The Liberals Who Won’t Acknowledge the Crime Problem - The Atlantic - "in certain circles on the left, an orthodoxy has taken hold: To complain about ostensibly minor crime and other urban disorder, when so many people endure much worse, is to flaunt your privilege... off of Twitter, many left-leaning urbanites will acknowledge that, say, being assaulted by a stranger on the street is actually bad. Despite their efforts to resist the temptations of wrongthink, otherwise liberal Americans are being redpilled... The motivated reasoning here, ostensibly in the form of an objective fact-check, reveals a larger instinct to minimize the problem. America is a big country. Were Philadelphians supposed to be reassured that it wasn’t all that bad, on average, everywhere else? In the same article, the Guardian writers did acknowledge that in 2020 Philadelphia “returned close to [its] historic highs for the number of people killed in a single year.” (It surpassed that high the following year.) Yet the article seemed to suggest that alarming figures shouldn’t worry us too much—after all, “even after an estimated 25% single-year increase in homicides, Americans overall are much less likely to be killed today than they were in the 1990s.” That people are being killed but at lower rates than their parents’ generation was an intriguing message—and one that may not have been as reassuring as intended... voters should make do with the fact that overall crime is down but homicides are up. Presumably, homicides are worse, because it is more difficult to recover from death than from experiencing a break-in or witnessing creative acts of shoplifting at your local CVS... Burglaries and homicides are not the only signs that something is amiss. The tent encampments that have spread across our nation’s capital over the past two years suggest that something has gone very, very wrong. This is the most powerful city in the world, and yet people are living in makeshift tents in its richest neighborhoods, a stone’s throw from the White House and Capitol Hill. But no one seems to know what to do about it. Or people do know what to do about it but can’t be bothered to act. Or they’ve found a way to resign themselves to a new reality—the so-called new normal. After all, the thinking goes, young professionals and middle-class urbanites should be grateful for what they have, that it at least isn’t worse, because it could always be worse. Who are they to complain anyway—especially if they are white, well-off, and gentrifiers to boot—about the decline of a city that isn’t really theirs or the fact that they might get assaulted after dinner at a nice restaurant?"
Here are the woke DAs funded by the George Soros machine letting criminals run amok - "Billionaire financier George Soros has spent millions of dollars funding the campaigns of woke District Attorneys who have let criminals run amok with no prosecution in many American cities. A study earlier this year found that the 92-year-old spent at least $40million to install as many as 75 prosecutors who support his leftist agenda — either with outright donations or fueled through political action committees. These DAs have stripped away bail laws and opted to forgo prosecuting crimes such as theft and reckless driving, effectively giving criminals a free pass and leading to the breakdown of law and order across the United States. As a direct result, crime has skyrocketed in major cities overseen by Soros's DAs, with St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner having to step down as she faced a bill that would strip her of most of her power and 'permanently remove the right of every St. Louis voter to elect their circuit attorney.' And in New York, Soros has come under fire for supporting District Attorney Alvin Bragg — who indicted former President Donald Trump for allegedly making a $130,000 hush-money payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels... Kim Foxx... Larry Krasner... George Gascón... Joe Gonzales... José Garza... John Creuzot... Steve Descano"
Money in politics is only a problem if it's from the right
Rochester man given 180 days in jail for raping girls - "A 20-year-old Rochester man will serve 180 days in jail and up to 30 years of probation in a case involving the rape of two juvenile girls in Olmsted County. Mohamed Bakari Shei appeared before District Judge Jacob Allen Monday... If Shei completes his probation, all charges against him will be dismissed and will not be on his criminal record. One of the juveniles in this case was around 9 years old and the other juvenile was between 4 and 5 years old at the time of the sexual assaults... Shei was 15 and 16 years old at the time of the sexual assaults and he was initially charged in juvenile court in 2019. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, his case was pushed back to the point that prosecutors would soon lose jurisdictional authority to prosecute the case. Charges were dismissed against Shei in those cases but were soon refiled. Shei was then given a plea deal that included his stay of adjudication and no prison time in exchange for him not challenging certification in adult court, which allowed for his continued prosecution"
