Sometimes my city is glorious, butit really is run by assholes:
In a violent summer, the city last night saw its most violent single
incident so far. Nine people were hurt – one seriously – in what police
are calling a gang-related shooting at a CTA turnabout at 7900 S.
Western Ave., a junction for both
the CTA’s No. 49 and No. 79 buses. According to police, five of the
nine victims are known gang members (four Gangster Disciples, one Vice
Lord). The victims, eight males and one female, ranged in age from 16
to 31. CPD Supt. Jody Weis stressed the gang-related nature of the
shooting, telling reporters,
“I don’t want people to think there’s any kind of threat against people
waiting for the bus or anything like that.” We’re all breathing a sigh
of relief; thanks, Jody.
Yeah, it’s just fucking fine. Nothing to see here. Just some more animals doing what animals do. It’s not like it was some young pretty white girl who got killed, after all, or some honor student, or someone So Full of Promise who had a scholarship to some top university and loved his mom. It was just some gangbangers. Whatever. Fuck ’em, right? If you’re not in a gang, you don’t have to worry. Right?
(And could we not list the gangs by name, please? It makes it seem like there should be a box score somewhere with league standings and an injury report.)
I’m not naive, you know. I do get that despite our grand protestations of equality in this country some lives are very starkly worth more than others. Worth more of our attention, our time, our column inches, our care. “Our” care, I mean. I do get that we have always accepted and will always accept a level of violence that does not affect us personally, and I also get that we have this supremely fucked-up thought that if we aren’t wearing colors we’ll somehow be okay, because nothing shitty happens to you but you deserved it.
Yet, if your job is to protect the whole city, I would hope you could at least refrain from saying something so buttfuckingly stupid as that nobody needs to worry about bus stops turning into something Wyatt Earp would dig because they’re all just gangbangers.
In the first place, like nobody’s ever been shot by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the second, even if it’s just gangbangers killing each other THAT IS STILL NOT OKAY.
A.
—–
Not unlike the mentality that let the Green River killer run around at large for nearly 20 years. They were just prostitutes and runaways, not your kids or mine. Just gangbangers, not real people. Just wetbacks, not real citizens. Just fill in the blank, not me or you.
When the victims are from the other side of the tracks, Baton Rouge cops have always called them misdemeanor murders.
Derek Todd Lee killed several middle-class white women. There was steady national news reporting and a monster task force.
The other three serial killers in Baton Rouge (one has been caught; a second possibly in custody) were killing black hookers mostly. Not so newsworthy or task-force-worthy.
Not unlike the mentality that let the Green River killer run around at large for nearly 20 years. They were just prostitutes and runaways, not your kids or mine. Just gangbangers, not real people. Just wetbacks, not real citizens. Just fill in the blank, not me or you.
like nobody’s ever been shot by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Come on, A. We’ve seen that before, too. When someonedoes catch a stray bullet from a drive by or whatnot, the smug middle-and-above-class cocksuckers blame them for living in an area where there might be stray lead flying around. When something bad happens–accidental death, foreclosure, unemployment, bankruptcy, whatever–it has to be deserved. Just like good things. So the shitheels who make these arguments must be better than the people who are at the bottom of the ladder, because the smug pricks have gotten good things and outcomes. It CAN’T be just–or even partly–the luck of the draw; oh, no. That would mean that they’re not Special People Who Achieve Great Things Through Hard Work.
I’m reminded of the attitude toward the hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan (or anywhere else). What do those people expect, living in a war zone and shit?
We get that a lot here. The problem with that attitude is that innocents get caught up in gangbanger violence so anything that blows it off could get someone who isn’t a criminal killed as well.
Have you seen how these kids hold their guns while shooting? I’m surprised more innocent bystanders aren’t hit.
aiming is for pussies.
Did somebody just go “Kids these days” referring to how they hold their Glocks?!