A man is dead in downtown Las Vegas. Beaten to death in an alley near Main Street and Bridger Avenue.
Metro says 52-year-old Paul Campillo approached the victim, a man in his 60s, and started talking.
When the man tried to walk away, police say Campillo attacked him. He never made it out of the hospital.
Campillo is now booked on an open murder charge. He hasn't been convicted of anything yet. That's how our justice system works, and it should.
But here's what should stop every Assembly District 41 voter cold.
According to Las Vegas Justice Court records, cited by the Review-Journal, Campillo has more than 125 prior citations and arrests in Las Vegas.
He has prior convictions for conspiracy, robbery, grand larceny, taking property from a person, unlawful possession of a stun gun, conspiracy to commit burglary, attempted burglary, assault with a deadly weapon, and conspiracy to commit battery by a prisoner.
He already served time in Nevada state prison.
And he was still out on the streets.
That's not a gap in the law. That's a system that keeps giving chance after chance to people who've shown, over and over, that they don't deserve one.
I don't think that's compassion. I think it's negligence. And it gets people killed.
If elected, I'll push for real accountability in our courts. Judges and prosecutors who let career offenders cycle back onto our streets need to answer for it.
Habitual offenders with records like this shouldn't be treated as a paperwork problem. They should be treated as the public safety threat they are.
Now compare that to what the organization my opponent belongs to actually stands for.
Vinny Spotleson is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). This isn't a label I'm putting on him. It's the organization he's chosen to align with.
And DSA has been remarkably candid lately about what it wants.
DSA's own platform calls for defunding police budgets down toward zero.
It calls for decertifying police unions.
It calls for closing prisons and jails outright, ending what it calls “involuntary confinement,” full stop.
DSA national leaders have said as much on national television this year, on the record, no hedging.
Think about that next to Paul Campillo's rap sheet.
A man with 125-plus arrests and prior prison time was still free enough to allegedly beat someone to death on a downtown sidewalk.
Now imagine an Assembly caucus stocked with lawmakers who want fewer cops on the street and fewer prison beds to hold people like him.
That's not a hypothetical. That's the platform of the movement my opponent is a member of.
Assembly District 41 deserves a representative who's honest about that choice.
I'm not interested in slogans about “reimagining public safety.” I'm interested in making sure the next Paul Campillo doesn't get chance number 126.
Voters in this district get to decide who they trust to make that call.
I'd ask that you trust someone who wants career criminals off the street, not someone whose party wants the prison doors left open.
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