Letter: We must do somthing about crime

I am writing to The Advocate to implore the citizens of the city of Baton Rouge and the entire state of Louisiana to demand that the leadership of the city and the entire state do something about the lawlessness and criminal element that permeates every inch of this city.

I fear for my children and my loved ones every day. Since the beginning of the year — that’s 25 days if you are counting, I know of two people who could have been killed by stray bullets. I’m not talking about people in the 70805 ZIP code area who were out at 3 a.m. and bumped into trouble. One person was picking up her child at a gymnastics studio on Bluebonnet and another lives in the Southdowns area.

I love Baton Rouge and Louisiana. I have lived here my entire life. How can this city and state ever be great — attract the best business and the best people to work for those business — if the people who work hard and pay the taxes are worried about getting shot or some other vile thing happening to them?

While leadership is bragging about how this program and that program will curb crime — if they are able to get funding in the next six to 12 months — bullets are whizzing by. Do you feel safe? I sure don’t.

Paul Pollard

pharmacist

Baton Rouge

Comments

1) Comment by Bouncer - 03/02/2013

"There is no crime problem in Baton Rouge." Repeat until your eyes glaze over.

2) Comment by mcarter - 31/01/2013

I am a Louisiana republican, Twinkie and you don't know me to assume I am white and a "bigot". You are right Dmj, it is very childish to call people "lily white republican bigots".

3) Comment by tradewinns - 31/01/2013

a statistic just came out on TV i find hard to believe but even if half true is exteremly disheartning. 94% of those charged with MURDER, do NOT go to prison. shocking! and MELISEE3, the reason our courts are so "backed up" is two fold (maybe more) 1st, our judges do not work very hard, 2nd it's exteremly profitable for lawyers to work cases. every thing a lawyer does is paid for by someone, usually the taxpayer. so if a lawyer gets a continuance, he gets paid for being there to ask for the action, he's paid for preparing for the action, he's paid to appeal if denied the action & of course if succesful, he's paid for the next appearance in court. just start adding up the money and you'll better understand our "justice" system and why it is a failure to the public and so loved by those in the system (the best in the world-ask any of them).

4) Comment by On_The_Fence - 31/01/2013

Here it is in black and white. Just because your Daddy was a Dog or your Mama was Dog, does not mean YOU have to be a Dog. Period. Get an education. Keep your skirts down and your pants up. Period. Problem solved.

5) Comment by Whatnow - 31/01/2013

DMJ, it's okay when Progressives do it, right? Then they are being "reasonable." LOL!

6) Comment by Chucky - 31/01/2013

“It's a repeat everyday, so you won't miss much if you read it only once a week.” Funny but sad Whatnow very true only the names changes. DMJ very correct and I was behaving like a child, but he started it ( LOL)

7) Comment by DMJ - 31/01/2013

I'm not a bigot, you're a bigot!! What, are we children? (Actually, don't answer that)

8) Comment by twinkie1cat - 31/01/2013

Ivy: It is sad to say that your point is somewhat accurate about seeing children as statistics. The teachers, at least the real ones, still see the children as children, but they also see danger to their jobs if they don't jump through all the hoops required by No Child and the standardized testing czars (many of whom are for profit companies and politicians, not teachers). If they were left to actually teach instead of doing paperwork and doing test prep to comply with someone's rules and supported in that teaching, the kids would improve. Teachers don't work for the money. It is a calling, not a job. At the same time the money they earn allows them to pay the bills while doing what they were called to do, or it did before Jindal started running off the real teachers. John White just said that there is not an increase in the number of teachers leaving the profession, but did not consider that those leaving are the ones who know what they are doing, the long term career educators. But, with his being a Jindalclone and not a teacher himself, he does not believe that experience is important. Strange how education is the only professional field where experience is not valued. Even the plants call back their retired engineers on a contractural basis because they know that the new guys don't know as much as the retired ones. But then most teachers are women and the GOP is the party of the white male so why would they respect the folks making the refreshments. Even the fundie churches that support the GOP, especially the Catholics and Southern Baptists don't regard women as equal to men, but essentially servants.

9) Comment by bourbon-soda - 31/01/2013

There must be a course in educational curricula on how to rebut a statistical assertion with an anecdote.

10) Comment by Whatnow - 31/01/2013

twinkie1cat, we have read all of you posts and letters over time. Face it, you ARE a bigot and everyone knows it but you. Try reading the crime section once in a while. It's a repeat everyday, so you won't miss much if you read it only once a week. The comments are about the people in neighborhoods that don't care or try to raise their children with values and about the criminals. They are not putting down the whole race. " Lily white Republican bigots" is a racist statement. All these labels, racial division and class warfare has been instilled and mushroomed by the Democrats to win elections. You also have made derogatory statements against all white neighborhoods and parishes in the past. You sound like a very bitter, jealous person. Maybe you need to pray about it since you say you are a Christian.

