Barbara Lickness wrote:
Chris, you make these strong statements about Peter McLaughlin from your viewpoint as a resident of the Fulton neighborhood.
I'd second what Barb has to say here. I'll add that a new crime wave is
also immaterial for those of us living in the central city crime
concentrated neighborhoods, since without the wave we are still dealing
with the criminals constantly reoffending, seemingly without consequence.
Instance: crime wave or not, we're still up to our eyebrows in pimps,
prostitutes, and johns. There have been no john/prostitute sweeps
lately; they've very labor intensive and we don't have the cops to
devote to that problem. I've got workmen all over my house doing
repairs, part of which was to remove my rotting privacy fence, regrade
the back yard, then replace the fence. The workers hadn't had the fence
down more than a half hour when a doxie was in the yard trolling for
customers and checking out the house, presumably for her dog.
(Folks may not know that many a street walker travels around trailed by
a "dog." The prostitute identifies things worth stealing from cars,
yards, and businesses and meets up with the dog at prearranged corners.
She tells him where stealable stuff is, he returns and steals it.)
I'm retooling my back yard, partially so that prostitutes and gang
bangers can no longer use the area where I keep the trash cans as a
place to do business--the hookers actually drag mattresses down the
alley and plant them behind the trash cans. The gang bangers defecate in
the recycling boxes and behind the trash cans. The other reason for
revamping the back yard is to create secure parking for our only car
which has had its windows broken twice and the plastic I covered the
breaks with slashed several times. My neighbors, particularly those who
live on the corners, are also replacing their car windows at a rapid
rate. C&J Motors, across Oakland from me, has had five break-ins this month.
This past winter my kid had a gun put to his head on our front porch.
He'd been followed home from the bank on pay day. Having enough cops may
not have stopped this crime, but it may have. (Greg Rheinhart pointed
out that he caught a murderer when he apprehended a jay walker.)
The cops are just not here anymore in enough numbers, but the number of
miscreants is just as high as it ever was. The Lake St. Repaving Project
has scattered the drug dealers, but they haven't gone far. There was a
shooting just behind my house on Park last week (Bill Cullen delineated
that one.) There have been many shootings at Park and Lake. There have
been many more shots fired incidents without a death or injury, thank
god. A store was firebombed. A woman was shot four times in front of my
house because she wouldn't give up her back pack to some jerk. The
homeless kids are saying that the summer gang bangers are shooting them
in the leg to warn them to leave different areas.
There are two corner stores and a gas station within 500 ft. of my
house. I won't step foot in any one of them because the miscreants are
all over them every time a squad car goes by. Instead, I jump in the car
and drive a mile or more to a store with a cop on duty.
Our front gate makes a noise you can hear for a block because it wants
greasing. We won't grease it--it's the early warning system.
VJ and Maddads and lots of other folks have been out in the streets
twice in less than a month over the murder of a young person in the
streets around here. People have been murdered in their homes with
bullets coming through the windows and walls (newer homes).
Personally, I'm entirely unimpressed with statistical data about status
I or status II crimes. I see this s*** all day, every day and I'm
wwwwwaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy tired of it.
When you're living in Fulton and many another reasonable neighborhood
you may fear crime, but it's fear, not actuality. I know McLaughlin
understands it and I know he ponders on how to alleviate it and takes
steps to do so because we've bent his ear many, many times. As near as
I can tell, RT doesn't have a clue. When he pronounced that only those
with a high risk life style need be afraid, I knew for sure that not
only didn't he get it, but he didn't give a rat's patootie about it.
Since the chief job of the mayor is police, fire, and public works and
he's decimated police and fire, he doesn't deserve anyone's vote.
WizardMarks, Central
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