Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Shooting In Normal Heights

I've kept my comments about the Sunday morning homicide in Normal Heights restricted to my MySpace page, but I thought I should post it here, since there will be a vigil tomorrow night.

There was a bulletin going round, that I'm not gonna repost here, but it basically said there was a shooting (half a mile from my house). Here's the U-T article. The bulletin went on to mention the recent crime in the Normal Heights/University Heights/North Park areas and then the poster went on to say, "It makes me mad that we are not informed as a community by the police, but what do you expect."

I saw this bulletin and felt the need add my two cents. I don't know who the original author was(I saw the repost from Lancer's), but obviously everyone is against crime in their own neighborhood. But just an FYI, there HAVE been community meetings hosted by our City Councilperson Toni Atkins in conjunction with the SDPD, where neighborhood watch groups were organized. I attended a couple of those meetings and was very disappointed that I was one of a handful of people under 40 at any of them.

Maybe when you were a 15 year old skateboarder, it was cool to be dismissive with "Cops suck" or "Fuck the police", but we're adults now. Also, the job of disseminating information about crime is not the responsibility of police but of media. If you actually read the newspaper, all of the mentioned crimes (in the original myspace bulletin) were covered. Neighborhood crime statistics are available on the SDPD website.

We have power at the ballot box, we have power within our communities to actually show up and be present for events and meetings, and we have power to be good neighbors and watch out for our fellow citizens. Cliche as it is, if you're not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. Complaining about the cops does nothing for anybody.
*****

Here's the information about the vigil:

Candlight Vigil
Join us Wednesday December 12th
7pm at the Corner of Adams Avenue and Wilson
Normal Heights

To call attention to Sunday's murder of a 99 cent store clerk and a rash of violent crimes in recent months. We want to come together as a community to stop and acknowledge the recent incidents of violence.

Help us make Normal Heights a place where we can feel safe on our streets and help discuss what we can do to prevent this from happening in the future.

But please come out Wednesday Night to support stopping crime in Normal Heights and along Adams Avenue home to The Air Conditioned, Lestats, Ould Sod, The Lou Jones, Rosie O'Grady's, Dimilles, and a number of other great establishments!!!!

*****
I wanted to add that after a shooting that took place this summer, there were a series of community meetings. I attended one of them and posted the information that was given about "what we can do" within the community. The information is still useful, though there have unfortunately been more shootings since then.

Community Meeting Notes

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