St. Louis CofCC Blog

WPVI-ABC-6 Philadelphia:

Teen arrested for subway murder

Police are looking for three others

CENTER CITY - March 26, 2008 (WPVI) — Police have arrested one teen and are looking for three others in the death of a man on a Center City subway concourse.

Chopper 6 was overhead as Philadelphia Police went to Simon Gratz High School as part of their investigation. Although police were at the school, no additional arrests were made.

The attack happened at 2:30 Wednesday afternoon in the concourse located at 13th and Market streets.

Police say four teenaged suspects attacked Sean Patrick Conroy, 36. A SEPTA police officer standing on the opposite platform saw what was happening.

“He saw four black juveniles around one white male. He saw the gentleman making a defensive stance, as if he was guarding himself,” said Captain Steve Harold.

Notice that the weapons were human appendages, not guns, or knives, or anything that politicians think need to be banned, so the loud silence from the gun grabber lobby is not surprising.  But note that there is no boo-hooing from Official Philadelphia, no calls for more recreation centers and more police and more spy cameras and more conflict resolution, no handstand parades, and certainly no whispering about interracial hate.  After all, the victim is merely a disposable white man, no real humans were hurt.

Reuters, about the claim by the CEO of AT&T that it’s hard to find skilled American workers to fill positions that will no longer be outsourced:

Gone are the days when AT&T and other U.S. companies had to hire locally, he said.

“We’re able to do new product engineering in Bangalore as easily as we’re able to do it in Austin, Texas,” he said, referring to the Indian city where many international companies have “outsourced” technical and customer support workers.

“I know you don’t like hearing that, but that’s the way it is,” he said.

I think the angle here is that, even though these jobs will return to America, UNT&T wants to import H-1-B visa holders to fill those jobs, because they can’t find skilled Americans that will work cheaply enough.

AP:

Chicago battles rise in teen deaths

CHICAGO - The morning trip to school for dozens of teenagers here had all the normal signs: bleary eyes, oversized jackets zipped up against the chill, the seemingly endless wait for the bus. But there was tension underlying the routine: The trip was under the watchful eyes of parents, an alderman, a principal and police.

The escort to and from Crane Tech High School this week, dubbed “Operation Safe Passage” is just one of the ways Chicago is dealing with a wave of violence that has stunned the city.

Since September, 20 Chicago Public Schools students have been killed, 18 by gunfire. Last school year, 24 of the more than 30 students killed were shot to death, compared with between 10 and 15 fatal shootings in the years before.

“The loss of life that we’ve seen among our young people is … devastating,” said school district spokesman Michael Vaughn. “This gun nonsense has reached a crisis level.”

Well, then, arrest the guns.  Chicago has banned handguns, so it’s not like they would be treading on shaky legal ground by doing so.

The number of violent deaths involving students in the nation’s third-largest school district has increased so dramatically in the last two years that police are increasing school patrols and soon will be the first department in the country with live access to thousands of security cameras mounted outside — and inside — schools.

(snip)

Daley recently announced a new resource for police — access to the 4,500 security cameras mounted inside and outside about 200 elementary and high schools.

Ask people at a certain Brooklyn housing project how well those cameras are working.

Daley also has rolled back the curfew times for minors by half an hour, to 10 p.m. on weekdays and 11 p.m. on weekends.

Because enforcing murder laws in Chicago is so easy, making minors go inside a half hour earlier will be a cinch.

Antigun activists and officials say the violence highlights a dangerous reality: Arguments among young people that used to be resolved with fistfights now end in gunfire.

“They’re just shooting out of rage,” said the Rev. Michael Pfleger, an outspoken priest on the city’s South Side whose church is putting up a $2,500 reward for information each time a CPS student is killed. The Chicago Board of Education has promised to match with its own $2,500 reward.

Oh yeah, there’s a real credible voice.  We’re supposed to believe that someone who made violent threats can stop Chicago’s culture of violence.

“A lot of young guys in the community, first of all, would rather get caught with a gun than without a gun,” Hardiman said. “There’s a need a dire need for more conflict resolution training.”

Because it’s working so well, let’s do more of it.