a parking garage at Arsenal Yards spotted a white pickup with two men inside, on the second floor. One of the men appeared to be hunched over with his eyes closed. Police checked on them and asked what they were doing in the mall after business hours. They said they had no place to stay, and they were looking for work so they figured they would check if Arsenal Yards had work with all the construction going on.

Police discovered that one man, identified as Edward Johnson, 22, of Arlington, had five warrants for his arrest. The charges included breaking and entering, operating a stolen motor vehicle, possession of a Class E drug, furnishing a false ID to law enforcement, shoplifting, and possession of burglarious instruments. The warrants were out of Roxbury, Waltham and Brookline district courts.

Police also discovered three knives on Johnson, including one on a rope around his neck. They also found a substance on the dash that appeared to be methamphetamine, and a lock picking device. Johnson was charged with possession of a dangerous weapon, possession of a Class B drug, and possession of burglarious tools.

The second man, identified as Richard Fitts, 42, of Revere, was wanted on five warrants from Boston District Court for charges including possession of a Class A drug, larceny over $1,200, larceny from a building, malicious damage of a motor vehicle, possession of burglarious instruments, and breaking and entering a motor vehicle for a felony.

When police searched Fitts, they found he had meth on him and a device that removes the theft detection devices from merchandise. Fitts was charged with possession of a Class B drug, and unlawful possession of a theft detection device. Their truck was registered in Port Arthur, Texas.

(There is no word yet on whether Boylston Properties was able to offer the men suitable employment.)

May 22, 2021, at 9:41 a.m., police spotted a vehicle on the side of Main Street near Edenfield Avenue. The owner said her vehicle had broken down and she needed to be towed. When officers spoke to the woman, they discovered she had four warrants for her arrest from Roxbury and Dorchester district courts. The charges included malicious destruction of property, breaking and entering for a felony larceny under $1,200, assault and battery, and unarmed robbery. Claudia Allen, 32, of Taunton was arrested on the warrants.

In the early morning hours of September 22, 2021, two homes were broken into, while the residents were home and asleep. One break-in took place on Longfellow Road, in Waltham and the other on nearby Partridge Street in Watertown, where 15-year-old Max had fallen asleep on a couch in the basement. Hearing the sound of a stranger rummaging through his home and then entering the basement, he woke up terrified and pretended to be asleep. The Longfellow Road/Partridge Street neighborhood has seen numerous break-ins in recent years.

Here’s some of what I’ve left out: unarmed robberies on Pleasant Street, Main Street, and the Moxley neighborhood, car thefts, car break-ins, stolen catalytic converters, car vandalism (smashed windows, slashed tires), stolen bikes, domestic disturbances, road rage incidents, large-scale shoplifting, scams targeting the elderly, and crimes taking place prior to 2018.

Here's what the crime reports don’t tell us: what Watertown Police Department investigations are in progress and what neighboring police department investigations are in progress regarding potential threats to the Watertown community.

Information on many of the investigations in progress probably cannot be shared with the general public without undermining those investigations. Transparency is not always a good thing. But it would be valuable to know if, through the police logs and news reports, we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

In the March 21, 2021 Zoom meeting of the Watertown Town Council’s Committee on Public Safety, one of the highlights was Town Manager Michael Driscoll’s unscheduled appearance.

The police abolitionist group, calling themselves Uplift Watertown, had repeatedly proposed gutting the police budget by $2 million, which would bring it in line with cities and towns that have populations comparable to ours.

Manager Driscoll needed to set the record straight. He respectfully pointed out that Uplift Watertown’s comparable communities were not at all comparable. Had they chosen the more urban Greater Boston communities, contiguous to Watertown − Cambridge, Belmont, Newton, and Waltham − they would have found that our police budget was perfectly in line.

Comparing Watertown to rural and suburban communities simply made no sense. Our challenges to public safety, due to our proximity to Boston and Cambridge, puts us in a different league than Franklin, Falmouth, or Dartmouth. Manager Driscoll could have just held up a sign saying: Stop Being Naive. Crime is Not Just Local. It’s Regional. Criminals Do Not Respect Borders!

But that would have been ungentlemanly.

And then Manager Driscoll explained that a $2 million cut in the police department budget would result in the loss of 20 police officers out of the current roster of 70. While that was welcome news to the police abolitionists, it probably sent a chill through anyone who has ever been touched by crime − especially violent crime − directly or indirectly.

If you scan the above crime reports, you will notice the number of cities, towns, and sections of Boston, where the individuals involved either lived, encountered the police, or were issued warrants: Boston, Worcester, Arlington, Cambridge, Brookline, Newton, Roxbury, Dorchester, Waltham, Revere, and Taunton.

Criminals do not feel obligated to confine their law-breaking ventures to their own community. Our borders do not protect us from the worst elements who view Watertown as a conveniently located soft target.

