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PolitiFact: Sundheim false on crime stats
U.S. Senate candidates debate in San Diego. Left to right: Duf Sundheim, Kamala Harris, Loretta Sanchez, Ron Unz, Tom Del Beccaro. (Photo: KPBS)Republican Duf Sundheim started on the attack at Wednesday’s debate in San Diego among five candidates vying to be California’s next U.S. senator.
But the GOP hopeful missed hard on a fact about the state’s violent crime rate. He used his opening remarks to criticize the race’s frontrunner, Democratic California Attorney General Kamala Harris.
“The PPIC (Public Policy Institute of California) recently reported that Kamala is failing to keep us safe,” Sundheim said May 10, 2016. “There is a 34 percent increase in violent crime in the state of California. … And that’s just within the last year.”
The PPIC, a nonpartisan think tank, reported no such thing.
What the PPIC said
The PPIC report cited by Sundheim doesn’t include final statewide violent crime data for 2015. It has preliminary statistics for January to June 2015 for 66 California cities covering about half of the state’s population.
Brandon Martin, the co-author of the report and a research associate at the policy institute, told PolitiFact California that statewide crime statistics for 2015 won’t be available until this summer.
Moreoever, Sundheim misstated the preliminary data that the PPIC did have.
The authors of the report said 34 of the 66 California cities saw a double-digit percentage increase in violent crimes.
They never claimed that the state, or even the sample of cities, saw a 34 percentincrease in violent crime.
“I have not seen any data showing a 34 percent increase in crime in California in 2015. He made a mistake,” Magnus Lofstrum, the study’s author and a senior fellow at PPIC, told PolitiFact California.
The most recent full-year crime stats, from 2014, put the state’s violent crime rate ata 47-year low, according to the PPIC.
A spokeswoman for Sundheim’s campaign said, “Looking at the study, the wording is vague and our researchers believed that the ’34’ was in reference to the percent rise in violent crime.”
Our ruling
Sundheim said California’s violent crime rate increased 34 percent over the past year, citing a recent report.
Sundheim misread the report in question, it’s authors said.
We rate his claim False.
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Ed’s Note: PolitiFact California appears with the permission of Capital Public Radio. Contact PolitiFact California on Twitter @CAPolitiFact or via email at PolitiFactCA@capradio.org with interesting or provocative claims made by presidential candidates while they’re stumping in California. We’ll review them for a possible fact check.
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Harris who was rebuked by a bipartisan Panel of the US 9th Circuit-all but suggesting
she should resign–for the EPIDEMIC OF CRIME she has engendered –should not
even be at the table!!!!!
Keep in mind the above rebuke (Well chronicled in the LA Times)—was meted out
BEFORE-BEFORE—the 9th Circuit was aware of:
l. Harris, hiring as personal aides–LARRY/CURLY and MOE—claiming to be embers of
the KNIGHTS TEMPLAR BRIGADE—two of who were subsequently arrested for
impersonating police officers–A FELONY!!!!!!
2. Harris’s CRIMINAL COMPLICITY with Robert Garcia (Long Beach’s Selfie/Photo
Op-addicted version of N.Korea’s Kim Jung Jerk–whose face is plastered all over
side of a bus=traversing major routes in Long Beach…
a NEFARIOUS QUID PRO QUO–ENTERED INTO BY THE DUBIOUS DUO–
when Harris flew down to Long Beach to swear Garcia(who at time was LB
Council Person/Vice Maror/Chair of LB Council Public Safety Committee-AND
Coastal Commission Member–as SITTING MAYOR–after which the due cut
MORE THAN A RUG–manifested by a QUID PRO QUO –IE-for NOT
Prosecuting the Pip Squeak for HIS Criminal Complicity-uncovered by ,but not
limited to LBPD records (via CPRA) —in what was initially but a Third Rate Crime..
ie—Gifting of $300K of State Tide Lands funds to a very select few panting to
increase investment portfoilios –by enhancing water view from their homes–
VIA RAZING TO THE GROUND Long Beach Marine Stadium 2S–a much
needed support stricture for the activities for which the Marine Stadium was
Grant Deeded–GARICA would support HARR’s far from DRY DREAM to
become US Senator.
Garcia and his complicit fellow travelers CLAIMED SAID STRUCTURE–BUILD
decades before said homes were built–as an EPI CENTER of Nocturnal Crime.
NOT SO!!! NOT SO AT ALL–say the LBPD records provided by the LBPD highly
credible Jim Mc Donnell–now continuing his excellence as LA County Sherriff-
cleaning up decades of Bacca Tanaka corruption et al
Thus HARRIS/GARCIA and company are in CUE TO BE FITTED FOR
PRISON SUITS…one has to check major news outlets to see exactly
when the fittings will take place….check you will see–State Senator YEE who
was carted off to Prison-about 4 months ago for CRFIMES HE COMMITED
six years ago/Tanaka & Bacca-Crimes–toll back about 5 years===others four—
GARCIA and Harris’s crimes were approx. just under two years ago. My
sense is before or shortly after November- the two will be sentenced–and
become but a bad memory!!!!