The website for the Mayor's Don't Shoot initiative has been launched. It holds a lot of good information about how the program should work in our community. There is also a component for involving District 150. There are four components to the school program.
- First - the program uses the Student Pledge Against Gun Violence. The pledge is signed by the student at school and is a voluntary promise that they will never carry a gun to school, will never resolve a personal problem or a dispute with a gun, and will use their influence with their friends to keep them from resolving disputes with guns.
- Second - is a speaker’s bureau where Mayor Ardis and other members of the task force will make anti-gun violence presentations to the students throughout the school district.
- Third - is a “Stop Gun Violence” poster contest. It is hoped that the task force can turn the top three posters from four age groups into a “Don’t Shoot” 2013 wall calendar.
- Fourth - is a reading program modeled after the Peoria Reads! program, but using age appropriate books dealing with the issue of gun violence. Source
In the meantime...
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| Since when is the 1800 Block of North Bigelow Street in the West Bluff |
15 comments:
I mentioned a "targeted" gun exchange as a proactive measure...
I received a NO GO!
OK, didn't news 25 say that gun violence could cost the city up to $1M per occurrence? Why can't the CITY, invest about $20,000 to target 400 to 500 guns in the most violent areas?
I wonder do we believe what we say or are we just saying things that sound good? Based on my experience for quite some time, I'd go with the latter...
Things that make you go Hmmmmmm...
Also, another thing...gun violence in Peoria is not perpetrated by school aged kids for the most part. This is perpetrated by most post-high school aged young adults.
Those who have graduated HS or dropped out, are from about 20 to 30 and either have no place to go, nothing to do, including work, and OR, if they are employed are caught up in the wrong activity.
Now, I wonder how ALL of this squares with the Mayors advocacy of concealed carry?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not blasting anyone...YET...but does anyone think it is a confusing message to send to the students that they should abandon guns, while at the same time, carry is advocated for Peoria itself?
It seems like his speeches need to have quite a few exceptions and disclaimers...LOL
Anyway...
This is the thing though.Kids are not taught to defend themselves any other way. As a child my dad always said if you needed to kick some ones *ss do with your fists. Kids nowadays aren't taught that. And they are so desensitized by the violence on tv that they don't really understand the human factor. Its a shame that we as a society value life so little...
Some good advice to youth and adults from our Rapper friend Grade A Plus:
STOP TRIPPIN'!
Now put down your guns!
What message are you
sending your daughters
and your sons?
STOP TRIPPIN',
when a brother gets
up in your face,
respect and patience
will keep your nose in place
STOP TRIPPIN',
It's time for us to snitch
Someone out there knows
who's killing off our bros
STOP TRIPPIN'
Now listen to my sound,
hangin' with gangbangers
will put you in the ground
STOP TRIPPIN',
and quickly move your feet
when you see someone with a hoodie
in the hot July heat
STOP TRIPPIN',
and expand your mind,
cause a good education is
like finding a gold mine
STOP TRIPPIN'
don't act like a fool
stay in school and
really be cool
STOP TRIPPIN'.
First, I don't support CIC in Peoria or Illinois. The last fix to gun violence is more guns IMO.
Second: I think the good Reverend wants Peoria to pony up $20k to say, buy back guns? That has been done before and all that showed up was broken rifles, cheap useless pistols, BB guns and all it did was buy lunch for some of the thugs.
As for the Mayor's latest incentive program, drawn from a book, this is nothing more than lip service again. Since when do thugs read books? How about instead of a new hotel or a set of new tables to place in the middle of Water Street, we hire some more police so the ones we have now don't spend 90% of their time answering calls and can do some patrolling instead.
gun buybacks. Say we pay $50.00 to some thug for his gun. He then goes back to Starr streets, gets another for $25.00 and has $25 for weed, smokes, or few backs of el cheapo beer. That's why they are not effective. It doesn't really resolve the problem. How about the thugs get their butts back into school, like they should have been if they had parents who actually raised them, and got a real job. Then they would be too tired and too busy to be creating nonsense.
