THE HORRIFIC CONSEQUENCES OF DEFINING DEVIANCY DOWN

Volodymyr Zhukovskyy is what happens when you stop enforcing all the laws, for all the people.  The photo of him above is at his arraignment in Springfield Mass. on Monday (6/21).

He’s 23, here from Ukraine on a green card.  Here’s a timeline of his driving history provided by WMUR radio news:

2012

Zhukovskyy was charged with unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, negligent operation of a motor vehicle and speeding. All charges were dismissed.

2013

April 25 – Zhukovskyy received a personal driver’s license in Massachusetts.

June 16 – Zhukovskyy received a violation for operating under the influence of liquor. He served suspensions and attended education classes for this violation, including a youth alcohol program, since he was under the age of 21 at the time.

2017

Zhukovskyy pleaded guilty to drug possession in Massachusetts.

2018

Aug. 3 – Zhukovskyy received his commercial driver’s license in Massachusetts.

2019

Feb.11 – Zhukovskyy was arrested in Baytown, Texas. He was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia.

May 11 – Arrested on OUI charge in Connecticut. He refused a chemical test, which should have led to the suspension of his driver’s licenses in Massachusetts, officials said.

May 29 – Connecticut officials put information about the charge into a state-to-state computer system. Not enough information was entered to automatically trigger the suspension of his driver’s license, said Massachusetts officials, requiring a manual review of his status as a driver in Massachusetts. As of June 23, the review had not yet been done. Connecticut officials reviewed their process and believe all information was input correctly.

June 3 – Zhukovskyy was involved in a crash in Baytown, Texas. Officials said he was driving a Mack truck hauling a trailer with cars on an interstate when it flipped on its side after hitting a guardrail.

Investigators said Zhukovskyy claimed he overcorrected after a car cut him off. He was not cited in the crash.

June 21 – Zhukovskyy was driving a 2016 Dodge pickup truck that crashed into a group of motorcyclists on Route 2 in Randolph, killing seven people and injuring three others.

June 23 – Authorities identified the seven people killed in the crash.

June 24 – Zhukovskyy was charged with seven counts of negligent homicide in connection with the crash.

June 25 – Not-guilty pleas were entered for Zhukovskyy on all seven counts.

In addition, the head of the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles, Erin Deveny, resigned after learning Zhukovskyy’s license should have been suspended following the OUI charge in Connecticut.

June 26 – WMUR learned that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials placed a detainer on Zhukovskyy for after the criminal proceedings conclude.

If you tell one group of individuals that, for whatever reason, there are certain laws they no longer have to abide by, it’s not long before everybody else begins to believe that there’s no reason they should be held accountable for any crimes they commit either.

Here’s the deal for any society: either all the laws have to be enforced for everybody, across the board, or pretty soon they’re not going to be enforced for anybody.

The only alternative is to start repealing all the laws that are apparently optional for some people, but not others. Fair’s fair, right? Isn’t that what the 14th amendment is all about – equal protection under the law?

Yes, I know, Volodymyr Zhukovskyy is not an American, but he is in the country legally (pending the ICE detainer of course).

The problem is, with all the illegal immigrant criminals who are here getting a pass, day in and day out, on everything from identity theft to fentanyl dealing, why shouldn’t Volodymyr, too, have expected all the passes he got … on drunk driving, on cocaine, on heroin, on larceny, in Massachusetts, in Connecticut, in Texas?

And so he enjoyed his multiple passes, right up until last Friday afternoon (6/21), when he killed seven Americans by driving a pickup truck into a group of motorcycle riders in northern New Hampshire. His victims were military veterans, friends and family members.

It’s been called defining deviancy down, this policy of looking the other way when it comes to bad behavior, until what used to be unacceptable is normalized.

An antidote to this society-wide breakdown of civilization is the broken-windows theory of law enforcement: If you stop criminals when they commit less-serious offenses, maybe they’ll get the idea. Or at least be off the street for a while.

Seriously, until Friday what did Volodymyr Zhukovskyy have to fear from the criminal justice system? Everything he ever did got him nothing more than a wrist slap. He’s from Hampden County, where the mayor of Springfield, a Democrat, has repeatedly begged the local judges to stop releasing violent criminals back into the community.

Hampden County is where a couple of years ago a judge had before her a Dominican welfare fraudster, who had stolen more than $40,000 in food stamps at his bodega shop. The judge told the foreign felon, if you were an American, I’d sentence you to prison, but you’d be deported if I did, so I’m going to give you a suspended sentence that will allow you to stay in this wonderful nation.

Volodymyr Zhukovskyy is charged with killing seven people on Friday night, and he doesn’t get picked up by the state police until Monday morning, more than 60 hours later. Yet the cops still report finding suspected heroin “residue” in his home in West Springfield?

Not only does he never seem to get punished for the crimes he commits, he doesn’t have to even pay for his own legal defense. He can come up $2,500 for bond on his latest OUI charge down in East Windsor, but he gets a public defender after he’s accused of wiping out half the Jarheads Motorcycle Club?

And note: at his hearing on Monday, he pled not guilty!!!

Forget sanctuary cities, or sanctuary states. It’s a sanctuary nation for Volodymyr Zhukovskyy and millions like him, citizens and illegal immigrants alike.

Consider Jose Vittini-Arias, an accused illegal immigrant Dominican fentanyl dealer. He was arrested last week by the local cops in Salem, Mass. on drug-trafficking charges. But the state had never gone after him after they discovered that he had fraudulently obtained a state driver’s license. They just revoked his (Real ID-approved) license, and he allegedly went on selling poison in Essex County.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker was asked about the Salem case Monday, and he shrugged it off.

By the way, Tall Deval (our Republican Gov’s nickname) has now flown off to London to deliver the keynote address at the 2019 RenewableUK Global Offshore Wind Conference. First things first.

The point is, if you don’t lug an illegal immigrant drug dealer like Jose Vittini-Arias for identity theft, why would you go after a legal petty criminal Volodymyr Zhukovskyy? Defining deviancy down.

The problem is, if nobody ever gets taken down for anything, how long is it until you’re letting state troopers — sworn law enforcement — embezzle tens of thousands of dollars from the federal government, and then allowing them to walk out of court without serving a single day in prison?

Oh wait …

Howie Carr is a well-known radio talk show host in Boston.