QUOTE(LicenseForMayhem @ Jan 10 2007, 05:56 PM)
So those of you who know how this all works, what would YOU do to solve this problem if you were the mayor?
Good question. If they want him to fix it, give him some ideas. Since he doesn't know how the hood works, he needs people who do know about the hood to tell him. What will work? How can the police get the information they need here? Tell him how to do it.
QUOTE(BuffaloBill @ Jan 10 2007, 06:23 PM)
Exposure: Use the media, get WGAL and LNP to work together and run a nightly series on the news cast and in the daily paper series. Interview the residents and put them on TV to talk about their community. Force their hands, you will be on TV saying you'll do nothing, or you'll be on TV saying your part of the solution.
Programs and incentives: Work with the community and identify the hot spots, we already know where they are. Get the citizens involved, the ones who are living in fear. Safety in numbers, hold support meetings and community groups. Buy one of the delapidated properties and turn it into a block house. A secure location to work out of a headquarters where residents can come in and meet and do something to take back the streets, and to take back their lives.
Hold fundraisers: These will not only garner support for the cause but may also provide some monetary funds for the community group to maintain it's existence. Handing out flyers and holding support groups. How many people are affected by this problem. More than a few I would suspect.
Go undercover: I am a firm believer of infiltration and working from within. Get in with the people, even if your main goal for being undercover is not to arrest or bust anybody. Show some interest in the people, the community and their issues and problems.
Rewards for information. I am still surprised that there wasn't even a few grand for information, crimestoppers.
Help the people help themselves.
But I'm just shooting from the hip...
no, when the first person who is on tv and does speak up and gets targetted, nobody else will be saying anything else. Can't do that. The community groups getting together probably won't do it either.
The going undercover and offering rewards sound good though. If an officer were to go undercover and move into the neighborhood, they could find out alot within a month or so. If they offered a nice reward, people would find a way to remain anonymous too. Put a thousand up and they'll find a way to get the info to the police. Five thousand would buy you the names of all the gang members. Ten thousand and they'll turn each other in. Gang members are in for the quick buck, if they can make a quick buck by turning somebody in, they'll do it. Gang members can be bought and they can be bought cheap. If they're going to put themselves out there for sale, then buy them and get some good out of them instead of letting them be sold out for the drugs and robberies the gang gives them.
QUOTE(justplainjoe @ Jan 10 2007, 06:40 PM)
if i were the mayor i would get some of my motorcycle gang buddies that i defended back in the day to snatch a few of them , one at a time, take them down to pequea, give them a mild thrashing and then tie them to a tree and call the cops to tell them where they are.
but that would be wrong, that's for sure.
i am not advocating illegal activity but if vigilantes took matters into their own hands the problem would quickly move elsewhere.
As tempting as that may be...
we dont' want the problem to move elsewhere, we want it to end. The elsewhere it moves may be even closer to home than it is now for the "rest of us" in Lancaster. I don't want it in my neighborhood anymore than they want it in theirs. I could feel guilty about being in a nicer neighborhood or I could be an a$$ and brag about it, but I'm just happy that I am and hope it remains a nice neighborhood. If it doesn't, I'll be moving out of it, but only because I can afford to do that. Some of the folks on Beaver street and area surrounding can't afford to do that. You have to have some $$ to move and they just don't have it or can't spare it, no matter how hard they try.
They'd probably ignore the fact it was a gang member and call it a hate crime so that just wouldn't work.
