The emergency room at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center might treat one heroin overdose in a typical mid-June week. Last week there were nine. Two people died.
Some arrive via ambulance, others get dumped on the doorstep, a needle literally still stuck in the arm. Other than the drug, there is one common theme: Almost always, the victims are young, white males from affluent areas around Peoria. Source
Violent crime task force
A violent crime task force is now being formed to patrol "hot spots" where gun violence has recently been on the rise. The shooting of Roberico King was the seventh homicide of the year and the Police Cheif is reporting that "50% of gun violence so far this year has taken place in the last six weeks alone."
Points of focus for the 16-officer team will be - a strip of South Peoria between Starr and Garden streets just west of South Western Avenue and an area of Howett Street just east of Western. Additionally included is a portion of the East Bluff near the intersection of McClure Avenue and University Street.Source
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20 comments:
The number of overdoses in Tazewell County has reached virtually epidemic proportion. I don't know what it's going to take to get folks to wake up.
McClure and University is not East Bluff.
That strip between Starr and Garden is where both my husband and I grew up. It was a family-friendly, working-class neighborhood then. Recently we drove by the house he used to live in, and the Armadillo was parked right in front of it!
Oh great! Heroin Chic is back in the "hip" set. Tragic but these kids are just as stupid as the young black that picks up a gun.
Young people in Peoria from the inner city to the suburbs, feeling invincible and looking to escape. What is it about living in Peoria that seems to make so many young people want to turn to drugs, guns and gangs?
Is it unreasonable to believe that gangs are based on turf for selling drugs--all about money? And those buyers of whom there must be many live in the suburbs and have plenty of money to spend. However, the users aren't all kids--many are adults who have respectable jobs, etc. And the Kingpins who run the drug business aren't kids either (the kids are the ones one the street dying to maintain the turf for the Kingpins). Is that an unreasonable assessment of the situation?
Sharon, I would agree that the head drug person in peoria, is very rich and very white, but kids are using the drugs, so are their parents. If you want to watch drug sales in action, drive up Sheridan near the liquor store. The ones selling the drugs are black, the ones buying the drugs are black. When the liquor store was a liquor store, there would whites from the surrounding communities and the outer districts buying drugs here. It has gotten to dangerous for them, so more sales in smaller quantities. As far as gangs, they are not the organized gangs of chicago, LA, New York. They are punk gangs. Kids with no respect for life or property. The act like animals, again, come watch them yourselves. This is how they are raised, how they live, and how they will die. It's not that they lack hope and feel trapped in life that they no choice, it's that they simply do not care and have no desire to better themselves. It is hard to understand for most people, because the thought process is so foreign to most people, especially if you let compassion, sympathy, or guilt overrun reality (there must be a balance between the two).
pdw, you might be right, but how do you get into the minds if these young people to know their motivations and psychological make-up. Please remember that I did teach school and I did encounter some of these young people who seemed not to care and had already become hardened. However, I can't presume to know how they came to that state of mind. Hope is elusive; how do you know that they don't lack hope or don't feel trapped? Also, are you judging the whole drug trade by what happens at one liquor store in Peoria? Just because black kids and adults are using drugs doesn't make them the major market for drugs in Peoria. There is too much money involved in the drug trade to lead me to believe that the main buyers reside in the inner city. Also, I can't believe that the kids on the streets selling the drugs are making the big bucks from the drug trade.
I feel sicken every time I hear that whites are the providers of the drugs being pushed around Peoria. let me tell you, Peoria would be surprised to learn the extent of how some of the so called upper elite of the Black community are involved with this problem as well as those so called white suburb kids. Get real, until the media and the entertainment corporations stop glorifying gangs the problem will exists. I see toddlers of 2 yrs old throwing up gang signs when they should be listening to fairy tales and having mom read to them. The first exposure to literacy is picking up malt beer cans and listening to profanity on the stereo. This problem crosses all ethnic groups. I know for a fact kids as young as 10 are coming to school blown out of their minds. Stop blaming others for the mistakes. It is time for people to be responsible for their own actions. There are many good families throughout the inner city, parents who hold their children accountable.
The two latest fatal overdoses in Tazewell County of methadone, a drug prescribed to treat heroin addicts, produced the arrest Wednesday of a young Morton man who police said was badly sickened by the drug as well.
Daughton Calvin, 18, was taken into custody on charges of drug-induced homicide involving the deaths of Travis Whiteman, 22, of Pekin, on May 31 and of Cody Schillinger, 19, of Morton, a day later.