Progressive criminal justice policies have made Canada less safe - "According to a Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) report released in February, there were 1,068 violent incidents on the city’s public transit system last year. That’s a 60 per cent increase over the 666 incidents in 2019, which is all the more astonishing considering that ridership was only 60 per cent of pre-pandemic levels. Violent incidents include physical and sexual assaults, robbery, harassment and indecent exposure, but some are more horrific than others. Last year, numerous TTC passengers and employees were stabbed and assaulted, a student was shot, a woman was pushed onto the tracks, another was set on fire and a homeless man was killed in a swarming attack. A recent Abacus poll found that 40 per cent of TTC users feel the system is unsafe. Elsewhere in Canada, the trends are much the same... too many judges, politicians and left-wing voters have leaned so far into the soft-on-crime, defund-the-police rhetoric, they fail to see that the lack of deterrence in our justice system is contributing to a culture of lawlessness on our streets. As in Toronto, there appears to be a general sentiment in parts of Vancouver that public safety is on the decline. When a non-profit surveyed people walking along Granville Street, nearly nine out of 10 reported feeling unsafe in the area. Province-wide, a 2022 poll found that over half of respondents believed the downtown cores of British Columbia’s big cities were in decline, with 98 per cent citing increased crime as a reason. This is borne out by Vancouver Police Department statistics, which show that violent crimes increased 4.1 per cent year-over-year in 2022, and have risen by 12.1 per cent compared to the pre-pandemic average from 2017-19. In Toronto, too, police data shows that major crimes increased 18 per cent between 2021 and 2022. And 2023 looks to be even worse, with the number of major crimes reported to police rising by nearly 21 per cent compared to this time last year... The federal Liberals and the courts have spent the past seven years dismantling the Harper government’s criminal justice reforms, including doing away with many mandatory minimum sentences. Declining public safety and heightened dissatisfaction in a justice system that is seen as being too soft on crime led to a major swing during last fall’s municipal elections in B.C., which were dominated by law-and-order candidates, including Mayor Sim, who ran on a platform of hiring 100 additional police officers. Given the heightened fear and growing awareness of the inadequacies of our police forces and criminal justice system, there is now a significant opportunity for a political party to pull a similar feat at the federal level."
Canada is seeing violent crime like never before. What's behind it? - "Violent crime has technically been worse in Canada, but never quite like this. As recently as the early 1990s, the rate of knives and bullets being driven into Canadians was far higher than it is now. But amid a dramatic uptick in national violence are trends the country has never really seen before. Police officers are being shot and killed on duty at unprecedented rates. Record numbers of Canadians are being randomly attacked by people they’ve never met, for seemingly no reason... worst of all, the crime is everywhere... Amid all the violence is a term that was relatively rare prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic: “Unprovoked random attack.”... the “stranger attack” phenomenon was in full swing in Toronto, particularly on the city’s buses, streetcars and subway system. At the opening of 2023, John Di Nino, the head of the union representing TTC workers, said the violence was already at “crisis level.” Just last week In Edmonton, city officials reported a 53 per cent spike in attacks on its transit system, with 70 per cent of those being chalked up to “unprovoked random attacks.” In an April 3 letter, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police demanded an urgent meeting with the country’s premiers to discuss what they called an “intensive escalation of violence.” Chief among this escalation was the killing of eight on-duty Canadian police officers in just the last six months. For context, between 1961 and 2009, a grand total of 133 Canadian police officers were murdered in the line of duty – an average of one every four and a half months. “The number of murders of police officers has resulted in stark comparisons with countries like the United States, to which we have never before found reason to compare,” wrote the CACP. Historically, if a Canadian police officer was murdered in the line of duty it was almost always incidental; an officer would be shot and killed while intervening in a domestic dispute or while attempting to apprehend a suspect. But this latest rash of police killings has consisted disproportionately of targeted attacks... The throughline in much of it is a parallel Canadian crisis of untreated mental illness. When Canada wrapped up the closure of its centralized psychiatric hospitals in the 1990s, the assumption was that mental illness could be treated “in the community” with little more than short hospital visits and courses of anti-psychotic drugs. One unintended consequence is that when a deeply psychotic patient needs something more than a night in hospital, there’s often nowhere for