Soft-on-crime policies fuel higher crime rates. Worse, when career criminals are repeatedly put back on the streets, it can turn deadly.
That was the case for a little-reported murder back in May that made headlines yesterday thanks to a young woman’s still-irate father.
On May 3, North Carolina college student Logan Federico, 22, was visiting friends at the University of South Carolina when 30-year-old Alexander Dickey broke into the home where she was staying. He stole several credit and debit cards before shooting and killing Logan.
When Stephen Federico and his wife, Melissa, learned of their daughter’s murder, it was “a kick in the stomach.” When they were told that her murderer had been arrested and released 39 times, he was “furious,” to put it mildly.
Ever since, Stephen has been on a mission to make Logan’s death count for something — real reform in criminal justice. Yesterday, he delivered a gut-wrenching speech in the Victims of Violent Crime hearing in the North Carolina legislature. Here’s a bit of it:
Think about your child coming home from a night out with their friends, lying down, going to sleep, feeling somebody come into the room and wake them. And drag her out of bed. Naked. Forced on her knees with her hands over her head. Begging for her life. Begging for her hero, her father — me — that couldn’t be there.
She was 5-foot-3. She weighed 115 pounds.
BANG!
Dead. Gone. Why? Because Alexander Devante Dickey — who was arrested 39 g**d*** times, 25 felonies — was on the street. …
He should’ve been in jail for over 140 years for all the crimes he committed. You know how much time he spent in prison? A little over 600 days in 10 years. He’s only 30 years old. He was committing 2.65 crimes a year since he was 15 years old. But nobody could figure out that he couldn’t be rehabilitated. Well, you’d have to put him in prison to see if he could be rehabilitated. …
She literally was executed while on her knees, begging for her life. Her name’s Logan Federico, not Iryna. And you will not forget her, I promise you. You’ll be sick and tired of my face and my voice until this gets fixed. I will fight until my last breath for my daughter. You need to fight for the rest of our children, the rest of the innocents, and stop protecting the people that keep taking them from us. …
What y’all did, you, you woke up a beast and you p***ed off the wrong daddy. Because I’m gonna put it out there, and I’m not gonna be quiet until somebody helps.
Obviously, it was failure in South Carolina that cost a girl from North Carolina her life, but the systemic failure of the American justice system crosses state boundaries.
Indeed, the hearing was part of North Carolina’s efforts to address the recent murder of Iryna Zarutska aboard a public train in Charlotte. Her murder at the hands of another career criminal with multiple releases — and so many others like it — should prompt big changes in the way criminals are handled.
According to WCNC Charlotte, “The North Carolina General Assembly passed ‘Iryna’s Law’ last week to target cashless bail for certain offenders and expedite death penalty appeals.” That’s a start.
Keeping violent criminals locked up and the border closed will prevent more deaths like Logan’s and Iryna’s, as well as those of Rachel Morin, Laken Riley, and countless others.
Three of those women were college-age and had their entire futures ahead of them. Now, they will not start careers, get married, have children, or live out any other dream because too many public “servants” — almost always Democrats — put more value on the supposed rights of violent offenders than they do on the rest of us living our lives in peace.
That must change.
