Opinion on Gallegos' crime statistics record

4/17/06
Tom Cookman on District Attorney, Gallegos' crime statistics record
KINS radio

Before you vote for the District attorney on June 6th - please be informed. I don't want to say I told you so, but I predicted this.

Humboldt County crime Statistics have increased under Paul Gallegos. You might not think this is too disturbing, but what would you say if you knew that the State of California's crime rate has steadily gone down over the past 10 years. Listen to these comparisons for 2004.

Violent crime: California down 5.2%; Humboldt County up by 7.3%.

Humboldt County has 12.5% more violent crimes compared to the State of California.

Forcible rape: California down 5.1% Humboldt County up by 8%

Violent robbery: California down by 4.9% Humboldt County increased by 15.1%

Please listen - this is a 20% difference in violent robbery while under the supervision of Paul Gallegos.

Aggravated assault: California decreased by 5.5%; Humboldt County INCREASED by 7.3%.

Non-violent burglaries: California decreased by 1% Humboldt County INCREASED by 22.1%

We have a District Attorney who claims he is doing a good job. The numbers tell the truth. The crime statistics are so out of whack with the rest of the state that we should all be terrified if this man is reelected.

I've heard the campaign for Paul Gallegos talk about how Paul has done so much with so little. they claim that his budget cuts have severely hampered his ability to prosecute criminals.

Please look at the numbers.

The District Attorney's office did see a reduction in its budget along with every other department, not only in the County, but in the entire State - yet the statistics for the state are substantially better.

The significant part of the budget that we need to address is the fact that the District Attorney spent a large sum of money updating the computer and filing system. These were on-time charges. The updates system also takes fewer man hours to do the same job.

If you examine the budget for the District Attorney, you'll see that he had approximately $3.9 million to work with when he started and that is approximately how much he has now.

If you support Paul Gallegos, I'd like you to give me a call and defend his record. In my opinion, the crime in Humboldt County is escalating because of Paul Gallegos.

He implemented his liberal marijuana laws and he is really plea bargaining the drug cases, just ask anyone in the court system.

The result of these policies is that we have more druggies in Humboldt County. Just look at how many tweakers are walking our streets. drive down Broadway and you'll probably see a stoned out drug addict stagger across the highway. I've had to avoid them on several occasions. If you honk your horn at them, they just stop in the middle of the road and flip you off.

If a County has a reputation of being lenient on drug offenders, you'll attract more and more of them into your community. With increased drug activity, you'll have a strain on your social services and the crime rate, especially burglary will increase - and it has.

Drug addicts are typically on government assistance and they trend to think nothing of stealing your property. Humboldt County's burglary rate went up 22.1%.

This is the result of poor leadership in our leading law enforcement division, the District Attorney's office. Law enforcement agrees that Paul Gallegos isn't the man for the job. That is why they've overwhelmingly endorsed Worth Dikeman.

Remember to pay attention to the people running Paul Gallegos' campaign when they talk about crime statistics.

They will be comparing old numbers, not the current 2004 information.

It took a couple of years for the crime numbers to catch up with Paul Gallegos' policies. Vote him out. Our safety is at stake.

This has been Tom Cookman for Community Comment.