I will bet you that the Victoria Spa robber wasn’t a product of Watertown any more than Joseph Boyda, the salon robber was. I will also bet you that Victoria Spa wasn’t his only robbery at knife point. Who knows where else in the Greater Boston area he may have struck before or since?

Here’s a security camera video, showing his out-of-control behavior.

So, what do you think? Does Watertown have a crime problem? You might answer that question by saying that it does have a crime problem, but it’s at an “acceptable” level. Of course, if you were the clerk at Victoria Spa or one of the nine customers who ran out, thinking they might be killed, or one of the two women held up at gunpoint, or if you are Max’s parents, you might have a different answer.

And that’s a big part of the problem. Our fear of crime is often based on how close it comes to touching us directly. If you don’t hear an intruder walking around your house while you are tucked away in bed, you might think that the crime situation is unfortunate but nowhere near serious enough to call your city councilor and demand to know what she or he is doing about it.

So, here’s something to think about.

There is a crime boom headed our way and while it may be unpreventable, it can certainly be weakened, but only if we face it and see it for what it is − a perfect storm, made up of three mega storms converging into one.

Mega Storm Number One is the Current Epidemic of Synthetic Opioids − Primarily Fentanyl.

Fentanyl arrived on the scene in 2013 and became the single biggest game changer in illicit drug use and street gang activity since the beginning of the heroin wave in 2010, which itself was the biggest game changer in illicit drug use and street gang activity since the introduction of prescription opioids such as OxyContin in 1995.  

Fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, so a very little goes a very long way, making It is the deadliest drug on the planet. One kilogram of fentanyl (2.2 pounds) has the potential to kill 500,000 people.

Mega Storm Number Two is the Covid Pandemic.

According to the CDC, the stress caused by social isolation and disruptions of daily life has led to a spike in drug use by first time users of all ages but most significantly by teenagers. Since the beginning of covid, fentanyl overdose deaths have tripled among teenagers and have increased by five times among black teenagers.

Social isolation and being locked out of school are considered to be the main causes driving teens to drug use. It is also believed that most of those teens do not have a drug use disorder but are just experimenting when they “often end up dead.”

Disruptions to the health care system and drug treatment centers have caused drug users to look to either street corners or the internet for replacement drugs. If they are unable to get prescription opioids or can’t afford the cost, they can easily find cheap heroin, which produces a better high, on the streets or illegal prescription opioids on the internet.

In both cases, they are likely to be unknowingly using drugs that are either spiked with fentanyl or are 100 percent fentanyl. Victims often look like the boy or girl next door. And all too often, they are the boy or girl next door.

None of us, experts included, know just how long the covid effects − anxiety and depression caused by isolation and extreme, prolonged disruption to daily life − will continue to be a major health problem, even as the pandemic subsides.  And there is no way of knowing how many of those affected − especially teenagers − will turn to illicit drugs in the near future.

The re-entry phase, which is just beginning, could be extremely bumpy for some of our friends and neighbors.

Mega Storm Number three is the Proliferation of Street Gangs.

The increasing number of deaths from prescription drug overdoses led to a drastic cut back on prescriptions, beginning in 2012. Due to tougher regulations and guidelines, prescription opioid cutbacks peaked in 2017.

Despite these cutbacks, overdoses continued to rise because illegal drug sales filled the void. With the market forces of demand outstripping legal supply, the criminal supply chain would have to expand to meet the surging demand brought on by covid.

Much of the supply of fentanyl comes from China, through Mexico. And some of it is being manufactured in small hidden labs scattered across the U.S. − a flourishing cottage industry with a sky’s the limit upside.

Fentanyl became the natural drug of choice for the Mexican cartels because it’s highly profitable and extremely potent, making it easier to smuggle into the U.S. because, unlike bulkier drugs, it can be concealed in small packages. The cartels use intimidation to force migrants to smuggle the drug over the border. The street gangs take it from there.

If you think that street gangs are confined to poor neighborhoods in big cities, where small neighborhood gangs battle over street turf, welcome to the new reality!

21st century gangs are national and transnational organizations, with hierarchal structures and tens of thousands of members, who operate out of regional headquarters. Like other businesses, they compete for territorial dominance. Unlike other businesses, they do not hesitate to murder their competitors, which might involve killing innocent bystanders. Collateral damage is just the cost of doing business.

MS-13 is based in El Salvador and has a major presence in Honduras and Guatemala, making that Central American region one of the most violent parts of the world. Their longest and largest U.S. presence is in Los Angeles. The gang is made up of hundreds of smaller groups, called “cliques,” that operate in regions across the country.

The cliques hold regular meetings, where business is discussed and where dues are collected. That money is used to cover business expenditures such as cell phones, guns, and lawyers. A portion of the dues collected is wired back to leaders in El Salvador.

MS-13’s hierarchy is set up in a way that higher-ups in El Salvador can communicate directly with members on the street, providing them with a two-way information pipeline.

