California has been going overboard with their COVID restrictions to the point that they are hurting small business owners. But apparently, their strict orders that hurt residents are not enough. An Orange County Judge has decided that the jail should release their violent and dangerous criminals to keep them safe from COVID. Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes has decided to put residents first and is refusing to abide by the court order.
“I have no intention of doing that, of releasing those individuals back into the community. I think they pose a serious threat,” Barnes told “Fox & Friends.”
The decision by the court was made in response to an April lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in an effort to protect disabled and medically vulnerable people at the Orange County Jail, reports said, but Barnes plans to appeal.”
“We’ve released 1,400 inmates to date since March for low-level offenders. The only inmates remaining now are serious offenders,” he explained. “Of the medically vulnerable, 90 of them are in custody for murder or attempted murder, 94 for child molestation.”
“Everybody in the community is at risk of COVID right now,” Barnes said in response to the judge, adding, “not considering the risk to the public they present by being released back into the community, I think is not only absurd, I think it places the community at significant risk …”
But the ACLU was not interested in the safety of law-abiding citizens. They are more concerned that the criminals will take up hospital beds.
“Public safety does not just mean crime,” said Jacob Reisberg with the ACLU. “Public safety also means, is there a hospital bed open if you get sick? And if there’s a massive outbreak in the jail, which this de-population order is trying to avoid, there will not be hospital capacity in Orange County for people on the outside who get COVID.”
Not everyone in that jail has COVID yet. The answer to the problem is simple. Isolate those that are infected and have staff/visitors wear masks and be tested daily. The prisoners are not going to exposed to the virus otherwise. But it is just ludicrous to even temporarily release violent criminals and child molesters. Californians in Orange County are lucky they have a good sheriff.
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