An East Peoria man was shot and killed last week during a botched robbery that had been set up as a drug deal, according to documents recently filed in Tazewell County.
James E. Johnson, 22, and Carlton Neely, 20, had an unidentified third party arrange a deal for marijuana from Justin Siebenthal, 21, of 233 Elm St. shortly after 12 a.m. June 13.
The pair, both from Peoria and armed with handguns, went to Siebenthal's house with the man who arranged the purchase and had him knock on the door, then get out of the way.
There is no doubt that there are black and white users and sellers of drugs; however, the fact remains that it is the white wealthier kids and adults who have the money to buy drugs (often used recreationally and, therefore, used by people who maintain jobs, etc.) I just listened to a Peoria police officer and a doctor talk about drug use in Peoria.
They stated that the drugs are coming out of Chicago and that the drug trade is now carried on more discreetly through cell phones, so drug dealers no longer have to stand on street corners where buyers drive by to make their purchases.
Yes, I know about these behaviors, etc., in the inner city and I'm not trying to discount their existence. However, please remember that the adults in the suburbs--who are users and/or who give their kids way too much money are not monitoring how the kids are spending the money--are the primary market for drugs. The two on the radio mentioned one such young person who just recently stole and pawned his mother jewelry to buy drugs. What I am saying is that if we just blame the inner city users and sellers for the drug trade, we are leaving out many, many who make that trade a very lucrative business. Where do you think there are the most drug users, at Manual or at Notre Dame? I don't know but my guess is that it is not Manual--just because of the availability of money.
I am curious about one post above--how does one get to be "so-called" white kid? Why are so many so unwilling to make the white community bear its share of responsibility for the crime spawned by the drug trade? Until we stop the demand, the suppliers will be there.
Sharon, I agree with your last 2 posts. Unfortunately, for many in this community and across the nation, it's so much easier to blame, criticize African-Americans for the gangs and drug trade. We also should be seeing a lot more outrage about the caucasian youth involvement (i.e. 'where where their parents, did they have a daddy, was mom on welfare' type comments). But we won't.
Unfortunately, a bigger supply of drugs is probably in the inner cities (predominately black), but the demand is from the outer cities (predominately white)
I think that it has a lot to do with one's value system. I remember listening to a high school teacher discuss that many students had three cell phones: one for personal calls and texting, one for business, and one to hand to authority figure when caught with a phone. Black or white, rich or poor, I believe it has to do with values.
If pot were taxed and treated like wine - different "vintages" if you will, gov't deficits would errode, prisons would be less crowded, and many could become entrepeneurs - if they paid the gov't appropriate fees, of course. If not now, it WILL happen within the next decade - so why wait? Prohibition against alcohol gave rise to Capone and other criminal elements. The war on pot is just as misguided.
Crazy white guy growing weed in the Heights...
PEORIA HEIGHTS —
A Facebook posting earned a man on probation for burglary a return trip to jail Wednesday on felony marijuana production charges.
Matthew V. Manning, 24, of 827 E. Wilson Ave. apparently took a photo earlier this month of several marijuana plants growing behind his garage.
The move to 'harder' drugs has more to do with the area being dry in terms of weed. When weed is hard to come by, harder drug use increases. I also think zero tolerance policies target lower socio-economic groups and encourage kids to seek more risky highs, i.e., pills, huffing, robo-tripping and abuse of otc cold meds.
It's not a black/white, rich/poor thing...it's a bored teenager living in a community that values conformity at all cost thing.
I live on the south end of Peoria, and just this morning I had to chase off two white males sitting in a red car in front of my home. They where clearly doing some kind of drug. I caught them on video and will continue to do my part to chase them off and video tape their activities. I think there is a common biased against those who do want to live here on the south end and make it better. The whole idea of blaming the poorer sections of town for the major drug and crime issues are a ruse to cover up the real issue. Supplying the suburban and rural surrounding areas.
There is too much gun violence; gang activity, and homicides especially in the African-American community. No, not talking about 2012, but 1993. The Vice-Lords and the Gangster Disciples gangs were at war. A former Chicago gang member negotiated a truce. PCCEO, Urban League, the City, and others devised a job training/apprenticeship program to get the young men and women off the streets. And it worked. Could something like this work in 2012? A CAPtions classic from 1993. Here are the links:
Part 1: http://youtu.be/Ya5C7UhpW_Y
Part 2: http://youtu.be/cO2afPC8j38
(Shameless plug here, Emerge. Thank you)
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