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TechnoratiWar zone security has arrived in the US as cities are shut down at night by police struggling to control a deadly wave of gun crime. David Usborne reports from Hartford, Connecticut
HARTFORD, Connecticut - The police state has not arrived quite yet but it may feel like it to the residents of some American cities, where a handful of embattled mayors and police chiefs are imposing strict and sometimes sweeping curfews as a last resort to quell new waves of gun violence this summer.
"We must do this because we cannot and will not tolerate innocent people, especially children, to be victims," insists Eddie Perez, the Mayor of Hartford, the capital of Connecticut, where a night-time curfew was introduced last week and will remain in effect for a month for those under 18 years old.
Nor are there any apologies from the authorities in Helena-West Helena on the banks of the Mississippi in Arkansas, small pockets of which are under a24-hour curfew that all ages must respect. Police are enforcing it, moreover, with night-vision goggles and M16 military rifles.
In Hartford, the centre of America's insurance industry, the approach is not quite as militaristic. Children found on the streets between 9pm and 5am are approached and escorted by officers to their homes. Most nights since the curfew came into effect last Thursday have seen only a dozen or so picked up.
But there was nothing softly-softly about the violence that prompted Hartford to take such action. Two weekends ago, 11 people were shot in three different attacks, the worst at the annual West Indian Parade in the city's North End, which left one man dead and two children hurt. A toddler in a pushchair was grazed by bullet on her leg. A seven-year-old boy remains in hospital with serious head wounds.
"I am still traumatised," says Darlene Johnson, 44, who had a food stall at the parade with her husband and father. "I see this man pulling this long gun from under his shirt and he started shooting. I just couldn't believe it. Some people thought it was firecrackers but I knew different. I saw the little girl rubbing her leg and the boy with blood coming out of his head."
Much of the city cannot believe it either, yet 150 shootings have been recorded this year In summer, bored teenagers have little to do but wander the streets. Gangs mark out turf. Insults are traded and revenge is taken. The man killed at the parade, Ezekial Roberts, had been running with gangs.
While curfews sound like they belong in war zones or natural disaster areas, they have long been a popular tool of US police departments. And it is in the dog days of summer, when humidity and violence seem to join hands, that they most often come into vogue. For the duration of the school holidays this year, for instance, Baltimore has an 11pm curfew (midnight on Fridays and Saturdays) for children under 17. Those who violate it are taken to a school until a parent or guardian picks them up.
It is a trend the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), does not welcome. The group "opposes juvenile curfews because they're essentially a violation of fundamental rights of innocent people," said David McGuire of the Connecticut ACLU. "Curfews essentially are placing an entire demographic, in this case, youth, under house arrest for the inappropriate actions of a few."
Residents of Connecticut's north end, however, tired of the shootings, seem mostly to support the curfew, though few believe it alone will solve the larger problems of young people with little to do, attracted by gangs and lacking discipline. "We need to keep the young people off the streets," says Ms Johnson on the front steps of her home. "And the parents need help. The law is the law." Taquana Quan, 18, standing outside Burger and Pizza Land on Barbour Avenue, where two other men were shot on the same weekend, also supports the Mayor's decision. So does his cousin, Shantay Taytay, who is 21. They have had enough. "This dude pulled a gun on me last week to take my bike. We are moving to Atlanta, the whole family."
"We'll see if it works," says Barbara Shannon, who lives across from the restaurant and said she starting praying when she heard the shots. But it will not be enough. The problem lies in the upbringing of the teenagers, she says, mostly by single mothers. Indeed, of all the households with children in Hartford, almost 70 per cent are headed by single parents. And nearly always they are the mothers. "Babies are having babies and kids are having kids," she asserts confidently. "And the mothers are always looking to have fun. They don't make time to look after their young ones."
Valencia Coleman, 68, who has a dance studio in the north end and witnessed the shooting at the parade, is more blunt. "The children can't stay in their homes because of what their mothers are doing behind the bedroom door. They are having sex. The boys especially have a big problem with that. Every kid I know who is in trouble, it's always the same story. They can't handle their mothers' boyfriends."
More dubious still is Alisha Jackson, whose oldest child is 12. She thinks the curfew is a "band-aid" that will only deepen tensions between young people and the police. "I hope it works. But I think it's going to cause a lot of trouble. A lot of kids are going to end up being locked up, I bet you."
