Recently, a viral video of a supermarket shoplifting in Colorado captured the nation’s attention.

The theft, which involved a shopping cart full of laundry detergent and some other items valued at around $500, took place at King Soopers and was recorded by a store employee who was later suspended and then fired for having done so.

Colorado Springs, CO pic.twitter.com/HkM9KaIVnl

— Clown World ™ 🤡 (@ClownWorld) <a href=“https://twitter.com/ClownWorld/status/1671289969107955712?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>June 20, 2023

The now-former employee, Santino Burrola, a former Army military policeman, was alerted to a theft in progress. “When I looked there was already a guy halfway headed out with a food cart full of laundry detergents and scent boosters and what have you,” Burrola told CBS Colorado. “My first instinct, record.”

“Really bro?” asked Burrola in the video. “You gotta resort to this? The economy’s not that bad.”

“I just recorded, said what I said, and got so close to where I was able to rip the tinfoil off the license plate,” said Burrola. The car drove off, and he called the cops, then posted the video to social media.

The driver of the vehicle, Jorge Pantoja, 32, has since been arrested, while the other two master criminals, whose names are Robert and Bugsy, are somehow still at large.

A job well done, right? Wrong. When Burrola showed up for his next shift, management suspended him. The following week, they fired him.

In response to the incident, King Soopers issued the following statement: “We are disappointed by the increased level of crime across retail establishments and the impact these incidents have on our associates and customers. We remain committed to working in partnership with local law enforcement to address this issue, as safety remains a top priority.”

In fairness to King Sooper and other employers who’ve fired staff members for having confronted shoplifters, they’ve done so out of concern for the safety of their employees, and, certainly, to minimize their legal liability. But still: What kind of a culture are we cultivating when we communicate to criminals in no uncertain terms that they can act with such brazenness and not have to worry about being challenged?

As for being “disappointed by the increased level of crime,” King Soopers and every other retailer across the nation can thank permissive Democrat policies for that.

What kinds of policies might those be? Cashless bail for one. Take Los Angeles, for example, which is reinstituting a no-bail policy that had been put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic to reduce prison overcrowding, but which had expired. Going forward, for crimes like theft, shoplifting, vandalism, drug use, and other nonviolent offenses, perpetrators will be arrested and then released without having to pay bail before their arraignment. Nice.

Did cashless bail work the first time? Did it keep the people and property of LA safe? Well, as a California district attorney told Fox News, “More than 70% of criminal suspects released on $0 bail between 2020 and 2021 in his county committed new crimes once they were returned to the streets.”

If at first you don’t succeed, fail, fail again.

Rapper 50 Cent, who knows a thing or two about LA, offered his two cents on Instagram recently: “LA is finished. Watch how bad it gets out there. SMH [shaking my head].”

And to Fitty we say, Welcome to the party, pal.

Said Fox News political analyst Gianno Caldwell, whose 18-year-old brother Christian was shot and killed a year ago in a South Side Chicago drive-by, “50 Cent is a billion percent correct.”

“CREDIT WHERE CREDIT’S DUE,” tweeted the National Fraternal Order of Police in response to the 48-year-old rapper. “Hats off to 50 Cent for calling out the failed, revolving-door criminal justice policies and pointing out their deadly consequences. What does it say about the many elected officials, celebrities, and journalists when they don’t exemplify the moral courage to call out the #CrimeCrisis and speak out against pro-criminal policies? This issue has been overlooked for far too long in this country.”

As commentator DC Draino put it, “When a famous rapper who’s been shot 9 times tells you your city’s crime is going to explode after you revoke bail, you should probably listen to him.”

Or not.

LA’s policies aren’t just nonsensical, though; they’re also racist. As Fox News reports, “A Democrat-backed bill making its way through the California Legislature would require judges in the state to consider a convicted criminal’s race when determining how long to sentence them to prison. … The bill would add a section to the Penal Code of California requiring courts, whenever they have the authority to determine a prison sentence, to ‘rectify’ alleged racial bias in the criminal justice system by taking into account how historically persecuted minorities are affected differently than others.”

Our Mark Alexander has served in law enforcement and written extensively about it over the years. He notes that the root cause of the current epidemic of violence is the Democrat Party’s institutionalized lawlessness. This, of course, began with the death of George Floyd in 2020 and the subsequent “Summer of Rage” riots, during which the Democrats intentionally provoked and promoted violence while at the same time vilifying and defunding law enforcement. The result was and continues to be, as Alexander notes, “a one-two sucker punch against victims of violence and those charged with protecting them.”

Alexander continues, noting that we’ve empowered lawless mobs in the name of so-called social justice, in effect sending a clear message: “Democrat constituents are entitled to be violent — and that sense of entitlement continues unabated. The implications, given the rising generation of sociopaths, are dire.”

Rule of Law is the solution, but that’s wishful thinking so long as leftist politicians are in charge of our big cities and urban centers. Why? Because they have a convenient scapegoat. “They can blame it on a ‘gun problem’ and avoid the inconvenient truth about race and violence,” says Alexander.

Democrats and the Culture of Criminality: They go hand in hand.