The don't shoot website is all flash and no substance. a poster contest. REally, this is big plan to resolve crime.
My thoughts is once again, another snake oil salesman has come to the council spinning a shiny object and the council just has to have one. This guy is going to make a killing off book sales for this as the good sheeple of people are dazzle, then poof, we are back to where we were, the true sources never addressed, the true solutions never funded. This is election BS at its best. Plain and simple. Remember Spears and Cease Fire which never panned out. Remember when they brought the thugs in to meet with LaVetta Ricca and company and church leaders. The men sat there with smug smiles and nothing changed.
There is no substitute for the roughly 40 police officers cut. There is no substitute for gutting the dectective unit and eliminating the gang unit. The task force is effecting officers available for regular patrols. I will attest that when we had regular officers who knew the members of neighborhood, the good, the bad, and the ugly, crime was reduced. They knew who belonged, who didn't. Where the problems were and also who would be availble lend a hand. That is what reduced crime here. When that was cut, crime skyrocketed, People went back indoors, but the thugs and it's worse now more than ever.
I agree that we don't need any police cuts. In fact I think they are dangerously close to loosing control and would loose control if there were multiple events at certain times.
But let me address the buyback issue. A gun exchange IS NOT the end all be all of things. It is the personal relationships and face time that make that effort successful and no matter the criticism it does help. We witnessed individuals first had that it did. Secondly, WEEK reported that those sponsoring this effort "Don;t Shoot" said that gun crimes COULD cost the city roughly $1M. I am assuming that was per occurrence, I don't know.
If that is the case, $20K toward an exchange is a good deal if that nets 200 to 500 guns within the targeted area. This was what I was talking about a targeted and specific exchange.
In the first effort, out of the almost 200 guns that we took in, most of them were guns in operable condition. Yes, there were shot guns etc, but they didn't qualify for payment. We targeted handguns and got quite a few.
Where things fell off track was that our Police Chief had agreed that one of our representatives would be there for the destruction of the weapons and that a report of disposition would be provided. He DID NOT do either of the things WE ALL agreed to.
Why was that important? It was important because sources had told us prior to the exchange that guns were funneling out of the back door of the dept . making their way onto the streets....I have NO EVIDENCE to support this, but this is the info I specifically received. I informed the Chief of this prior to the exchange, and to date, I have a 3 pager letter of him expressing his disappointment with me for asking him to follow through on his promises well after the exchange was done.
So there are issues and this is one reason I haven't pursued this any further.
My take is this...If we want to know where the guns are coming from, all we have to do (and I know it's not easy) is to trace the ammunition. Once again, I'm not as versed on this aspect of things, but from my understanding ammunition can be traced to manufacturer and sales. I have not seen an ammunition report as to where the ammunition is coming from in cases where people are shot. I do know that thugs aren't going to the store buying their own ammunition, so where is it coming from?
So I agree, that a strong force is essential, but there are proactive measures that can be taken that don't involve throwing people in jail. Speaking to HS students feels good, but in this case, those who are beyond that level are the ones making the bad decisions. We need proactive measures to reach them.
People are not thrown in jail. No one comes to your house, grabs you in the middle of the night at random and tosses you in a cell. Essentially you either earn it or chose it. breaking the laws lead to consequences. The thugs out shooting the street have been raised that there are no consequences for their behavior. They run the streets, skip school, disrespect adults, watch their parents use drugs, watch man after man come in and out of their momma's life for an hour or two, physical and sexual abuse, etc. And for all of these things, nothing mitigates simple choice of doing what is right and what is wrong.
Many people have lead crappy lives and don't steal, don't shoot people and show other's respect. There is a segment of society that continues to breed these home grown terrorists...and yes that is what they are. The community sits idily by, looks the other direction, pretends it doesn't exist. When their kid is shot..he was a great kid, wonderful in every way....never mind the whole history of deliquency from the aforementioned. There is often little surprise when they are shot, especially if you are behind the scenes and see the real family life.