The cliques that established their operations in Greater Boston were (and may still be) based in East Boston, Chelsea, Everett, Lynn, Revere, and Somerville. Recently, the Greater Boston cliques were targeted and disrupted by law enforcement, but they are known to be resilient.

They are also known to be vicious. MS-13’s moto is Mata, roba, viola, controla! − translated as: Kill, rob, rape, and control!

And they are known to recruit middle and high school kids as young as 14 years old.

The Gangster Disciples were born in Chicago in the 1960s and are primarily African American. They are now in over 40 states, including Massachusetts. Like MS-13, they have their own version of a corporate structure. They have “board members,” a “chairman of the board,” and state “governors.”

Their North Shore operation covers Massachusetts, Maine, and New Hampshire. Last year, 16 members of the gang were arrested and indicted for distribution of fentanyl, cocaine, and counterfeit pills disguised as Adderall and oxycodone.

Thirteen members and associates of the Gangster Disciples were named in the indictment, including one from Watertown.

There is a dangerous rivalry within two of our neighboring communities and it’s not high school football. The Cambridge gang known as Port 44 are suspected of trafficking in all of the drugs that have been mentioned here so far and according to the Somerville Police Department, are under investigation for “multiple murders and other violent crimes believed to have stemmed from an ongoing drug turf war against other rival gangs in the Cambridge/Somerville area.”

The predominant turf war is between Port 44 and the Somerville gang, known as MP45 or ESV. According to official police statements: “As a result, numerous innocent residents have become victims of their wake of violence.”

The investigation of both gangs has involved the police departments from Somerville, Cambridge, Woburn, Malden, Melrose, Wakefield, the Massachusetts State Police, and the U.S. Secret Service.

These two gangs are not just a Cambridge problem or a Somerville problem. They are a regional problem.

The Tiny Rascal Gang, also known as TRG, are based in Long Beach, California and are considered to be the largest Asian gang in the U.S. They were originally all- Cambodian and are still majority Cambodian, but in the interests of bolstering their ranks, they’ve gone the route of “diversity and inclusion” by admitting individuals from other racial groups. I don’t think “equity” is part of the deal.

In their never-ending drive for increased profits, gangs need to open new territories and recruit new members to work those territories as well as to replace members who have been sent to prison or deported, so welcome to Massachusetts!

The Tiny Rascals are a decentralized organization, where regional and local groups are referred to as “sets.” Law enforcement agencies have discovered TRG sets in Greater Boston communities, including Cambridge and Somerville, where they are engaged in drug turf wars with rival gangs. They are known for waging gun battles in the streets and engaging in drive-by shootings of the residences of rival gang members.

The Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation, otherwise known as the Latin Kings, was founded in 1954 by Puerto Ricans, living in Chicago. Like most street gangs, driven by profit, their business model calls for expansion into other states and countries, using murder and intimidation to capture territory from rival gangs.

The Latin Kings are represented in Boston by their local chapter, the Devon Street Kings or D5K, named for its origin on Devon Street in Boston. They report to, and receive direction from, their Massachusetts state manager.

According to the Department of Justice, “The Latin Kings adhere to a national manifesto” which members are required to read and demonstrate that they understand its principles. They employ “an internal judiciary and use a sophisticated system of communication to maintain the hierarchy of the organization.”

There are more nationwide/transnational street gangs that operate in Greater Boston, which I won’t list here, but I think you get the point.

Gang members do get arrested and sent to prison as a result of targeted law enforcement initiatives, involving federal, state, and multiple municipal police forces, but most gang members are easily replaceable thanks to ongoing gang recruitment efforts.

In today’s environment, where the bad guys outnumber the cops, it is easier to recruit new gang members than it is to recruit good cops. Police retirements are up and the applicant pool to replace them is the lowest it’s ever been.

And, when law enforcement successfully removes one gang from a local neighborhood, their competitors are ready to move in, loaded with product: meth, heroin, fentanyl, and counterfeit opioid pain killers.

On the list of crime reports that started this article, I saved this one for last.

On May 24, 2021, at about 3 a.m., WPD responded to a call about possible gun shots in the Lexington Gardens neighborhood. Police responded to Philip Darch Road, where they determined that a home was shot at several times. The occupants were sleeping at the time and no injuries were reported.

Was this shooting gang related? I would venture to say that many residents believe it was. It would be a great question to ask Chief Lawn. There are many great questions to ask Chief Lawn − about gang activity, fentanyl, heroin, and counterfeit opioid distribution, and whether our police department staffing is adequate to handle a significant uptick in crime.

The best place to ask those questions and other timely questions is at the next meeting of the Committee on Public Safety.

Which might not be easy.

Four 2021 meetings of that committee were monopolized by a relatively small group of residents alleging racist behavior by the Watertown Police Department, based on a disproportionate number of traffic stops. Maybe the 2022 meetings will be different.

