Let me begin by saying that I’m not some Tighty Righty law-and-order type. I firmly believe in the preservation of civil liberties, due process, the whole Constitutional argument, etc.
None of this changes the fact that I am appalled by the increasing number of deaths and injuries (direct and collateral) due to gang-related violence. In one recent incident here, a group of youths were asked to leave a block party by its organizers because they were acting like your typical badasses, cussing up a storm in front of families with their children. They left, only to return about an hour later with weapons, and proceeded to fire indiscriminately into the crowd. Four people died, and no one has been captured yet, mostly because the witnesses are refusing to identify anyone, ostensibly out of fear of retaliation.
This got me to thinking…it doesn’t sound too much different than the insurgent gangs in Iraq. Considering the fear of the populace and the amount of innocent victims from acts of gang violence, couldn’t we find some way to consider what these lowlifes are doing a form of domestic terrorism? Then maybe we could actually use the Patriot Act for something constructive–ridding our streets of a real threat as opposed to the throw-it-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach.
> None of this changes the fact that I am appalled by the increasing number of
> deaths and injuries (direct and collateral) due to gang-related violence.
Cite? The amount of major crimes (and that includes gang-related violence) dropped fairly consistently (and, on average, quite steeply) all over the U.S. between about 1993 and 2004. Do you actually have any statistics that say that gang-related violence is up? Over what period? In what region? If your statistics are over a single year and a single city, isn’t it more likely that the increase in such violence is just a blip?
I agree. The much-feared "Super Predator" is mostly gone. Now the real bad guys just have a tendency to become members of Career Criminal Enterprises (CCEs). Much of that may be in part due to legislation, though. Either way, getting killed for your Reebok Pumps is mostly a thing of the past in the US.
However, gang *activity* has certainly increased in suburban areas as these gangs/organizations recognize that it's much easier to get away with illicit activities in smaller towns with less-savvy police in regard to their types of activity. Suddenly, a middle-aged white guy is unable to effectively demonstrate street-cred.
Please don’t infer that I am in any way defending the actions of these youths, however I am curious about the details of this case. I am not entirely familiar with a concept of a block party but am I to understand it is a neighborhood gathering on a public street/front yards/park? Were these youths in any way part of the neighborhood? This is fundamentally important because regardless of how wrong it is to shoot up a family crowd, it is also wrong to exclude people from a public gathering based on the way they dress, look or talk (that’s what private gatherings are for).
This brings up an interesting point that these youths really had very little recourse in a situation like this and although resorting to violence is an unacceptable option , their only other options were either leaving and sucking it up or an open confrontation right there and then. I don’t think you’ve said anything that specifically indicated that this was in any way gang related and apparently several living, breathing human beings just like you or I thought that shooting up the crowd was the correct thing to do for them at that juncture. Youths that at least somehow identified with the neighborhood. You can call it depraved but based on what you described it is more desperation rather than depravity - the endless quest to prove yourself as something when you are regarded as nothing by society, even if by showing off your supposed anger and emotional coldness by killing innocent people.
Please tell me this is a whoosh!!! You’ve got to be kidding me!!! You claim to not be defending their actions but you attempt to justify them.
When our neighborhood had a block party (we got a permit from the village to put saw horses across the entrance to a cul-de-sac) everyone brought food, drinks, tables, chairs and we even rented one of those inflatable bouncing things for the kids and had a band. When a bunch of local teens tried skateboarding through the people, knocking tables over and harassing the girls, a bunch of us got together and told them to leave. Yes, it was a public area, but everyone involved also paid to be there both through direct contributions for the entertainment and through the food they supplied. But, even if it was 100% free, there is no reason anyone should have to put up with inappropriate behavior.
The OP said it was the perps behavior that got them kicked out. Your saying
is pathetic. The proper thing, if they can’t behave like civilized human beings, is to leave and suck it up. They are not wanted. They should move along.
Desperation!! How about common decency! How about giving a damn about other people! How about not being an asshole by shooting innocent people because someone finally stood up to your punk attitude! How about growing up a little and realize that you can’t always get your way!
I’m going to stop now before I get reprimanded by the mods or else before I am tempted to create a Pit off of this thread. But that would be OK because that is the SDMB version of coming back with weapons to show off my “supposed anger”.
