An interesting proposition....crime thoughts.

[erikd]

Being "heavy-handed" and "arbitrary" would not make them any different than the police in many places in America.

I am all in favor of law enforcement, and agree that Detroit needs more of it, but I also know why people don't necessarily think it would be an unalloyed positive. And focusing on the police is wrong; it is the entire criminal justice system that is arbitrary and unfair.

I agree that the entire criminal justice system needs reform, but that excuse doesn't justify the total breakdown and dysfunction of the DPD. Not showing up for felony calls is bullshit, no matter how you cut it. This apathy from the city police department only serves to embolden and encourage the criminals to perpetrate their crimes with little fear of being arrested and charged.

[Wesley Mouch]

Your argument is not only racist and offensive, it is also bullshit. Crooked politicians get elected and re-elected by every segment of American voters. If you are going to vilify Detroiters for re-electing Kwame, then you should also vilify the white American voters who re-elected Richard Nixon. There weren't too many Detroiters who voted for that crook.

The corruption charges against Kwame didn't come out until he had already been re-elected, and the assertion that Detroiters would have voted for him anyway was clearly disproven when we bounced his mother out of congress in the following election, even though she was not implicated or accused of any wrongdoing.

If Detroiters were so "brainwashed" and suspicious of "the man", then we would not have elected our next two mayors from outside of the city. Detroiters want change and reform, we just aren't getting it, no matter who we vote for.

Who mentioned race? Not in this post. Only in the mind of the reader.

[Dan Wesson]

Who mentioned race? Not in this post. Only in the mind of the reader.

+1, since you must have ten letters or more to post...

It's not like what you find as racist, Erik, is a flat out lie.

But to be fair, in this PC world it is the recipient, who's sensitivities decide what is offensive.

Although the pendulum may be swinging the other way...

[mwilbert]

I agree that the entire criminal justice system needs reform, but that excuse doesn't justify the total breakdown and dysfunction of the DPD. Not showing up for felony calls is bullshit, no matter how you cut it. This apathy from the city police department only serves to embolden and encourage the criminals to perpetrate their crimes with little fear of being arrested and charged.

Yes, although I'm not sure all felonies are created equal. I want the police to spend their time where it will help reduce and prosecute crime. Whether we need them to go to the scene of a car theft is not obvious to me--will they learn something by going there? Is there likely to be evidence? If so, great. If not, maybe they should be doing something else.

[mwilbert]

Who mentioned race? Not in this post. Only in the mind of the reader.

This is disingenuous. When people refer to multi-generational illiterate families in Detroit voting for Kwame Kilpatrick, they don't need to specify a race explicitly in order that any reader with a basic knowledge of the city to know the race of the people they are alluding to.

[Dan Wesson]

Ever watch the old episodes of M.A.S.H.?

When the wounded would arrive everything went into high gear and the first thing they did was called Triage?

I would say that the DPD do a form of triage when faced with an overwhelming load of work and limited resources to bring to bear.

[erikd]

Who mentioned race? Not in this post. Only in the mind of the reader.

Really?

"The same conspiracy folks that brainwash their kids that "the man" is the source of their problems at school, church and in the barber shop."

It is clear that this is racial codespeak. Everybody knows exactly what he meant by "brainwashing the kids" against "the man" in "church and the barbershop." Don't try to be coy and act like this is just an innocuous comment with no racial overtones.

[erikd]

Yes, although I'm not sure all felonies are created equal. I want the police to spend their time where it will help reduce and prosecute crime. Whether we need them to go to the scene of a car theft is not obvious to me--will they learn something by going there? Is there likely to be evidence? If so, great. If not, maybe they should be doing something else.

This is the problem. when you get to the point where the police don't even show up for a grand theft auto, it sends the message that anything short of a gun crime can be committed with impunity. Rampant property crime is the biggest factor that drives citizens and investment out of the city.

[canuck]

Really?



It is clear that this is racial codespeak. Everybody knows exactly what he meant by "brainwashing the kids" against "the man" in "church and the barbershop." Don't try to be coy and act like this is just an innocuous comment with no racial overtones.

Someone could argue he may have been referring to the Frank Rizzos of this world getting their scoop from the barber shop or the church, but you are almost indubitably certain to be 97,7% right in my book.

[Detroit Stylin]

Someone could argue he may have been referring to the Frank Rizzos of this world getting their scoop from the barber shop or the church, but you are almost indubitably certain to be 97,7% right in my book.

When you are taking about the city of Detroit you can guarantee that he is not referring to the .025% of the population that are Pacific Islanders...

[Honky Tonk]

Like I said. Let that be your last time. You can always try me to see if I'm bullshitting.

I'll take that as threat #2. I'll also make sure I don't stop my truck in front of the gas station on the corner of your 'hood.

[mwilbert]

This is the problem. when you get to the point where the police don't even show up for a grand theft auto, it sends the message that anything short of a gun crime can be committed with impunity. Rampant property crime is the biggest factor that drives citizens and investment out of the city.