Or maybe they won’t. Maybe not enough residents have yet been touched by crime to stand up and demand that our elected representatives prioritize real public safety for all residents instead of the woke agenda driven by our cultural elite.

In the meantime, let’s pay attention to the police reports. And let’s ask ourselves what they portend for the near future. They may only show us the tip of the iceberg, but they will at least give us a clue as to just how big the iceberg really is.

 

Bruce Coltin, The Battle for Watertown

  

IF WE IGNORE THE LESSONS OF SAN FRANCISCO, WE WILL DESERVE WHAT WE GET!

San Francisco is a not-so-shining example of progressive “success.” And like most success stories, it didn’t happen overnight. It took years of planning and execution for the streets to become overtaken by drug users and the mentally ill and for the crime rate to outperform the expectations of every sane resident and observer.

It all began when most residents weren’t paying attention to local government and it continued to increase as residents began accepting the chaos as normal. The failed experiment that began in San Francisco about 20 years ago, is just getting off the blocks here in Watertown but you can only see it if you are paying attention.

And most of our fellow lab rats are not.

If you would like a picture of how and why some residents and graffiti artists have dubbed their once beautiful city, San Franshitshow, you might want to stop here and review my previous post. It’s a combination of the frightening, the disgusting, and the ridiculous.

Progressives owning the majority on San Francisco’s board of supervisors (their version of our city council) for over 20 years and having elected a radically progressive district attorney have resulted in policies that reward criminals and increase drug addiction and unsheltered homelessness all in the name of compassion, personal freedom, and antiracism.

It is unlikely that progressives will lose their majority on the board of supervisors any time soon. They win at the polls in San Francisco for the same reasons they win at the polls in other progressive cities. They are highly organized and they make constant efforts to recruit new members − especially the young and idealistic.

And they succeed in selling the proposition that local government’s first obligation is to dismantle structural racism and reverse the power differential between whites and blacks.

And of course progressives win because most registered voters don’t vote. You know those nonvoters well. They’re the ones who recite the classic excuses: Why bother? My vote won’t matter. You can’t fight city hall. They’re all crooks anyway.

If we look around Watertown and do not see that structural racism has tainted this city, it is only because we don’t want to see it or we are too blind to see it. So, smarter, more enlightened people will bravely do the job for us.

The search for our next city manager will likely favor candidates who, above all else, can show our progressive fixers that they have a stellar track record of fighting for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI).

Such a track record is especially important in Watertown where we are pitifully weak when it comes to EDI.

During the last election campaign, Councilor Bays scolded us for having a government with “terrible diversity” and Councilor Palomba lectured us that we need to have more diversity in government at the “director level.”

I don’t want to put words in their mouths and I’m not a mind reader but, as a reluctant student of progressive thinking, I feel that I am on solid ground when I say that, by diversity, they did not mean women, Scandinavians, Mormons, or even Asian Americans.  

Only by bringing black people into our government can we begin the process of making up for our history of oppression and structural racism. Never mind that blacks make up only about 4% of Watertown’s population!

Why such a minuscule number? Because of structural racism, of course. The number would be significantly higher if Watertown had long ago stepped-up and embraced the values of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.

You might have noticed that the people in Watertown demanding this racial justice are almost all white. Could that possibly have anything to do with the shortage of black people in Watertown? Have there been black candidates for director level jobs, who have been rejected because of skin color?

Progressives would probably answer that, given our well-known structural racism, they didn’t apply for those director level jobs because they knew they would be rejected because of skin color.

I have an interesting hypothetical question. What if progressives hit the jackpot and find a great black candidate for city manager, only to find that he or she is not a progressive ideologue, but a moderate, colorblind, best practices pragmatist? Wouldn’t hiring that candidate be politically self-defeating?

It’s not a crazy question.

Take for example, San Francisco.

London Breed is the first black woman to be elected Mayor of San Francisco. Following the murder of George Floyd, she jumped onto the defund the police bandwagon and announced that she would take $120 million from the police department budget and transfer the money to social services, primarily for the black community. Policing would be reduced and replaced with civilian crisis response and homeless support teams.

Kindness and respect by city government, already the norm, would be ramped up to a game-changing new level.

She made good on her promises. And then she watched her reinvestment payoff: drug overdoses and deaths increased, the homeless population rose, and violence skyrocketed. Who were the disproportionate number of victims?

The black community of San Francisco represent only 5% of the population but they are one-third of all violent crime victims.

Apparently, when you give drug addicts new hypodermic needles and cash for food, and then sharply reduce police presence, they will sell the needles, spend all the cash on drugs, and steal their food. And they are more likely to become the victims or the perpetrators of violent crimes.

Now, who could have possibly predicted that?

