The perps in this recent spate of street robberies are of various ages and ethnic backgrounds.

In the Ellsworth Dr mugging described above, the suspect was a black teenaged boy. The mugger near the library was described as a tall, blond white man between 16 and 25 years old.

Bad guys (and gals) come in every shape and size.

Kids will be kids, and these young black gang-bangers are the first generation that can even think about the American dream. It was the same in Germany when the wall came down. East Germans wanted the same pay & same jobs, even though they didn’t have the skills. Many young blacks are not educated because their parents did not have the opertunity (and not by choice).

100 years after slavery ended, Billie Holliday sang “Strange Fruit”, about black men hainging from the trees in the south. Yes there is a problem, and yes, much of it has roots in modern black society, but it is first and formost a white problem. Until a “quality education” and not a no child left behind bullshit diploma, is available to all Americans, we will have race problems.

Anyway, so nice to know that there was a knifepoint robbery right down the road from me. These things happen everywhere, but the crime reports for DTSS show a disturbing number of violent crimes every frakkin week, and those are just the ones that get reported.

A greater police presence will help, but this is a societal problem. For the usual reasons, there’s an awful lot of dysfunctional “families” and young people out there. Until that is solved (Full employment, anyone? Mass birth control, anyone? Making children be a privilege and not a right, he asked wistfully), we’ll continue to have violent crime.

For those reading this, don’t try to be a hero when faced with an armed opponent. Give him your money. Remember, aside from avoiding trouble through environmental awareness, the best defense is the Nike defense: run away!