Category Archives: Crime

UPDATED: "Rational Profiling: Cabbies Do It Too"

Affirmative Action, Crime, Criminal Injustice, Law, Race, Racism

So I wrote in a column so titled on June 2, 2006:

“According to the authors of ‘Streetwise: How Taxi Drivers Establish their Customer’s Trustworthiness’ (TLS, May 12), it transpires that in deciding whether to ‘stop for a fare,’ cabbies give preference to ‘whites’ over ‘blacks.’ But they also select older over younger passengers; women over men; individuals over multiple passengers, wealthier over poorer; callers over hailers; and ‘friendly and calm over aggressive and agitated.’ As it is in the taxi driver’s economic interest to refuse ‘as few fares as possible, they can no more be guilty of racism than they are of reverse sexism or ageism because they prefer older and female passengers,’ say the authors.”

“Since there is no way of knowing whether those passengers the drivers screened out were in fact dangerous, it’s difficult to assess the effectiveness of these strategies. Still, not even the most ardent rights-violator would dare suggest cabdrivers be penalized for their prudence. For one, it could cost the driver his life.”

And it did. “Chilling video released yesterday by police shows a life-and-death struggle between a gunman and livery driver moments before the thug shot the cabby in a botched robbery in Queens.
The dramatic confrontation was caught on a surveillance camera installed in the gold Chevy Impala being driven by Trevor Bell, 53, in South Ozone Park on Saturday night. Bell was critically wounded in the attack. …”

“The head of the New York State Federation of Taxi drivers is encouraging racial profiling,” reports ABC.COM:

“Sometimes it’s good that we are racially profiled, because the honest to God truth is that 99 percent of the people that are robbing, stealing, killing these drivers are blacks and Hispanics,’ Fernando Mateo said.”

The law, of course, proscribes the life-preserving measures advised by Mr. Mateo. These poor cabbies are expected to throw open the cab door to the Grim Reaper himself.

UPDATE: As you can see, Mateo, the man advocating racial (or rational) profiling, is a member of a minority as well. The victim, I believe, is black

UPDATE III: Into The Cannibal’s Pot: An Update (+Grisly Reminders)

America, Crime, Criminal Injustice, History, Ilana Mercer, Media, Race, Racism, South-Africa

Some of you are waiting for, and have been asking about, the publication of Into The Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons For America From Post-Apartheid South Africa. The wait is worse for South Africans who are in the thick of the events my book documents and analyzes—Into The Cannibal’s Pot is a Burkian polemic, steeped in history, reality, fact, and the classical liberal political philosophy.

When I completed the book some months back, the number of Boers murdered was just over 3000. As the courageous Adriana Stuijt now documents, the death toll stands at 3,756. Adriana has been on the case since 1987. She, WND, in the early 2000s, and myself have been (still are) the only sources of serious, ongoing analysis—as opposed to knee-jerk, fleeting cyber-ejaculate—about what is truly underway in the new South Africa. Adriana is Dutch, I believe, and lived in SA. I am South African born, as you know.

In any event, the manuscript is currently under consideration. If all fails, fear not (with your help), someone will see to it that the true story of the New South Africa (“Rambo Nation”), as detailed in Into The Cannibal’s Pot, is told. (And that an important work is published.)

So far, four magnificent men (as writers, thinkers, and human beings) have returned Praise For The Cannibal. Thank you. You know who you are. These gentlemen seemed to sense the urgency of my mission (and, I am told, the thing is an excellent read). As I’ve already said, these towering talents do not inhabit the solipsistic universe in which most American “writers” (and publishers) are mired.

I hope this gives you an idea of where in the publication process I am with Into The Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons For America From Post-Apartheid South Africa.

UPDATE I: A GRISLY REMINDER. And people close to my family expect me to rush to the place to visit, possibly forsaking my life. Local predators are on the look for idiot outsiders, such as these. Having documented, contrasted and compared SA crime rates in statistical detail in Into The Cannibal’s Pot, I am more aware than are family and friends of the real risks.

This flashy couple will get western attention, the Boers dying daily in defense of their Zimbabwified farm land, not at all. I tell family and friends that as an outsider, you stand out; become a target in SA. They don’t get it. I, at least, still have the SA accent. But tourists… Why do you think this irresponsible, newly wed man was tossed from the taxi while his lovely wife kept back only to be killed later on? On that, Western media will refrain from postulating or reporting.