When Mayor Breed had seen enough and heard enough from victims of those violent crimes or their family members, she gave her now famous, U-turn press conference. Standing outside of city hall, she looked into the tv cameras and announced that:

“It is time for the reign of criminals to end. And it comes to an end when we are more aggressive with law enforcement and (wait for it) less tolerant of all the bullshit that has destroyed our city.”

Yes, she said bullshit and everyone knew what she meant − white, progressive, utopian, divorced from reality, totally out of control bullshit.

She was calling out the progressive board of supervisors and the radical district attorney and they naturally took offense. Board members responded by accusing her of “grandstanding,” “being in the pocket of the tech industry” and being “owned by billionaires and rich white men.”

The mayor explained her position in an interview with New York Times columnist/podcaster, Kara Swisher, titled:

Why This Liberal Mayor Doesn’t Want a Lecture From Progressives?

You can listen to it or read the transcript here.

After listening to the podcast or reading the transcript, you will realize that the title is incomplete. For greater accuracy, it needed two additional words: Black and White, so that it would read this way:

Why This Black Liberal Mayor Doesn’t Want a Lecture From White Progressives

The mayor was fed up with being lectured to by white people who did not grow up in poverty, while living in rundown, crime ridden public housing, right there in San Francisco, as she did. She was being lectured to by white people who did not understand, firsthand, the complicated relationship that residents of black neighborhoods have with the police − not trusting the police but badly needing them for protection.

The mayor announced that addicts and the mentally ill would no longer be free to camp on the streets. From this point on, if they refused appropriate treatment for their illness, they would be taken into custody − a progressive taboo - and brought to a treatment center.  Members of the board called this policy a violation of individual rights. The mayor called it accountability and tough love. They simply did not have the inalienable right to harm themselves or harm others, on the streets of her city.

With public sentiment on her side, the mayor had won the moment. The board would have to give-in and honor her demand for a special ordinance that would grant her emergency powers for the most crime-ridden district.

But the board would stand firmly against the mayor on a key request that goes to the heart of their beliefs − no increased police presence, because police are the problem and never the solution.

So the San Francisco Police Department, according to a study commissioned by city hall, remains 400 officers short of being adequately staffed, with retirements on the horizon.

In the meantime, the voters have shown signs that they might be ready to call an end to the progressive experiment.

District Attorney Chesa Boudin, the prosecutor who refuses to prosecute, will face a recall election in June. If he loses, Mayor Breed will choose a replacement, who does not believe that the only good prison is an empty one.

This week, three members of the San Francisco School Board faced their own recall election. The entirely progressive board took a radical left turn that aroused even the most complacent, accepting, liberal voters. While parents were clamoring to get their kids back into classrooms, which surrounding school districts had already done, this board was too busy with their antiracist agenda to perform their most fundamental obligation.

The board had identified 44 schools that had been named after individuals who board members determined were being racists, oppressors, colonialists, or some other category of moral criminal. The list included George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, Paul Revere, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Dianne Feinstein.

Dianne Feinstein?

All of the old names would have to be replaced in order to “protect” minority students by providing them with a “safe space.” You might question the value of an educational system that would protect students by cancelling Abraham Lincoln.

You might also question the strategic wisdom of alienating supporters of Dianne Feinstein, one of the most popular liberal politicians in San Francisco history. There are not enough progressives to win elections without the support of traditional liberals and some moderate Democrats.

The seven members of the board were preoccupied with more than just school names. They were also busy addressing a serious violation of the principles of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.

The Lowell School is San Francisco’s elite high school. Admission to the school has always been merit-based, using standardized test scores and letter grades to select the most deserving students. Asians consistently top that list. They are also the largest racial group (37%) in the district.

Black students are consistently at the bottom of that list and they are also the smallest racial group (6%) in the district. Performing poorly on standardized tests is clearly a direct result of structural racism. The obvious solution was to ditch the merit system and replace it with a lottery.

The Asian population was incensed. These were working class families, unable to afford the cost of sending their children to private schools.

Siva Raj, a tech entrepreneur and a recent immigrant from India, watched as his children struggled academically and emotionally with being shut out of their school while children in surrounding districts and private schools were back in their classrooms.

Raj co-founded an initiative to recall members of the school board. Only three members would be subject to recall since the other four members had not served the requisite period of time.

“For Asian immigrant parents, the only way to achieve the American dream is education,” said Raj. “What upsets them is the feeling they’re being shut out.”

So much for Equity, Diversity and especially Inclusion.

Asians organized their communities to protest the lottery decision and to support the recall. The vice-president of the school board tweeted that those Asian Americans were exhibiting “white supremacist thinking” and later tweeted “were like slaves who benefited from working inside a slave owner’s house.”

The school board, already a laughingstock, voted to replace her as board vice president. She responded, as any team player would, by suing the district and the board members who had voted against her for $89 million. The judge, unsympathetic to her pain and suffering, threw it out of court.