11) Comment by spqr - 31/01/2013

Mcarter is a successful victim. And if Atilla is a bigot then Twinkiecat must be naive.

12) Comment by Ivy - 31/01/2013

The shame of it is that NoChildLeftBehind caused a lot of teachers to be afraid of assessing each child honestly and objectively. They don't even see the child anymore, it's just a plot point on a graph sitting in a chair.

13) Comment by nimby? - 31/01/2013

it's gotta start somewhere , how about in the home ? a story from last week buried rather quick ; a 16 year old , 3 AM on a school night , robs a man of his bicycle , then shoots him .

14) Comment by twinkie1cat - 31/01/2013

mcarter: You don't know anything about me to call me a bigot, but let's put it this way, I have a whole deck of race cards, perhaps more than a lot of black people do. I say what I know and in Louisiana if you are a Republican, you are very likely to be a racist. The whole GOP oozes with racism, classism, sexism, xenophobia, and homophobia. That is why it is (Hallelujah) critically ill at the moment.

15) Comment by Chucky - 31/01/2013

Mcarter , yes twinkie1cat may be a bigot, but it is only his post that makes it sound like that.

16) Comment by twinkie1cat - 31/01/2013

Attilla: you are a racist bigot. I see plenty of children whose parents do their very best to keep their kids in school, even in 70805. Black and poor people often have considerable respect for education because they know how hard life is without it. Remember the earliest parts of the civil rights movement were about education-----Little Rock. The very earliest civil rights leaders started schools for the freed slaves. Sometimes the older kids get out of control when the schools are poorly equipped with inexperienced non-teachers replacing the veterans and the standardized testing mentality, legalized teacher abuse, No Child Left Behind, and all this mess that tries to keep every child learning at the same rate, in the same way, and with the same material that has caused a lot of smart kids to fail.

17) Comment by twinkie1cat - 31/01/2013

Ivy: I think the religious community is doing all it can. Remember churches were hit by the recession too. Mine was and our budget is probably about half what it was a few years ago although our church treasurer, retired from LSU predicted this and helped us prepare. I think the religious community, in addition to its own programs needs to pressure the government to do its part. Remember it took the Pharisees to get the government to bring down Jesus. It is the job of the churches to hold the government to do right. The world is too big for the faith community to do it alone.

18) Comment by Attila - 31/01/2013

@SuzanneMS: I don't care how much money your throw at education. The citizens of the zip codes where the vast majority of crimes are committed will still be just as uneducated as ever. They have to have a desire to be educated...and therein lies the problem. It is a cultural thing.

19) Comment by twinkie1cat - 31/01/2013

Suzanne: I am not sure the Riverside library is in 70805, at least it would not be in the majority of it. A big part of the zip code is served by Delmont near Riley St. on Longfellow. It's small but cute. There is also one at Greenwell Springs near Foster that is close and larger and then a pretty big one at Scottlandville on Scenic and one on Goodwood which has a very crowded feeling and needs work.

20) Comment by Ivy - 31/01/2013

Perhaps the religious community can come together and do things to supplement or replace the social aid programs currently being removed by lack of government funding. Do we care? Is it really the "government's" job to take care of us?

21) Comment by mcarter - 31/01/2013

"lily white Republican bigots". Sounds like a "bigot" to me.

22) Comment by twinkie1cat - 31/01/2013

Well Mr. Pollard, if the people of Baton Rouge and Louisiana would tell the state government to come off of the money for the crime reduction programs and stop cutting the budgets for education and health care maybe the crime would go down. Just last week Jindal cut the money for the anti-truancy program that helped get younger kids in the habit of going to school regularly and supported their families. The week before he cut the mental health program that treated very young children with emotional and behavioral problems. All the non-profits that help children have had their budgets eviscerated under Jindal. These are programs that keep kids on the right track. Studies have shown that boys who are behind in the second grade tend to go to jail much more often than those who are on grade level, yet Jindal has frozen, cut , and mis-directed school money for 5 years now in order to pad the pockets of his donors and encouraged the use of cheaper, uncertified, inexperienced desk fillers who don't now how to work with difficult children while the veteran educators are retiring in droves because of Jindal's legalized teacher abuse. So the conservatives need to go if funding for crimefighting is to increase...........Now as for shootings in the "good" neighborhoods: Maybe you need to move to 70805 where it is nice and safe. I have been living in this zip code for 2-1/2 years and have not been shot at or robbed one single time!!! Neither have most of my neighbors. I don't stay barricaded in my house and I don't have a gun. And I am not in one of the good sections, either. Maybe it is the children of some of your lily white Republican bigots doing the shooting in Southdowns and Bluebonnet instead of the folks from North Baton Rouge???

