Texas Police Arrest Burglar Posing As Beto O'Rourke Campaigner

James Bradford Gibbon II is accused of breaking into a home in Austin, Texas, on May 28, 2019. Austin Police Department

Police in Texas said a man posing as a campaigner for presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke allegedly broke into an Austin home and helped himself to a Popsicle.

James Bradford Gibbon II, 28, was arrested on Tuesday, May 28, in a South Austin neighborhood and faces charges of burglary.

Citing a police affidavit, Fox News Austin reported Gibbon admitted to rummaging through a wallet and briefcase once inside the residence, as well as to consuming a frozen treat.

A witness cited in the report allegedly spotted Gibbon hanging around his neighbor’s front door wearing a Beto T-shirt. When asked what he was doing there, Gibbon allegedly replied he was “campaigning for Beto for president.”

Police told the news outlet the witness assumed Gibbon was at his neighbor’s home canvassing for votes and told Gibbon to beware of the dogs.

The homeowner found Gibbon inside her kitchen and claimed it was all a “misunderstanding.”

The woman’s son called the police. Gibbon was arrested and faces charges of burglary of a residence, a second-degree felony punishable by 2 to 20 years in prison.

Beating of Special Education Student Caught on Video

Meanwhile, footage has surfaced of the brutal beating of a Long Beach special education student.

The video showed several boys knocking another boy to the ground, before repeatedly kicking and punching him as he tries to shield himself from the blows.

Rasheena Mccord, the boy’s mother, told the Long Beach Post that her son was attacked by a group of teenagers as he was walking home from school on Wednesday, May 15.

Mccord said her son tried to run away when the teens confronted him, but they caught up to him and beat him for several minutes.

*WARNING: graphic video

According to Long Beach police cited by CBSLA, officers were called to an area hospital following reports of the beating.

Police said they were investigating the incident as gang-related.

The victim’s mother told the Long Beach Post that incidents of groups of teenagers attacking other teens have been on the rise in recent days.

She and other parents gathered on May 20 in front of the Long Beach Polytechnic High School to call for school administrators and police to take action to protect their children from attacks.

Authorities have increased the frequency of patrols in the area, according to CBSLA.

Mccord said her son suffered scrapes, bruises, and a torn eardrum.

Crime in the United States

Violent crime in the United States has fallen sharply over the past 25 years, according to both the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS).

The rate of violent crimes fell by 49 percent between 1993 and 2017, reported the FBI’s UCR, which only reflects crimes reported to the police.

The violent crime rate dropped by 74 percent between 1993 and 2017, according to BJS’s CVS, which takes into account both crimes that have been reported to the police and those that have not.

“From 1993 to 2017, the rate of violent victimization declined 74 percent, from 79.8 to 20.6 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older,” the U.S. Department of Justice stated (pdf).

Both studies are based on data up to and including 2017, the most recent year for which complete figures are available.

The FBI recently released preliminary data for 2018. According to the Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report, from January to June 2018, violent crime rates in the United States dropped by 4.3 percent compared to the same six-month period in 2017.

While the overall rate of violent crime has seen a steady downward drop since its peak in the 1990s, there have been several upticks that bucked the trend.

Between 2014 and 2016, the murder rate increased by more than 20 percent, to 5.4 per 100,000 residents, from 4.4, according to an analysis of FBI data. The last two-year period in which the rate soared so quickly was between 1966 and 1968.