Mayor Breed blasted all members of the board for shirking their responsibilities to the city’s children and endorsed the recall. Governing as a commonsense pragmatist, she seems to be winning the hearts and minds of San Franciscans.

Shocking Update: The results of the February 15 recall election are in. All three members, including the board’s president, were voted out by 70 to 79% percent margins. Had all board members been subject to the recall, they all would have lost. The remaining four members could be recalled in July.

In June, District Attorney Chesa Boudin, the prosecutor who refuses to prosecute, will face the voters in his own recall election. Mayor Breed has not endorsed the recall, but neither has she endorsed Boudin. Her support, which would go a long way to saving his job, is conspicuously absent.

The members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors must be more than a little concerned that the lab rats in their city-wide experiment have teamed-up and are turning on their keepers.

Is San Francisco finally showing signs of a backlash against progressivism? If they are, it took a lot to push them to the brink. How much more decline would San Franciscans have been willing to endure, had their mayor not stepped forward and called an end to the bullshit?

How fortunate is Watertown that San Francisco has shown us where we could be headed if enough voters don’t wake-up and demand a stop to the bullshit?

 

Paul Revere, The Battle For Watertown

 

  

THEY LOST THEIR MINDS IN SAN FRANCISCO AND COULD IT HAPPEN HERE?

Elections have consequences and some of those consequences can be slow to reveal themselves. They sneak up on you one by one until you realize that the commonsense rules of the road that you have lived by have been removed and replaced by new rules.

Sometimes these are untested rules that were cooked up in classrooms of elite universities by ivory tower professors and then handed down to the rest of us to fix what we didn’t know was broken. Because we are often too ignorant to get the message or too unwilling to accept it, a new class of citizens has come together to show us the way.

It is possible that the fundamental consequence of Watertown’s last election will be that progressives have won the balance of power on the city council. While we already know who the councilors are who are solidly progressive ideologues and who the councilors are who are moderate and pragmatic, there are three “wild cards” in this deck.

Are those wild cards also solidly progressive or are they quietly more moderate and likely to perform their elected duties as pragmatists? We will not have the answer to that question until we see the patterns of how they perform and vote as part of this newly elected council.

But let’s assume for now that progressives can and will win every major council vote, including those impacting public safety, by at least one vote. And let’s suppose that progressives maintain or increase their control of the council by winning additional seats in the next election and in the election after that.

What then might Watertown become as progressive law makers turn their test tube ideas into actual local policies? To get a better idea, we might want to take a look at a city that has lived under progressive control for the past twenty years.

On the last day of the year 2019, at approximately 4:00 in the afternoon, two women who were crossing the street and were in the middle of the crosswalk, were hit by a driver who had just run a red light.

The driver then crashed his car and fled on foot. When police officers found him, they ran a check on the vehicle and found that it was stolen and then they learned that the driver had just committed a burglary and was making his getaway when he hit the two women, who would both die from their injuries.

When the police ran a check on the driver, they found that he had a long rap sheet. In this city alone, he had been arrested for 73 felonies and 32 misdemeanors, and he was currently out on parole.

At the time of the “accident,” he was high on crystal meth.

You didn’t see this story in the local news because it didn’t happen in Watertown. It happened in San Francisco. Had it happened in Watertown, it would have sent unending shockwaves reverberating through the community, but in today’s San Francisco, it was little more than the crime story of the week, soon to be replaced by the next crime story of the week.

San Francisco has become one big social experiment − a progressive experiment. The once great city has become a 47 square mile laboratory, where every resident is a lab rat and the rules and norms have been suspended in order to create a morally perfect society.

From the progressive point of view, Troy McAlister, the driver of the vehicle, who happens to be Black, was the true victim in this story. The unfortunate women who died, Hanako Abe (27) and Elizabeth Platt (60), were collateral damage in the war against systemic or structural racism.

The reason that McAlister was not in prison, on that New Year’s Eve day, given his rap sheet and his parole violations, was that the San Francisco district attorney, Chesa Boudin, believes that prisons cause more harm than good − especially to people of color − which is why he is on a mission to dismantle the structurally racist “prison industrial complex” for the greater good of San Francisco.

The progressive war against structural racism got a very big boost in 2014, when California’s progressive voters passed Proposition 47, which determined that any theft of under $950 would become a misdemeanor instead of a felony. It was the right thing to do because crimes against property are really victimless crimes (if the victims are properly insured) that require too much policing and clog the courts and prisons disproportionately with Black victims of racism who don’t have the ability to hire expensive lawyers the way that many white criminals do.

“Unenlightened” pragmatists have an answer for that.

Hire more cops and better prosecutors, elect more judges, and arrest and convict more white criminals. You don’t have to clog up the prisons. Just put them in orange jump suits and make them clean up the streets, which in San Francisco are the dirtiest streets of any big city in the US.

