Jim Mork wrote:
Does a police car in the vicinity of a protestWM: Well, yeah, it does. Not necessarily an assigned surveillance, but cops are trained to surveil, so they surveil habitually.
NECESSARILY mean surveillance of the protest?
WM: When you're standing outside in the middle of the night and a kid's blood is running down the gutter and the back of his head's blown away with the exit wound, and you know the kid's a gangbanger, and before he got offed he was unkempt and uncaring about himself and everyone else, the line between the good kids and the bad kids disappears. He's a kid. He's 15. He's dead because of stupidity, his own and others. They've all been innocent when I've looked at them lying there.I don't know how that would work over in Central. One would hope than any such efforts over there would get a lot of response now that innocent blood was spilled.
WM: There is an entirely different dynamic at work in Central. Police have to figure out how to manage with the dynamic presently in place. What could be helpful is to have more African American, American Indian and Latino officers and CCP Safe civilians so that other cops could be in a position to pick up on cultural nuances and learn how to work with them.And the police could tell the community what it wants and doesn't want from the civilians, in terms of gang-control cooperation.
WM: One of the things that is observable about gang bangers is that they choose one or two households on the block to be held "responsible" for the fact that the cops are showing up all the time. They put it out on the drums that X household is calling 911. That person is usually an African American around here who is observed having positive interactions with European Americans (the current buzz word). That person/household will be subjected to vandalism in a big way. Anyone seen having casual, positive interactions with police will be subjected to vandalism ($1,200 so far this year at my house). Destruction of the front garden at my neighbors house. Bicycle thrown through the window at another neighbor's house. Parked cars "accidentally" banged up. A few years back two of my neighbors were held down and beaten up for a lark. This is done to bring about silence. It works to a certain degree. Whatever retaliation happens as a result of gangbangers, the price can be pretty high.Perhaps Southside Pride could involve itself in such an effort. Specifically, community members shouldn't place their lives at risk. But making 911 calls alone shouldnt be risky. Testifying in a trial will be harder due to the fear of being targeted, but if police figure out where activity takes place, one would think they could plant their own witnesses.
The only thing we have found to work is to take the position that we're staying and gangbangers get the option of changing or leaving through whatever legal processes are available. So far most leave, but move only a very short distance where they make a deal with a different relative. Some stay and give the appearance that they are not dealing. Then, one day, the cops and the county and whoever have enough evidence or (most often) someone in the house makes the big mistake and all the legal ramifications kick in. We're dealing with a huge intergenerational clan of chronic offenders and their enablers. They are one of the two or three largest clans in the area. (This does not imply that the other clans are into gangbanging, just that they, too, are large.) By the way, gangbangers are segregationists to the max.
WizardMarks, Central
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