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Alleged Man-Burner With Over 100 Arrests Represents Repeat Crime Problem in America

(Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Jarrett Stepman / @JarrettStepman

Jarrett Stepman is a columnist for The Daily Signal. He is also the author of "The War on History: The Conspiracy to Rewrite America's Past." Send an email to Jarrett

America doesn’t have a crime problem; it has a repeat offender problem. High crime in this country has mostly been a matter of choice by reckless politicians beholden to prison “reform” ideologues.

A recent story highlights that reality.

On Tuesday, NYPD arrested 47-year-old Damon Johnson, a resident of Brooklyn, and charged him with murder, assault, and reckless endangerment. Johnson was charged in connection to the lighting of a homeless man on fire in Penn Station, one of the busiest train and subway stations in the country.

This wasn’t the defendant’s first rodeo with violence.

“Johnson has about 131 prior arrests dating back to 1995 in the Bronx,” ABC News 7 reported. “He is on parole for a 2018 robbery, when he slashed a student’s face and took cash from his pockets. That victim required more than 100 stitches.”

Other outlets, like the New York Post, reported that Johnson had only been arrested a mere 88 times. The Post noted that Johnson had been previously arrested for assault, “petit larceny, drug use, theft of service, and forcible touching.” He’s had, according to the district attorney, “a pair of violent felony convictions and 39 disciplinary convictions.”

Honestly, it doesn’t matter if Johnson had been arrested 88 times or 131. It’s beyond absurd that a man with such a lengthy record of villainy was free to roam the streets.

“There is a systemic effort by the Left to keep savages on the streets,” Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts wrote of Johnson’s alleged misdeeds on X. “To them, violent criminals are the real victims: victims of some social injustice that entitles them to endless chances for ‘reform,’ regardless of how many innocents they maim or kill along the way. It is a worldview of the purest evil.”

Damon Johnson in NYC, Abdul Jalloh in Fairfax County, or DeCarlos Brown Jr. in Charlotte—there is a systemic effort by the Left to keep savages on the streets. To them, violent criminals are the real victims: victims of some social injustice that entitles them to endless chances… https://t.co/mIrVqTHVLL— Kevin Roberts (@KevinRobertsTX) March 5, 2026

Damon Johnson in NYC, Abdul Jalloh in Fairfax County, or DeCarlos Brown Jr. in Charlotte—there is a systemic effort by the Left to keep savages on the streets. To them, violent criminals are the real victims: victims of some social injustice that entitles them to endless chances… https://t.co/mIrVqTHVLL

I agree. The Left routinely portrays such folks as the “true” victims of crime in America. If only we were more committed to anti-racism and their endless social programs that shovel equally endless amounts of money into failed projects that never fix the issue.

The truth is, most Americans aren’t criminals. This country doesn’t have to be known for having dangerous cities. Our problems can be solved if we focus on stopping anti-social behaviors and putting larger penalties on repeat offenders.

The issue isn’t the criminals, it’s the broken, perverted justice system that doesn’t properly punish them until they commit the most heinous crimes imaginable.

The New York Post reported in September that “63 career criminals” had been arrested over 5,000 times in the subway system, “yet only five of them are currently behind bars.”

Many of these folks go on to commit crimes elsewhere too, of course.

According to data released in 2024 by NYPD Chief of Transit Michael Kemper, 38 people who had been arrested for assault in the subway had been linked to an additional 1,126 crimes in the city.

There are all kinds of stats like that in New York.

The New York Times found that in 2022, nearly one-third of all shoplifting arrests “involved just 327 people,” who were collectively arrested over 6,000 times.

It’s the same people, committing crime after crime after crime. Imagine for a moment if we actually kept these people behind bars.

New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino said it well on X.

“We actually have an incredibly small criminal element in this city,” she wrote. “The problem is they’ve been allowed to do whatever they want with virtually no consequences for years now, so their impact on our quality of life is disproportionately huge.”

This is a very simple fact that nobody seems to realize. Eric Adams talked about it often, and so have others, myself included.We actually have an incredibly small criminal element in this city.The problem is they’ve been allowed to do whatever they want with virtually no… https://t.co/2HuBpEeMSF— Councilwoman Vickie Paladino (@VickieforNYC) March 6, 2026

This is a very simple fact that nobody seems to realize. Eric Adams talked about it often, and so have others, myself included.We actually have an incredibly small criminal element in this city.The problem is they’ve been allowed to do whatever they want with virtually no… https://t.co/2HuBpEeMSF

Paladino explained: “Catch and release, chronic downgrading of charges, decriminalization, bail reform, sanctuary policy—it all serves one purpose, to get recidivists back on the streets committing crimes.”

And this isn’t just a New York City thing. 

New York was significantly better following the “broken windows,” crime-fighting revolution under Mayor Rudy Guiliani. The city is merely backsliding into the attitudes that brought on the disastrous crime waves of the past.

No, this issue crops up in one big, blue urban area after another. It’s built on the inversion of traditional justice, the insistence that career criminals be given three, five, 80, 100 chances to prove that they are “reformed” this time.

Until that issue is resolved, crime in these areas will continue to be a problem regardless of national trends.

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Today, even with President Trump’s victory, leftist elites have their tentacles in every aspect of our government.

The Daily Signal’s own Tyler O’Neil exposes this leftist cabal in his new book, The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government.

In this book, O’Neil reveals how the Left’s NGO apparatus pursues its woke agenda, maneuvering like an octopus by circumventing Congress and entrenching its interests in the federal government.

You can read the first chapter of this new book for FREE in this eBook, The Woketopus: Chapter One using the secure link below.

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