Richard Wallace

I like to comment about a wide range of issues and sports.

[Richard Wallace @RGwallace]

@CalBearsHistory Did he get a parking space?

[Richard Wallace @RGwallace]

NYC, keep talking about the Knicks and maybe @SamAntar will stop looking at your books. That’s your only hope.

[Sam E. Antar @SamAntar]

NEW MINI-INVESTIGATION: How NYC reports a violent-crime decline that didn’t happen. Let’s look at the last 28 days.

🚨 There was no 5.6% drop in violent crime. NYPD’s own report produces that number by comparing two different kinds of data. Match them, and the decline vanishes — apples-to-apples, violent crime is flat, with three of four categories actually higher than a year ago.

Here’s the trick.

For the latest 28-day period, NYPD compares fresh, preliminary 2026 numbers against 2025 numbers that have had a full year to be revised upward. Both reports admit it in writing: figures are “preliminary and subject to further analysis and revision.” The current year hasn’t been revised yet. Last year has — all year long.

Compare the same kind of data — 2026 preliminary against the preliminary 2025 numbers NYPD itself published for the identical 28-day period a year ago — and the 5.6% decline doesn’t shrink. It disappears.

As the report frames it (2026 fresh vs. 2025 revised):
• Murder: 22 vs. 25 (−12.0%)
• Rape: 153 vs. 153 (0.0%)
• Robbery: 1,040 vs. 1,253 (−17.0%)
• Felony Assault: 2,517 vs. 2,523 (−0.2%)
Total violent felonies: 3,732 vs. 3,954 = −5.6%

Same kind of data (2026 fresh vs. 2025 fresh):
• Murder: 22 vs. 14 (+57.1%) — small numbers, so read the counts, not the percent
• Rape: 153 vs. 146 (+4.8%)
• Robbery: 1,040 vs. 1,191 (−12.7%)
• Felony Assault: 2,517 vs. 2,371 (+6.2%)
Total violent felonies: 3,732 vs. 3,722 = dead flat.

Three of the four major violent-felony categories are higher than a year ago. The “decline” is an artifact of the comparison, not the crime data.

Here’s where the 5.6% comes from. Over the past year, NYPD revised the 2025 numbers upward — its own counts for the identical 28-day period, a year apart:
• Murder: 14 → 25
• Rape: 146 → 153
• Robbery: 1,191 → 1,253
• Felony Assault: 2,371 → 2,523
Total: 3,722 → 3,954 (+232 crimes)

Inflate last year’s baseline by 232 crimes, hold this year’s un-inflated, and you’ve conjured a 5.6% “improvement” out of thin air. Nothing about actual crime changed. Only the maturity of the data did.

The revisions themselves are routine. The spin isn’t. And this isn’t a one-administration problem — CompStat has reported preliminary-against-revised under every mayor. That’s the point: the comparison is built to flatter whoever’s in office, every single week.

If 2026 follows the same pattern, these “fresh” 2026 numbers will get revised upward too — and today’s flat line will tilt positive.

One window, equal length, both sides 28 days, both numbers straight from NYPD’s own reports. (I’m not touching year-to-date — the 2026 report runs through June 14, the 2025 report through June 15, so YTD isn’t a valid one-to-one comparison. The 28-day window is.)

The report’s framing: down 5.6%.
Apples-to-apples: flat, with three of four categories up.

Same source. Same crimes. The decline only exists if you grade two different years on two different curves.

[Richard Wallace @RGwallace]

@sfmcguire79 My state’s ability to destroy things is unparalleled. However, in 1978 I took math PS at Berkeley and then got an A in calculus.

[Richard Wallace @RGwallace]

@gary_weiss You are not being fair to empty suits.

[Richard Wallace @RGwallace]

@SamAntar You would have shipped ballots to Panama in one election and used them in the next.

[Richard Wallace @RGwallace]

@LukeFHan I wonder what Matt Fradd had to say about this?

[Richard Wallace @RGwallace]

Some fraudsters change and stop being fraudsters. Looking at you @SamAntar

[Sam E. Antar @SamAntar]

A lesson from someone who used to commit fraud:

Fraudsters exploit trust.
Fraudsters exploit kindness.
Fraudsters exploit loneliness.
Fraudsters exploit morality.
Fraudsters exploit the desire to believe the best in people.

That’s how white-collar crime works.

My latest interview on how criminals really think and how to protect yourself and your family:

https://t.co/z00a1sfSdS

[Richard Wallace @RGwallace]

@semibuttnoid @Nero Hopefully we can agree to disagree. @Nero ‘s comments were not so nuanced.

[Richard Wallace @RGwallace]

@semibuttnoid @Nero Langone never applied the term to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. According to Gemini “Langone has explicitly stated that he is ⁠uncomfortable with the term "cult" because it is highly charged, subjective, and often used as a pejorative”

[Richard Wallace @RGwallace]

@Latterdaytruth @RykerJackson97 Forgetting a hyphen is up there with disrespecting the Oxford comma.

[Richard Wallace @RGwallace]

@Deseret3rdBook Very interested in this subject. I believe my great great grandfather James D Watt was involved.

[The Deseret Alphabet: A Fixed & Unalterable Sound @Deseret3rdBook]

Countdown to The Deseret Alphabet: A Fixed and Unalterable Sound, June 30!

There's a previously-unremarked Deseret glyph rediscovered in research. At 400 followers we'll post it. Tell your friends!

26 days left. We'll be @MormonHistAssoc Fri–Sun

Book: https://t.co/az5YknJQhL

[Mike Pence @Mike_Pence]

Great to join @BillHemmer to discuss my new book What Conservatives Believe!

[Richard Wallace @RGwallace]

What’s going on in the Church’s MASSIVE Humanitarian Center? https://t.co/1P0DmcCqgC via @YouTube

[Richard Wallace @RGwallace]

@CalBearsHistory @CalBand Cal Band Great!

[Richard Wallace @RGwallace]

@Latterdaytruth Seminary test results.

[Richard Wallace @RGwallace]

@CalBearsHistory @GreekBerkeley My HS and Boalt graduations were both held at the Greek. The speakers at these graduations were not so illustrious.

[Richard Wallace @RGwallace]

@CalBearsHistory @ced_berkeley @ucbsoj The unfavorable contrast of Wurster Hall is astounding

[Richard Wallace @RGwallace]

He did good work.

[Cal Bears History @CalBearsHistory]

Architect John Galen Howard, the individual most responsible for the look of Cal's campus, was born May 8, 1864. He designed most of the structures built between 1901 & 1930, including the Campanile, Sather Gate, Doe Library, The Greek Theatre and California Memorial Stadium.