My children are mostly grown now, in various stages of college and work. They have survived so far what is becoming youth’s increasingly perilous journey in our communities — a landscape of intensifying drug and gang activity, violence and crime. If this is not in your backyard yet, it will be — unless we all become more than observers, pundits or critics.
Many already are on the front lines or in harm’s way in this struggle: police officers on the beat, teachers in the classroom, store clerks and bank tellers, victims of all ages and their families — but especially vulnerable are our young people, both on campus at ECU and others in their Greenville apartment enclaves.
Last Sunday, Demetrius Lamar Boone of Winterville was found in the breezeway of one of these, the Pirates Cove complex on Greenville’s 10th Street. He had been shot, reportedly during a confrontation with members of the “Crips” youth gang who had tried to crash a party.
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Comments
Who to blame
The parents are to blame because they failed to see when they were young the teachings of the bible and the teachings of you should be punished when you violate the laws and rules that govern society.
This may not be all their fault as liberals have caused this nation to stop punishing wrong doers. It starts when the teachers and the parents can no longer punish children. It started when black leaders started questioning why they were stopped for traffic violations and made so many false claims against Police officers that the tax payers had to buy cameras for police cars. It stopped when Presidents sit down and have a beer because a Police Officer did his job at a reported break-in. It stops when Members of the City Council are arrested and the tax payers pay their legal fees.
It started when we made the criminals the victims and their pry the people who should not have been there in the first place. The Blame game started years ago and now because we are weak on punishment we are soft on crime and the criminals know they stand a chance of little or no punishment. We have let Black Panther members go untried because the administration protected them from prosecution. Ask yourself if that had been a white group who stood outside a polling place with weapons.
For Greenville it started when a Police Chief was hired for his skin color. He already had a history of crime and gangs exploding at his two previous jobs. It is still a problem in both areas because his weak policies on crime in the Black community. Because he failed to address or stop the serious crimes of gang violence from entering our city. Now that he has lost control and cost the lives of young people is he being praised for reading to third graders. Let's see the problem for what it is and see that the chief failed to do his job and protect this town. Reading does not stop crime enforcement in high crime areas stops crime. Judges that make criminals stay in jail stop crime. People reporting crime stops crime. Take a real bite out of crime! Remove the chief and hire a Chief that is qualified for the job at hand and not on his skin color.
I believe much of this stems
I believe much of this stems from the government paying unwed mothers to have children. The children get little and grow up in the street. Then the liberals want to blame society for the problem. I do not blame society, I blame sorry parents. The government does not do a very good job of parenting children. Rewarding unwed mothers to have babies for benefits will only make the situation worse.
Al, and you DON'"T think we haven't been doing anything?
This commentary is useless without some specific plans to monitor these youth. You do not think these children have had police officers in their classroom before? What is this nonsense?
"This process begins with acts as quietly straightforward as Chief Anderson’s visit last week to a third-grade classroom, where he read and interacted with many children who might not have had the opportunity to see such an authority figure so close-up."
Heck, they do not know the Chief from a patrolman. What a waste of the Chief's time; but Al thinks its a wonderful public relations job- all fluff, no substance- that's our Chief of Police.
Get your head out of the clouds Al, the Chief need not be in the classroom, he needs to do his job, which means having his staff monitor our City properly.
Al, your simplistic view of the world has got us to the stage in which we find ourselves today. You think that a little cookies and milk (the chiefs visit) is HIS job. Do you EVER hold a public official accountable?
Another simplistic , soft article about a subject deserving of much better writing and solutions.
Pass the cookies and milk
Bullies used to get a come to
Bullies used to get a come to Jesus moment at the knuckles of someone who did not believe in letting bullies get away with what they like to do. The nanny state decided to be blind and prosecute everyone as if they were the problem starting about 25 years ago. This is the result. If you dismantle the nanny state, the bullies and the terrorists will sit down and shut up. If the law decides not to look into the disappearances and deaths of gang members and drug dealers, they will quickly cease to be a problem. Mr. Clark believes in the nanny state. We can already see how that's working out.
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