23) Comment by Bwaites985 - 31/01/2013

Mr. Pollard, my advice to you is to move. You will have no problem finding work elsewhere with your career choice. Ever since the influx of people into Baton Rouge after Katrina, the crime and overall demeanor of the city has diminished. Baton Rouge use to be a very nice place to live, but I'm afraid to tell you it has been infested by a very bad element, and I'm sorry to say they are there to stay. Get out before your property values drop too low, find a nice quiet corner of Louisiana and live your life without fear. I'm afraid to tell you its not going to get better, only worse and that is a shame. Look on the bright side you won't have to deal with that horrible traffic either.

24) Comment by DMJ - 31/01/2013

Stray bullets? Sounds like this guy is blaming the tool. I'm sure it could have just as easily been stray throwing knives or crossbow bolts or slingshot rocks. Maybe, just maybe, we reassign some of the Narcs to a gun trafficking task force. (note: I'm talking about illegal guns, not legal ones, yahoos). One can't commit a drive-by or an armed robbery if they can't get a gun in the first place, now can they?

25) Comment by Melisse3 - 31/01/2013

tradewinns is right -- much violent crime can easily be eliminated: much longer sentences for first time violent criminals. Many violent crimes are committed by repeat offenders. Keep them in prison the first time, and viola!...drop in crime. I ask my fellow citizens to support building and maintaining more prisons. Lets double our prison space, and fill them up! Oh, and lets also create more judicial districts so cases do not have to take so long to get to trial.

26) Comment by bourbon-soda - 31/01/2013

More money _ad infinitum_ - the Cloward - Piven strategy. Just google the 2 names.

27) Comment by [e-mail] - 31/01/2013

Illegitimi non carborundum indeed! "We need more money for early intervention, etc. and on and on. Listening to the same complaints and need more money bleats ad nauseum, ad infinitum is enough to make anyone with a half a brain a little nauseous, not to mention constipated. The first step to solving crime would be to stop making excuses and playing PC pretend games. We've done that for the last fifty years.

28) Comment by tradewinns - 31/01/2013

this letter is an example of wht crime is big and growing in Br, La., and elsewhere in america. everyone wants someone to do something, but not them. to stop crime is easy. well not the first crime, that is more a instance of luck than anything, but subsequent crimes. you know who the bad guy is and the punishment must be of such magnitude that they will not repeat their crime so as to avoid the punishment. currently our "punishment" is an inconveient lapse of time. mostly spent doing nothing or reading, watching TV, excercising, going to school (including college at your expense) and other truly non punishing measures. suppose they had to do hard physical labor all day, every day? say carrying rocks from one side of the yard to the other, or digging a hole then covering it up. anything so they are exhausted every day (and that would be every day 7 days a week, 365 days a year). anything that punishes them for their crime, besides the loss of their right to freedom. we know our present system is a failure, what are you going to do about it?

29) Comment by nimby? - 31/01/2013

the Riverside branch of the public library serves 70805 ?

30) Comment by bourbon-soda - 31/01/2013

Throw more money at it, that's absolutely the way. Look how it's worked out so far.

31) Comment by Chucky - 31/01/2013

I am tired and have done my part feed up with the yada yada, someone do something. Maybe tomorrow I will feel better and have an inspiration, today I feel defeated, must remind myself “ Illegitimi non carborundum”

32) Comment by SuzanneMS - 31/01/2013

You're absolutely right. We got where we are because of the attitude that we can ignore it because it's blacks killing blacks in the 70805 zip code and we can just move out to the suburbs and put our kids in private schools. The thing is, it's going to take money -- money for police, for social services, for urban development, and money to improve education in the 70805 zip code. The recent fight over improving the Riverside branch of the public library which serves this area suggests that it's going to be an uphill battle. There was no such opposition to the two new branches being built in primarily white, middle-class neighborhoods.

33) Comment by Bighug - 31/01/2013

Give up the money (to the politicians, not the criminals). Maybe then they would pass legislation making it a crime to break the law here.

34) Comment by phil - 30/01/2013

There are a lot of local issues that need to be resolved that seem to just keep going on in EBR Parish. The local political organizations seem quiet on many local issues for some reason. Maybe it is time for people to start attending metro council meetings etc and become active in local politics. Enough is enough.