A New York City police officer was hospitalized in serious but stable condition this morning (02/05/07) after being attacked by a man with a baseball bat while on foot patrol in Queens, the police said.
The man stole his gun but another Officer (also on foot patrol in the high-crime area) was able to chase down the perpetrator and arrest him.
There were 161 homicides in New Orleans last year, and there have been 18 so far this year, making New Orleans by most measures the nation’s per capita murder capital, given its sharply reduced population.
Other cities have plenty of murders. But only in New Orleans has there been the uniquely poisoned set of circumstances that has led to this city’s position at the top of the homicide charts. Every phase of the killing cycle here unfolds under the dark star of dysfunction: the murderers’ brutalized childhoods, the often ineffectual police intervention, a dulled community response, and a tense relationship between the police and prosecutors that lets many cases slip through the cracks.
Hurricane Katrina’s devastation loosened the fragile social restraints even further, making the city perhaps more dangerous than ever.
Two-thirds of the murders in New Orleans have not been solved. They still have no crime lab, although the Federal Government has put up $5 million. When arrests are made, by the time the evidence is gathered, the 60-day jail time has passed and the criminals are on the street again. There is a lot of mistrust between the police and inner-city residents.
Eric E. Malveau, who has worked as a prosecutor and a public defender stated “As long as you have a large population that is uneducated and has no job and no hope, what else is there to do but sell drugs? Until you fix that, it’s hard to see the problems getting much better.”
Bureau of Justice Statistics
FBI Uniform Crime Reports
Federal Crime Statistics compiled by the White House
Crime statistics are a crying shame. Why? Because as a Nation, as individuals, we have allowed ourselves to be emotionally anesthetized beyond the point of shame.
Shame? Yes: A painful emotion caused by a strong sense of guilt, embarrassment, unworthiness, or disgrace. Capacity for such a feeling.(1)
We have allowed ourselves to be unaffected by crime. We watch realistic television and dull our senses. We feel no shame when we lie, steal, cheat, or kill. We excuse our own or others behaviors which would have been considered "improper" a few years ago and would have caused us or others to feel a sense of shame.
Would there be less crime if we, if each of us, regained a sense of shame? If murder were not considered a gang "rite of passage" but instead was a disgrace to the person and his/her family, would murder statistics decline? If rape, theft, larceny, car jacking, fraud, embezzlement were considered a disgrace to the person and his/her family, would those statistics decline? If adultery were considered a disgrace, would Hollywood's "musical bedrooms" continue to make the headlines in the "movie magazines?"
Where does shame belong in morality? Is shame even a part of moral decisions? Deep thoughts for a Monday morning.
(1)Modern Language Association (MLA): "shame." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 05 Feb. 2007.
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