Totally Unnecessary

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20120912/NEWS01/309120056/1006/RSS

The above URL, for the residents of New Castle County, Delaware, is very disturbing.  Crime in the county and especially in Wilmington, is at an all-time high and is so bad that my baby calls the city of my birth, “The OK Corral.”

We’re starting to see an increase of crime here in Newark where, once upon a time, the cops here spent most of their time dealing with rowdy college students.  About a mile north of where I’m sitting, a liquor store got robbed; about forty-five minutes and, oh, maybe two miles from here, an Exxon station got knocked over.

Then this totally and completely unnecessary death occurred.  The police will tell you in no uncertain terms that if you’re being robbed, don’t be a hero – just give them what they want and don’t pose a threat to them and you shouldn’t be harmed.  But that’s not what happened here; the victim did exactly what the cops say one should do… and took a bullet to the chest and died anyway.

While this advice given by the police makes sense, it occurred to me that they need to update their thinking about this and start thinking like the crooks they’re trying to catch, like, rob a place and don’t leave any potential witnesses behind – just in case.  It didn’t seem to matter that the perps were masked and, on the surface, unidentifiable other than height and maybe weight.

With the three crimes that occurred in our area in the last 24 hours or so, only one resulted in a loss of life because again, they tell you that if you comply, you might be okay if you don’t give the robbers a reason to have to do something with you.  At the liquor store and gas station/mini-mart, the clerks complied and lived to talk about it; at the 7-11, well, it might be safe to assume that the clerk could have felt that since he complied with their demands and were leaving, he was going to be okay.

So when the cops catch these dudes – and they will be caught – it will be interested to find out, when they have their day in court, why the shooter decided at that last moment to kill someone.

As I’ve talked about before, Delaware’s such a small and unassuming state that most people don’t know where it is or even thinks it’s a suburb of Philadelphia.  But I read, oh, maybe a couple of weeks ago where Wilmington is gaining national notoriety, like it’s making its bid for Murder Capital of the US or something – and Wilmington ain’t even close to being what anyone would call a major city, not like cities like Philadelphia, Trenton, Baltimore or even NYC are.

Wilmington is about twenty-two miles northwest of where I live and while it appeared that all the violent crime was being ‘contained’ there, well, that’s apparently no longer the case because Newark and its environs – an area once so insignificant that even Delawareans didn’t know where it was and still gets confused with Newark, NJ – is getting a very bad dose of violent crimes.

The one very close to where I live is very bothersome; we’re seeing an increase in home evasions in our area, thefts of and from motor vehicles, robberies… and now this.  What’s ‘funny’ but is also something we can be thankful for, is that we haven’t had a serial rapist here for a while – the University of Delaware is just a magnet for these creeps with all the nice, juicy college women roaming around all over the place by themselves.

We’re not used to this level of crime here.  While the robbery/shooting occurred within the Delaware State Police’s jurisdiction, because of the closeness to Newark – this happen, um, maybe five miles from where I’m sitting – it gives the residents and merchants here cause to worry because the Newark Police Department ain’t exactly the biggest department; one of the local jokes aimed at them is that there are only three cops – one’s setting speed traps, the other two are at Dunkin’ Donuts.  True, the UofD has their own police department and they do work with the NPD on college-related crimes and, no, these aren’t rent-a-cops – remind me to tell you the story of how I know this.

And I’m afraid that this trend is only going to get worse for everyone in this neck of the woods…