Humpday Happenings...
In today's J/G is a little police brief that everyone should take a look at. It talks about a house that was shot at last Sunday morning around 0246 Hrs. (the FWPD blotter has it tagged at 0302 - I guess it takes a while to decide whether or not to really CALL the police). I know the correct time, because it woke me from my sleep.
The shots fired call occurred on Monroe between Sherwood Terrace and Maple Grove, and that's plenty close enough for me to hear it, believe me.
((Here's the entire story on the J/G website as reported by Abby Slutsky)):
Victim ties drive-by to ‘beef’ with gangs
The uninjured victim of a drive-by shooting last weekend told police it could be connected to gang activity.
Fort Wayne police were called to the 4600 block of Monroe Street about 3 a.m. Sunday to take a report from the family, who was home at the time. Two family members were outside when a blue Bonneville drove past. A passenger in the car pointed a handgun out the window and fired, hitting the house, a police report said.
A bullet went through a front window across the top of the couch and hit an interior wall before landing in the middle of the living room floor. Officers found a brass shell casing in the street, the report said.
The homeowner’s daughter told police she might have been the intended target. She was the victim of another attempted drive-by shooting at her home on Spatz Avenue recently, the report said.
She told police she has a "beef" with the Vice Lords or Mobsters. She believed one particular person was behind the shootings. She would not elaborate on why anyone would want to shoot her, the report said.
Now isn't it nice to know we're SO safe in our houses?
I'll bet that not one of these thugs is even thinking (as usual) about the "what if" factor, as in WHAT IF the bullet HIT someone you weren't aiming at (spend more time at the range, moron), or if the bullet ricocheted off in another direction, damaging property (it ain't my house, so screw it). And let's face it, we don't have 3 ft thick reinforced concrete walls on our houses, do we? Nor do we have Kevlar-impregnated ceramic composites making up our siding and shingles, right?
So we're not going to be stopping ANY ordnance that is .22 cal or LARGER now, are we?
And I'll be the first one to tell you that there is ONE tried and true saying that has held true since the wonderful world firearms was created, and that is:
Bullets are DUMB.
M'OK?
Bullets don't know any better when they leave the muzzle of whatever device is expelling them. They go where they are TOLD, and in the direction they are pointed (unlike many small children today), and will ONLY deviate from their path when acted upon by something that gets in their way (it's a little something we like to call physics). And just like any traveler suffering from jet lag, a bullet will do the exact same thing when it reaches it's destination.
It will COME TO REST.
So what if we DO have a GUN problem OR (even) a GANG problem in this city. It's (as some liberals would say) just an expression of the cultural nuances that have been suppressed by these people since the days of slavery.
Let's forget that what constitutes a real FAMILY, namely parents, has fallen on hard times and is dissolving faster than 2 Alka-Seltzer tablets in a glass of water.

Let's forget that time and again, the ONLY answer the black community seems to come up with is to gripe until ANOTHER funded program is placed in front of them to exploit.

Let's forget that the only "real" courage the community has is found in a bottle of cheap-ass brandy.

Let's forget that the same community fails to see the trouble in the first place, and when they do, all they can manage is a shoulder shrug (I guess ignorance is STILL bliss).

And let's forget that ANY level of authority is placed squarely in the realm of DISDAIN by such people. The ONLY authority is THEMSELVES, and that's the only person they seem to answer to. No responsibility, no accountability, and no subjugation from any HIGHER authority. They are their own ALPHA and OMEGA, or so it would seem.
Then again, we're talking about ANARCHY...and NOT any form of a DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC, right?
If CHAOS is left to reign, then the only ruling faction cannot be any form of ORDER.
And yet month after month, I send along my "statistics" to the FWPD in the HOPE that something can be done to keep crime at bay. And by the looks of things, I don't see much getting accomplished.

But drug deals are flourishing, and with the "one-step" cooking facilities for METH now being found in the back seats of cars (don't drive over that manhole cover - we might go BOOM) of the white trash brigade, it drives home the point even harder.

Now one would think that when a police department is supplied information concerning specific vehicles, times, people, houses, etc., something would (eventually) come of it. Funny thing, after all these years, I can't say I'm seeing ANY progress. And I measure that progress by having this neighborhood return to the way it USED TO BE about TEN years ago (and that would be a step UP). Sorry, ain't seeing it happen. If anything, it gets progressively worse, year after year.
Now if I were REALLY fatalistic, I could point out that every single one of us is only ONE second away from eternity. Well, that's actually more factual down on the SE side of town than elsewhere. I prefer to think of this as being REALISTIC.
If I'm sitting down, watching TV, I always have to have in the back of my mind that any second, something could come through a window or the side of the house. Because, as we all know, bullets never KNOCK FIRST (nor do bricks).
Now tell me how one can pursue this "quality of life" or this "quiet repose" that many city ordinances speak of, when MY police department cannot even enforce something like the noise ordinance? And by enforcing, I mean NOT to drive past and tell them (for the 647th time) to "turn it down". I mean take the damn stereo AWAY from them, confiscate the vehicle and call it done?

Perhaps the police are afraid of the ramifications...who knows?
Sorry, but when you have any law-enforcement agency that operates on a purely REACTIVE basis, you have to acknowledge that they will rarely (if ever) arrive BEFORE something occurs.

Now that might some a bit prophetic in nature, but with a police department that has a better grip on the neighborhoods (and the people inhabiting them), has a community NOT afraid to work with them (and not the occasional concerned lone wolf citizen), and is doing every thing it can to become PROACTIVE, then a lot of this can (and will) be avoided.
It's like I always say: "Community-Oriented Policing will ONLY work when a COMMUNITY gets involved".

Anything less, and the program, along with it's mandates means less than the ink used to draft it, as well as the paper it was written on.
Fort Wayne is a HUB (like on a wheel). Many cities can be found at the ends of it's "spokes", and those cities are at the tops of many lists, namely crime. We are a nexus for crime. Sorry, but that's the way the geography panned out. We are a way-station for thugs from larger cities who come here to ply their trades and practice their "vocations".
Now if you like having a house shot at, I suppose it's not such a BAD city. But it IS Fort Wayne...and not BAGHDAD.
Let's make that perfectly clear, in spite of all the locals walking barefoot down the middle of our streets.
We're the 2nd largest city in Indiana, and aside from the fact that we are definitely in the running for one of the TOP FIVE crime spots in the state, let's not all be so anxious to move closer TO the top of that list, shall we? We need look no further than Indianapolis to see how well things are going THERE, right?
Let someone else have that top o' the list "distinction", OK?
We deserve better...and should demand such from those running the show here.