Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Tired of the gang bangers

I'm SICK and TIRED and SICK of violence in my neighborhood! This incident occurred a block away from my house. My children were playing outside and had to run to the neighbor's house because they heard gunshots. The people involved are NOT from my neighborhood but are drawn to it by the annual Cinco de Mayo (I like to call it Cino de Capitalism) event which draws the scum of the earth to one central impoverished location.

Years ago I organized a block club which still meets. We are able to do some good but the amount of rental properties and properties that are unkept outnumber the houses that are owned and cared for. It is unfortunate but I can't see turning our side of the hood around. I have lived in this neighborhood all my life and it is all about location. The location of my house sits in an area that unless is bulldozed will never draw people with money who can care for their homes properly. It is also about values. The values of people who are in these types of altercations differ greatly from my values. I don't want to get in to a big sociological debate but it just makes me think about all that is going on in the world AND this is is just MY little piece of it.

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Two wounded in shootings in St. Paul

May 4, 2008

A 19-year old man and a 14-year old boy were shot Saturday evening in St. Paul in separate incidents and two teenagers are in custody following the attacks that took place on the city's West Side at about 6:40 p.m.

Police said that the 14-year old is in critical condition at Regions Hospital in St. Paul after being shot in the back. The man was shot in the leg as is in stable condition. (I have a 14 year old son! Thank GOD he was home. I don't even let him go East from our house alone. RIDICULOUS!)

The shootings took place within a one-block area, authorities said. Police said they could not confirm whether the shootings were related.

Authorities did say that they didn't believe the attacks were related to any activities held during the Cinco de Mayo celebration that had taken place nearby. They said that the festival ended about 45 minutes before the shootings. (Of course authorities would say this. How could they say that shootings were RELATED to the event activities unless they actually held a "drive-by" event. Stupid! Yet, every teenager knows that THAT is what goes on at Cinco.)

The department's gang unit is involved in the investigation of what motives may have led to the shootings, a police spokesman said.

Police stopped a suspicious car about 20 minutes after the shootings and reportedly recovered a gun believed used in the shootings. The two teenagers taken into custody for questioning were in the car at the time it was stopped, police said.

PAUL MCENROE



4 comments:

Scrumpy said...

It seems these days, things like this can happen absolutely anywhere. It is scary!

Latin Lupe Lu said...

Thanks for the note! Yes, so it seems. The shooters were found and are in custody. They were from a western suburb - not EVEN from the city.

Jules said...

That's what got my attention also. The kids shooting were from Richfield! It's different when they are from your neighborhood and you actually feel like you can do something about it because they ARE from your neighborhood(you can kick them out!). But when they are from a different location, coming in, it is random and scattered and you have no control over it. Out of all of this, I have one question for this society...what in the world are we doing with teenagers, KIDS, that they have guns? Where's the parents here? Who's running the world?!

Latin Lupe Lu said...

Now let's not blame the parents, at least not immediately. I blame the government and society. We don't want to care for "these people", let them "pull themselves up by the bootstraps". We need to cut government spending anyhow, why don't we just cut Early Child Family Education programs? BAH!!