them to go... Leonard Krog, a former NDP MLA turned mayor of Nanaimo, is one of several progressive politicians who have begun concluding that any meaningful action on homelessness, crime and addiction can’t come without some return to institutionalization... But in the more immediate term, the emerging consensus is that crime has risen to crisis levels due in large part to the bail system. In January, a unanimous letter signed by all 13 premiers called on the federal government to take “immediate action to strengthen Canada’s bail system.” The Commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police weighed in the next month, saying the bail system was in “desperate need” of change. The Toronto Police and many of Ontario’s other major police forces soon followed... Only 15 years ago, B.C. Premier David Eby was a street-level activist in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, and authored the handbook “How to sue the police.” Now, he’s one of the country’s loudest voices for tougher bail. Last month, Eby criticized federal inaction on bail by saying that reform was needed “now” and that the issue was “straightforward.” At issue is Bill C-75, a 2018 suite of amendments to the Criminal Code that, among other things, purported to “modernize” and “clarify” the Canadian bail system. The bill required judges to view release “without conditions” as the “default position.” Whereas previous bail hearings had mostly considered public safety and the accused’s likelihood to attend court, judges would now be mandated to consider whether the suspect was from a “vulnerable” population... C-75 utterly gutted the ability of police to punish an offender who refuses to abide by the usual expectations of conditional release... The result has been the emboldening of a relatively small subset of offenders who are committing crimes every few days with little to no consequence. “Offenders will effectively laugh at the cops,” said Leuprecht. “The offenders know that, under the new rules, they’re not going back to jail.” In a 2022 open letter, an amalgam of B.C. mayors called them “prolific offenders,” and identified just 204 of them who were responsible for 11,648 “negative police contacts” in the last calendar year. Per offender, that’s an average of at least one “negative police contact” every single week. The mayors said their cities had been hit by a “significant increase in the number of offenders routinely breaching conditions without consequence while on bail.” Even when they were charged and handed court dates, the offenders simply refused to show up, also “without consequence.” “Police work only has value if the rest of the equation is there as well,” Doug LePard, one of two authors of a B.C. report into prolific offenders, said... a poll by the Angus Reid Institute found that more than half of Canadians were losing faith in the justice system to do anything about it. Said Leupreucht, Canadian’s current crime wave may well the unintended consequence of policymakers who “live fairly sheltered lives” and never have to face the impacts of increased violence."
I saw liberals claiming that you can't blame Trudeau/the federal government, because they have nothing to do with policies leading to crime
Blame champagne socialists for Canada's tsunami of violent crime - "Canada is facing a rising tide of violent crime that has recently included a tragic series of random stabbings in major Canadian cities. One thing is clear: the bleeding heart approach to criminality, which has long been championed by Canada’s champagne socialists, is failing to keep communities safe... 53 per cent of Torontonians said that crime and safety was a top-three priority, with only housing affordability scoring higher as a concern. Similarly, a poll conducted last October showed that more than half of Winnipeg’s downtown residents reported feeling unsafe. The unfortunate reality is that Canada’s crime wave is mostly self-inflicted. Policy-makers have consistently failed to address the root causes of poverty while abandoning communities to violence. With respect to root causes, it’s undeniable that decision makers at all levels of government have grossly mismanaged the housing crisis, exacerbating homelessness and, in the process, driving individuals towards substance abuse and criminality. Meanwhile, Health Canada’s answer to rising addictions has been to shun recovery-oriented treatment and embrace the distribution of “safer supply” drugs, a policy that is unsupported by any serious evidence and which only exacerbates drug use. Not only do Canada’s housing and addiction policies fuel poverty and crime, our justice system seems to prioritize the well-being of predators over victims. Our bail system is broken. Prolific offenders are expeditiously released back into the public, despite disturbing histories of violence. If, by some luck, they are actually convicted, they are too often given scandalously light sentences. Take, for example, the story of Jordan O’Brien-Tobin, a repeat offender in Toronto who, earlier this month, was released on probation for several offences, including sexual assault. The judge ordered him to attend counselling for his “mental health issues” and substance abuse, but, less than two weeks later, O’Brien-Tobin was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the