Sometimes I just have to wonder what our priorities are as a community. I don't mean to minimize this incident because I value our trees and landscape as much as anyone else. The peeling of the bark from the cedar tree in Elizabeth Park was and is a senseless act of vandalism. The tree is not something that can be easily replaced, most likely it can't be replaced, and it has to raise the issue of what the people who did it really value or care about.
For several days now it has been in the media cycle, the names scratched in the tree are being publicized and broadcast in the hopes that the vandals will be identified. Thye television cameras and reporters have been all over this story.
Yet, Hartford is at 17 homicides for the year , we know those victims can never be replaced. There is no outcry except for maybe a couple ministers and the all too frequent vigils taking place on the street corners where they were murdered.
What does it say about our priorities when a 100 year old cedar tree receives more attention than a 74 year old innocent bystander shot in the chest and murdered on a Hartford street corner? How is it that all of a sudden numerous municipal and State resources can rally to save a tree, but it seems like no one is rallying to save Hartford's youth from the out of control gun violence.
Maybe I'm too cynical, but it just seems like our priorities are way out of whack.
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