The 312 homicides in Philly during 2017 are the highest since 2012. They are up 27% since 2013. If the economy has been improving and black unemployment is really as low as I’ve been told by Trump and the BLS, why would homicides in Philly be soaring?
The stories coming out from Chicago and Baltimore paint an increasingly pessimistic picture: that America’s inner cities are transitioning into a warzone, where violence has returned to levels not seen since the drug wars of the early 1990s.
Take for example Chicago, five men were killed and at least 20 people shot over the four-day Christmas holiday weekend. Last year, 59 people were shot over the same period, leaving 11 dead.
Across the United States, homicides rose about 9% last year with more than one-third of the increase concentrated in Chicago neighborhoods, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Despite the overall deterioration of American inner cities, there was some improvement in areas such as Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., where declines in violent crimes have been in downward trajectories since the 1990s.
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According to the WSJ, soaring homicides in Chicago and Baltimore share wide wealth inequality rates, de-industrialization, depleted residential real estate, and a reduction of police officers following the Ferguson effect in 2014. Nevertheless, the opioid crisis is fueling much of this death and despair in the inner cities, trapping the younger generations into a perpetual world of crime.
Meanwhile, in Washington and Los Angeles, “gang interventions and community policing,” which explores ways to strengthen the community have led to a long-term reduction in homicides. The article brings up the dreaded word gentrification, while it has worked in Washington to suppress crime, it has certainly not been effective in Chicago and or Baltimore.
David Weisburd, a criminologist at George Mason University said about 1% of city streets contributes to 25% of a city’s crime, and 5% of the streets produces half the crime. He coined the phrase the “law of crime concentration.”
In Chicago, half the violent crime came from five neighborhoods, including West Garfield Park, exemplifying Weisburd’s theory. In fact, crime in the area has surged to levels not seen since the “drug wars fueled by the crack-cocaine epidemic” of the 1990s.
As the WSJ adds, “violence in Chicago erupted last year, with the city recording 771 murders—a 58% jump from 2015. The third largest city in the U.S. with 2.7 million people, Chicago had more murders than New York and Los Angeles combined.” Violent crime in Chicago is concentrated in just a handful of neighborhoods, where inequalities are wide and it’s not just in wealth.
WSJ interviewed Amarley Coggins who started dealing drugs aged 12. A decade later, he sits in jail for “felony drug charges and possession of a weapon”.
Amarley Coggins remembers the first time he dealt heroin, discreetly approaching a car coming off an interstate highway and into West Garfield Park, the neighborhood where he grew up on Chicago’s west side. He was 12 years old and had just been recruited into a gang by his older brothers and cousin.
A decade later, he sits in Cook County jail, held without bail and awaiting trial on three cases, including felony drug charges and possession of a weapon. “I have a lot of friends who didn’t make it to 22,” said Mr. Coggins, who hasn’t entered a plea. “I want to stay alive for my son and my family.”
“People see these empty buildings standing there, over four years on, and it is just a reminder that the city has turned their back on them,” said Danton Floyd, a community member in West Garfield Park. According to police, drug dealers and residents said West Garfield Park has an abundance of drugs, as demand is surging “by white suburban and rural consumers of heroin and opioids.”
With the drug crisis surging, Chicago city officials have attempted to make strategic investments in ailing neighborhoods. Officials have begged multi-national corporations such as Whole Foods and Wal-Mart for local investment in hopes to spur economic development. The problem with neglected neighborhoods, which have had decades of little to no investment, is that death and despair are hard to change overnight.
Much of the same is happening in Baltimore, where police trust is eroding post the Ferguson effect (2014). The city of 615,000 has just hit a 100-year low in total population, along with a three-year surge in violent crime fueled by opioids. While Chicago seems dangerous, Baltimore has the highest homicide rate in the United States, on par with Venezuela (See: Baltimore Murder Rate Surges Again In 2017 (Now Tied With Venezuela).
“Baltimore City has a lot of people walking around that have committed homicides and shootings,” said former deputy police commissioner, Tony Barksdale. Meanwhile community leaders and former police members warn that police have disbanded proactive operations to combat crime since the April 2015 riots:
Some community leaders and former police officials say police have pulled back from a more proactive approach on the street since April 2015, when riots erupted after Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man, died from a broken neck he sustained in a police van. Officers had chased Mr. Gray from North and Pennsylvania, a known drug corner, and arrested him for allegedly possessing an illegal knife.
A police department spokesman said foot patrols have increased because now officers are mandated to walk through neighborhoods in the first months of field training, which wasn’t the case a few years ago.
Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis, in charge since July 2015, also said violent criminals feel emboldened. He said judges too often give offenders who use guns suspended prison sentences.
