"THIRTEEN PEOPLE have been slain in as many days this year in Prince George's County, a slow-motion massacre taking place on the eastern porch of the nation's capital. At the current pace, the county would more than triple the 98 killings that occurred there last year.
Despite that, the deputy police chief, Kevin Davis, told residents on Tuesday they had nothing to fear, for it was merely "the lifestyle of these victims [that] has contributed to where they are in life."
I have a good friend who retired after 25 years as a P.G. county cop, and he is the first to admit that working and living in that enviornment tends to "harden" a person. He is not surprised at the murder rate, and he has related that the tendancy of the police to shoot first and ask questions later comes from watching their fellow officers get shot and killed, and from the public routinely shooting each other.
He said that in most places when a policeman sees a person with a gun drawn they have the mindset that gunman does not really want to shoot anyone. In P.G. county the opposite is true, first because there are almost no legal gun permits so someone with a gun is almost certainly an "outlaw". Secondly the tendancy for residents to shoot each other is well known.
No comments:
Post a Comment