Mirkarimi’s Malady
It is unsafe to live in San Francisco, especially at the sheriff’s house.
In this city known for institutionalized corruption, citizens rarely blink over common City Hall scandals. But when the newly elected pro-gun-control sheriff has his personal firearms confiscated while being saddled with an emergency protective order separating him from his wife and kid, even San Francisco’s more medicated residents take notice.
Ross Mirkarimi – a former Green Party leader turned Democrat, police academy graduate and former District Attorney’s Office investigator – was elected late last year to be San Francisco’s new top gun. He celebrated his win and New Year’s Eve by (allegedly) roughing-up his wife. After a kindly neighbor reported the incident, and tossed authorities a video tape of fresh bruises, investigators learned that Mirkarimi’s (alleged) domestic violence was executed in from of his prepubescent son, and it may not have been the first time Mirkarimi manhandled his mate.
“A strong message needs to be sent. You cannot commit crime with impunity like this,” was Mirkarimi’s statement … five years prior in response the The City’s inability to control street violence (as opposed to home violence … perhaps Mirkarimi merely maintains the enduring San Francisco sentiment that what happens in the privacy of one’s home is a civil right). But his impunity message is not lost on fellow public employees “No one is above the law,” District Attorney George Gascón said. “Whether this was the elected sheriff or any other San Francisco resident, this type of behavior is inexcusable, criminal and will be prosecuted.”
If convicted, Mirkarimi could serve up to a year in the county hoosegow.
Of all the ironies in this unfolding flap, tops is that Mirkarimi has long been an ardent proponent of gun control, a legislative sludge that most of the country has rejected. As recently as last year, while pimping putrid data to defend San Francisco’s draconian and unconstitutional gun control laws, Mirkarimi perjured before the San Francisco Public Safety Committee to add various “findings” as a litigation prophylactic. “There is ample evidence that [these] laws are needed now, more than ever, and that they will save countless lives every year,” was his inaccurate claim. Mirkarimi deployed The Lie of Statistics (the use of numbers that present misleading information and distort perspective) as a primary propaganda tool, though it seems he thinks guns are safe enough to have in his home while (allegedly) battering his bride. He claimed he was seeking to “Fortify our defense of reasonable gun-safety laws,” which was an inelegant instance of The Lie of Legislative Salvation (assuring people that law by itself will cure a social ill).
Mirkarimi is a one man misinformation machine.
His potential year in jail may not be, and may not be unprofitable. Mirkarimi intends to resist. “I believe that these charges are very unfounded. And we will fight these charges,” he said in what might an instances of The Lie of Lewinsky (forcefully making flat denials of observable fact to cast doubt in otherwise lucid minds). But if convicted, Mirkarimi has greased his re-employment path by pushing legislation to give hire-a-felon tax breaks to local businesses. As a campaign opponent prophetically noted about Mirkarimi’s proposal “An ex-offender leaving prison for domestic abuse now has a job preference that a domestic violence victim does not have.”
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