Rollins rolls over idea of paying for crimes

If your wife were attacked while out walking the dog and suffered a skull fracture and permanent injury, would you care what color her attacker was? Me, neither.

But apparently Rachael Rollins does.

As part of her pursuit of “social justice” — aka “keeping criminals on the streets” — the Suffolk County DA let the assailant above walk. No jail time.

In this case, the assailant was a 24-year-old Hispanic man. I don’t know the race of his victim. What I do know, because Rollins can’t talk for five minutes without patting herself on the back for it, is that her policy is based on the premise that — as Sen. Elizabeth Warren likes to put it — the “criminal justice system is racist from front to back.”

The reason Rollins’ implemented her “do not charge” list for 15 “low-level” nonviolent offenses is, she happily acknowledges, because she doesn’t like the fact that too many people of color are charged with those crimes. She calls it “ending racial disparities in charging decisions.”

But a policy reportedly addressing these disparities in shoplifting and loitering has now, according to the Boston Globe-Democrat, drifted over to drug possession and police assault.

“The Globe reviewed more than 1,000 district court cases, of which nearly 300 have been dismissed since Rollins took office. Most involved motor vehicle offenses, but her office also dismissed 18 drug cases, including cases of possession of heroin and crack cocaine, possession with intent to distribute and 11 assault or assault and battery charges, including one case alleging assault and battery on a police officer,” they report. One case was a couple whose car’s back seat contained bags of heroin, assorted pills … and a small child. All charges dropped, even though Drug Daddy had been convicted of dealing heroin a year earlier.

Another case was a guy caught red-handed breaking into a Roxbury building with a crowbar and 39 stolen credit cards.

Given the data in the Globe-Democrats’ report (and when your “soft on crime” liberalism is so gelatinous that even they notice, you’ve got problems), it’s almost certain that this crook was a repeat offender. And given the demographics of Roxbury, it’s very possible that his victims were people of color.

And so refusing to enforce the law is a win for communities of color … how?

Actually, it’s been a big win for Rep. Ayanna Pressley’s husband, Conan Harris. He was busted for driving on a suspended license, then he didn’t show up for his courtordered arraignment and so he was arrested, sentenced to community service and lost his license for a year. Just kidding.

Harris walked. Rollins dropped all charges. No, the person who faced those serious consequences was yours truly, when I was arrested in Framingham a few years ago for driving on a revoked license. Once the prosecutors figured out it was an RMV foul-up (shocker, right?), they dumped the case against me.

But think about the irony of this moment: At the same time we’re demanding the RMV do its job and properly process our driving records, the Suffolk DA is announcing she intends to ignore those records entirely. So what if the RMV reports your multiple speeding tickets? So what if they eventually pull your license? All you have to do is skip out on your court hearing and — voila! You’re a righteous citizen once again! Uh … right, Rachael? Rollins is correct when she says that people of color are disproportionately stopped for speeding and other driving infractions. Where she — and most of the 2020 Democratic POTUS candidate field — is wrong is the assumption of racism.

Yes, racism is still with us. But there are stacks of research finding many other reasons for black drivers being stopped more frequently. An obvious one: Communities of color have more crime, which means more police patrols, which means more cops to catch you speeding. If cops started campaigns out at polo matches, there would be a similar surge in speeding tickets among the ascots and Aston Martins set.

But with Rollins intentionally releasing known criminals back on the street, who is most likely to suffer the consequences?

Definitely not the affluent suburban liberals cheering her on.