Friday, August 3, 2007

Black-on-Black Crime: No one is saying anything - including the Democrats

Will the Democrats address Black-on-Black Crime - should they?

The statistics tell a tragic story. According to federal crime figures, homicide is the leading cause of death among African-American males aged 15 to 34. They also indicate that between 1976 and 2004, 94 percent of black murder victims were killed by black offenders. While "black-on-black crime" is having a devastating impact across the country, its racial overtones have made it a difficult problem to address or even discuss.

The Truth is black babies, black women, black men are dying on the streets of America.

Is this our own Iraq war right here in America? What can we really do?

Are we powerless to control this crime wave?

In What’s Possibly the Worst Black-on-Black Crime in Decades, Why are Al & Jesse So Silent?


Can voting for Obama help? Can Voting for Hillary help? Can voting for Edwards help? Can voting really help? Or is it times for all hands of deck and all able bodied black men and women to take too our streets and reclaim our communities? What could have been done in these situations like the one Raw Dawgb and others report on?

watermelon man

by: Raw Dawgb

Bridges aside, I have more pressing things on my mind and as usual they focus on my community. I’m not gonna say that we killing our own over peanuts, but it may turn out to be such if and when the assailants are caught. Yesterday here in the metro Atlanta area, a man was shot to death early while selling watermelons from the back of a truck in Chamblee. More HERE



There is more. I'm not sure if this was black on black but it sure smells like it.

Outspoken Oakland Editor Shot And Killed



A memorial is set up Friday, Aug. 3, 2007, on the Oakland, Calif., sidewalk where journalist Chauncey Bailey was slain Thursday. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Associated Press and Michael H. Cottman, BlackAmericaWeb.com

The outspoken new editor of The Oakland Post was shot to death Thursday near a downtown courthouse in what police believe was a deliberate hit.

Chauncey Bailey, 57, who had been a reporter for The Oakland Tribune before moving to the Post in June, was killed around 7:30 a.m., Oakland Police spokesman Roland Holmgren said. Witnesses told police that a single gunman had shot Bailey and then fled, he said.

Police had no motive for the killing, but said it did not appear to be random. Holmgren said investigators would look into any possible connections to Bailey's work.

"All of those possibilities will have to be definitely explored and explored thoroughly," Holmgren said. "I've spoken with him several times. I know him as being a somewhat outspoken-type individual, assertive in his journalistic approach when trying to get at matters at hand."

Bailey grew up in Oakland and worked with several area media outlets, including KDIA Radio and Soul Beat TV, a local cable channel. He wrote for the Tribune for more than 10 years before being named editor of the Post, a weekly community newspaper. More HERE

It's Out of Control

In my hometown of Roxbury, as reported by the Boston Hearld, Two men were gunned down and a third critically injured in a shootout on a Roxbury street early this morning.
Boston police told the Herald this morning two men were “pronounced dead” and a third remains in “critical” condition after the ambush on Williams Street not far from Dudley Square.
Police say the gunfire started at about 2 a.m. on the street near 37 Williams St. Police this morning could not say what sparked the deadly exchange. There is also no word yet on any suspects being sought.
The identities of the victims are not being released, but Boston police are reporting online today that a 28-year-old black man was dead on arrival on the street.
Police report a 20-year-old black man was rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.
The critically injured man, said to be 27 years old, is being treated at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
The injured victim reportedly drove himself to Boston Police B-2 station with "multiple gunshot wounds" and he was transported to the hospital, reports state. More HERE


There is more!

Violent crime engulfs New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS — The district attorney of this bloodstained city in July dropped murder charges against a man alleged to have massacred five teenagers, saying the sole witness was nowhere to be found.

A day later, an angry New Orleans police chief, who had not been warned that one of the city's most sensational criminal cases was being abandoned, trotted out the supposedly elusive witness at a news conference. He said it took his investigators three hours to locate her by calling a phone number sitting in the case file.

The bungling of the murder case, which has outraged New Orleans and led some officials to call for the head of District Attorney Eddie Jordan Jr., illuminates the city's continuing inability to bring even high-profile suspects to justice.

Nearly two years after Hurricane Katrina, it has become clear that New Orleans' failure to control violent crime presents an obstacle to the city's repopulation every bit as big as the shortage of affordable rental housing and the slow disbursement of government aid to rebuild homes. Yet the criminal-justice system continues to be plagued by political backbiting, inexplicable communication breakdowns and, in some cases, outright incompetence.

more HERE

It's getting even crazier now there is black cocaine. in America's urban community.

There is more!

7 - year - old South Ben girl shot during break-in

Incident is second time child has been shot in South Bend this month.

SOUTH BEND -- As she huddled in the bedroom of her cousin's home, the 7-year-old girl screamed, afraid of what the intruders might do next.

