Debunking Suzanne Geist’s Mendacious Claims
Last week, teens were shot for:
- Pulling into the wrong driveway
- Ringing the wrong doorbell
- Opening the wrong car door.
And that’s not all. An idiot who shot and seriously wounded his 6-year-old neighbor and her dad when a basketball rolled into his yard.
All mistakes, none threatening people or property. Doesn’t feel like freedom. Well regulated militia?
The MAGA Republicans, the NRA and their willing accomplices in the GOP media are responsible for these shootings.
Here’s a profile of the Kansas City evildoer who shot the teenager at his doorstep from the Washington Post:
“But in the last five or six years or so, I feel like we’ve lost touch,” his grandson said… he’s become staunchly right-wing, further down the right-wing rabbit hole as far as doing the election-denying conspiracy stuff and COVID conspiracies and disinformation, fully buying into the Fox News, OAN kind of line. I feel like it’s really further radicalized him in a lot of ways”.”..”his grandfather had been immersed in “a 24-hour news cycle of fear and paranoia.” “And then the NRA pushing the ‘stand your ground’ stuff and that you have to defend your home,” he said. “
“The U.S. is setting a record pace for mass killings in 2023, replaying the horror on a loop roughly once a week so far this year. The carnage has taken 88 lives in 17 mass killings over 111 days. Each time, the killers wielded firearms. Only 2009 was marked by as many such tragedies in the same period of time,” the AP reported.
Despite the record wave of gun massacres, the Republicans in the legislature humiliated themselves last week by supporting and passing a gun lobby sponsored concealed carry bill that did away with the requirements for a background check and training. Before she quit, Suzanne Geist voted for this irresponsible and dangerous bill.
A report by the National Bureau of Economic Research that found that such laws increase firearm homicides by 13% and firearm violent crimes by 29%. This will make it easier for criminals to carry guns. People are going to get killed. Lincoln Police Chief Teresa Ewins stated that Geist’s gun bill would threaten the lives of police officers.
As a law-abiding citizen, I have a driver’s license, register my vehicle, and maintain proof of current insurance. However, thanks to the Nebraska Unicameral, I can carry a loaded weapon in my vehicle without knowing the first thing about how a weapon works. Jim Harrold
While many parts of the nation are awash in gun violence and crime, Lincoln is enjoying it’s lowest crime rate in thirty years. On November 1, 2022, GOP County Attorney Pat Condon told the voters: “I mean, Lincoln generally is a safe place.”
Even though Lincoln is a safe city, Suzanne Geist has run a desperate, deceptive campaign falsely alleging that Lincoln is a crime ridden, dystopian hell hole.
The normally incurious local press usually doesn’t do fact checks. However, because Geist’s campaign is so dishonest, 10/11 News felt compelled to do a fact check. The details are as follows:
“Political attack ads targeted toward current Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird say violent felonies are skyrocketing and murder rates have doubled.
While homicides may be higher, if you take a wider look at crime in general, numbers show while the population has been growing, overall crime rates have been dropping.
Looking at crime rates for the last few years, the rate has been nearly flat, though the perception that crime is rising is pervasive.
So far in 2023, there have been five homicides.
While homicides may be higher, if you take a wider look at crime in general, numbers show while the population has been growing, overall crime rates have been dropping.
The federal government requires police departments to track what they call “Part 1 Crimes,” these include homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, theft, car theft and arson.
In the 1990′s, the rate of Part 1 Crimes was about 700 crimes per 10,000 people. In 2020, it was about 330. That’s a 53% drop.”
Geist’s disingenuous campaign also compelled former Lincoln Police Chief Tom Casady to do a fact check. The details are as follows:
“But 37% is a one-year increase in homicides — from 8 to 11 — cherry-picked to create alarm. In truth, homicide numbers vary greatly from year to year and have little to do with who is mayor. For example, during Republican Mayor Mike Johann’s first year in office homicides increased from zero to nine and then dropped to four the next year.
Same with robberies. In one year, 2021–22, robberies increased 10%. Yet in the previous year, 2020–21, robberies dropped 20%.
The attack ad cherry-picks these numbers but fails to note the crimes that went down last year: residential burglary, stolen bikes, business burglary, theft from vehicles, aggravated assault and rape and attempted rape.
All in all, the five-year (2018–22) analysis by the LPD reveals that violent crime is down 22%, property crime is down 3.2% and miscellaneous crime is up 4.9%.”
Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird correctly contended at a small business forum that Geist’s false portrayal of Lincoln as a “crime-ridden, crime-infested underworld” is bad for small business. “That hurts your businesses and it hurts our ability to attract people to this city as employees to your business.”
Suzanne Geist is simply too extreme for Lincoln. She doesn’t share our values.
Are you fed up with the MAGA Republicans? The mass shootings? The abortion bans? Had enough?
You can do something about it by voting for Leirion Gaylor Baird for mayor on May 2!