If a Dunbar Village-esq crime happened in your neighborhood, how would that change the way you live your life?
How would that change the way you allowed your children to live their lives?
The latest from West Palm Beach ( It is official, these people are a tad bit off!)How would that change the way you allowed your children to live their lives?
Magnolia Park Rape Update ("Hurry Up! Me Next!")
Remember that second rape involving a group of Black teens less than a mile and less than a month after the Dunbar Village gang rape? The one where the rapist's friends stood by yelling "Hurry Up! Me next!" Well they arrested a second suspect....a 15 year old seventh grader. Now I know I went to school a long time ago, but at fifteen, I was beginning either ninth or tenth grade, but that is another story. Earth to West Palm Beach... "Y'all got a problem"
Back to Dunbar Village
First, the editorial writers have been busy, doing absolutely nothing but offering general words of advice, but nothing so rash as to actually demand specific action like say... install the donated air conditioners and fix the dayum street lights so the residents can see what is lurking in the shadows at night. Mayor Lois Frankel has had her "eyes on Dunbar Village since 2003," well hell if this is the results of attentiveness, I hate to see the parts of the city that were off of her RADAR.
Officials Tour Dunbar Village ( What took so long... it's only been over TWO MONTHS?). See Video here. I think they are trying to make a point, but they end up making another. You be the judge. Speak on it.
Some people apparently are planning to fight any plans to demolish Dunbar Village. Apparently unairconditioned 50 year-old barracks-style living is too difficult to part with. I don't have a problem with nostalgia and historic architecture, but WTH?
[L]ongtime residents from the 1960s and '70s, as well as County Commissioner Addie Greene, promised to fight any demolition plans, saying a chapter of local history would be wiped out.
"Why couldn't this become a model project and other people could come and see what could be done with older buildings?" said Bettye Dawson, who lived in Dunbar Village from 1957 to 1962. She noted that the housing authority offices in the community, and the landscaping around those offices, look very nice....Security cameras are more than a month from being installed. (SOURCE)
The West Palm Beach Police Chief is till engendering confidence in her law enforcement abilities... you know the one that had 15 murders in one year in Dunbar Village, rampant property crime and assaults and 717 police calls in a single year from a housing project with only 334 residents? yeah that police chief:
Police Chief Delsa Bush says they've been extremely fortunate to make any arrest, let alone four, in a case of this nature where the arrests must be based on evidence not eyewitnesses or statements. (SOURCE)Seriously, when is the FBI going to get involved( I explain possible reasons the feds could get involved if they wanted to later in this post.) Did I mention that chief Delsa sees no need to have more than a $1,000 reward in this case? Did I also mention that she is going to solve a rape case based on DNA alone? Hmm, um what law enforcement manual is that police technique from? What if some of the attackers didn't leave recoverable DNA? What if they wore a condom as described in earlier news articles? What is the DNA was too degraded or was corrupted by the cleaning solvent the attackers threw on the victims? If you don't recover DNA does that mean the crime did not occur? Well apparently so because doing actual police work and investigation instead of convictions via mail order are too much work for Delsa:
"I'm not even sure 10 people were involved," Chief Bush said Tuesday in an interview with members of The Post Editorial Board. Nor, Chief Bush said, is a reward beyond the $1,000 offered by CrimeStoppers necessary: "We're going to solve this case solely on the DNA evidence, and we have a lot of that." SOURCEI don't think Delsa could solve 2+2 based on her public comments. BTW Delsa, the answer is not 5.
Apparently their US Representative is saying the US Congress might be increasing funding to public housing although with West Palm Beach's track record at this point I don't know if all the funding in the world could right everything that is so very wrong.U.S. REP. RON KLEIN,
What Bloggers Are Saying
This story has legs, it might be slow moving, but it is still moving and spreading and everyday more people learn about this horror.
Mother Talkers finally heard about the story and she states why she is thankful not to be poor and points out the ridiculousness of building high rise condo towers while a portion of your town rots.
Soul Preaching asks that in the wake of the reaction to Dunbar Village, Can God Count on the Black Preacher? Um that would be NO based on results.
So in light of everything that is "happening" in West Palm Beach, I would like to offer some "observations" perhaps even a critique or two as I am prone to do. If you live in West Palm Beach, now would be the time that you stopped reading this post if you are "tender hearted" and have a heaping pile of civic pride.
Hmm,
Lots of movement, if not progress, seems to be occurring in West Palm Beach. I fear, however, that all this "movement" is all style and no substance. So perhaps we should clarify some things for the good folks in WPB, especially the political class because I become more and more distressed with each passing day of idiocy being generated from WPB. Pure unadulterated FOOLISHNESS!
1. Dunbar Village was a crime against humanity, not some petty theft of a bicycle. So what does that mean? It means that although the crime happened in West Palm Beach in a place called Dunbar Village, all of civil society has a vested interest in making sure that the conditions that facilitated this crime are stamped out and dealt with NOW, not when you get around to it. In other words this crime doesn't just belong to you and your city and its apparently petty psychotic politics. Whether you realize it or not, the eyes of the world of on you...AND y'all are looking ridiculously bad right about now. We can't afford to let you screw this up, despite your best efforts.