Michael Shellenberger, a renowned environmental, climate, and social justice advocate, and a former progressive, is the author of the eye-opening book, San Fransicko, subtitled, Why Progressives Ruin Cities.

Just how dirty are the streets of San Francisco? Shellenberger tells us (and even columnist, George Will was impressed):

Between 2015 and 2018 the city replaced more than 300 lampposts “corroded by urine after one had collapsed and crushed a car.”

In 2018, there were “20,933 calls to San Francisco’s government complaining about human feces” on streets and sidewalks.

Last year in San Francisco, there were “6,275 registered complaints about used hypodermic needles in public places.”

In San Francisco, an addict doesn’t need to sneak into a bathroom stall to shoot up, because the streets and sidewalks will do just fine. Drug use and drug dealing take place out in the open without consequences.

The city streets have been taken over by 5,000 unsheltered homeless - a 95% increase over the last 15 years, with the vast majority being either drug addicts or mentally ill. According to Shellenberger’s research, they are homeless as a result of their sickness, rather than being sick as a result of their homelessness.

DA Boudin does not prosecute street level drug dealers because they, themselves, are victims who would be further victimized by being placed behind bars. So why, you might wonder, aren’t all of the homeless, including the drug dealers, being removed from the streets and placed in shelters or treatment centers?

And that question brings me to the city’s legislative body, known as the board of supervisors, which is San Francisco’s version of our city council. Other than the number of members − they have eleven; in Watertown, we have nine − there are two distinct differences. First, each of their members represents one of the city’s eleven districts. There are no at-large members. And second, the president of the board is elected by a majority of members, and not by the majority of voters. The former makes it easier to be uninvested in the city as a whole, while the latter makes it easier for the majority to consolidate power.

In 2000, progressives took over the majority on the board and have maintained it ever since, which means that they have controlled the government’s agenda for over twenty years.

Local business groups, that haven’t already fled the city, and that pay close attention to the political environment, agree that the current board of supervisors is composed of either nine progressives and two moderates or eight progressives and three moderates.

What those business groups are hoping to see are glimpses of commonsense, pragmatic problem-solving that will restore some degree of sanity and order to the once great City by the Bay. But with either seven or eight ideologues controlling the agenda, commonsense problem-solving pragmatism will likely be held, per usual, on a very short leash.

San Francisco could use more homeless shelters, but progressives on the board of supervisors block the spending for the building of shelters because they insist that those dollars be spent on affordable housing. The progressive view is that shelters are dehumanizing and everyone is entitled to their own apartment.

In San Francisco, the average cost to build an affordable housing unit is $737,000.

Because each board member represents a single district, placing either shelters or affordable housing in their district is met with self-serving technical hurdles and roadblocks that prevent it from happening. Ideologues don’t build concrete solutions. Pragmatists do.

Restoring order from the chaos, by forcing the homeless, including the drug addicted and mentally ill, into shelters or treatment centers is a progressive taboo − a violation of their dignity and rights, including the right to defecate on a sidewalk and shoot up in a public park.

But I don’t want you to think that progressives don’t have some practical ideas to straighten out the mess. They certainly do. They call it “harm reduction.” To reduce the harm, they put up instructional billboards displaying the safety fundamentals of injecting heroin.

Here’s the actual billboard message:  Do it with friends. Don’t do it alone. Take turns (shooting up). Keep some Narcan handy.

See? It's all about respect. Nobody’s rights get trampled on. Government is your friend and not your oppressor. Please be careful not to overdose. It upsets taxpayers and tourists.

You can appreciate why the election of Chesa Boudin as district attorney was a progressive’s dream come true. To advance their social experiment, the board of supervisors needed a social justice warrior − not just a liberal DA, like the previous guy, but a proud revolutionary.

Once he took office, Chesa moved with lightning speed. On his second day on the job, he fired seven top prosecutors and replaced them with public defenders.

Within his first few months, he released 40% of the prison population.

He dismissed 113 out of 131 arrests for domestic felonies within a three-month period. During that same period, his liberal predecessor had brought 10 times as many cases to trial.

He won the job despite never having prosecuted a case. No problem since he views prosecuting offenders as an unnecessary part of his job description.

But not everyone is happy with Chesa or with the consequences of the progressive social experiment. Enough people got fed up and joined a recall campaign and so Chesa will face a recall election in June.

When you live in a city run by highly educated idiots, you might take offence when the idiocy is shown to the rest of the world. In general, we all prefer to keep our family problems inside the family. 

According to a report commissioned by city hall, the San Francisco Police Department is 400 cops short of being adequately staffed. They did what other major cities did in response the demonstrations following the death of George Floyd, they defunded the police.

And then when the crime rate spiked, as it usually does when you reduce police presence, the police-defunded cities tried to restaff in the face of a nationwide cop shortage and found that they couldn’t get their cops back.