I tried to find a news article on this, since I wanted to know more about this. I couldn’t find this incident on any Google News search or ReviewJournal.com, which is odd if 4 people got killed.
These kids got snubbed. But no matter how badly they were snubbed and how pissed off they may have been, there is no possible level high enough to justify them shooting people. They could have been the most humiliated people in the history of the world and it wouldn’t entitle them to go on a shooting spree.
I can commiserate with the OP. This is too frequent an occurence in NYC and surrounding areas (although my google-fu is lacking and I don’t have a name to help my search). During July / August, the outdoor block party season, this happens about every other week - not always resulting in a homicide, but unless the victim is a cute child, rarely rating more than a few paragraphs on page 6.
It’s not always ‘gang-related’, unless you consider any thug-like activity from a gang member to be gang-related. The ejectees aren’t being ‘snubbed’; they’re being ejected for being inconsiderate asses and thugs. I will give you that these miscreants may feel snubbed, because their pea brains can’t process the link between their actions and others reactions.
Wendell, while violent crime overall is down, we don’t know if perhaps it is up in the OPs area. Also, the media is very good at scaring people out of context. After one hears of 2-3 attacks like this in a short period, it may seem like a wave. As I noted, you tend to here more about this during summer here, simply because there are more parties during the summer.
See, now, I think this is the scariest thing about the Patriot Act and it’s ilk. It’s too effective, and too easy, to get a prosecution under the Patriot Act…
Prosecutors don’t like to take cases unless they know they can win. Prosecuting someone under the Patriot Act makes things a lot easier (as I understand it). Are you certain they’ll stop at using it for gang violence? Why wouldn’t they start using it for other, less serious crimes, if it’s so effective?
Not really. There is a difference in definitions. Terrorism is used to describe violence with political motives. Gang violence is any violence related to gangs.
Even though domestic organized crime is not technically terrorism; it is still more of a threat to our country than Islamic terrorism will ever be. But can you imagine any politician saying we should fight domestic organized crime instead of fighting the war on terror?
Oh come now- what recourse do people have when asked to leave somewhere because of rowdy behavior, but to come back to the event with guns and shoot up the place? Can’t have people thinking they’re punks, can you?
Couldn’t you just make some sexual remarks about their mothers and then loudly declare that you were just getting ready to leave to go to a better party anyway?
> Wendell, while violent crime overall is down, we don’t know if perhaps it is up in
> the OPs area. Also, the media is very good at scaring people out of context.
> After one hears of 2-3 attacks like this in a short period, it may seem like a
> wave. As I noted, you tend to here more about this during summer here, simply
> because there are more parties during the summer.
I said in my post:
> If your statistics are over a single year and a single city, isn’t it more likely that
> the increase in such violence is just a blip?
So what if gang-related crime is up in the OP’s area? What want2know is proposing is that we apply the Patriot Act to gang-related crime everywhere in the U.S. Yes, everywhere, because you can’t limit it to a single city, state, or region, since it’s a federal law. And this is my point. want2know wants to apply the Patriot Act to gang-related crime not because it’s up all over the country, but because there’s a blip in the amount of one kind of crime in one region over a limited time period. And, let’s get it clear, there will always be blips in the amount of crime. That’s just how randomness works. Even if the average amount of crime is decreasing fairly fast all over the U.S. (as was true from about 1993 to about 2004), there were cities and years and crime categories where there were increases in a given year for that city and that crime. You can’t allow blips to dictate your policy for your overall, long-term crime-fighting policy.
Gangs shooting at a party because they didn’t want to leave, insurgents torturing and executing dozens of people at a time or detonating car bombs because they want the US to leave or to create a theocracy… yeah, pretty much the same.
This is something that a number of us have worried about over the last few years: diluting the meaning of terrorism until it means nothing at all. I hate to employ slippery slope reasoning, but if you could tell me how gang violence is terrorism and something like rape or child molestation or school bullying ISN’T terrorism? They all create fear in the victims and communities of potential victims.
Isn’t this actually throwing more stuff against the wall, though? When you talk about intentionally expanding a law beyond its intended purpose, that’s what it sounds like to me.
When you talk about intentionally expanding a law beyond its intended purpose, that’s what it sounds like to me.