MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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A Troubled Teenager (with guns) at Odds With Life (and 'gangs') in the Bronx
By artappraiser on Sat, 08/24/2013 - 3:54pm |By Winnie Hu & J. David Goodman, New York Times, August 23/24, 2013
[....] Though only 14, Shaaliver already had two gun-related arrests on his record when he was confronted by police officers early on Aug. 4 as he chased and shot at another teenager in the Bronx. The officers said they ordered him to drop the gun. Instead, he fired again. An officer shot and killed him.
In the days that followed, Shaaliver came to embody the worst possibilities of urban teenage life: a repeat offender caught up in a vicious rivalry with other gang members, one that erupted into violence at a time when most boys his age are home, safely asleep.
His death did not elicit expressions of outrage by elected officials. There were no mass rallies against police brutality, either. Shaaliver’s memorial service at a church in Harlem last week was largely unnoticed by the news media.
How a young boy grew into a teenager so enmeshed in violence remains a question that many who knew him are still struggling to answer. After being released pending trial on a gun charge in October, Shaaliver was arrested again in May on charges of attempted murder, suspected of shooting at a teenager from a rival gang, wounding him; the case was dropped after the victim stopped cooperating. [.....]
URL:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/nyregion/after-a-police-shooting-a-complex-portrait-emerges-of-a-troubled-teenager.html
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Comments
Note that the standard prescriptions for helping at-risk youth "in the hood" were applied in this case:
by artappraiser on Sat, 08/24/2013 - 4:10pm
A very sad story.
We have always had gang violence in this country.
Only now everybody has a goddamn gun!
by Richard Day on Sat, 08/24/2013 - 4:23pm
As is often the case, you get to the heart of the matter.
Got me thinking maybe just maybe a society can make progress at making bullying less cool, with massive work at it culturally. But even if that's possible, young men forming gangs of some kind isn't going to go away, not until we figure out a lot more about the brain and hormones....
Meanwhile, what to do about guns being cool with young men "in the hood," giving them a feeling of power and control, and the conflict with civil liberties? Also keeping in mind that in many cases, as in Chicago and NYC, they are getting these illegally.
by artappraiser on Sat, 08/24/2013 - 4:53pm
Also see, regarding another recent Bronx case:
by artappraiser on Sat, 08/24/2013 - 4:28pm
This is a very simplistic approach on my part to this problem; but why the hell don't they just go ahead and frisk more White Folks.
Get the discrimination issue out of all of this.
You would never get away with stop and frisk in Dallas for instance because of 2nd Amendment issues.
Analogously, we have set up traffic stops in this state and nab thousands of extra DUI arrests every year. Everybody gets stopped--no discrimination!
by Richard Day on Sat, 08/24/2013 - 4:56pm
In NYC, it is because they only target high crime neighborhoods and those also largely happen to be neighborhoods of people of color. To extend stop and frisk to more white kids here would mean extend the targeting across a huge geographic area with the need for many many more cops.
NYC policing really does target high crime neighborhoods, that's the thing. Ain't no cops on the street in my hood in the Bronx (Kingsbridge,) you have to call them if you need them. And my hood is majority Dominican, but very mixed; as a visiting brother described it, "incredibly diverse," with immigrants from around the world. I have never see anyone stop n' frisked anywhere in my hood over the last 10 years, and I regularly walk or bike or drive through our 20-block business district in the wee hours, when I go to the few 24-hours stores. (And the precinct station is within that, next to a 24hr. McDonald's and a 24-hour laundromat. Rarely see cops come in or out, just their parked cars. There are also low life corner bars with alcoholics hanging outside smoking, strip malls with restaurants and stores like Staples and two supermarkets, and at one end, a big shopping development with a Target, Applebees, etc. )
And we do have low-income housing projects, like Marble Hill Houses, right near that big shopping development. I never go inside the courtyard of Marble Hill houses, have no reason to, as I do not live in them; perhaps the police do target it, and stop and frisk there, have to admit I am not sure of that. They do not do it in the shopping development, not that I have seen, and lots of people of color come there from the South Bronx via subway to shop at the Target. If I did have to visit someone that lived in Marble Hill Houses late at night, I will give you my opinion: I would not be bothered that much if I were frisked or had to go through a metal detector before going in, just like at a courthouse or in an airport. But then, I would not like to have to live in a place that had to have such security with controlled entrances and exits. But then, a lot of rich people do choose to live that way! With a doorman stopping you from going in if you are "suspicious"....
by artappraiser on Sat, 08/24/2013 - 5:58pm
I read an article a few weeks ago that claimed that there are some high crime areas that are majority white that are not targeted and have almost no stop and frisks. The contention of the article was, obviously, that stop and frisk was discriminatory. Who knows? But it was a main stream relatively credible site. Probably slate or salon. Sorry, did a quick search and couldn't find the article.
by ocean-kat on Sat, 08/24/2013 - 10:54pm
I must admit I don't know Queens that well and it is like a microcosm of the world as we know it, with literally hundreds of ethnic immigrant 'hoods, there may well be high crime areas with ethno gangs that some people would characterize as "white," like Albanians or Thais or whatever, you know what I mean. What the article was talking about, it could have been there?
I should throw this into the hopper here. A lot of our cops might be arrogant assholes, and real stupid on the profiling, but they are no longer majority "white;" this happened in 2010:
But then as we know from the case of George Zimmerman, it could all depend on what kind of Hispanic you look and act like whether you're "white" or not?
Groups of black teens hanging around on the streets of bad neighborhoods do unquestionably get targeted, of that I am convinced.
by artappraiser on Sat, 08/24/2013 - 11:19pm
She also did an interview with the local news TV station on Aug. 13 (note that the extended video interview is available in the left column):
http://bronx.news12.com/news/mother-of-slain-teen-alphonza-bryant-favors...
It does clarify her opinion with more nuance:
by artappraiser on Sat, 08/24/2013 - 5:25pm
I wish to clarify my 'position' on this matter, once and for all?
I do not want drunken idiots driving down my highways.
I do no want gun toting idiots strolling my streets.
I am so angry at 'gangs' bullying our streets and highways and neighborhoods!
Blacks and Hispanics lose more kin through these gangland wars than Whites!
That is a fact.
I live in Eden really.
I have witnessed one bloody fight in the ten years I have been up here. It was a fist fight.
These things do not happen here.
I lived in the cities for 50 years plus and there are problems.
If I were living in the 'cities' I would demand stop and frisk.
Babies are killed, mommies are killed, innocents are killed.
I support our police.
I do not think there are other avenues really.
Tens of thousands die every damn year from these damned gangland shootings.
For no damned reason.
Chicago and NYC and other great urban centers experience the deaths of innocents.
Stop and frisk appears to have a real effect as far as dealing with these meaningless deaths.
I am a liberal/progressive, but we must help the city to defend us citizens.
That's all I got right now.
by Richard Day on Sat, 08/24/2013 - 6:34pm
New NYC gun story:
by artappraiser on Sun, 08/25/2013 - 8:47pm
This photo of cops outside the building is interesting on my point about the NYPD being racially mixed; white shirts are Lieutenant or above; the only lowly beat cop in this photo is on the far right in the dark navy shirt:
by artappraiser on Sun, 08/25/2013 - 9:02pm