“You look at Baltimore’s crime numbers, that’s criminals taking advantage of weakness,” Mr. Barksdale said. He further said: “I am against mass arrests, but you still need arrests.”
JPMorgan Chase funds the Racial Wealth Divide Initiative at CFED, and warns an astronomical amount of Baltimore citizens have a net worth of zero; the racial divide and wealth inequality is among the highest in the country, contributing to high levels of violent crime.
Baltimore residents describe life on the streets:
Ericka Alston-Buck, who runs a youth center blocks from where Mr. Gray was arrested in 2015, says the violence is tied to poverty that hasn’t eased since the riots. “You have to be here to feel the blight, the vacant houses, the cat-sized rodents that run through the streets, the open-air drug markets, prostitution, no grocery store,” she said.
Jacqueline Caldwell, a local resident who leads a nonprofit umbrella group that includes several west-side community associations, said the police have become nonexistent over the past two years. “I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to figure out we need more police on the street, more community involvement with the police,” Ms. Caldwell said.
John Skinner, a former deputy police commissioner who retired in 2014, said after the riots, police feared “another triggering effect.” He said while he thinks the retreat from proactive policing was brief, its effects were lasting. “Violence can escalate really, really rapidly. When it occurs it’s tough to get that stabilization back,” he said.
The sad conclusion is that the inner-city playgrounds of the establishment elite, Chicago and Baltimore, have been let to fail. The decades-long experiment is now resulting in a war zone that is progressively getting worse, not better, despite recurring narratives to suck in poor millennials for revival purposes. As a country, it’s time to take two steps back and reflect on the failures before we taking any more steps “forward” otherwise the situation will only get worse.
Simple 1 word answer. NIGGERS
Better answer: NIGGER MIGRATION
Or simply GENES…
In “chocolate cities” the black leadership position is “we’re not going to arrest our way out of this” because it paints blacks in a bad (but true) light. So, they all but refuse to prosecute criminals to make the “numbahs” look better. Criminals know they are all but free to commit crime. Expect to see nothing but growing numbers of death and destruction in these black urban hellholes. Black democrats-lead on…….
You can take a nigger out of the jungle, but you can’t take the jungle out of a nigger.
These niggers are an insult, a slap in the face, both to our country, and the taxpayers that are forced to pay for their life style.
Someone (Trump?) needs to put a stop to this.
All these articles, the poverty… poverty my ass. These folks get more free gubmint money, and have more ‘stuff’ that many people in other countries that work for a living.
If they wanted to, they could move out of Chicago, but they don’t.
This is Freddie Gray’s knife. It is not a switchblade, as police initially claimed.
[img[/img]
Walmart special!
It’s a liner lock spring assist, don’t know if local ordinances define this as a switchblade or not.
dindu nuffin but freeze muazzoff dis week, cuz, aint got time to be cappin no fooz, done wanna be outtin dat shit
I believe this can/will happen to any race if and when the wealth/education inequality gets too far out a whack. Although, it definitely appears blacks are more prone to violence.
Moral equivalence bullshit…..
believe this can/will happen to any race if and when the wealth/education inequality gets too far out a whack
Are you kidding me? These blacks are doing it to themselves. The main problem is there are no fathers in the home. They have created a subculture of dependence. In truth us whitey’s are the slaves. We get ass raped in taxes, to give to the niggers, that keep shitting out nigglets.
A baby-mama with 2 – 3 little coons can live quite comfortably from section 8 / food stamps / afdc / medicaid. There are over 54 government assistance programs. Hell they feed ’em 3 squares a day at many schools.
These people all have iPhones, DirecTV, you name it.
These people are an insult to America and it’s values.
I’ll just say I’m glad I’m not in charge. I’ll just keep doing the best I can for me and mine.
And you can thank LBJ for the welfare syndrome that created this mess.
I think that is the bingo answer. It is now entrenched.
Much more prone to violence and much less intelligent….
Chicago and Baltimore
Just guessing, these cities have probably been run by Democrats for most of the last 50 years, and with a good portion by Black leadership.
I wonder how many other large urban hovels have copied this same path to success?
Insanity = doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results
Well, what about just TWO PC words: SUBsidized SLOTH?
BTW – another one of those “seven deadly sins” – [one of] the pol-luticians favorite words: PRIDE ! “proud to be an EBT ‘murkaan'”.
“The city has turned their back on certain neighborhoods” I refute that notion. There is a city of 60,00 some 30 miles from where I live. Since the 1960’s there are 3 separate areas where the black population has congregated. All three of these areas were once White working class neighborhoods,and one of them a hundred years ago was the cities richest neighborhood. Like roaches and rats they multiplied. The working class were driven out,or fled. Once Victorian homes were destroyed as rental units to people who have no regard for what their property looked like. Like locusts they destroyed each neighborhood. Leaving behind burnt out and abandoned buildings. In some places there are whole blocks that are left vacant. The cities answer to this is to secure Federal grants to build new homes for the low income. Is not insanity doing the same thing over and over,and expecting a different result? There is no private investment,because normal decent people do not want to live in that area. That is the truth to the same liberal lies over and over. However telling the truth just makes me a racist.