death of a 16-year old boy who was stabbed in a Toronto subway station. In Vancouver, residents have been terrorized by unprovoked stranger attacks over the past year. People have been stabbed, attacked with machetes and, in one case, a woman was doused in a flammable liquid and set on fire. In response, the Vancouver Police Department published statistics on 44 stranger attacks that occurred between March and June 2022. Of the 40 suspects involved in these attacks, 78 per cent had previously been charged with a criminal offence. Astoundingly, these 40 suspects had previously had 3,892 prior police interactions, collectively... Canada needs to crack down on crime, but the problem is that, for many progressives, such a crackdown would be unacceptable. For them, being soft on crime is a “luxury belief” – the ideological equivalent of a fur coat that confers social status at the expense of other, poorer people’s safety. For years, progressives have pressured police departments to look the other way on lawlessness, even though this harms disadvantaged communities. When Toronto cleared several violent, crime-infested homeless encampments in 2021, white-collar activists screeched about “class warfare,” even when refugee families were begging for safe green space for their children and the elderly, a privilege that wealthier neighbourhoods took for granted. Similarly, last year Chinese-Canadians in Vancouver demanded protection for low-income Asian seniors who were routinely being assaulted in the city’s Chinatown. The city’s political leaders, who were generally Caucasian and well-off, had the audacity to pretend that the problem didn’t exist while preaching about social justice. They lost their jobs in last October’s municipal election. For the sake of equity, the Trudeau government has consistently made it easier for violent criminals to stay on the street. In 2019, Bill C-75 mandated that judges release criminals on bail at the “earliest reasonable opportunity.” In 2021, Bill C-5 repealed mandatory minimum sentencing for many violent gun-related crimes. Now crime has skyrocketed. At first, this was felt in lower-income neighbourhoods, meaning that nobody cared. However, since the problem has metastasized enough to affect middle-class voters, there’s suddenly political will for reform. In January, all 13 premiers wrote a letter begging the federal government to toughen the bail system and stop coddling prolific offenders. The Liberals appear to be listening — but that targeted reform is not enough. We need a larger ideological and legal overhaul."
Man accused of killing 28-year-old in Ontario released on bail - "An accused murderer was released on bail in Ontario this week after allegedly killing a 28-year-old man outside a bar, leading the victim's family to question if justice will be served. Early in the morning on Oct. 15, soccer star Arun Vigneswararajah was killed after a fight outside the Kings Castle bar in Ajax, Ont. took a horrific turn. Vigneswararajah was stabbed in the chest and later died. Thirty-four-year-old Chard Patrick of Ajax was arrested and charged with second-degree murder in connection with the investigation. But last weekend, Patrick was released on bail... The bail restrictions for Patrick are he must remain at the home of his surety, with exceptions like a medical emergency or to attend court. He must surrender his passports, have no contact with certain people, no alcohol or weapons, and must wear a GPS monitor at all times. But Lewis questions the effectiveness of these rules, saying, "these rules are great if someone decides to obey them, but people that commit violent crimes generally don't obey the rules or they wouldn't be committing violent crimes to begin with." Those who knew Vigneswararajah are frustrated, and they are losing confidence in the justice system."
And then one day, because of the "far right" and its "fake news", people lost confidence in the criminal justice system
Career criminals rack up nearly 500 arrests since NY bail reform began - "A small group of just 10 career criminals was allowed to run amok across the Big Apple and rack up nearly 500 arrests after New York enacted its controversial bail reform law — and most of them are still out on the streets... the city’s alleged “worst of the worst” repeat offenders have been busted a total of 485 times since bail reform went into effect in 2020. Two of the defendants are actually accused of embarking on lives of crime in the wake of bail reform, with one busted 33 times since 2020 and the other busted 22 times, all this year, the data shows... “And they go on to commit more crimes within weeks, if not days,” Hizzoner fumed. The NYPD’s list of “notable” career criminals is topped by Harold Gooding, who’s been busted a total of 101 times, with 88 coming since bail reform was enacted. Larceny charges account for 74 of the recent arrests, all of which took place in Manhattan, where District Attorney Alvin Bragg has come under fire for the soft-on-crime policies he imposed after taking office on Jan. 1... people with three or more arrests for robbery, burglary or larceny in a single year jumped a total of 25.9% from 2019, before bail reform, to this year as of June 30. For alleged serial shoplifters, the increase was an even greater 36.8%."