So you want to effect change, fix that. In the meantime, my only advice is if you don't want to be locked up, make better choices. Peoria is very rich in social service help and many other opportunities, one needs to only take advantage of them.
If you want to fund a gun buy back program then raise the money. I pay taxes for public safety not dropping money into some thug's pocket.
That IS the problem Anonymous. These problems with the youth and young adults didn't happen overnight. It is generation after generation of young women, mostly single, raising kids all the while a segment of the community, both black and white, look the other way as if it's going to go away. It doesn't. The white community becomes jaded and the black community wants someone to fix the problem. So we throw money at it. Like devising new schools to give the so called under advantaged a chance. New programs like Head Start and Early Childhood development. Probably good programs on paper and they might even work, but no one took in account for the child going back to a drug invested, no respect, household. All these children hear is that everything is owed them. You owe us a lunch, you owe us free books, you owe us subsided housing, you owe us transportation. Nothing earned so no respect.
Now there is nothing wrong with all this except many make a career out of living off the public dole. 14 years in public housing? Being on LINK for 20 years? That is what is wrong.
BTW, the other anon is right also. I don't want my tax dollars going to buy back guns. I'd rather pay for more police.
What you would rather do is sit around or your ass and complain on blogs.
Why not?
Well, we ALL pay taxes, so your share or demand for how they are used is not greater than mine or anyone else's. What we know about virtually anything is that prevention is more than worth the cost of investment. It's worth it to get oil changes regularly than to replace an engine or have to buy a new car.
Look, catch a shooter and they will spend OUR tax money to house, cloth, and feed this fella to the tune of about $40,000 per year in Illinois.
Balance that $50 to potentially prevent crime and connect a criminal to a different mindset of people vs. $40,000 to catch and house him????
Prevention (whatever measures there may be) sounds like the BEST use of OUR tax dollars to me.
The man said, (The States Attorney) gun crimes could cost up to $1M. I don't know, but was he lieing or is that just something said to justify the "Don't Shoot" initiative?
To do nothing but react when the financial cost is that great is irresponsible.
I'll give you this however, that often, with this type of issue, it doesn't seem like there's a one to one relationship between prevention and solving the problem. That's because there's too much start and stop when it comes to these sort of issues. Consistently starting and stopping yields little by way of results.
Mr. Burnett:
You're not getting it. You buy the guns. You bought them from people I know as clients. They then bought another gun and got drunk with rest. Show me the prevention, show me the gain from that. They thought you folks were fools and they took advantage of it. They were just as armed and a little richer and quite frankly a little drunker.
The state's attorney and the mayor and the city district council members are up for re election. They have done NOTHING until 60 days before the November elections. You figure it out. The council elections are in the Spring. They have done NOTHING and now need to have something in place for their upcoming stump speeches. They are using the death of an 8 year old to manipulate the public. The two strategies are 1. repeat the saturation patrols and develop a task force. Something they have done before, so organization would seem to be very quick. Note in doing so, patrols are suffering even more from lack of officers on the streets. No one has mentioned their gutting of the Dectective unit...the guys who solve the crimes.
2. They are utilizing the latest pop psychology sensation to dazzle the weak minded into believing that something is being done. They have a flashy video and catchy website, but little substance and no understanding of criminal thinking. No resolutions for the perfect storm they have created to keep spurring the crime in the first place. I predict this guy will simply get rich from book sales and much like cease fire and the crime forums and the Guardian Angels, the people will expect it to be done for them and won't participate and it will fall apart. No one is learning from those past efforts, but again are repeating the same cycle. I could go one for a long time on the economic priorities of this council, of the political connections benefits and campaign contributions and so on and so on.
In the meantime, more people are getting murdered. Quite frankly, I believe that they believe that those are "acceptable losses". If they were not, then the strategic planning session last weekend would have had at least one statement made to address the number one issue, namely crime. Now it doesn't even appear on the list of goals.
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