Up Schmidt's Creek
I see that the boy wonder Multnomah County district attorney, Mike Schmidt (lifetime batting average .017), is getting a lot of media mileage today out of the fact that one of the arsonists who set fire to the North Precinct last year is going to prison. The arsonist pleaded guilty and has received a five-year prison sentence.
Of course, this particular arsonist is Black, whereas a kid of a different complexion, involved in the same incident, got three years' probation.
And today's breathless tales of Law 'n' Order Mikey are downplaying, or omitting entirely, the fact that the latest guilty plea resolves a number of charges against the defendant.
The district attorney’s office said Streeter-Hillerich’s sentence resolved two other pending charges that involved unlawful use of a weapon, coercion and fourth-degree assault.
“The sentence imposed by the judge considers all of the criminal conduct, and not just exclusively the arson case,” said Brent Weisberg, communications director for the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office.
If it was just the arson, we'd probably be talking probation for this guy, too.
Anyway, whoopdee doo, Schmidt is starting to get religion. A far cry from last summer, when he so infamously told the world: "I think that when you look historically at this nation, it's during these protests when we've gotten some of the changes that we are proudest of in our nation's history. And sometimes it took some property damage. It took more than just peaceful protests to get the government's attention. I'm very mindful of that."
When the district attorney said that, it was the beginning of the end for downtown Portland. And despite the continuous media cheerleading, the end is still here.
Well said, but I disagree that if he had been white he would have gotten a better sentence. This guy has a 2018 Assault III conviction and was on probation for with a 36 month prison sentence over his head at the time he went on this violent crime spree. Of course, the new convictions violated his probation, he was revoked and they even ran THAT sentence concurrent. The domestic violence case he plead guilty to included a ballot measure 11 Kidnapping charge which was plead down to nothing and as you mentioned, the Unlawful use of a Weapon sentence for ramming the car on the freeway was all concurrent. The kicker? He was made immediately eligible for "alternative programs" so he will likely be out in no more than three years. For the number of serious crimes he committed while on probation for a violent crime, this is about as lenient as it gets.
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