Bodega clerk who was charged with murder after stabbing attacker has quit his job, fled upstate - "A Manhattan bodega worker who was charged with murder after defending himself against an attacker has quit his job in fear of his life, and is considering leaving New York City for good and returning to his native Dominican Republic. Jose Alba, 61, had charges dropped from the July 1 attack following an outpouring of anger at the decision to prosecute. But Alba has now left his job and fled the city, said Francisco Marte, the head of a bodega association assisting Alba... During the altercation, Alba was apparently stabbed by Simon's girlfriend, who instigated the argument when her benefits card was declined. The girlfriend was never charged in the incident... District Attorney Bragg had faced intense criticism after charging Alba, including from Mayor Eric Adams. Pressure had been growing for Bragg to drop the charges against Alba since footage emerged showing that Simon - who has previously been convicted for other assaults - had pushed Alba into a shelf and started dragging him... 'Papa, I don't want a problem, papa,' Alba told him calmly. Simon charged into the Blue Moon convenience store minutes after his girlfriend tried to buy a bag of chips for her daughter, but her electronic benefits card had been declined."
When you are pro-crime and pro-criminal
Of course it's racist to have barriers to protect shop staff from criminals too
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg to stop seeking prison in some cases - "Alvin Bragg said his office “will not seek a carceral sentence” except with homicides and a handful of other cases, including domestic violence felonies, some sex crimes and public corruption... Assistant district attorneys must also now keep in mind the “impacts of incarceration,” including whether it really does increase public safety, potential future barriers to convicts involving housing and employment, the financial cost of prison and the racial disparities over who gets time... A Manhattan police supervisor said: “The identical platform has not worked out in San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia and Baltimore.” “It will lead to more young lives lost to gang violence and innocent people being hurt both physically and emotionally,” the high-ranking cop said. Another Manhattan cop fumed, “This is outrageous. He was elected to enforce the law. If he wanted to change them, he should have run for a state office.”"
Real criminals cannot be prosecuted, of course
Suspect in killing at Ivy City Hotel was released in other pending cases - The Washington Post - "31-year-old Christy Bautista, dead from 30 stab wounds. Charging documents released Monday chronicle the brutal killing of Bautista, a woman from Harrisonburg, Va., in an attack Friday evening off New York Avenue in Northeast Washington. Court records also shed light on the criminal history of the man accused of killing her: He had been released from jail after pleading guilty to attempted robbery in D.C. while awaiting trial on a separate larceny charge in Prince George’s County. In recent months, he had missed court dates in both places, and court records show that authorities had sought warrants for his arrest... The fatal stabbing came less than a week after a 26-year-old Senate staffer was stabbed and critically injured after leaving a restaurant on H Street NE in what authorities believe to be a random attack. The man accused in his attack had been released from prison a day earlier — sparking cries, including by the victim’s friend who intervened in the attack, to boost punishment in the District... homicides in D.C. were up by 30 percent compared with the same time in 2022, a year when D.C. surpassed 200 killings for only the second time in almost two decades. Property crime was also up by 27 percent, driven in part by a surge in car thefts, and violent crime had increased year-over-year by 2 percent... prosecutors agreed to Sydnor’s release from jail before sentencing, though he was subject to high-intensity supervision. The U.S. attorney’s office in D.C. declined to explain"
Damn white supremacy killing Asians!
Times Square subway pusher has SEVEN prior arrests - "The accused subway pusher who nearly killed a woman in Times Square has a lengthy arrest record, police records reveal, as the innocent woman she attacked speaks out about her ordeal and demands justice. Anthonia Egegbara, 29, of Queens, was charged with attempted murder Tuesday, after surveillance footage showed her jump up from a bench and shove the female victim as the train hurtled into the station. Egegbara has been arrested at least seven times previously, according to NYPD records, with the three most recent incidents involving her allegedly kicking or biting other women on public transport."
