adminNewsmax’s Wake Up America ran a hard-hitting segment warning that yet another career criminal is allegedly on the run after opening fire in a Sacramento bar, and the network’s crime correspondent tied the episode to California’s soft-on-crime laws. The piece framed this as a pattern, not an isolated tragedy, and argued that policies meant to reduce prison populations have instead sent dangerous people back into communities.
Local reporting shows Sacramento’s nightlife has seen violent flare-ups this year, including a fight at Barwest that ended with a fatal shooting and other downtown incidents that left residents shaken. These are not random anomalies; they’re the predictable result when parole rules, plea deals, and sentence reductions prioritize administrative credits over public safety. Conservatives who warned about the consequences of such policies look vindicated when citizens pay the price.
The real outrage is not just the crimes themselves but the mechanics of how repeat offenders get back on the street. Investigations into California’s post-2016 reforms show career criminals serving truncated terms and walking free far sooner than juries and victims expected, with recidivism rates that should alarm every parent and small-business owner. If lawmakers want to claim compassion, they must stop mistaking leniency for justice; compassion for victims matters too.
Consider the notorious Smiley Martin saga — a string of violent acts and a 10-year sentence that, by one account, turned into only a few years behind bars before he was back in the headlines for a horrific mass shooting. That case has been repeatedly cited by critics as proof that California’s reforms went too far, and that public safety was traded away for soundbites and prison population charts. The system’s failure to keep dangerous repeat offenders incapacitated is a moral failure of governance.
Meanwhile, gullible prosecutors and bureaucrats in Sacramento and elsewhere insist on blaming root causes while ignoring the immediate need to protect law-abiding citizens. It’s time to stop apologizing for victims and start holding career criminals accountable — tougher pretrial detention, real parole oversight, and sentencing that reflects the severity of the crimes. Voters who live where businesses shutter and parents who fear for their kids know the difference between reform and recklessness.
Americans who still believe in law and order must demand accountability from California’s political class: reverse the policies that incentivize early release, fund law enforcement to keep repeat offenders off the streets, and stop excusing dangerous behavior with euphemisms. The choice is simple — either the state protects its citizens, or it keeps inventing creative ways to explain why it didn’t. Our safety and livelihoods are not bargaining chips for ideological experiments.
If the Newsmax report is right about a manhunt tied to a repeat offender, it should be a wake-up call to every governor and prosecutor who pushed these reforms. Enough ritual hand-wringing; conservatives will keep pressing for policies that prioritize victims, back the police, and put common-sense limits on the revolving door of criminality that too often leads to tragedy.
