The faces that show it is our system of justice that needs a reset

Top left, Stephanie MacDonald, freed after 50 guilty pleas; center, Richard Semo killed by Tyler Thurston, bottom middle, who got 2 1/2 years; right, New York woman moments before pushing woman in path of train, and bottom left, Donald Levier. (Courtesy)

As we wrap up this Thanksgiving holiday weekend today we at The Rochester Voice feel so thankful for so much. The blessings of the holiday season, Family. Friends. Colleagues. The work we do every day, for as Teddy Roosevelt said, "Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing."

Whether it's your passion or just a paycheck there is no more noble endeavor.

Whether it's a well-made bed for a hotel housekeeper, a finely seasoned steak for a chef or a good collar for a cop, one can take pride in what they have accomplished to make the world a better and safer place.

In the words of Bill Belichick just "Do your job!" and the team will be in a good place, our city would be in a good place and so would our nation and world.

But someone is not doing their job. That would be the courts. They have become flabby and flaccid, soft on criminals who victimize us - the good guys - every single day of the week. In Rochester, in San Francisco, in cities all over the country.

We hear over and over again about the rampant thievery going on nationwide at Walgreens, Best Buy (who just lowered their fourth quarter profit estimate due to massive shoplifting) and just yesterday at a Home Depot in California where 10 hoodlums stole dozens of tools expected to be used in future crimes, according to Lakewood Sheriffs Department. They ran out together as a mob threatening any store employees with the axes and shovels they were stealing.

In California, a theft of under $950 is now considered a misdemeanor, which means they get a citation and a court date, which thieves rarely go to.

Huh? Imagine that!

Also in California, Proposition 47 increased the dollar amount by which theft can be prosecuted as a felony from $400 to $950 to adjust "for inflation and cost of living," an AG's office spokesman said. That comment would make us laugh out loud if it weren't so sad.

Proposition 47 was enacted to comply with a 2011 California Supreme Court order, which upheld that California's overcrowded prisons violated incarcerated individuals' Eighth Amendment rights against cruel and unusual punishment.

"So the goal of Prop 47 was to limit our prison population, to reduce the number of people that we send to state prisons," the spokesman is quoted as saying in an Associated Press article. "Prop 47 has achieved that goal while not causing crime rates to go up."

First off, that last comment was the comment of a fool.

What Prop 47 did do very effectively was put those thugs all back on the street.

But they don't belong on the streets. They belong in jail.

If someone robbed you personally of $950 would you want them to walk? Of course not.

Well, every time someone robs a Walgreens or a Walmart or a Home Depot, think of it as robbing you. Because every time someone robs a store, the owners of that store raise the prices of the product to maintain their revenue. Don't think for a nanosecond they don't.

Bail reform in New Hampshire is an abject failure. The Rochester Voice has reported on its failure over and over again, including most notably the case of Stephanie Lee MacDonald, who pleaded guilty to 50 charges and got a suspended sentence.

A few days later she robbed a Market Basket in Hooksett of a bottle of wine and conked an employee on the head when he confronted her in the parking lot. Now she's another New Hampshire county's problem.

In New York City they've had a series of attacks on subway platforms in which crazy people - and I think they would have to be called crazy to do such a thing - push innocent folk in front of moving trains. In the most recent attack in a Harlem station, the victim actually survived, but incredibly the suspect was released without bail!

You see we don't lock up people who are crazy anymore.

That's why the late Richard Semo of Farmington is no longer with us. Semo died last Dec. 13 - just before Christmas - when he was struck by Tyler Thurston of New Durham in the emergency department parking lot at Frisbie Memorial Hospital.

It is thought Thurston had gone into the hospital seeking mental health treatment, but got angry when someone told him to put on a mask due to COVID.

He then apparently went out into the parking lot and quickly became confrontational with another security guard, before Semo came onto the scene and took over while the other guard went back inside.
When personnel returned to the parking lot they found Thurston sitting on a fence and Semo in an out of consciousness with a severe head wound that occurred after he was struck by Thurston and hit his head on the pavement as he fell.

Richard Semo should not have died like that, but we all bear the guilt for letting people who have serious mental issues walk the streets. We are all to blame.

In December of 2019 Thurston threatened another man with a knife in Somersworth, according to a March 2021 indictment.

During an April explanation of why he had urged no jail time for his client defense counsel Carl J. Swenson said Thurston had been released from a prison hospital just 24 hours before the deadly encounter and had sought mental health services on seven occasion in the four months leading up to the attack.

Are we to believe that all those doctors, therapists and practitioners who dealt with him over those four months never thought he could erupt violently? Did they know about the 2019 attack? Did the courts release that info? Did someone not get the memo?

And just last month an elderly Dover woman was sexually assaulted in her bed by a stranger she'd never met who had randomly sexually and violently assaulted a Somersworth woman less than a month before.

After two assessments by Strafford County Community Corrections that said Donald Levier was unfit to be released into the community, a judge released him nonetheless. It's not his fault. It's ours. It's our job to fix this.

On both assessments it was noted Levier had mental health issues. According to Blair Rowlett of Community Corrections, the notations that he may have mental health issues did not come from a therapist, because if they were, it would be classified private under HIPPA laws.

Rather, she said, they were likely either suggested by the suspect himself or perhaps noted by jail staff.

So both assessments said he had a long rap sheet including violence and drug use and apparently mental health issues, but you say he's OK in the community. W don't get it.

The point is "You reap what you sow."

We got rid of institutions that held the criminally insane. And if you think there's no humans that are criminally insane, think again.

But to make it a little more granular, think how you'd feel if Richard Semo was your husband, or father, or brother or son.

And think how you'd feel if the 65-year-old Dover woman who was groped near her anus and vagina was your mom, or wife, or sister or daughter.

The criminally insane should be locked up until they are certified not a danger to the public.

Beyond that, bail reform in New Hampshire and across the country is a joke.

When someone steals something, they're stealing it from you.

People have to start putting themselves in the victim's shoes, and not focus only on the pathetic plight of the perpetrator.

- HT