Humpday Happenings...
We have reached another dubious pinnacle here in the Summit City...THIRTY (that's 3-0) homicides for 2010, and we STILL have two solid days to go.
And here I predicted "only" twenty-five...what WAS I thinking?
I would have included it in yesterday's post, but the story didn't come across until late in the morning.
So, although it may be a day late, we're far from a dollar short on this one.
Here's the skinny to the latest shooting on (where else?) the SOUTHEAST SIDE of the city:
(( Dec 28, 2010 at 12:17 PM EST
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (Indiana's NewsCenter) -- An early morning shooting has left one man in Fort Wayne.
Just before 7:45 this morning, police were called to the 1100 block of Fayette Drive where they found the victim in the driver's seat of a full size pick-up truck.
The man was suffering from multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene.
A source told Indiana's NewsCenter that the truck also appeared to have multiple bullet holes on the outside.
At this time, Fort Wayne Police do not have any suspects. If the shooting is ruled a homicide it will be the 30th in Allen County this year. ))
(( Update - 29 Dec -1600 hrs - The man has been IDed as Alejandro Danioel Nunez, 28 of Fort Wayne by the coroner who confirmed this was a homicide. ))
Now, I suspect one of TWO possible scenarios could have occurred.
1) The man was shot on scene as he sat in his RAM pickup...which would make me wonder WHY no one heard the multiple gunshots in the apartments?
A lot of these people tend to have both selective HEARING a well as selective MEMORY whenever something like this happens.
The other scenario is this:
2) The man was shot somewhere else, and managed to make it to the parking lot and shut the truck off BEFORE he passed out (and maybe bled out as well).
What I did notice in the video from WANE, was that there were distinct snow-tracks leading from the curb onto the parking area to the pickup.
Wifey thought it could have been from the ambulance, but they aren't usually in the habit of jumping curbs - not for the recently deceased anyway.
And there were no tracks leading AWAY from the area the pickup was parked.
My guess would be that it might have been the pickup that jumped the curb to get to the parking spot, where the driver then passed out or bled out. Another thing in the video - the pickup tail lights were still ON.
But, as is always the case down here in the ghettohood (aka The Badlands), is that whatever seems plausible is usually 180 degrees about.
You learn to think outside the box when it comes to what COULD have transpired.
WHY did NO ONE hear any gunfire, or at least report "fireworks" in the area? The call came in that there was a "possible shooting victim". How would anyone know that UNLESS there was gunfire? And anyone that believes the man killed himself might want to rethink that. There were MULTIPLE wounds and holes in the truck, so either he's a REALLY bad shot, OR he was shot by SOMEONE ELSE (my thought).
This part of town just can't seem to let go of homicides...for some strange reason.
Thing is, it makes living one's life for people such as the Missus and I a little bit more "difficult".
You never know if someone is lurking nearby...waiting for their chance to accost you, or worse.
I am always checking whenever we pull in or out of the garage for lurkers.
Same goes for parking lots around town, because these predators wander around other areas of the city too. There isn't much to write home about when it comes to shopping down here these days, so that's why these thugs seek their "thrills" elsewhere in the city.
And whenever these jerkoffs decide to shoot at ONE ANOTHER, they have NO idea what it means to "look beyond your target" to minimize collateral damage to innocents. Hell, most all of them can't hit a bull in the ass with a bass fiddle unless they're right ON TOP of the damn thing!
Which means that "at distance", you would pretty much have the ADVANTAGE (and distance would mean anything OVER 15 feet the way these mooks shoot). It becomes a classic study in Sun Tzu - "Know your enemy and know yourself".
I've always believed that you find some way to rehab these hovels, move some veterans (preferably with nice chips on their former military shoulders) down here, and crime will drop markedly (if not disappear altogether).
Hell, at this point, we'll take any help we can get, 'cause God knows the city isn't all that interested in doing ANYTHING to stop this diseased part of town.
If anything, they're helping it along, as is evidenced by THIS story:
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20101229/LOCAL/312299959
The city (and mayor) have "workshops" designed to garner more FEDERAL money for HUD (as if the money they got SO FAR hasn't done ENOUGH DAMAGE to our part of Fort Wayne). Hey, maybe they're going to EXPAND into "nicer" areas of town, so others can "enjoy" all the benefits from having Section 8'ers as neighbors (along with the crime, filth and apathy that comes with it).
Stop GIVING these people sh*t and instead teach them to get it for themselves (legally).
THAT is how people become responsible and take PRIDE in what they've achieved.
Finally today, let's crunch some sobering numbers...