And what of the young targets of the curfew, such as Rackwon Hicks, who is hanging out with a cousin and two friends on the front steps of another dour brick apartment building on Barbour Street? (Never mind the metal sign by the door prohibiting the "Peddleing of drugs" (sic) as well as sitting on the entryway steps".)
He is 10 years old and says staying at home after 9pm is not an option. His mother is there. "I just can't be there, that's all. They can't coop us up like that, it's not right"
One of the friends, Rashad Hassan, a burly 16-year-old, is cocky. "I really don't care about it. I will still be outside anyways."
A few doors down a teenage girl has turned a speaker of her stereo out onto the street to fill it with tinny dance music. A dope dealer lingers by a corner store and offers the wisdom that the curfew is "garbage".
© 2008 The Independent
30 Comments so far
Show Allmulti-generational housing? daycares, nursing homes, utilities and the construction, real estate and job markets would suffer, but families might benefit...I'll just keep my Constitutionally-granted firearm handy, thanks...I don't think people are as likely to start something if they have reason to think their about-to-be-opponent might be packing as they might be otherwise...curfews? hmmm...sounds like taser practice to me...hello, streetcorner surveillance camera...drug use? alcohol is by far the worst...celebrate by breaking out and passing 'round the legalized, free and wonderful marijuana, then get some good music and dancing going, and watch violence go down...we're all the same race, by the way...
Didn't Michael Moore already cover gun control and violence in Bowling for Columbine? I realize it was only one person's report, but...
I think the real question is why CAN'T families be families anymore? Are things too expensive or are people not planning? Why is it too much to ask that couples planning on having children prepare financially for it? No more of this "it takes a village" guilt tripping. If you can't afford kids or don't want to dedicate the time you have to raising a family then don't put yourself in that situation. Condoms are cheaper than diapers and doctor's visits.
Simple: no guns = no gun death.
But don't try to take guns away from Americans. Oh no, they need to use them as substitute for defective penises.
Americans are nothing without their guns, their missiles, their rifles. They'd cease to exist.
By your logic, I assume Switzerland must be an absolute bloodbath...
Crime and violence are a plague to the poor. Further punitive measures such as curfews and prison do not get at the roots of the problem.
Yesterday in New York a 2 year old child was killed while his mother was at work. The boyfriend was babysitting. The other two children in the home reportedly have bruises on their bodies.
How would a curfew protect these children? We know some ways to prevent such tragedies, including family planning, education and employment for men. In this case the most on-point observation:
If there had been affordable professional day care in the neighborhood, that child might be alive today.
Please comment on that McCain and the pro-lifers.
Truth Teller, could you please tell us what the rape, mugging and assault rates are in the UK? You see, I live in the UK, in a small town (60000 people) about 30 miles from London. In the last 16 years, there has been 1 murder, I can't remember when the last case of rape was, and there are less than half a dozen cases of assault. If the statistics are true about Philadelphia, then that is very shocking, and it is down to the fact that firearms are freely available. I would like to see the figures for other types of crime in Philly, they would be "through the roof" as well.
Get rid of guns, because people cannot be trusted with them.
Certainly. These are statistics from INTERPOL, for total crime per 100,000 inhabitants:
Interpol 2001 crime statistics (rate per 100,000):
4161 - US
7736 - Germany
6941 - France
9927 - England and Wales
What is the tendency? Well, here are the 1995 statistics, from just before the UK banned handguns:
Interpol 1995 crime statistics (rate per 100,000):
5278 - US
8179 - Germany
6316 - France
7206 - England & Wales
In other words, the US crime rate is lower, and getting lower, the UK rate is high, and getting higher.
Any more questions?
I don't feel the UK has such low crime rates due to gun control, I think it has much more to do with for instance, the NHS and other social welfare systems which do not force people into modes of desperation that are so common in the United States of no safety nets.
I also feel that the problem is not too many kids on the streets, but too few adults on the streets and too many scared, cowardly and careless adults who are not willing to go out into the streets and with peaceful resistance go face to face with the thugs (usually scared kids) who have turned their communities into warzones for drug profits, either because they have not done the math and think they have too much to lose or because they think they have better things to do than going out and take part in their outdoors community, like watching TV on their fat asses the whole evening.