2. Clearly intervention from the State of Florida is required. Local government has broken down. Civil society is at risk for us all. You can't have roving militaristic gangs running around committing crimes against humanity as a matter of course. You had two rapes with one month and one mile of each other involving an attack on middle aged Black women by a group of teens. Around these parts we called that a PATTERN. One that has to be stamped out. This mentality of lawlessness and a disregard for human life and the laws of nature must be met swiftly and forcefully. The perpetrators must be dealt with unmercifully so as to attempt to dissuade potential future perpetrators.
3. The Federal government needs to get involved if the State of Florida will not. Now if reports are true that this was in retaliation for the victim reporting crime, I think a case can be made that this whole series of events qualifies as an organized criminal enterprise. Second, the victim was clearly targeted based on her gender- HATE CRIME and possibly her national origin- HATE CRIME! The United States government has a extremely vested interest in making sure that militaristic sexual violence is an aberration, not a standard intimidation tactic used by the criminal underworld on United States. The danger that this kind of attack poses to "HOMELAND SECURITY" is greater or equal to any threat posed by foreign terrorists. This gang rape was a terrorist act. You have civilians targeted for the purpose of intimidation and/or Retaliation. You got an entire neighborhood paralyzed in fear. Folks scared to leave their homes. Law enforcement out gunned and apparently outwitted(That would be YOU Delsa!).
4. What kind of civil society will we have if the freedom of movement for women and girls is restricted because little Dunbar Villages start popping up all over the country? Not possible? Well the conditions that lead to Dunbar Village exist all over the place. You think West Palm beach is the only place in America where they have piled all the poor people in one enclave and then turned their backs on them and left them to fend for themselves while the City of West Palm Beach built a 164 MILLION DOLLAR office building and recently approved 40 MILLION DOLLAR tourist promenade while the people of Dunbar Village were left to live without any working street lamps, no AC, and no security patrol. Despite the fact that it was a hotbed of crime? If a Dunbar Village-esq crime happened in your neighborhood, how would that change the way you live your life? How would that change the way you allowed your children to live their lives? Folks, that is what is at stake here; OUR VERY WAY OF LIFE! This didn't just happen to two people, it happened to us all so we have every right to maintain a vested interest in how we as a civilized society deal with this madness.
5. If ever there was something to be POLITICAL, how local and state leaders deal with this disaster should be POLITICAL. What the hell is government for if it is not shared defense? The primary function of local and state government are public safety and keeping the peace. What is more unsafe or warlike than something like Dunbar Village. So what does that mean? That means that before you build another promonade, or approve building permits, or send the mayor to some fancy conference in San Francisco, you have to handle civil order in your town. If you are not taking care of the minimal responsibilities of government, then we really don't need any politicians do we? SO hell yeah make Dunbar Village political. I mean making it non political is what got these people stuck in hell on earth in the first place. DUnbar Village should be SO POLITICAL that any politician not addressing this issue head on ought to be drummed out of office
6. We ain't going anywhere. Sorry, Mayor Frankel and West Palm Beach, you won't be able to run out the clock and hope that we forget about the horrors of Dunbar Village so you can print out some new tourism brochures. IF necessary, the city of West Palm Beach can become synonymous with Dunbar Village. Keep ignoring the public outcry by doing absolutely nothing and you might as well plant a sign right outside the city limits that reads "Welcome to West Palm Beach Florida- Home of the Dunbar Village Gang Rape." We really are not playing with y'all. Everyday, we become more sophisticated advocates and we are prepared to unleash a multimedia can of whoop @$$ if necessary. Unrelenting. Imagine every week waking up to wonder what multimedia send up we have prepared to alert the world about the foolishness in your city?
7. This whole situation from your neglect before the incident, to the apathy of your residents during and immediately after the crime to the current foolishness you political leaders are engaging in as they jockey to divert blame is RIDICULOUS and it is unacceptable. This circus might be acceptable to West Palm Beach residents, but not to the rest of the world.
You see, West Palm Beach, this is bigger than you so your typical petty myopic solutions are poorly unsuited to solve this problem so I suggest you try something new. Why not start with taking personal responsibility for you failures as political leaders to be good stewards for all of the residents of West Palm Beach. How about being man and/or woman enough to admit you could have done better but didn't. How about admitting that enough has not bee done. How about asking for the help that you so badly need. AND I AIN'T TALKING ABOUT A GRANT FROM HUD....I am talking about assistance from state and federal law enforcement. Because afterall, what happened in June in a place called Dunbar Village was a CRIME...A crime against all of humanity. One that we will NEVER FORGET!
View our Dunbar Village PSA in the sidebar. We will be unveiling an extra special multimedia treat next week. We've only just begun. As far as I am concerned, this is a battle for civilization and the only option is victory.
UPDATE: Speaking of militaristic rapes and killings, the lone survicor of the execution style killings in Newark, NJ has a victim's assistance fund:
Natasha Aeriel, shooting victim and sole survivor of the brutal Ivy Hill slaying, needs your help.
This week, Mayor Cory Booker announced an assistance fund has been established in her name:
"the fund that is seeking donations to support the recovery of Natasha Aeriel, the survivor of the August 4 shooting incident in Ivy Hill, which took the lives of three young Newark residents and left her badly wounded.
More info in the comments.
Don't just talk about it. Be about it!