However the San Francisco lawmakers and their DA, in their greater wisdom, know that police don’t prevent crimes and “you can’t arrest your way out of a crime problem.” So San Francisco remains “progressively” under-policed.

And, just like elections, under-policing has consequences − like making the national news. Very few violent crimes make the national news because they are way too common. Violent crime, including homicides are rising in almost all big cities.

What does make the national news are crimes that standout because they are stunningly ridiculous.

So when a video went viral of a man on a bicycle, riding down an aisle of a San Francisco Walgreens, raking merchandise off the shelves and into a garbage bag and then riding out the front door, blowing by a helpless security guard, San Franciscans who witness similar events on a regular basis, might have been a bit embarrassed.

It was at least the fifth time that the thief, later identified as Jean Lugo-Romero, had targeted that particular Walgreens. He has since been tied to at least 40 similar thefts at other retail businesses and is part of a growing number of organized theft rings.

Walgreens, CVS and other large retailers have ordered their security guards not to interfere with shoplifters due to the frequency of violent attacks on the security guards. Those violent shoplifters will not get prosecuted because they are all victims of poverty and homelessness and because they steal less than $950 worth of loot.

Since each of Lugo-Romero’s shoplifting expeditions netted under $950, his crimes are misdemeanors and would likely never be prosecuted, if it were not so embarrassing to the social engineers who call the shots on criminal justice.

A public defender, representing Lugo-Romero said that he committed the thefts because “as an indigent individual, suffering from housing instability, he needed services and now he’s getting them.”

That should be more than good enough for the current DA and the super majority on the board of supervisors.

Walgreens, citing “profit crushing” theft, has closed that store along with 21 others in San Francisco. Progressives insist that the closings are due to corporate greed, and that the stores were destined to close as part of their downsizing strategy. In San Francisco, businesses are not allowed to call themselves victims.

If any crime-in-progress video got more views and generated more embarrassment than the bicycle thief, it was the smash and grab raid of Louis Vuitton and other upscale retailers in the Union Square section of San Francisco.

The world got to see video of around 80 thieves, armed with hammers, smashing store windows and display case glass, waltzing out the store with arms filled with loot, loading up their cars and taking off in every possible direction.

The destruction resulted in boarded up store fronts and the public’s fear of further attacks and turned the swanky tourist destination into a bleak ghost town during the heart of the Christmas shopping season.

The police have determined that the “Christmas crime party” was organized on Snapchat and other social media apps. So far it appears that the clever band of thieves purposely did not know each other, so no one can name their accomplices. But arrests have been made and prosecutions are sure to follow.

Well, let’s not get carried away.

Finally, San Francisco embodies the entrepreneurial spirit, most notably in the tech industry. And San Francisco is one of the world’s most popular destinations for tourists. So, it should come as no surprise that a new generation of crime entrepreneurs would build a new business model focusing on tourists.

San Francisco’s vibrant Richmond District offers some of the most spectacular views of the Golden Gate Bridge, unique architecture, and its own Chinatown, making it a stopping point on San Francisco’s tourist trail. It also boasted a low crime rate. And then it was discovered by enterprising criminals as the next untapped market.

Their business model is simple. They cruise the district, looking for unattended rental cars that contain visible luggage, briefcases, or shopping bags. With efficient speed, they smash the windows, grab the bags, and take off. Tools required: a hammer to smash windows, gloves to protect knuckles while smashing windows, and a knife to slash open locked bags.

And seemingly overnight, a crime category was born. A longtime district resident, Mark Dietrich had begun finding ripped open luggage on the streets and sidewalks in his neighborhood. They were stripped of items of value but often contained personal items valued by their owners.

He began collecting those items, including diaries, photographs, students’ school projects, children’s toys, and a backpack used by an army veteran during two deployments in Afghanistan, and then posting the pictures on social media, reuniting some owners with their personal possessions.

Others in and around his neighborhood also began finding, what became known as “luggage dumps,” with personal possessions “strewn like garbage” on their own street corners and they began following Dietrich’s kindness model, using their own social media sites.These days, some unfortunate tourists leave not just their hearts in San Francisco, they also leave their laptops, iPads, cameras, jewelry, sense of safety, and confidence in the rule of law.

Mark Dietrich witnessed the loss of tranquility in his district when burglaries shot up 87% in 2020, when shoplifting became commonplace, and when he began finding used hypodermic needles near parks and playgrounds.

He has become a local hero for his public safety advocacy. He describes himself as being a lifelong liberal. He has now become an outspoken anti-progressive activist. That’s the kind of backlash worth noting because it offers hope.

So, here in the little City of Watertown, you might be wondering, is there any realistic hope that San Franciscans will wake up and put an end to the progressive experiment gone bad?

It’s a great question, because if there is hope for San Francisco, a city stuck on a road to ruin, then there is hope for Watertown, a city at a crossroads.

And that will be the subject of my next post.

 

Bruce Coltin, The Battle for Watertown