New Jersey has a lot of problems right now including crime, Save Jerseyans. The Department of Justice and their media collaborators tried to hide the truth from us, but we learned earlier this fall that President Trump was fundamentally correct: violent crime is WAY up since he left office. Mere weeks after this revelation, New Jersey Assemblyman Paul Kanitra (R-Ocean) suffered a home invasion AND the theft of his car (which were adorned with his Assembly license plates).
In 2023, New Jersey saw 20,564 violent crimes in addition to 141,370 property crimes. Aggravated assault and auto theft, respectively, led those categories. Kanitra subsequently told the media (and yours truly) that police believe criminal rings operating inside the Garden State are responsible for the vast majority of auto thefts. The Port Authority alone is reporting a 50% spike in auto thefts.
So what is Trenton doing about it?
Attorney General Matt Platkin triumphantly tweeted on Thanksgiving Week that he’s successfully busted…
Whole Foods.
“NJ holiday shoppers, we heard you and took action!” Platkin accounted on X. “Responding to social media chatter reporting that a Whole Foods grocery scale was overcharging customers, our Office of Weights & Measures worked with its partners in Essex County to inspect and ensure the scale’s accuracy.”
There are plenty of violent and property crimes happening daily in crime-ridden Essex County (home of Newark), but our AG’s priority is making sure that hipsters don’t overpay for asparagus water. Meanwhile, New York, not New Jersey, just busted a $2 million retail department store theft ring operating in the Tristate area.
New Jersey doesn’t elect its attorney generals, the theory being that politics injects the wrong sort of decision-making into the criminal justice process. But we still seem to get AGs whose priorities aren’t keeping us safe and secure in our communities; the goal seems to be to score easy points (like dinging Whole Foods for a quick media hit heading into a holiday) while residents across the state continue to feel less safe in their homes than they have since the early 1990s.
We deserve so much better.
