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A Hot Time In The Old Town Tonight
By Wyatt Earp | June 8, 2008
Remember when Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey was crowing about the decrease in violence in Philadelphia? Guess what? Here comes Summer! When it gets hot here, the natives get restless. And when the natives get restless, they break out their illegal firearms.
Well, we pretty much expected this when the thermometer hit 95 degrees today:
Four people attending a cookout were shot in West Oak Lane Saturday night and one of the victims is six-year-old girl.
The shooting happened at about 9:30 p.m. on the 2100 block of Chelten Avenue outside of the social club, Klubb Acacia. Klubb Acacia was hosting a weekly barbecue in their backyard when the shooting occurred.
Police said several shots were fired into a crowd of people from a dark alley across the street from the social club. The motive for the shooting is unknown at this time.
All four victims were taken to Einstein Hospital in private vehicles. The three wounded adults are currently listed in critical condition and the young girl is listed as stable. (CBS3)
Yeah, it’s par for the course in this berg - especially in my division, where this shooting occurred. After fourteen years on this job, even the most heinous acts stop bothering you. You do the job, and move on to the next one. The people who fret and stress about it - or worse, take it home - are asking for an early heart attack.
I stopped taking my work home about a year after I got married. The fun and exciting war stories lost their allure, and neither she nor I wanted to discuss it anymore. I did the same thing when I was out with friends. I rarely talk about my job anymore, which is sometimes difficult when you’re introduced as “the cop.”
That being said, there is an audience for stories like these, but I’m not going to talk about the incident, per se. I wanted to address something more disheartening.
A six-year old girl was shot tonight by some scumbag coward. The girl was rushed to the hospital, and was originally listed in critical condition. There were witnesses to the shooting, considering it happened in front of a busy street on the hottest night of the year. Do you think all of them came forward with information that would help us catch this toad?
Hell no.
And that, dear readers, is the problem with this cesspool of the city. If the po-po were roughing up a poor, innocent cherub, we would have residents coming out of the woodwork to make a statement. Here, after a your girl was shot, we’ve got bupkis. There were only a handful of cooperative witnesses, and most of them gave us fabulous information along the lines of, “It was a black male.”
Wow, I am over-frakkin-whelmed.
So, you have a slew of police officers and detectives on the scene, trying desperately to catch the shooter, and the people we need to help us the most - the neighbors - don’t give a damn. It’s not that they’re scared; they just don’t want to help the police: even if four of their friends are shot full of holes.
Now, imagine that the little girl dies. (God forbid.) Then what? Who do you think the neighbors, witnesses, and the media will blame? The shooter? Nope. They’ll blame the police department. Why? Because we are supposed to be all-knowing and all-seeing, and even though they wouldn’t lift a sweat-soaked finger to help us, they expect us to perform miracles.
Well guess what, Philadelphia? We’re out of miracles. Now we need some from you.
/Rant.
Topics: The Job |
June 8th, 2008 at 1:18 am
That sort of thing makes my head meet the desk all too often. If it makes you feel any better, it’s not just in your neck of the woods, I guess it’s global. It’s really sad folks have devolved that far.
June 8th, 2008 at 1:56 am
I still say a lot of it goes back to bad parenting!
June 8th, 2008 at 5:08 am
It’s more than just bad parenting. It is the grip of evil and lack of humanity.
Subhuman: shooters/criminals and those that do nothing to thwart them.
June 8th, 2008 at 7:57 am
The sad part is the child being shot and nobody caring… And you’re dead on, if y’all had roughed up some bad kid, everybody would be out in spades! Kid shot= ho hum.. Next…
June 8th, 2008 at 8:17 am
RT, you’re right. I guess what I mean/feel is that a lot of these idiots aren’t taught any better growing up. Most of us are taught to respect the law, and cooperate. And I should have said I was referring to the witnesses instead of the shooters.
June 8th, 2008 at 11:54 am
“Four people attending a cookout were shot “…I said NO CHEESE on my burger!
June 8th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Snigs - People are animals. End of story.
MMP - And that’s a huge part of it. If someone kicked this thug’s ass when he was a kid, maybe we could have avoided this nonsense.
RT - Again, filthy animals. They should be put down.
Old NFO - And that’s the irony. It’s a kid. These people should care about a kid, but they don’t give a rat’s ass.
MMP - Exactly correct.
Randal - You get the one guy who’s lactose intolerant . . .
June 8th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Yeah, I am becoming more Calvinist by the minute. Mankind is totally depraved by nature.
June 8th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
But if parents do what they are supposed to do (parent, discipline, and spank) then some busy-body calls social services, child gets taken away for being abused, gets lost in the system, and is basically taught by the system how to be a criminal all because Mommy and Daddy dared to put Junior over the knee for a paddling.
June 8th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Our cities are decaying from within. Soon even the rats will leave.