I think what would show people that crimes can't be committed with impunity would be catching more criminals. I'm open to the idea that showing up at the scene of an auto theft might assist in that goal, but it isn't obvious to me that it would always be relevant. I don't know what you are thinking, but it sounds to me as if you are arguing that the police should show up at the site of any serious crime because it makes it look like they are doing something, whether showing up is relevant to solving the crime or not.

There might well be public relations value in that, and if the police had enough manpower to do it and still do their actual police work, I'd say great, but I suspect that they do not. It doesn't appear that they can manage their actual police work even now.

[corktownyuppie]

When you are taking about the city of Detroit you can guarantee that he is not referring to the .025% of the population that are Pacific Islanders...

1 out of 4000, eh? As a Pacific Islander I will tell you that the only brainwashing we got was to be good at math.

[A2Mike]

Cities with large, dysfunctional, dependent populations continue to exist for one reason. They are convenient for the politicians upon whom they bestow the only thing they have that anybody wants, their votes. Until they have useful skills for which people will actually pay them, they will keep on falling for opportunists who peddle delusions and produce just enough peanuts for the suckers to keep coming back. Will the deluded ever get those needed skills? Not as long as the "gatekeepers" to self sufficiency are the same people they've been voting for.

[canuck]

Cities with large, dysfunctional, dependent populations continue to exist for one reason. They are convenient for the politicians upon whom they bestow the only thing they have that anybody wants, their votes. Until they have useful skills for which people will actually pay them, they will keep on falling for opportunists who peddle delusions and produce just enough peanuts for the suckers to keep coming back. Will the deluded ever get those needed skills? Not as long as the "gatekeepers" to self sufficiency are the same people they've been voting for.

The problem with your assessment is that it falls, once again into the tired cliché school of observation. According to you, Detroit's inner city is only populated by welfare cases and the working population is nil. The city is a ghetto, yes. In opposition to the suburbanscape, it is nothing but a ghetto since the vast majority of the citizenry is of African ancestry. In other words, the fact that the city is very predominantly black puts it at a disadvantage.

Now Detroit has a white mayor, what do you make of that? Is the "man" about to take over Detroit? I honestly fear for Detroit's metro when I read the same garbage over and over. I think a lot of the rage from suburbanites is the result of a lack of positive friction; a true connection to the city, not the city that was, but the city that it has become.

I will repeat my same old-same old song too; "Detroit metro needs to connect its parts.

[Detroit Stylin]

1 out of 4000, eh? As a Pacific Islander I will tell you that the only brainwashing we got was to be good at math.

Before you get defensive try reading this as the sarcastic response to Honky Tonk's not so thinly veiled racist comment.....

[corktownyuppie]

Before you get defensive try reading this as the sarcastic response to Honky Tonk's not so thinly veiled racist comment.....

I wasn't trying to be defensive...was actually trying to be funny? #asianhumor #mathletics

[mwilbert]

Cities with large, dysfunctional, dependent populations continue to exist for one reason. They are convenient for the politicians upon whom they bestow the only thing they have that anybody wants, their votes.

This strikes me as nonsense. They continue to exist because areas filled with poor people have three qualities:

1) They aren't so attractive to non-poor people or immigrants.
2) They are filled with people who have limited ability and/or desire to leave.
3) The most successful of the people who grow up there do leave, and tend not to come back.

Appalachia isn't full of poor white people because someone is trying to keep them there for their votes. They are there because the area doesn't attract much in-migration, and most of the people living there lack either the resources, the support, the skills, or the vision to go someplace else. Politicians don't have to do anything to maintain this situation--they would have to do something fairly substantial to change it.

[A2Mike]

"I think a lot of the rage from suburbanites is the result of a lack of positive friction; a true connection to the city"

If Steve Utash didn't get "friction" from his connection to the city nobody ever did.

[Detroit Stylin]

I wasn't trying to be defensive...was actually trying to be funny? #asianhumor #mathletics

lol ok I gotcha now....

[Zacha341]

Come on folks [[DS, HT), when all is said and done we need not go here do we...?

I'll take that as threat #2. I'll also make sure I don't stop my truck in front of the gas station on the corner of your 'hood.

[sumas]

I feel a bit bad. Our area children mean the world to us.We invest in them and they will reinvest in a city that loved them. We can't do much about crappy parenting but we can engage in community projects that show they are loved.

[Detroit Stylin]

Come on folks [[DS, HT), when all is said and done we need not go here do we...?

You tell me where it went.....

[Detroit Stylin]

Mighty quiet now right! Id still like to hear how i threatened. Mr. HT

[jt1]

Mighty quiet now right! Id still like to hear how i threatened. Mr. HT

C'mon, it's metro Detroit so it is fair for HT to generalize black people as lazy and stupid but he is challenged, then you are just one of those violent, crazy 'Detroiters'

HT would make a hell of a politicians up North with that tact.