Moments earlier, two masked men carrying handguns had kicked the front door of the home, which is in the 600 block of South Illinois Street.

When it held firm, the pair kicked the back door until it yielded. One of them wrestled with the girl's cousin, a stout 31-year-old man. He yelled for everyone to run to the bedroom, then took his own advice.

Police now are looking for the two intruders. Based on a description provided by witnesses, they describe them as two black men -- one 6 feet 3 inches tall, weighing a little more than 200 pounds, and the other 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighing a little more than 180 pounds. more HERE

There is More! Hundreds if not thousands of stories like this everyday. In Detroit, LA, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, Oakland, New York, New Haven, Dallas, Forth Worth, Atlanta, Charlotte, Kansas City, Cincinnati, and other places throughout America. All of this going on while many in the black community say nothing, do nothing, and be nothing!

Will the Democrats say anything? Will the Democrats do anything? What can they do? What should they do?



6 comments:

Francis Holland said...

It's really scary. When I was applying to law school in 1990, there was a terrific murder wave going on in Roxbury, Massachusetts. I was very reluctant to go to law school in Boston, but I did anyway. I lived on East Springfield street in the South End, a ten minute walk from the Dudley Square area that you discuss above.

But, when my sister was in school in Boston, the Dudley Square stop was where we got off the train to go to her apartment two blocks away.

It's terribly scary, what's going on. And it's apparent that the American "system" isn't going to do anything about it. In other industrialized countries, there are strict controls over handguns. It's unthinkable that there would be machines guns on the streets of Japan or France or Belgium. They simply wouldn't permit those guns to be manufactured and sold there in the first place. Those guns are illegal and highly unusual.

The massive number of killings in America is directly related to the massive number of cheap and available guns. If there were not so many guns on the streets, then those who wanted to kill others would be forced to run after them and stab them, which would require so much effort that many who are now victims would get away, many who are unintended victims would never be hurt at all, and America would be a much safer place.

With a knife, it is simply impossible to "drive by" and kill somebody, or even ten people. Even if you have excellent aim, you can only kill one person with one knife.

That's why guns need to be outlawed. They're simply too effective at killing.

What would Black neighborhoods be like if there were no guns? Would they be safer? I believe they would be, because people rarely stab children to death, but children are often the victims of gun deaths.

But, America loves guns, loves violence, and some sub-cultures among Black people don't seem to be very different in this respect. We will probably NEVER get a handle on gun deaths until we get a handle on the guns themselves.

You cannot control obesity while flooding the streets with Twinkies (strange analogy, I admit), and you cannot control gun deaths while flooding the streets with guns.

Francis Holland said...

That's a powerful video above. As though jail has become a normal part of the environment for many Black men, almost as normal as school and more normal than college.

Although it affects Black men most, I don't think it says something special about Black men. I think it's a symptom of a very sick society - the same sort of society that lets makes guns as normal as toasters and television sets, that denies its citizens health care while providing them with wars, that issues pollution permits so that BP can increase its pollution of Lake Michigan by 25%.

It's a terribly sick society.

AAPP said...

Francis, you spoke about a part of town I grew up in. Yes it was not easy growing up in Boston. Back in the day, people in the neighborhoods came out and took care of each other. It's really bad here in the states as you point out. But times are going to be changing. I'm hopefully that the AfroSphere will be able to get the Democrats to address the critical issue of crime in communities throughout America, specifically - black America.

I didnot realize you attended law school in Boston, my brother did as well.

Francis Holland said...

Yes, it finally came down to Boston or New Orleans, believe it or not. My mentor convinced me that I would have more of a support network if I stayed closer to home, and he was probably right. I ended up with a very strong support network to help me complete law school successfully, in Boston.

Of course, there's no way at all to know how things might have gone in New Orleans.

plez... said...

i've taken a lot of flack from conservatives and constitutionalists, but i still support the abolition of 2nd amendment (the right to bear arms...)! we are no longer a fledgling country where a "well armed militia" is needed to defend the states against federalist aggression!

but that removal of the 2nd amendment would take "an act of Congress" and it is obvious that you'd be hell-bent to find even ONE Congressman who would touch such an initiative with 10' pole!

the Democrats, the Republicans, the Independents - NO ONE is going to touch gun control until we have a Columbine or Virginia Tech massacre on a weekly basis in middle America! the deaths (of Black people) in urban America means NOTHING to lawmakers because that is a disposable constituency that has no lobby in Washington or in our state capitals.

Francis Holland said...

I, too, support the abolition of the Second Amendment. It's anachronistic. One only need look to countries that don't permit such gun ownership (like France and Japan) to see that murders are far less frequent there.

The United States has the highest rate of gun ownership AND the highest murder rate AND the highest imprisonment rate, because the Second Amendment is utterly inappropriate in the 21st Century.