Instead of enacting curfews for kids, the community should encourage adult presence outdoors when the weather permits and should first consider making it mandatory for adults to go outside for a couple of hours every night before enacting curfews for the kids.
Shining light into the dark is the only way to get rid of darkness, chasing darkness away cannot come about by making laws against it.
Growing up in Colorado I can tell you about curfews. It was 11:00 durin the week and 12:00 on Friday and Saturday. I always seen it as a revenue raising device.
After all, a kid would pay less of a fine for being busted with a marijuana than for being out past curfew.
Hello America is anybody awake over there. REMOVE THE GUNS out of society, this has got nothing to do with poverty , after all the police and the army draw their ranks from the same pool. The rest of the world looks on with disbelief at stupidity of the American public, get rid of the guns.
Removing guns is not the answer. People who say these things are blind. Our federal and state governments need to enforce the laws we have and protect honest citizens who protect themselves
Sure, pass a law. It works well in Washington, DC, doesn't it? It works GREAT in Mexico.
America looks on with disbelief, incidentally, at the mugging, assault and rape rates in the UK. But, you probably do not want to talk about that, do you?
The cities that have the strictest gun control (Wash DC, Chicago, Baltimore...) tend to have the HIGHEST gun murder rates. Strange.....
Well, for one thing, criminals don't register their weapons, the don't buy legal weapons... so banning handguns won't affect them at all. What I'd like to know, is out of all the shooting deaths in the US, how many are committed using "legal" weapons?
Hello all: I just want to say that crime is just a pretext that the ultra-right wing is using to control the tranquilized, apathetic US population. Americans should question why is the US government installing this dictatorship because of crime, when all cities of this world have crime. Martial Law, curfew is just like Nazi Germany, and shouldn't be installed here in America, but of course the american herd, accepts whatever the US government says. In fact crime some time works for the better. Crime is a consequence of unconformism, of rebellion. According to Emil Durkheim crime helps society move forward, high crimes also happen in pre-revolutionary situations, its just a hint that a social revolution is about to happen
Hello all: I just want to say that crime is just a pretext that the ultra-right wing is using to control the tranquilized, apathetic US population. Americans should question why is the US government installing this dictatorship because of crime, when all cities of this world have crime. Martial Law, curfew is just like Nazi Germany, and shouldn't be installed here in America, but of course the american herd, accepts whatever the US government says. In fact crime some time works for the better. Crime is a consequence of unconformism, of rebellion. According to Emil Durkheim crime helps society move forward, high crimes also happen in pre-revolutionary situations, its just a hint that a social revolution is about to happen
farmwife August 20th, 2008 8:21 pm wrote:
"Poverty is one cause of the dysfuntional family."
I couldn't agree more.
"When both parents have to work just to put food on the table and a roof over their heads and the kids spend all their time in daycare or government schooling there is no sense of family unity developed."
What's wrong with daycare and public school?
Philadelphia, aka "Killadelphia", has the same gun violence problem. Almost one handgun murder per day, usually black on black, sometimes black on hispanic or asian shopkeepers. There is no curfew yet, but Mayor Nutter, a black democrat, is pushing for racial profiling and has tried to restrict gun purchases. The courts will not allow Philly adopt gun control laws more strict than those of PA, and upstate lawmakers ae NRA types.
Let's take a look at this. People over 18 are blowing people away with either their illegally bought or NRA approved legal firearms and, to control crime, the police-state is imposing a curfew on CHILDREN. Duh! This leaves the criminals on the streets and the criminality and death-brokering at high tide. Hello? Is anyone thinking here? If you want to control the crime, you control the criminals. Impose a curfew on all people OVER 18--and then, like Singapore a few years ago, shoot to kill.
I noticed, too, that none of the people shot in Connecticut were shot AT NIGHT.
Is there anyone at all in America who can think??????????
Here is what the police are thinking: "If we can put this one over on the people, we can do whatever we fucking want. Do it!"
Let's take a look at this. People over 18 are blowing people away with either their illegally bought or NRA approved legal firearms and, to control crime, the police-state is imposing a curfew on CHILDREN. Duh! This leaves the criminals on the streets and the criminality and death-brokering at high tide. Hello? Is anyone thinking here? If you want to control the crime, you control the criminals. Impose a curfew on all people OVER 18--and then, like Singapore a few years ago, shoot to kill.