Via the Mail Online:

The driver of a British businessman whose new wife was shot dead in South Africa appeared in court today accused of helping to kill her.
Anni Dewani was shot dead after the taxi she and husband Shrien, 30, were travelling in was carjacked.
Their driver Zola Tongo, a local man, was charged with murder, kidnapping and aggravated robbery at a court hearing in Cape Town this morning.
Tragic: Anni Dewani was shot dead after the taxi she was travelling in was carjacked. The driver has been accused of her murder
Tragic: Anni Dewani was shot dead after the taxi she was travelling in was carjacked. The driver has been accused of helping to kill her
A prosecutor told the court that Tongo is likely to enter into a ‘plea bargain arrangement’ in return for a possible lenient sentence.
Millionaire Mr Dewani and his 28-year-old wife were hijacked on November 13 as they returned to their five-star hotel from an evening meal.
They had asked Tongo, whom they had met at the airport, to drive them through the poverty-stricken township of Gugulethu so that they could experience a flavour of ‘the real Africa’.
But within three minutes of leaving the motorway, two gunmen hijacked the taxi.
After robbing them both, Mr Dewani was thrown out of the people carrier’s back window.
Nine hours later his wife’s body was found in the back of the abandoned taxi.
While Tongo’s actions were not revealed in court, it has been reported locally that during the drive he phoned a friend.
He allegedly told the friend what the couple were planning and where in the township they were planning to go.
This morning, Tongo appeared in court alongside another man, 25-year-old Mziwamadoda Qwabe. Xolile Mngeni, 23, appeared in court last week.

UPDATE II: I mentioned above the knee-jerk, fleeting cyber-ejaculate type commentary that cyber-celebrities allow themselves when it comes to South Africa.

Contrary to Pamela Geller’s fast and furious factoids, a Boer is NOT a “disparaging term for any white South African,” as she “wrote” in an April 16, “American Thinker” post this year, titled “Genocide In South Africa.” Geller, who is in the habit of spouting off as though she knows everything, should learn to cite sources who do know something about the South African subject.

UPDATED III: Given the South African market, my goal is to ensure my readers in South Africa can purchase the book. We will have to see. But this has to be part of the deal.

UPDATED: Poignant Crime-&-Punishment Comments From Dr. Petit

Crime, Criminal Injustice, GUNS, Individual Rights, Justice, Law, Private Property

“Closure is a term invented by imbeciles” was one. I offered a precis of this particularly heinous case of home invasion (“all burglars are home invaders”) in the post, “You’re The First Line Of Defense For Your Family.” Even better were the biblical, ten-commandments comments of Dr. Petit’s father-in-law, which are not yet online (please send them along if you find them).

UPDATE: “Jennifer Hawke-Petit’s father, Reverend Richard Hawke, told reporters, ‘There are just some people who do not deserve to live in God’s world,’ in reaction to the death penalty sentencing.” Via Inside Edition.

It would be a great blessing if one of the Petit relatives or friends took up self-defense and Second-Amendment activism. Someone very close to me in South Africa watched two men enter his home on a Sunday afternoon, when the family was beside the pool, relaxing. He saw his wife flee, as in slow-motion. He rushed to the safe, where the gun had been kept. Then aimed at the invaders and yelled, “Get the hell out of my home.” They fled like the cowards they were. From then on, this man has carried his piece on his ankle. (The family also needed therapy.)

The sadistic letter the Connecticut killer and rapist Joshua Komisarjevsky wrote from prison makes clear that this is just what he and his accomplice, Steven Hayes (placed on death row today), needed.

UPDATED: Poignant Crime-&-Punishment Comments From Dr. Petit

Crime, Criminal Injustice, GUNS, Individual Rights, Justice, Law, Private Property

“Closure is a term invented by imbeciles” was one. I offered a precis of this particularly heinous case of home invasion (“all burglars are home invaders”) in the post, “You’re The First Line Of Defense For Your Family.” Even better were the biblical, ten-commandments comments of Dr. Petit’s father-in-law, which are not yet online (please send them along if you find them).

UPDATE: “Jennifer Hawke-Petit’s father, Reverend Richard Hawke, told reporters, ‘There are just some people who do not deserve to live in God’s world,’ in reaction to the death penalty sentencing.” Via Inside Edition.

It would be a great blessing if one of the Petit relatives or friends took up self-defense and Second-Amendment activism. Someone very close to me in South Africa watched two men enter his home on a Sunday afternoon, when the family was beside the pool, relaxing. He saw his wife flee, as in slow-motion. He rushed to the safe, where the gun had been kept. Then aimed at the invaders and yelled, “Get the hell out of my home.” They fled like the cowards they were. From then on, this man has carried his piece on his ankle. (The family also needed therapy.)

The sadistic letter the Connecticut killer and rapist Joshua Komisarjevsky wrote from prison makes clear that this is just what he and his accomplice, Steven Hayes (placed on death row today), needed.