For a former police commissioner, Charles Ramsay isn't much of a detective.
On CNN's New Day this morning, former Philly police commissioner and senior CNN law enforcement analyst Ramsay twice confessed to being stumped for the reasons behind the current wave of smash and grab robberies.
Said Ramsay:
"Many of the young people we arrested had no previous criminal records. And why they were getting involved in something like this I have no idea . . . So I don’t know what’s driving this."
But all the while, the answer was staring Ramsay in the face. In fact, he actually supplied it himself! Ramsay:
"The punishment for this kind of crime is very, very minimal. In most cases it's a misdemeanor. There are some DAs that have flat-out said they're no longer going to prosecute shoplifting."
Cause and effect, Commissioner Ramsay—hello? People are going to commit crimes if there are few arrests, and little or no punishment for those who are arrested!
Note: Ramsay referred to the people committing these crimes as "teenagers, younger adults." Someone needs to inform him that the approved nomenclature is "yuts."
Chief Ramsey's musings were sponsored in part by GlaxoSmith Kline, maker of Breathe Right strips, Samsung, Tylenol, Liberty Mutual, Sleep Number, Google, and ADT.
Here's the transcript.
CNN
New Day
11/26/21
6:06 am ETKAITLIN COLLINS: Let’s bring in CNN senior law-enforcement analyst and former Philadelphia police commissioner Charles Ramsay.
Charles, you just heard Christine’s report there. These attacks are so brazen. And of course today is a big shopping day. But what is law enforcement supposed to do about this? Becaue we haven’t really seen a lot of arrests being made after these attacks are happening? So what are they supposed to do in response?
CHARLES RAMSAY: A few years ago in Philadelphia, we had something similar taking place, where we had people, mostly teenagers, younger adults, participate in things like this.
. . .
Many of the young people we arrested had no previous criminal records. And why they were getting involved in something like this I have no idea . . . So I don’t know what’s driving this. But it is of concern. It will continue, and it's not going to stop any time soon.
The punishment for this kind of crime is very, very minimal. In most cases, it’s a misdemeanor. There are some DAs that have flat-out said they're no longer going to prosecute shoplifting. And this is not shoplifting. This is far worse than shoplifting. So, there’s a lot that has to be done if we want to get a handle on it.