Shoplifting in NYC is so bad supermarkets are locking up, installing anti-theft devices on $6 ice cream: 'This is the age we live in now' - " The Duane Reade on East 53rd Street and Third Avenue also began padlocking a freezer to keep thieves from snatching ice cream such as Haagen-Daz and Magnum bars, a worker there told The Post. “We had to put the locks on because people kept stealing our Red Bull and Ice cream out the fridge,” the employee said. The CVS on Second Avenue and 51st Street in Midtown also had built-in locks placed on freezer doors last month, which customers called inconvenient... Shopkeepers are screaming over ice cream bandits as overall shoplifting rates soar citywide — with 13,738 retail thefts reported in the first quarter of 2023, the most recent available NYPD data. By contrast, an average of just 8,750 retail thefts were reported quarterly in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic struck the city, according to the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The shoplifting crisis was fueled in part by the state’s controversial 2019 bail reform law, which requires judges to cut loose criminals who commit misdemeanors and some nonviolent felonies, critics say. The soft-on-crime approach encourages repeat theft, according to police — who reported that nearly a third of all shoplifting busts last year involved the same 327 people, who were rearrested thousands of times. Sweet-toothed swindlers have pulled ice cream heists in the Big Apple for years, often loading the loot into freezer bags with dry ice, then reselling them at bodegas for cheap, police have said... Last year, a serial ice cream thief was busted after strolling out of the upscale Morton Williams market at East 22nd Street and Park Avenue South with 20 pints of Haagen-Dazs... In 2016, four suspects also snatched at least 1,249 frozen treats — including tubs of Häagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry’s — from chain stores such as Duane Reade and CVS during a 10-month period... High rates of retail theft this year have prompted store owners to keep even low-priced items — ranging from dish soap to cans of tuna — in locked cabinets that require customers to ring a bell. Fairway announced in March it would use facial recognition technology to combat crooks in its Upper West Side store."
Canadian police: Easy bail policies make 'much of our work pointless' - "Against a “criminal justice system that renders much of our work pointless,” Canadian police chiefs are demanding an “urgent” meeting with all 13 premiers to address an “intensive escalation” in Canadian violence. In a Monday letter to Manitoba premier Heather Stefanson, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police requested a summit with her 12 counterparts to hash out the “urgent and emerging issues” that they said threatened to permanently damage Canadian policing. In just the last six months, Canada has seen the deaths of nine on-duty police officers, by far the highest rate of police killings in the country’s history. What’s more, almost all of the officers have died in targeted killings. At the same time, Canada has seen an unprecedented wave of random, unprovoked violent attacks, with almost all the available data showing that the violence is coming disproportionately from offenders who were out on bail or parole.This time last year, the B.C. Urban Mayors Caucus compiled data showing that more than 11,000 “negative police contacts” in their jurisdictions had been caused by just 204 offenders who rarely faced any consequences for their criminality. Last summer, the Vancouver Police released data on its 44 most recent “stranger attack” suspects showing that 78 per cent of them had already been charged in “a previous criminal incident.” The problem has become particularly acute following the 2018 passage of Bill C-75, a package of Criminal Code amendments that severely curtailed the ability of judges to hold violent offenders in pre-trial detention. Most notably, the law requires that the top priority at any bail hearing is “releasing the accused at the earliest reasonable opportunity and on the least onerous conditions.” Judges are also told to set aside their usual considerations on public safety if the accused is from a “vulnerable population.”... With police agencies across the country now facing critical recruitment shortfalls, Monday’s CACP letter warned that Canadian law enforcement could soon be unable to ensure even a base level of public safety. “Policing is at a cross-road in our nation,” it read. If the judicial system remains unable to shield communities from “even the most violent offenders,” the current threats against police “cannot be indefinitely endured.” In just the last few months bail reform has attracted a growing political consensus, most notably with a January letter signed by all 13 premiers demanding “immediate action to strengthen Canada’s bail system.” British Columbia, which is home to Canada’s only NDP government, has been one of the loudest voices on this file. Just last month, B.C. premier David Eby criticized the slow pace of federal consultations on bail reform, saying the feds needed to fix the system “now.” Within days of being sworn in as premier, Eby even issued an unusually strict bail directive to B.C. Crown prosecutors, instructing them to seek detention of suspects even if they were up on charges unlikely to “include incarceration.” Nevertheless, the order appears to have had little effect. Just last weekend, a man attacked two Vancouver Police officers as they responded to a 911 call regarding an erratic figure “yelling” and “swearing” at a downtown Vancouver playground. Within hours, the suspect “was released by the courts”"
