Freeing Maurice Clemmons

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Michelle Malkin has the scoop on Maurice Clemmons, the man suspected in the shooting of four Seattle police officers.  Reading all of these news reports – which include threatening a judge in court, going after a court guard’s pistol, and charges ranging from armed robbery to rape – it’s pretty much impossible to understand how then-governor Mike Huckabee could have let the man out of jail at all.  It’s particularly baffling to me that while we continue to wage this endless war on nonviolent offenders drugs, locking up thousands of people for smoking pot, we can continue to let violent criminals and child-rapists out on to our streets.

Why not change course?  Why not end the war on drugs and take all those resources and use them to combat violent crime?  Put some of those dollars into education so that fewer people turn to violent crime to begin with.  And put some more of those dollars toward fighting a much darker and much more necessary war – against human trafficking.

I think the release of Maurice Clemmons is tragic.  He was obviously a ticking bomb.  Anyone who couldn’t see that was blinded by something, and Huckabee I think must have been blinded by politics.

As of now, Clemmons remains on the loose.  He was shot by one of the slain police officers, but as of now nobody knows where he is.  The only comfort in all of this is that when he is finally caught or killed he will never be loosed on the general public again.  It’s small comfort for the families of the police officers.  That and the end of any future political ambitions for Huckabee whose hands are only a little less bloody than Clemmons’.

It’s time to rethink law enforcement in this country.  We can only be tough on crime if we prioritize.  Child-rapists and violent offenders need to be locked up.  For rape and child abuse particularly we need to start throwing away the keys.  The only way we can do this is to put an end to the war on drugs and the expensive, foolish campaign against the wrong sort of criminal.