Isela Camarena has been arrested for, allegedly, setting a fire at the Islamic Center of New Mexico. This heinous act follows a bunch of heinous driving Ms. Camarena has perpetrated over the years.

In considering such things as Ms. Camarena’s past brushes with traffic laws, two observations:

• Just how bad does a case of “Failure to Obey Signal” have to be for someone in ABQ, we’re talking Albuquerque here, to be stopped/charged with the offense?
• If you look back through pretty much anyone convicted of heinous stuff, there’s almost always plenty of traffic violations in their past (too often with charges eventually dropped, imho).

Ms. Camarena has been arrested (Thanks, APD!), charged (but not with a Hate Crime, yet), and prosecutors have even filed for pretrial detention. If successful, that would, at the very least, leave us with one fewer shitty driver on Albuquerque roads for a while.

Ms. Camarena’s traffic past, according to NM Case Lookup, is just part of a veritable smorgasbord of crime with which she has been involved. BB is not suggesting that preventively, permanently locking folks up for bad driving would put a sizable dent in our crime problem (although it would), but more follow-up and conviction for driving offenses, especially repeat offenders, would very likely make our streets, and our communities, safer.

While prosecution of driving crimes only dovetails with the general legal tendency these days to dismiss and not prosecute charges, arguably too often, it would be hard to talk me out of thinking that heinous driving isn’t seen as criminal in a car-culture.

And that line of car-culture thinking is getting people killed and Islamic Centers, allegedly, set on fire.