I noticed, too, that none of the people shot in Connecticut were shot AT NIGHT.
Is there anyone at all in America who can think??????????
Here is what the police are thinking: "If we can put this one over on the people, we can do whatever we fucking want. Do it!"
Hi Anonymous,
Unfortunately racism is not confined to any one race, nor is any race immune to it.
If Obama squanders his opportunity to banish extreme poverty and include all income levels in a new democracy we are done for.
so what's new about a curfew? They've been longer that I have
.....where I grew up and in that area still, they have enforced curfews.
First of, we the sheeple need to stop supporting BIG GOVERNMENT and strive for freedom. Second, this is just a symptom of dysfunctional families all over America. Parents and children need to get together a little more often and make family love and unity a high priority. We've already seen for the past few decades what has happened to this country as a result of parents leaving their kids out to dry and/or children being too separatist. If people cannot unite at the family level, then there will be no unity at higher levels and the elites will be "free" to keep robbing what's left of us working class and doing more foreign wars against public interest.
I agree (I also agree with your post in the World Food Crisis article about hemp, etc.)
Poverty is one cause of the dysfuntional family. When both parents have to work just to put food on the table and a roof over their heads and the kids spend all their time in daycare or government schooling there is no sense of family unity developed. Greed is the other extreme with the same result, both parents work and the kids spend all of their time in daycare and government schooling just so the family can have bigger, better, everything. Whatever the cause, the family unit in America is not the strong, united, driving force in so many young peoples lives. Where do our children learn trust, values, and ethics then? From the government who especially the last 8 years has shown it has no ethics? From media? Without a strong family unit our youth and our future are left to flounder.
Some parents have to work just to pay the rent and buy food. They need help, not criticism. Most of the developed world has childcare for working parents without any evidence of harm to the children. It would help if there were a guaranteed living wage so that a family did not need two or three jobs to survive.
One parent working 9 to 5 comes home and everyone spends time together. That used to to be a realistic setup for many people. Not so much now.
I've been to both private and public schools and I must say that neither one of them are any better and that was 15 years ago. I'm pretty sure, they've both worsened over time.
As for parents who have to work all day and often times both, I say they still have time to spend with their children but they cannot give it up. Again, the parents and the children have to unite and stick together like a true family. You cannot expect a daycenter or a public/private school to do that part for you.
Spending even 1 hour a day with your child(ren) every day would be truly beneficial to both the parents and the children. Despite my 11 hour a day work, spending two hours daily with my children and wife made us parents feel a bit younger and even helped relieve us of our stress and tensions that no healthcare plan could otherwise take care of. You can't use work as an excuse for neglect. Keep trying and don't give up.
I second this one. When you have the vast majority of us working 45+hours/week just to not starve or be homeless, no one has time for children. Add to this a severe lack of family planning options, no easy adoptions for unwanted children and no societal or community safety nets and you have a recipe for disaster.
Personally, I believe that the Guaranteed Basic Income is what's needed. With the nationalization of land, water, airspace, timber and the EM spectrum and lease fees being applied to their use, some authors have estimated that each adult citizen of Amerika could receive as much as 30,000/year without hurting productivity in the least. This is just and righteous. A GBI along with Single Payer Health Care would heal this nation like nothing else. Anything else will keep us right where we are.
"Society is in every state a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." --- Thomas Paine, Common Sense
"Nor are there any apologies from the authorities in Helena-West Helena on the banks of the Mississippi in Arkansas, small pockets of which are under a24-hour curfew that all ages must respect. Police are enforcing it, moreover, with night-vision goggles and M16 military rifles."
This is just the beginning of the police state. Instead of addressing the root causes of the violence, such as poverty and drug abuse, they're just militarizing it, as the US government always does. The common folk are the one's that pay the price.
This is the outcome of many, many years of neglect of the "lower classes". I know that the mayor of west Helena is black, so no one can call him racist. It is (and has been for quite a while) a huge problem in larger metropolitan areas. And you know, it ain't gonna help even in the short run, when they lift the curfew, it'll start up again. What's needed is a "Manhattan project" for ALL the poor and most importantly for the inner cities. AND, unfortunately even if Obama gets elected it ain't gonna happen.