Posted on 02/14/2009 12:42:13 PM PST by NittanyLion
For decades, an anti-snitching mentality has hampered law enforcement in Coatesville, but the code of silence may not be fireproof.
The string of arsons plaguing the once-thriving steel town in Chester County - 44 fires set in the last 13 months - may be prompting some people to think twice about their reluctance to cooperate with authorities.
[snip]
Some residents, who declined to identify themselves, said not even the $20,000 in reward money from the Coatesville Arson Task Force would motivate them to cooperate with police. One older woman said that she believed her grandson had information, but proudly added that he wouldn't tell the police.
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
> And what is this about “your First Amendment”? Are you not a fan of it?
Sorry for that — I’m a Kiwi, so we don’t have a “First Amendment” per se. We do have freedom of speech protected by our bill of rights, but it isn’t absolute and neither should it be, IMHO.
Darn shame if Granny's house burned down...
What a bunch of idiots!
You might be able to make an argument for banning shirts with messages like “No Snitching,” but in this country we place a higher value on freedom of speech than the rest of the world. It protects some bad stuff, but IMO it’s still a good idea since it also protects “unpopular” speech (such as a religious condemnation of homosexual behavior) that in Europe might be banned under hate crimes legislation.
I generally agree. However, one of the big areas to which the “no snitching” code applies is “illegal” guns — the ones the Second Amendment guarantees us all the right to keep and carry, and which people in dangerous neighborhoods urgently need in order to protect themselves. Eliminate every one of the d@mn unconstitutional gun control laws, and then a campaign to wipe out the “no snitching” code would start to make some headway.
I haven’t been following this closely, though it’s not very far away from my home. What I haven’t seen is information about the mortgage status or owner vs renter occupancy status of these homes. Some may be being burned down with the consent of the “owner”, who either lives there and has an underwater mortgage that’s about to get foreclosed, or is a landlord who hasn’t been receiving rent for a while and can’t keep paying the mortgage and insurance without rental income. The chief reason I suspect this is that with so many houses getting burned over such a long period of time, the “no snitching” forces in the town certainly know who’s doing it by now, and have elected not to eliminate the responsible party or parties. The no-snitchers generally prefer to handle this sort of problem themselves, and they do it a heck of a lot faster and cheaper than our absurd “justice” system. The arsonists are clearly not doing anything the no-snitchers disapprove of.
I live about 35 miles away, so I don't have any local knowledge. My general feeling is that this is the same sort of attitude that results in belief that education is the enemy. Sadly, it's this self-defeating, victim mentality that is the scourge of the black community.
I drove around Coatesville not too long ago, trying to find a place that could be considered “not too Third World” as a possibly (cheaper) place to live. I failed in finding any part of Coatesville that was not Third World-ish.
While I was looking up these fires, I came across the information that they are mostly rentals. They mentioned that because most of the residents did not have renters’ insurance, while the buildings were insured. This reminds me of what used to happen in Atlantic City before gambling. They used to say that Atlantic City had three seasons, winter, summer tourist and fire. They used to call it Jewish lightning because most of the owners were Jewish.
We once lived in Chadds Ford. What a contrast there is between the east side of Chester county and the rest of the county.
The city of York, a few miles up the road, tried something similar and also lost. Now all the residents of York county will pay the settlement for years to come due to a$$hole commissioners
Their attorney, in front of a jury of their peers, could quite successfull argue that it is a message to end shoplifting!
Snitch, even in non-US English, has multiple meanings, and reasonable doubt is easy to instill in jurors who have the same mindset of those "youths".
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