Built it and they will come.
/s
This problem is a two way street.
Unfortunately those that are affected most and those white apologists just ask is for more money because they look at this problem as a white problem to fix.
More $ for programs, more $ for students, more $ for teachers, more $ for bureaucrats, more $ for welfare, more $$$ for free shit.
In the meetings I’ve attended to help minorities secure jobs in the constructions industry to the issues I’ve had employing minorities in the painting field, what I see is a generation of people who have no fucking clue what it is to have a job. Get to work on time, be able to read directions, some struggle with reading a tape measure.
Now, I know this is not entirely their fault, but it is not my responsibility to take all the goddam risk to pay to correct either.
The problem I see, and am dealing with right now is they want top dollar to produce very little.
What is so wrong about starting at a general laborers wage to learn a trade?
All because they, and the white apologist, believe this starting at the bottom is racist, it’s demeaning, it’s not fucking fair, because ultimately what they all want is a hand out, not a hand up.
Lesson will continue until the lesson is learned.
Poverty does not cause Crime. Crime causes poverty. Nobody in their right mind wants to be around crime.People move away , businesses move away taking the tax Base with them.After a few decades you get these inter cities.When whites lived in these cities they were some of the most valuable Real Estate on this planet. It’s all more Liberal Progressive lies .Lies I have been hearing for 50 damn years.
In 2016 our homicide rate was close to double that number for Philly at 611. For the whole country that is. I wonder what the difference is?
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/legal12a-eng.htm
Could the answer relate to Africa?
“What Has Made America’s Inner Cities Into A Violent Warzone”
Democrats.
More specifically, Democrat instituted and administered welfare and schools.
Blacks.
As BB succinctly put it, “Nobody in their right mind wants to be around crime”
Most large cities could cut their police force 80-90% if there were no blacks. Since that ain’t gonna happen, I elected over 30 years ago to just not live anywhere where there’s more then an infrequent sighting.
It’s been a small town life devoid of home invasions, graffiti, crime, breakins, assaults, vandalism…
The article was not long enough. He never got to the part where I give a fuck. If you ask me we need more accurate gunners and better ammo selection.
This problem is a two way street.
Unfortunately all those that are affected most and those white apologists just ask for is more money because they look at this problem as just a white problem to fix.
More $ for programs, more $ for students, more $ for teachers, more $ for bureaucrats, more $ for welfare, more $$$ for free shit.
In the meetings I’ve attended to help minorities secure jobs in the constructions industry to the issues I’ve had employing minorities in the painting field, what I see is a generation of people who have no fucking clue what it is to have a job. Getting to work on time, be able to read directions, finding motivation is a big struggle, some can’t comprehend reading a tape measure.
Now, I know this is not entirely their fault after years of coddling democrat welfare and changing rules, but it is also not my responsibility to take all the goddam risk to pay to correct either.
The problem I see, and am dealing with right now is they want top dollar to produce very little just because of the color of their skin.
What is so wrong about starting at a general laborers wage to learn a trade so they can take those skills and move up the ladder?
All because they, and the white apologist, believe this starting at the bottom is racist, it’s demeaning, it’s not fucking fair, because ultimately what they all want is just another hand out, not a hand up.
Lesson will continue until the lesson is learned, but I think going forward this lesson is going to be a bloody one.
Answer: SINGLE MOTHERS
Next question?
I was raised by a single mother. That’s not the problem, the problem is the government paying them. My mom came home from waiting tables at about 2-3 in the morning. Sometimes I wouldn’t see her all week but there’s no doubt she set the table with her example because I’ve worked all my life-can’t imagine not.
You know the old saw, when you subsidize something…
We live in a very peaceful area here in Central Florida (too close to Orlando for me but you can’t have everything). Very little crime of any sort except “hit and run” variety that drive up from Orlando, hit something and vanish back to the big city.
Our local newsrag and the Orlando papers are very careful not to racially identify those arrested for various crimes (shop-lifting to murder) in the written part of coverage articles but the pictures (if any) tell the tale.
Mug shots are available for each arrest and they run 9:1 in favor of black perps over any reasonable time span (I know – I counted them over a three month period and that’s the ratio I came up with).
