A family says goodbye to a father, brother, and son, who was murdered by an assailant with 66 prior arrests.
Mark Alexander
“To prevent crimes, is the noblest end and aim of criminal jurisprudence. To punish them, is one of the means necessary for the accomplishment of this noble end and aim.” —James Wilson (1790)
I was struck by the similarity of a random murder this week in New York — one that was remarkably like the random murder of an extended family member here in Chattanooga, Tennessee last week. In reality, these murders are not random, but rather a predictable consequence of failed urban leadership.
The murder of Ryan Carson, a white social justice activist in New York, was recorded on video. After leaving a Long Island wedding, he and his girlfriend were waiting for a ride on a Brooklyn street in the early morning hours when he was accosted by a thug. After an altercation, he was stabbed to death and died on that dirty sidewalk in front of his frantic girlfriend. Though clear images of his black assailant were captured and wanted posters issued, NYPD investigators are still seeking to identify the murderer.
Carson was the latest victim of the social polices for which he advocated. He was not killed by “knife violence.”
In Philadelphia, activist/journalist Josh Kruger was shot and killed in his home by an unknown assailant. In Minneapolis, leftist “defund the police” activist Shivanthi Sathanandan was “mugged by reality” as she was “violently car jacked in the driveway of [her] home” by a group of black thugs. On Monday, Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) was accosted at gunpoint in a Washington, DC, carjacking by a black street gang.
Pandering Democrats’ pandering soft-on-crime policies have plagued urban poverty plantations with violent crime for decades, which was part of the reason that black Democrat Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson recently did something courageous — he switched parties.
Here in Chattanooga this morning, the family of Chris Wright said goodbye. He was murdered last week, and his death is now making national news. As was the case in New York, this murder was also captured on video, which assisted police in making a quick arrest. Our local police have better than an 80% case closure rate for murders.
Though Chris was widely known for his kindness and generosity, he was no “social justice warrior.” He was a husband and father of three, his youngest born just a few weeks ago. He was widely known in our community and was a graduate of Yale, where he played football for four years, becoming an Ivy League champion in 2006. He earned his MBA from the University of Chicago and then became a successful business partner with a holding company.
Chris was walking back to his car last Thursday night after meeting with friends ahead of his 20th high school reunion. He was accosted by a black man and after an altercation was murdered. His assailant had 66 prior charges in Chattanooga, as well as other jurisdictional charges, including multiple aggravated assault, aggravated robbery, and home invasion convictions. For most of those charges he received suspended sentences.
How did Mayor Tim Kelly respond to the 23rd murder in Chattanooga this year? Well, predictably for a wealthy white privileged Democrat. Though Chris did not match the typical profile of Chattanooga murders, which are, like most cities, overwhelmingly black-on-black, Kelly blamed this murder, as he has others, on “gun violence”: “This was not gang violence, or a mugging, or a robbery. It was an isolated, senseless, and brazen act of gun violence. … Gun violence is taking a serious personal toll on people’s lives and hurting Chattanoogans’ ability to feel safe in our community.”
If it was “gang violence, or a mugging, or a robbery,” Kelly still would have blamed it on “gun violence.” He is one of Michael Bloomberg’s leftist “gun reform” activists. Of course, “gun reform” is a euphemism for “gun control,” which is a euphemism for gun confiscation and always has been. Never mind that only law-abiding citizens obey laws, or that many cities with the most restrictive self-defense policies have become the most dangerous cities in the nation — where law-abiding citizens are increasingly victims of outlaws.
Likewise, “gun violence” is a euphemism for “cultural violence,” which is the actual underlying problem.
But Demo mayors across the nation, with the exception of the aforementioned mayor of Dallas, don’t want to touch the politically inconvenient truth that a grossly disproportionate amount of that violence is the direct result of a Demo-induced culture of violence spawned primarily by generations of failed social policies — resulting most notably in the disintegration of families. The common denominator connecting almost all violent offenders is that they grew up in homes with absent or ineffectual fathers.
The result of those failed policies is metastasizing violence in the urban centers that have been under Democrat control for generations.
Chattanooga has also been under a succession of Democrat mayors for years — the last real leadership here was the one term served by former Sen. Bob Corker. Under current mayor Kelly, our city now ranks as the second worst-run city in America, and it’s number six in U.S. News and World Report’s Most Dangerous Places in the U.S. in 2023-2024.
Kelly, and all those Demo mayors who are predisposed to hurl insults at victims by calling their assaults and murders “gun violence,” do their constituents a grave disservice. Of course, they rarely get called out for their lazy rhetorical insults because most urban victims are black citizens whose names will never be picked up by mainstream news platforms unless, of course, they were murdered in one of those exceedingly rare cases by white racists — those bogeymen that Joe Biden insists are lurking around every corner.
Kelly is not singularly responsible for creating the social issues that produce violent offenders in Chattanooga, but he perpetuates it by not acknowledging the underlying systemic problems, instead trotting out his “gun violence” rhetoric. And it is a mistake to assume that there was something unique about the assailant in this case. There are hundreds of thugs on the streets of Chattanooga with criminal records equal to or far worse than the murderer in this case. Multiply that by tens of thousands of thugs nationwide, thanks to the leftist “prison reform” crowd who view the assailants as social victims.
Chris Wright’s blood, and that of all victims of violent assault and murder, are on all their hands.
The bottom line is that Ryan Carson, Josh Kruger, Shivanthi Sathanandan, Henry Cuellar, and all Americans should be safe in their person and property and secure in their ability to defend themselves. And until Democrats who hold local, state, and federal offices tell the truth about the foundational causes of violence, no Americans will be safe in their person and property, except to the extent we can defend ourselves.
Chris Wright should have been able to walk back to his car last Thursday night without being attacked. He should have been with his family Friday morning and his colleagues and friends for his high school reunion this past weekend. But he wasn’t. And while I don’t know the names of most victims of violent crime in our city, or across our nation, I will always remember his name.
We ask your prayers for his wife Acacia, sons Declan (4) and Abbott (2), daughter Aprilia (9 weeks), and parents Janet and Greg, and brothers Wells and Greg Jr.
Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776