It was a day of twisted irony. It was the day nationally recognized for neighborhoods to take back their own streets. Yesterday was National Night Out, a day that should have been a day of peace and neighbors getting to know each other, instead it was one of the worst days of violence in many years. Three men are dead in separate incidents and another is critically injured.
The numbers are continuing to climb. Last year at this date, there were 37 homicides and it was a banner year for murders. This year we are already far ahead and while we could go the rest of the year without another homicide, it is highly unlikely.
Wave 3 News reporter James Zambrowski was at the scene of one of the murders and interviewed Chief Robert White. Chief White made the statement that we are doing our best. We face the age-old problem that people need to come forward to help solve these crimes. When James Zambrowski asked Chief White if he felt he was losing control of the city, Chief White became angry and told him that before these murders occurred, he had just assigned 20 more Officers to the area. He also stated that unless people come forward to help that these crimes would continue.
He is exactly right about that. People in the neighborhoods are the key to reducing and one day eliminating so many crimes. We can patrol 24/7 and we cannot stop random murders from happening. What we can do is stop career criminals from roaming the street and repeating offenses and living the thug life. It makes me sick when we do our job to investigate suspicious activity and we get complained on. We get accused of profiling. Even Chief White, who is African American, was recently accused of this by a local defense attorney because he was trying target repeat offenders.LPD formerly had unit called R.O.P.E. (Repeat Offenders Program). It later evolved into the Street Crimes and Gang Units. Both of these units were eliminated under merger at the direction of Chief White.
I am tired of hearing that excuse of some of the liberal groups that we have to appeal to the criminals better nature, we have to give them something else to do like midnight basketball programs using a phrase coined by our Chief, "That's a crock of crap".
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We need to come down on these thugs and come down hard. We need to make life miserable for them, as they are making life miserable for the decent people that live in these areas. We need to make sure that the Judges and Prosecutors follow though and put the thugs behind bars. We cannot do it alone.
The people need to fight and take back heir own neighborhoods, not with guns and knives, but with telephones and information. You cannot tell me that the people living in these areas do not know what is going on. Here are a few tips for identifying problems in your area:
If you see someone hanging around that does not belong, call the Police.
If you see people coming and going for short periods of time (5 minutes or less) and there is a lot of traffic to that house, call the police.
Do not approach these people yourself. Call the police.
If you know someone in your neighborhood that has warrants or that has committed a crime, call the police.
(DO YOU SEE WHERE I AM GOING WITH THIS?)
In an era where nobody wants to get involved and everybody wants to remain anonymous, just call the police. You can do that anonymously too. We trained a generation to dial 911. We taught them that we could solve life's problems for them at the touch of a few buttons, so why aren't they calling?
Some of them don't call because they have a very real fear of retribution. The shocking truth is we can help, but we really can't protect them. There are too many people to protect. And we are still way too many officers short on the street.
Some of them don't call because they are hesitant to get involved. They don't want to snitch on anybody, they have warrants on them themselves or they just don't like the police. A witness to a murder may be a different thug standing on the corner or an accomplice that isn't going to come forward unless he is going to get something out of it. Many times when they get jammed up on other charges they will play their knowledge of other illegal crimes as a way to reduce their sentences. They don't call us because they are concerned citizens. They couldn't give a fat rat's behind for the people in their neighborhood.
The information we get from them is generally good information, but information is like a puzzle that is put together. We can't make arrests based on anonymous tips, but they help point us in the right direction. We can't do search warrants based on hunches. We need facts that have been corroborated by our own independent investigation. We need probable cause in order to arrest and put these thugs away.
The only way that we are going to stop these crimes from happening is to arrest the subjects before they commit further crimes. The only way we can do that is if the people in the neighborhood provide the information that the police need to solve the crimes being committed. We need your help. We need you to call when you see the suspicious character hanging around your neighbor's house or outside the corner market. We need you to call us if you know something about a crime.
WE NEED YOUR HELP! ALL WE ASK IS THAT YOU CALL US. IT IS YOUR LIFE AND YOUR CHILDREN'S LIVES THAT WE ARE TRYING TO PROTECT.