(( Police fatalities jump 37% in 2010 - Greg Bluestein - AP
ATLANTA – Two officers in a remote Alaska town were ambushed as they chatted on a street.
A California officer and deputy were killed by an arson suspect with a high-powered rifle as they tried to serve a warrant. Two other officers doing anti-drug work were gunned down by men along a busy Arkansas highway.
These so-called cluster killings of more than one officer helped make 2010 a particularly deadly year for law enforcement. Deaths in the line of duty jumped 37 percent to about 160 from 117 the year before, according to numbers as of Tuesday compiled by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, a non-profit group that tracks police deaths.
There also was a spike in shooting deaths. Fifty-nine federal, state and local officers were killed by gunfire in 2010, a 20 percent jump from last year’s figures, when 49 were killed.
The total does not include the death of a Georgia State Patrol trooper shot twice in the face Monday night in Atlanta as he tried to make a traffic stop.
And 73 officers died in traffic incidents, a rise from the 51 killed in 2009, according to the data.
Craig Floyd, director of the Washington-based fund, said the rise in fatalities could be an aftershock of the nation’s economic troubles as officers in some communities cope with slashed budgets.
"We’re asking our officers to do more with less. We’re asking them to fight conventional crime, and we’re asking them to serve on the front lines in the war against terror," he said.
Last year’s toll of 117 officers killed was a 50-year low that encouraged police groups. But this year’s total is more the norm than an anomaly: The number of police deaths has topped 160 five times since 2000, including 240 in 2001. The annual toll routinely topped 200 in the 1970s and before that in the 1920s.
The deaths were spread across more than 30 states and Puerto Rico – with the most killings reported in Texas, California, Illinois, Florida and Georgia. The two law enforcement agencies with the most deaths were the California Highway Patrol and the Chicago Police Department, each with five.
Ten of the shooting deaths came from five tragedies in which several officers were shot and killed in groups.
The cluster shootings started in February, when authorities say a Fresno County, Calif. deputy was shot by an arson suspect who had vowed to kill investigators and himself rather than go to prison. The killing led to a daylong gun battle during which a police officer was also shot and killed. The gunman later killed himself.
In March, San Juan authorities say two park rangers serving as guards at Puerto Rico’s Department of Natural Resources were gunned down by invaders who jumped a fence during an attempted robbery.
Two West Memphis police officers doing anti-drug work in May were shot to death by two men wielding AK-47s along an Arkansas interstate. The suspects were later killed in a shootout that injured the local sheriff and a deputy at a crowded Walmart parking lot.
In June, authorities say a man wanted for writing a bad check shot and killed two Tampa, Fla., police officers after he was pulled over at 2:15 a.m. And in August, a man was charged with killing two officers chatting in front of his home in the tiny Alaska village of Hoonah.
Maria Haberfeld, a professor of police science at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the rise of community-oriented policing over the last few decades has also had the unintended consequence of lessening the public’s respect for officers.
"It’s a cascading effect of the people thinking police are here to serve and protect them on an individual basis" instead of acting as an arm of the government, she said. "We spend hours teaching children about Shakespeare and history, but we don’t devote even an hour a week to the role of police in creating the world in which we live."
The uptick in traffic deaths also troubled analysts.
The research didn’t reveal what led to many of the traffic deaths, partly because local departments often don’t keep complete records those fatalities, said Floyd. But he said it suggests that more research is needed to investigate possible driver fatigue and distracted driving.
"We’re asking citizens not to talk and text on their cell phones, but we’re providing officers with laptop computers and cell phones and radios," he said. "That means taking their attention from the road. Are we putting too many distractions in police vehicles?" ))
Those of you in law-enforcement know exactly what the score is on the streets and highways out there.
The regular citizens don't normally come by these facts and figures readily.
But, this is something EVERYONE needs to be aware of.
And, it should "be in our face" all the time, to keep us focused on what these brave individuals do FOR us all every single day, at every hour OF those days.
The group shootings are the most disturbing.
In some cases, this goes beyond a mere shooting...it should be called MURDER.
And that is a very troubling trend.
I've also said here that officers have too much going on in their patrol cars, and they often miss the obvious stuff (like license plate bulbs that are inoperable, or those god-awful boomcars). TWO-OFFICER cars are a must, given the amount of technology crammed into those cruisers.
That way you've got ONE set of eyes on the street, head on "the swivel", while the other officer helps navigate, processes data, rides the radio, etc.
Let's pray things change soon so that this year's number is not repeated in the coming year.
In the meantime:

Be well, make a difference to someone, and...
Stay safe out there, America.