Dear Philly,
Please stop killing each other. I get moved by marches and vigils and tough talk from Mayor Nutter just as much as the next guy, but really… this shit’s gotta stop. We are consistently in the top 5 US cities in murder rate if not leading that stat more often than not. We have more murders than New York, a city that’s 5x our size in population! And our numbers seem to be going up, not down now. We even got called out by NYC’s Mayor Bloomberg in May who said, “Philadelphia is a great city but it has the highest murder rate of any of the 10 largest cities in the country and the number of murders is going up.” I know that our city delights in beating NY in points of any kind, but take the competition the other way. Let’s try to be lower than them. Like golf. I think. I don’t play it.
I know the city offers cash for people that give info leading to a conviction in a homicide case, cash for info leading to recovery of an illegal hand gun… but both of those rely on people stepping up and not being afraid to say something. For that reason the Mayor has doubled funding for witness protection. This after a woman was killed in January after, it is believed, her cooperation in a murder case from November 2011. I’d be curious to know how many people are jumping at this. Hopefully more brave people than I’d think.
I think all that though… offering rewards, going in and getting the guns… is just treating the problem. It’s not helping to cure anything. It’s just going to quiet it down until more rise to take their place. This is why when our country- sometimes our city- announce budget cuts to education, to afterschool programs and other social programs- makes me want to scream. We do that and then spend billions upon billions fighting wars. What message does that send? And speaking of war, homicides in Philly and Chicago outpace soldiers lost in Afghanistan. An actual war. Where death is a very possible consequence. Social programs and after school programs for children is what we need to pump more money into, not take away from.
I don’t really know anything about guns. I don’t know how to use one. I don’t know how much one costs. All I know of them is what I see on TV and the movies and that I should always look to see if the safety is off. What I do know is that we have to do something. So what do we do? Do we have enough cops? Do they have specific areas they are always in and walking up and down? Do they know the residents of the areas they protect? If not I think that would be a start. Seeing a cop go up your street and be able to know him or her by name. I can’t name one cop right now. If I did and I saw him on the street and saw something I’d be more inclined to open my mouth. This might be the case. The cops might do this now, but something makes me feel like that’s not the case. I’m going to talk to someone and find out 1) if they cover regular areas and 2) if they’re told to get to know the residents as much as possible.
Clearly the secret to solving crime was not contained here within these paragraphs. Unfortunately. But I think there is a message- start dealing with the problem before it becomes a problem and don’t cut the funds that are keeping these kids growing in a healthy environment, or getting them out of an unhealthy one. I think down the line a difference will be made as we deal with the screw ups of too many cuts in the wrong places.
Every once in a while I get the urge to run for office. I haven’t ever looked into it though. I usually get so far is thinking about it and what I’d want to change and how I’d go about it. I don’t really want to run for office, but if shit doesn’t get better this city might leave me no alternative.
