Police on the scene said that when a couple of good Samaritans stepped in to stop the criminal Anthony Brown from shoplifting at the Butler County Walmart in Fairfield Township, material goods were not worth dying for. That police officer was wrong, and it sends the wrong message to the criminal elements that are out there that shoplifting and crimes, in general, are acceptable in society. Two people were shot that day, and one died. But it is because of people like Adam Black, who was moving into the community from Columbus to be with his fiancé and usher in the birth of a baby, that makes the world we all live in better. It wasn’t just keeping the criminal from stealing items from the electronics department at that Walmart that made Adam Black step in to stop Brown; it was in stopping crime with a general policy of right and wrong that had the value. I hate to see anybody lose their life, but I am glad that there are people like Adam Black in the world and that during this particular attempted theft, two people engaged the target to stop it, which is a great thing. After the shootings, Anthony Brown was picked up down the road in Middletown and put in jail with a bond that would keep him there. And just a note to the gun grabbers out there, they may be surprised to learn that Brown was violating a weapons law by possessing the firearm he used to kill with while under a disability. How about that? A criminal wasn’t following the rules. Who would have figured? 

I can understand Adam Black’s motives. It’s a shame he was killed in the act of justice he participated in, but it was worth doing. The police were wrong. It doesn’t matter if the theft was just a pack of gum, the need to stop a shoplifter is more important than the actual value of what is being stolen. The police position obviously is to play into the Black Lives Matter position of social Marxism, where they advocate the complete destruction of western civilization and have been promoting shoplifting as a form of reparations for slavery, which is absurd. But it is for that reason crime is escalating under the current Biden administration because they have a permissive attitude toward the various socialist and Marxist groups that have been fueling the deranged minds of the criminal underclass like Anthony Brown. The police, when they say such things, only feed the problem. They may think they are saving lives and cutting down on the paperwork they have to fill out over incident reports. Still, by making such statements, they are just letting many other Anthony Brown types who are hiding in the cracks of society know that if they want to steal items in Butler County, they won’t be prosecuted.   That they could expect to get away with it. And that day at Walmart, where my wife and I often shop, Brown hoped to leave with the goods without being apprehended. When security didn’t confront him, and regular people did, he wasn’t sure what to do, so he panicked and had then fled the scene. 

Watching the poor policing in San Fransisco on the news, there is no question many criminals are getting ideas. And Democrats have been advocating for this behavior. That gave Brown the notion that he could steal from a local Walmart without getting in trouble. And once word gets out that crime is ripe in Butler County, then there will be hundreds of other criminals like Brown who will copycat the criminal enterprise. So, if the police could have done the worst thing after the shooting in Butler County was to say that material items could be replaced and that nothing was worth losing a life over; they did it. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s not the value of the goods that matters; it’s what people are supposed to do in society to get those goods. You can’t send a message that theft is alright, even over some minor little thing that could be replaced with spare change in your pocket. Standing up for what’s right and wrong does matter.   A life lived by accepting bad things is not a good life. That is how we end up with pockets of social degeneration. That is why we have accepted the massive amount of violence in Chicago because we have accepted as a culture that certain levels of crime are something we can accept, just so Democrats who run that city can hide their past as slave owners by bringing down the capitalist system that ultimately freed the slaves. Once you accept one bad thing, then a parade of bad things follows. And while the police may have accepted the limits of modern woke politics and institutionalized solutions to complicated social challenges, it was quite clear to good Samaritans like Adam Black what needed to be done when he saw the theft of something in a local Walmart. He had an obligation to stop it, even if it meant the ultimate cost. I’m sure his family has mixed emotions on the matter, but I would say a life lost defending honor and justice is a life well-lived, and I’m glad Adam Black did what he did. 

And I would expect there are many Adam Blacks out there who would do the same thing today and tomorrow. Crime is not acceptable, even small amounts of it. If a criminal breaks into our cars, the value of our property is worth defending with deadly force. Theft in stores is unacceptable and should be met with law and order in every case. Criminals should not be on the streets with low bonds just because of a person’s skin color, and that the legal system is afraid of race riots. We cannot accept the premise of reparations, as the Black Lives Matters has advocated for, as punishment for slavery which conservatives were not a part of. It was America that freed the slaves, and specifically, Republicans. Blue states and cities that are most guilty of the crime in the race wars show that guilt by the way they manage their communities.

In the suburbs, we will not accept that same bad behavior. Is it right to stop a criminal over a pack of gum or minor car theft? Well, of course. It’s worth defending the process of capitalism from a lazy criminal element that wants to hide their desire not to work behind some political or social cause, which the Butler County Police were advocating for. And it was that belief that Butler County would be weak on crime that let Anthony Brown believe that he’d get away with theft at Walmart on that tragic day. But thankfully, some people stepped in to bring justice to the criminal. Of course, it shouldn’t have ended a person’s life and injured another. But a lot more was saved that day; it was the reputation of life in the suburbs. That even if the police fail, the people will step in to bring justice to the criminals, unlike what has been happening in liberal areas around the country like the cities of Chicago and San Francisco. Accepting that kind of bad behavior isn’t going to work in Butler County. And it is because of good people like Adam Black that our communities stay safe. Not accepting crime in the first place is the first step, and defending law and order with life itself is well worth it. 

Rich Hoffman