DFP interview of Mayor Bing regarding murders in Detroit. [November 15, 2011]

[Woodward's Cousin]

Mayor Bing interview on murders in Detroit; Inspired leadership or feckless rambling responses to softball questions from a favored reporter ?

http://www.freep.com/article/2011111...t-touch-people-

[SWMAP]

Feckless?

You need to read this by Tom Walsh - just last week!

http://www.freep.com/article/2011110...-feckless-news-

[Detroitnerd]

Asked about how Detroit is "murder capital," the response is "I think this feeling of "you owe me something," we gotta stop thinking like that. This feeling of 'the mayor's office is responsible for taking care of us' -- this entitlement mentality has to stop."

What? Is this just a red-meat talking point for the counties?

[corktownyuppie]

Red-meat talking point or not, I don't know. I do know that no amount of police will solve crime when it is part of the cultural norm. You would need to have one cop for every 4 residents, it'd be impossible. I mean, you're talking about changing an entire peoples' worldview and habits, I don't think any one person -- Mayor or not -- is going to be able to do that.

If you're already walking around thinking you've got a 50/50 shot of seeing age 25, you're not going to be able to use "long term consequences" as a motivator for change.

I believe the long term solution will come from community leaders, a better understanding of preventing and eliminating severely dysfunctional interpersonal norms, and lots of time and love.

But from the Mayor's and City Council's office, I think their best bet is just to continue focusing on densifying the city. Cutting geographical coverage of DPD in half will cost a whole lot less than doubling the police force. Unfortunately, even that process is a 10-year plan.

[313hero]

Drugs + Booze + Unemployment + Rap Music=Detroit Today

[SWMAP]

You forgot the proliferating street memorials to murdered youths. Now an opportune business has sprung up to raise the bar on muddy teddy bears and tattered flowers hanging all over. Now you can memorialize your murdered loved one on the street with no worry that the shrine will get old and fade away [[like life). From the Free Press today:

Mahone and her sisters say homicides are a reality of urban living. To that end, they have started making personal memorials that have pictures of the victims or their cars -- with spinning rims -- a favorite liquor, guns, dollar bills, dominoes or motorcycles. The stuffed-animal memorials fade, but these memorials made of ceramic tiles can be used as permanent markers.

[Woodward's Cousin]

Yes, feckless.

[Dexlin]

The homicide epidemic seems to be easy to address, to me. I won't pretend that it won't take some time to get it under control, but for a city that's delt with a ridiculously high murder rate for decades we've studied it enough to know how to prevent it, but there is not the will to redirect funding from punitive measures [[prisons, police power, etc.) toward preventitive measures [[community activities and reconstruction, education both for children and parents who may not have gotten a full one, etc.).

The murder epidemic in Detroit has been studied to death, so I don't get why city leaders and the community continue to play stupid about how to head it off, or why they throw around these ethereal and bogus reasons for it. We know, for instance, from a mid-decade study commissioned by the DPD that about a full 70% of homicides in the city are a result of the drug-trade, either directly or indirectly. We also know from simple statistics of those that committ it and the many of the victims that murder is the province of young men between a pretty clearly defined age range. To me, all of this existential musing on it [[i.e. "the culture") that doesn't address practical measures to combat it is useless and something we've concentrated on ad naseum to absolutely zero effect. There are practical things that could be done TODAY to begin shaving off the murder count.

This is really quite a simple numbers game. There is a murder in Detroit something slightly less than every day. We know who these folks are before they committ them; we've known them their whole lives. In the absence of a family unit to be able to get its arms around the problem, and the knowing that law enforcement by its very nature is usually a reactionary counterforce and that they are stretched thin, I think there is room for public monies to be set aside for community organizations to be able to track the progress of children most likely to fall into this life. That means as something as a call every month to these families to inquire about the progress of these children. The minute you find out these children have stopped going to school, the organization organizes an intervention. But, you have to do this city-wide; it'd can't be one community center doing this here-and-there; there has to be a city-wide system of attention.

