The Protest.
The citizens of New Orleans converged on City Hall yesterday to protest the insane murder rate that has gripped this city since New Year's Day. And wow, did they have some things to say about the city and the mayor, none of which was complimentary. And the mayor just stood there and took it. He never spoke.
Alot of ideas were proposed; alot of rage was vented. I don't know how you get a person who wasn't raised with any fear of discipline to stop killing, because obviously, the killers just don't have any fear, or any shame, or any care, about what their life is like or what they do to other's lives when they kill. What is there to do? You can't put them in stocks on the city hall's steps, you can't have a public hanging. In fact, I don't believe that the death penalty works to deter crime at all, and is morally wrong.
We're all concerned, and we all want a solution. But it won't be easy. And this isn't the first time the city has had a murder problem, which leads me to believe that there is a problem with law enforcement and the NOPD, which everyone can agree on, to be sure. Katrina seemed to jettison alot of dead weight out of NOPD, since those that didn't have the consitution to protect and to serve simply left, or were fired during that time. But still, there remains some vestage of the old 'good-ol'-boy' system that does not work in this New New Orleans. The answer, I think, lies with the police force. They cannot be above the law. They have to, HAVE TO, clean up their own house before they can clean up the community.
It's easy to pick on the police right now. And maybe it's not fair since it is a thankless, ridiculously dangerous job that pays for shit, and exposes you to the very worst in human beings on a daily basis. And maybe things have improved since the storm, but that has to be evident to the citizens. So the onus is on NOPD to prove that they are worthy, moral, good people that ARE here to protect the people...not to shake them down for what cash they have in their wallet or whatever other horrible story I've heard about NOPD. It should be Mayor Nagin's crusade to restructure and clean up NOPD from the top down--and it should be highly visible to the public, much like Theodore Roosevelt's stint as NYPD commissioner.
Alot of ideas were proposed; alot of rage was vented. I don't know how you get a person who wasn't raised with any fear of discipline to stop killing, because obviously, the killers just don't have any fear, or any shame, or any care, about what their life is like or what they do to other's lives when they kill. What is there to do? You can't put them in stocks on the city hall's steps, you can't have a public hanging. In fact, I don't believe that the death penalty works to deter crime at all, and is morally wrong.
We're all concerned, and we all want a solution. But it won't be easy. And this isn't the first time the city has had a murder problem, which leads me to believe that there is a problem with law enforcement and the NOPD, which everyone can agree on, to be sure. Katrina seemed to jettison alot of dead weight out of NOPD, since those that didn't have the consitution to protect and to serve simply left, or were fired during that time. But still, there remains some vestage of the old 'good-ol'-boy' system that does not work in this New New Orleans. The answer, I think, lies with the police force. They cannot be above the law. They have to, HAVE TO, clean up their own house before they can clean up the community.
It's easy to pick on the police right now. And maybe it's not fair since it is a thankless, ridiculously dangerous job that pays for shit, and exposes you to the very worst in human beings on a daily basis. And maybe things have improved since the storm, but that has to be evident to the citizens. So the onus is on NOPD to prove that they are worthy, moral, good people that ARE here to protect the people...not to shake them down for what cash they have in their wallet or whatever other horrible story I've heard about NOPD. It should be Mayor Nagin's crusade to restructure and clean up NOPD from the top down--and it should be highly visible to the public, much like Theodore Roosevelt's stint as NYPD commissioner.
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