ERICK-WOODS ERICKSON
A college student is dead. Her parents are mourning. Nothing any of us can say or do can bring back Laken Riley. And, what’s worse, because of the nature of her murder, she becomes a prop for a political fight. It’s sad. Her parents want to mourn her, as do her friends. Politics be damned.
But, in the present national conversations, it cannot be ignored that she died at the hands of an illegal alien who crossed into the country in 2022 as President Biden refused to secure the borders. The murderer took up residence in a city that had declared itself a sanctuary city and benefited from a progressive prosecutor who has explicitly decided to be lax in law enforcement.
It’s so bad that local law enforcement has been trying to find ways to tie crimes to federal law so prosecutions will happen. Joe Biden’s United States Attorney takes crime more seriously than the locally elected District Attorney.
For those not from the area, Deborah Gonzalez, the District Attorney in Clarke County, Georgia, is a progressive prosecutor whose refusal to enforce the law and prosecute crimes caused the state legislature to pass a law making it easier to remove District Attorneys. Her office is so poorly managed by her that, though she is authorized to have 17 Assistant District Attorneys, she has just three. In 2023, her office dismissed 46% of cases and reduced over 130 felony prosecutions to misdemeanors. She also lost fourteen murder trials in a row. The Clarke County DA sued the state, challenging the law, and the State Supreme Court is forcing the legislature to rewrite the law.
In the meantime, Jose Antonio Ibarra has benefited from a District Attorney who protected Ibarra’s presence in Georgia, repeatedly turning a blind eye to a series of legal violations the man committed. His brother, Diego Ibarra, crossed illegally into the country in 2023 and has already been arrested 3 times, including for driving under the influence. Ibarra, sources tell me, has been arrested multiple times for shoplifting, among other offenses.
In a sane world, Joe Biden would secure the border and progressives would enforce the law.
Instead, what we have witnessed the past few days is Democrats dodging and blaming others while their friends in the press work hard to downplay Ibarra’s status as an illegal alien.
Both the Associated Press and Atlanta Journal-Constitution referred to Ibarra as an “Athens resident.” The New York Times reported he is not a citizen of the United States, but skipped the whole part about crossing into the country illegally. The press corps has gone overboard leaving out details about the Kansas City shooters, who were black gang members, and now the illegal alien murderer in Athens, Georgia, who is from Venezuela. Anything that upsets the intersectional apple cart is ignored. It’s like how Asian violence stopped being a story once it turned out most violence against Asians in the United States is committed by young black men and, also, Harvard and other colleges like to discriminate against Asians.
Progressive control and contempt of our institutions are driving much of the angst in the United States. It is also driving Donald Trump back to the White House.
Laken Riley’s family should be able to mourn their dead daughter without a national spotlight. But it is hard to ignore both how the press and Democrats have chosen to ignore the history of the murderer and the laxity of legal enforcement that could have prevented her death. It is also hard to ignore the policy failures at the border that got us here — ones Republicans have long raised and that both Democrats and the national press corps have largely ignored or deflected with accusations of racism.
With the God of all creation standing before him, Pontius Pilate asked Christ, “Quid est veritas?” or “What is truth?”
There is truth. There is real truth. It is objective, even if sometimes difficult to ascertain. We just don’t often hear it in the press anymore if it might hurt the left. Facts no longer matter. Narratives matter. Any inconvenient fact is ignored or quickly raised and dismissed because narrative counts more. A press that once held the powerful accountable are now collaborating with the current powers that be to keep them in power because they fear the alternative. Truth is less important than power preservation for progressives.
Laken Riley legitimately would still be alive, but for the policy failures of progressives. That’s an inescapable conclusion the press will avoid because they have picked a side in the matter, and it is the side that made the situation possible.
Our press corps, which on Friday embraced the idea that only Christian nationalists believe our rights come from God, on Saturday put “Athens resident” on copy/paste for their reports and seemingly lack the curiosity to dig deeper.