This isn't rocket science, but it does require a high and fine level of attention to detail at a city-wide level. Bemoaning that "kids don't have respect these days" and all that crap doesn't do sh%t, excuse my French. If all we're going to do is blame the victim, and then shake our heads hopelessly, come January 1st, you can get ready knowing by the harsh reality of math that you're going to have another 300 murders by years end. Honestly, what is it like to know with certainty that there is going to be a murder in your city nearly EVERY SINGLE DAY?

[brizee]

^^^^^Cosign^^^

Didn't Warren Evans employ methods that had murders down significantly for the first time in decades?

Why has Godbee not just been following that lead?

[313WX]

Didn't Warren Evans employ methods that had murders down significantly for the first time in decades?

Perhaps, though I'm not sure if the OFFICIAL data backs that up and it may be skewed by the fact that Detroit's population also dropped by 25%.

That said, the methods Evans used were also unconstitutional.

Screaming that you're broke and tired of the BS doesn't change the fact that you still have legal and financial obligations to meet and follow for all of your 700,000 citizens, crimimals or not, donwtown or neighborhoods, young or old, rich or poor. If you can't meet your legal obligations to them then they will pack up and leave, along with their influence and money[[which YOU need more than they need you). Thus the situation worsens. You can try cutting spending all you want. If revenues are rapidly declining then there's not enough spending in the world you can cut without officially choking off what's left of the city.

[Detroit Stylin]

Drugs + Booze + Unemployment + Rap Music=Detroit Today

So beucase of rap music then I should in effect have a line of bodies that stretch from the D to Ny and back three times....

I LOATHE willful ignorance....

[brizee]

Perhaps, though I'm not sure if the OFFICIAL data backs that up and it may be skewed by the fact that Detroit's population also dropped by 25%.

That said, the methods Evans used were also unconstitutional.

I do remember reading articles touching on that. Using statistics to blanket some areas during certain times of the year. Performing "random" traffic stops and coming up with guns and things of that nature.

I don't know if that's necessarily a bad thing.

Let me first say that I have neither the patience nor tolerance for police brutality or racial profiling, few things in life piss me off as much.

But certain segments of our city need their rights, not broken, but leaned on and stretched just a little bit.

If you're rolling cigarellos of weed right at the gas station you deserve to have the police up in your shit.

If you're driving with fake insurance in a beat up car with no muffler, the stars probably should allign for you to get hassled.

If you own a corner junkyard and insist on using a mostly abandoned, but still has people living there, side street as your tiredump...the police need to be jamming you up just a little bit.

[Ravine]

Not to blow snot all over the whole interview, but I will say that I found it to be mostly softball answers to softball questions.
Nothing so awful about that, but nothing truly enlightening or thought-provoking, either.

[Dexlin]

If you own a corner junkyard and insist on using a mostly abandoned, but still has people living there, side street as your tiredump...the police need to be jamming you up just a little bit.

Illegal dumping makes me so angry. What makes me particularly angry is when folks that have no idea about illegal dumping see one of those quintessential "bombed-out" areas of the city and blame it on the residents in the neighborhood when the vast majority of the time, much of Detroit looks like shit because of the illegal dumpers. And, to try and cover their tracks many of these dumpers dump far away from their businesses, and a lot of suburban businesses seem to believe that there is nothing wrong with dumping random shit in a place like Brightmoor.

I tell you, if Detroit had the money I'd love to see an entire police unit devoted to illegal dumping in Detroit. If it could be stopped, today, the city would look different almost overnight, and perhaps that'd given residents more pride in keeping their own properties clean. I can totally understand how a resident wouldn't feel the urgency to keep his or her own property looking nice when pick-up trucks are driving into your neighborhood every night and dumping shit in the empty lot next to your home. Talk about disincentivizing and disempowering a neighborhood. You look at what a street like Robinwood used to look like, and it's obvious that it wasn't the residents that largely created that mess. That was a complete and utter abandonment of an area by the city government and police.

[Switchmanjim]

Could use this guy