A Community in Crosshairs (NYC is backsliding)

nynewsday ^ | 9/27/03 | Sean Gardiner

[newwahoo]

No one has to tell David Williams the homicide rate in South Jamaica has skyrocketed in the last year. As owner of David Williams Funeral Services on Sutphin Boulevard, he sees it first hand.

"It's coming back, maybe not like it was in the early '90s but you are definitely seeing more," said Williams.

[newwahoo]

The author hits most of the subject on point. He does leave out one of the major sources of the problem, however. There is a significant recruitment and retention problem going on in the NYPD, driven by a noncompetitive salary and poor working conditions. Good cops are leaving in droves to other departments and the city cannot find new ones to replace them. Some New York FReepers may have noticed the advertising campaign that has been going on. It is a failure. This is shown by the NYPD's need to once again extend the deadline for filing for its written test, the initial step in joining up.

I can further attest that morale is dangerously low. Most officers are beginning to see that aggressive police work is only rewarded by lawsuits and condemnation from the liberals and race hustlers.

[JoeGar]

The killings ... represent 16 percent of the city's 436 slayings ...

This means that an American is more likely to be killed in New York City than in all of Iraq. You don't see that on your nightly news (from New York City).

[maxwellp]

Where's Mayor Rudy when you need him? A very liberal Mayor Bloomberg might be the cause of this disaster.

[newwahoo]

Things aren't really out of hand here yet. I just see a lot of little things that lead me to believe that we're on the long road back to the "Old New York". Despite whatever stats the city provides, my conversations with other New Yorkers also show me that people don't feel as safe as they did a couple of years ago (outside of the whole terorism issue).

And as you well know, there are lots of things you won't be hearing on the news regarding either Iraq or NYC!

[toddst]

This means that an American is more likely to be killed in New York City than in all of Iraq.

Alas it has been so for many years. NYC is a very dangerous place for law-abiding citizens because they are prohibited from protecting themselves from the street scum. No gun permits for the commoners and every criminal knows that to be so.

Concealed carry for average law-abiding citizens would transform the place IMO.

[newwahoo]

The mayor is only part of the problem. Having cop haters like black panther Charles Barron on the city council is a bigger part of things. Then you can throw in "do not prosecute" District Atorney Johnson of the Bronx to the list of guys that are spinning the revolving door of justice. Do a crime, serve no time.

[newwahoo]

"Concealed carry for average law-abiding citizens would transform the place IMO."

So would a city-wide enema. Neither are likely to happen in our lifetime. There are just too many liberals....

[45Auto]

"It's alarming," said State Sen. Malcolm Smith (D-St. Albans). "We're not sure what's causing it,..."

And a few paragraphs down ,

Rapes are up 5 percent and auto theft is up by 5 percent while assaults are even. Meanwhile robberies (-10.8 percent), burglaries (-28 percent), grand larcenies (-15 percent) are all down this year.

So while homicides are up 212.5 percent over 2002 this year to date, the precinct's crime rate — the total of those seven crime categories — is actually down by more than 8.5 percent compared to last year. Some civic leaders believe the falling crime numbers are not so much a product of less crime as victims' failure to report it. Clopton said she had seen and heard from the community about "a return to some of the old issues we faced, the car dumping, the prostitution, the drugs and the blatant [display of] weapons. I see people flipping knives and showing guns."

Trends in crime have variability; as long as the drug trade is profitable, there will be seemingly senseless violence. Senator Smith needs a refresher course in the war on drugs and a history lesson about Prohibition to figure it out. And in NYC, its a given that none of the potential victims (except fellow gangsters) will be armed, thanks to 60 years of stupid gun control aimed only at the lawabiding citizen. Of course law enforcement can do very little about it. The gang-bangers own many of these precincts.

[newwahoo]

FYI

[harpseal]

NYC has a problem which it was able to get taken care of for a while by actively enforcing all teh quality of life laws but in order to really get teh murder rate down the need to adopt a rational gun control policy like Vermont.

[harpseal]

NYC has a problem which it was able to get taken care of for a while by actively enforcing all teh quality of life laws but in order to really get teh murder rate down the need to adopt a rational gun control policy like Vermont.

[toddst]

. . . in NYC, its a given that none of the potential victims (except fellow gangsters) will be armed, thanks to 60 years of stupid gun control aimed only at the lawabiding citizen. Of course law enforcement can do very little about it. The gang-bangers own many of these precincts.

10-4. Having lived in NYC some years back and gotten to know my neighbors, it's my opinion there are many conservatives living in the city, but they have not become outraged enough to demand change. I don't understand why.

[Alberta's Child]

"No one has the answer on why there are so many more guns on the street . . ."

Bullsh!t. Everyone knows why there are so many more guns on the street, but nobody has the b@lls to say it.

The increase in gun-related crime in New York City coincides with the end of New Jersey State Police random stops on the New Jersey Turnpike -- we can't have any of that racial profiling, now.

[45Auto]

"Thirteen of the victims are black men. Five are Hispanic men. Four are black women. Two are Middle Eastern men and one a Guyanese woman. " Thirteen of those victims were shot. Nine were stabbed. Two were bludgeoned to death with objects and one hit his head on the ground after being punched.

So about a 50-50 breakdown as to method of killing, half with guns, half by other means. And what does the fearless new Mayor Bloomers propose? More gun laws in a city in which only criminals and police have firearms, where no one can get a permit to even own a gun, let alone carry one in public, and where those who use arms to defend family and property go to jail. And Senator Smith is baffled......which goes to show you that smart people don't go into politics.

[cyborg]

do not prosecute...Unless you're a lawabiding veteran like that man who was put in jail for defending his SON against a RAPIST.

[newwahoo]

I don't think anyone who has lived here the past 15-20 years can dispute that there was a huge change for the better in the '90's. While an armed citizenry would have helped make it even better, impressive things were accomplished by the NYPD. Now I'm on the inside watching this ghettoblasting, crimefighting machine veer towards a cliff as the wheels fall off.

Its so sad to see, and its going to have a horrible effect on all the good people that have stuck it out here tthrough these last few difficult years.

[JmyBryan]

You're making far too much sense. Don't you know that the problem is too little money for schools?

(sarcasm)

[gitmo]

But NYC has eight Vermeers.

[newwahoo]

"The increase in gun-related crime in New York City coincides with the end of New Jersey State Police random stops on the New Jersey Turnpike -- we can't have any of that racial profiling, now."

You're going to see more that here now too. CYA is becoming the force's new motto. We now have a federal judge and a liberal group overseeing our statistics regarding who we "stop, question and frisk". If you stop a lot of people of a certain background its going to be thrown in your face when you get sued while the city does anything it can to weasel out of defending you in court.

[newwahoo]

I can just picture that Vermeer guy. He probably backs racial profiteering at the expense of cops and the city but he'll come crying to me three years from now when he guts mugged.

He left us out of his snobby little piece. Any large city would be proud to grab the NYPD and its statistical accomplishments over any Vermeer. Much more important to the average joe citizen than a painting.