Hartford is a city with, I think, an amazing untapped resource in its residents. It is also a city that never ceases to amaze me. So far this week has been a series of emotional ups and downs when you stand back and look at what Hartford has to offer. Realizing that baby steps get things started, the HPD Union this week took quite a few steps in the seminar they offered. I wrote a little about it last night, and I have a lot more to write later.
The sad part though is that many of the Hartford officers we were sitting with at the seminar had started their work day several hours earlier. They had been called in to investigate after a 27 year old woman became Hartford's latest homicide victim. A 27 year old woman who had no thoughts of violence as she spent the evening at a newly opened club on Franklin Avenue. A 27 year old woman who from all indications was fleeing from a bar after a fight broke out inside. A 27 year old woman who was not an instigator or a drug dealer or a gang member.
Simply enough, she was a 27 year old woman shot dead in the street as the result of two thugs settling a fight after one of the thugs ran to his car to retrieve a weapon. The total disregard for human life was exhibited as a 27 year old woman had the extreme misfortune of being an innocent victim of Hartford's gun violence. A 27 year old woman who had a bullet fired by a cowardly thug strike her in the head, ending her life almost immediately.
A bullet fired as the result of a gunfight between two cowards who chose to settle their differences at the barrel of a gun. A 27 year old woman who has the misfortune of being Hartford's 18th homicide victim for 2010.
The sad part though is in asking where is the outrage? Last week a 25 year old mother of a 4 year old son was victim number 17 as she exited a convenience store in the middle of a gunfight orchestrated by more gun toting cowards. A blip on the 11 o'clock news on Channel 3, a couple inches in a column of the Courant, but still no outrage. Try that in Farmington or Avon or Vernon and see what the response would be.
The really sad part though is that postings about predator politicians dancing in their blue boxers or how many women can a potential Mayoral candidate impregnate generate all types of responses. Shoot a 27 year old woman in the head or a 25 year old mother through the heart and nothing, no outrage...nothing.
-
7 comments:
Kevin: Once again you hit the nail on the head. Where is Councilman Cotto? Probably still meeting with the iman or with someone who lives in Arizona and is an ilegal alien...
this (violence) is something that there is no quick fix for, there is no one thing that caused it or can resolve it...i think the reason for the lack of comments on this subject is resignation...hartford passed the point a long time ago where this was outrageous. it is now common...people numb to it...this happened while all the imbecilic and important only in the minds of those involved hartford "politicians" played their stupid games...people who truly tried to work on these issues (with sincerity, knowledge and intensity) left hartford a LONG time ago because they could get absolutely no where with the the people in positions of power in hartford...
politicians keep playing and engaging in your self important and myopic dramas, this is hartford's new reality...actually not new anymore...even IF hartford's politicians somehow cared about more than themselves there is a ridiculous level of "brain drain" in the city...ignorance and sincerity won't fix this problem
Kevin: Let’s use your bloggers as the database sample for your statement that Hartford has an "amazing untapped resource in its residents". There are numerous false, disgusting, useless, mean-spirited and harmful "anonymous" Hartford bloggers and basically but a tiny handful who actually post reasoned discourse on worthy subjects such as the senseless murders you mentioned. I have been friends with Rich Wareing for years, whom I deeply respect and has given greatly of himself to Hartford, but he and Peter Brush, Hartford’s own William F. Buckley wannabe, don’t make "an amazing untapped resource of residents."
I sincerely hope you are correct, but will withhold judgment until you do away with allowing the trash of Hartford to dominate what otherwise could be your great contribution in helping to spark that outrage you desire.(and Peter might re-consider his decision to stay on the political sidelines?)
Disillusioned -- I am sure there are many honorable residents of Hartford. But many of them are working two or three jobs to make ends meet and don't have the luxury to sit around and post on blogs. They are busy trying to survive.
Dear Mr Disillusioned ( tom)...tell us about the grievance hearing this past Wedsnesday
amazing untapped resource in its residents
-------------------------------------
I'm with anonymous (thanks for the flattering comments), the residents of Hartford are, in general, part of the problem, and not likely to be part of the solution. But, indeed, there's not much the municipal government can do about the culture in the streets. Could the cops behave differently, inspire more trust, etc.? Perhaps. But, I think attaching blame to them is a bit like blaming the teachers for the conditions in the schools. The cops can, perhaps, do a better job, but they are strictly reacting to a bad situation after the fact. The culture has to change for the violence to subside. How does that happen? God knows. Sympathies, for what it's worth, to the family of Jeanne Flores.
But the only political official commenting on the murder of the two innocents in Hartford was the city's mayor, Pedro E. Segarra, and after fuming haplessly at the unknown "thugs" involved, the mayor could only muse about temporarily closing the Franklin Avenue bar outside which the second shooting occurred.
The governor, the legislature, political candidates, and the news media either didn't notice or didn't care, having given up on Hartford, or, more likely, having accepted Hartford and Connecticut's other cities as more or less a success of public policy rather than failure. That is, decades of huge government expense in the name of alleviating poverty having only grown a massive underclass, at least that underclass is fairly well confined in an open-air loony bin. No innocent bystanders are being shot in Blue Back Square in suburban West Hartford or Evergreen Walk in suburban South Windsor.
http://www.journalinquirer.com/articles/2010/10/09/chris_powell/doc4caf5ddbd6720596005151.txt
Post a Comment