Thursday, January 18, 2007

Gangs: America's Domestic Terrorism Problem

Dave Krieger, columnist for the Rocky Mountain News, is continuing to focus on the gang issue in Denver. He has written a superb column here about the deafening silence of current pro athletes and local politicians to the problem of street gangs. He refers to this problem as "the domestic terrorism problem." By that he means that the gangsters are "using terror to get away with murder, scaring potential witnesses silent by killing a few." One of his most potent lines is, "Never mind Baghdad, what sort of offensive would it take to secure the streets of Denver and Aurora at night?"

I also heard Krieger talking about this issue on the Peter Boyles radio show this morning. They talked about the fact that the community has committed to a local fund-raising effort to raise thirty million dollars in order to do some things the Democrats have asked for in order to hold their convention in Denver in 2008. What? Balloons? A golf cart to get Teddy Kennedy around the Pepsi Center? Of course, the point Krieger and Boyles made is this: If that thirty million dollars could be spent on prevention programs and beefing up the police work on gangs, how much more good could be done for this community?

On a related note, I have been hearing about brown on black gang violence in Los Angeles. Something about the Mexican gangs calling a truce in order to allow blacks to go grocery shopping? Has anyone heard about this?

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