Posted on 09/12/2008 12:22:05 AM PDT by wac3rd
For much of the latter part of summer, police officers in Helena, Arkansas, shouldered military-style M-16 rifles equipped with laser sights and patrolled the streets of this little community of 15,000. White signs on large blue barrels were placed in a 10-block area, warning that it was under 24-hour curfew. "Everybody is subject to being stopped and questioned," said Mayor James Valley. "Our officers will ride in unmarked vehicles, pull surprises on people and check everybody out to see who they are."
A crime spree prompted a similar lockdown in Hartford, Connecticut. After a chain of shootings that left one 21-year-old dead, a 15-month-old shot in the left leg and six young people wounded, the city in August imposed a 30-day emergency curfew on everyone under the age of 18. Mayor Eddie Perez said in a statement: "We must do this because we cannot and will not tolerate innocent people, especially children, to be victims."
A growing number of U.S. towns and cities are fighting escalating crime by imposing tough curfew ordinances. In Chicago, young people under the age of 17 have to be off the streets by 10 p.m. on weekdays and 11 p.m. on weekends. Mayor Daley believes the ordinance will help prevent further gun crime, which has taken the lives of nearly 30 Chicago public school students this academic year alone. But while the curfews may be popular with voters, civil rights advocates argue that they are violating constitutional rights
Curfews "essentially place an entire demographic under house arrest for the inappropriate actions of a few," says David McGuire, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney in Connecticut.
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(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Mainstream Media's Priorities
1. Political correctness 2. Public safety 3. Factual correctness
You forgot advancement of the liberal socialist agenda - that is Numero Uno.
Helena, Arkansas
32.5% under the age of 18
10.0% from 18 to 24
22.1% from 25 to 44,
20.0% from 45 to 64
15.5% who were 65 years of age or older
30.59% White
67.93% Black
0.73% Latino
About 38.4% of families and 41.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 54.9% of those under age 18 and 24.
Anyone surprised by these demographics? Didn’t think so. This ain’t exactly Mayberry. You’ve got a massive population of young hoodlums running around. Lots of little cities like this in Western Arkansas.
All they gotta do is outlaw crime.
Lots of little cities like this in Western Arkansas.
Helena is in East Ark right on the Miss. border.
Yes. I understand very well, I live in diverse Oakland, CA where the self-professed ex-Black Panther Socialist Mayor Ron Dellums has nearly 200 murders per year, typically 75% black-on-black, the rest primarily Latino.
If the crime is black-on-black, how can you blame another race?
Global warming?
Bush's fault [somehow]!
Just to be picky, Helena is on the Mississippi River, the border is in the middle of the river.
Picky, picky, picky. ;^)
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