I really have no clue what can be done (if anything at all) to reverse or reduce that sort of racial bias. Anger control, impulse actions, greed, indolence and laziness – far easier to rob someone who has what they want than to work it. (Currently, our unemployment ratio is too low to measure; anyone who wants to work can have three jobs if he/she wants one. There are “Hiring” signs everywhere).
One now reads about arrested ex-cons who have been on police books, in jail, on probation or whatnot for decades –DECADES and yet they keep on keeping on, felons using handguns, robbery, rape, assault, random violence, et al.
They get convicted of a crime and let off with probation because the prisons are currently so overcrowded they can’t hold any more without inviting a civil law suit for overcrowding by ACLU…
Just another facet of a Fourth Turning on a downward slope until something lights the fuse and blows the system to pieces.
muck
Simple solution.
Most don’t like “white privilege” or white society, so give them all tickets and food and put them on cruise ships with all their white allies.
Point the ships toward Africa, wait a day, and torpedo them all.
Problem solved.
The War on Drugs
The Great Society
The War on Poverty
The War on the Family
The Welfare State
The Warfare State
Subsidized Housing
Food Stamps
The modern/Progressive democratic party
The modern/Progressive republican party
The Federal Reserve
The Civil Rights Act
(Not an all-inclusive list, nor in any particular order of impact).
Specifically left OFF the list:
Racism
Voluntary charitable giving
Freedom
Liberty
Capitalism
Stable, two-parent families
Great list. I think it covers it all.
If I were to narrow it down to a catch-all category, or two, one of them would be — they have no pride or respect for themselves.
Folks who respect themselves don’t take free shit forever (or, at all), abandon their kids, commit crimes, ignore education, blame others, etc etc … the very thing that characterizes so many kneegrows.
Multi-generational welfare has a way of doing that to someone. Go back to the teens and 20s in prosperous black America and you find high employment, two-parent households, well-educated kids, PRIDE, RESPECT for themselves, etc. ALL in the midst of rampant segregation, racism, Jim Crow laws, etc. Then came FDR, the welfare state, LBJ, guilty white liberals, and the wars on blacks.
“Officials have begged multi-national corporations such as Whole Foods and Wal-Mart for local investment in hopes to spur economic development.”
Let’s see. Chicago, the home of such upright and virtuous politicians / officials as …. damn, can’t think of one. NOT ONE. How are Whole Foods and WalMart supposed to tell the upright and virtuous politicians from the corrupt, lying and thieving ones? We can easily identify the corrupt ones, at least after they are convicted:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Blagojevich
https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/chicago/most-corrupt-illinois-politicians-of-all-time
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/25/corrupt-illinois-politici_n_1299478.html which I will quote:
“The report cites federal data showing that, between 1976 and 2010, there were 1,531 convictions for public corruption in “the federal district dominated by Chicago,” according to the Associated Press.”
Why would anyone invest there? Why would they trust ANY politician from Chicago?
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Jimski, sooo right. I don’t give a damn either. In fact I enjoy watching them reap what they have sown.
Give every black in America a gun and 10 bullets and stand back . In 72 hours or less 50% of the Black problem will be gone , maybe more . At least half may shoot themselves just how bad do we want things to get
I’m reasonably certain many, if not most, of those guns would be pawned in 24 hours.
The 312 homicides in Philly during 2017 are the highest since 2012. They are up 27% since 2013. If the economy has been improving and black unemployment is really as low as I’ve been told by Trump and the BLS, why would homicides in Philly be soaring?
I do not know how low unemployment statistics in the African-American community were said to be by either President Donald Trump or the BLS. However, what this article points to in Chicago and in Baltimore is not going to be solved by a mere 11-month-old presidency (obviously). Various social factors are at play and they have been in place for decades, with exhausting and devastating consequences – the lowering of real estate values, capital and white flight, degeneration in quality of life, the absence of investment, rampant childbirth outside wedlock, low if not absent traditional family values, and dependency on state custodial services.
None of these factors are news to any TBP reader, but what this demonstrates is that billions in federal aid is not going to solve problems. Money is always nice and welcome, but money alone is insufficient.
This reminds me of an insightful comment I read very recently. Paraphrased, it is: “At times, I have wanted to possess the liberals’ ability to view the world as they believe it should be and not the way the world truly is.”
All these measures since the Great Society have only had unimpressive results at best, yet liberals continue to blame all these pathologies, many of them resulting in catastrophes (the body counts and young lives which if with more wisdom and prudence could have become productive and healthy and non-criminal which end up in prison for decades), on the racism of the white man.
In the meantime, most of America – white, middle-class and upper-middle-class and wealthy black, Asians, Hispanics (those who are middle class at least), as well as a hodge-podge of migrants from myriad nations, have quietly moved on up and ahead. It is possible to improve one’s lot in America.
Blaming the white man is a cowardly cop-out.