Posted on 04/22/2012 6:00:25 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The sensationalism by the media against George Zimmerman for the shooting of Trayvon Martin, clouds the real reason a shooting occurred in the first place.
The pundits, the community organizers, the pot stirrers, are all trying to find a scapegoat and the convenient one to blame is George Zimmerman. But Zimmerman is but the symptom of a government failing in its prime function: To provide protection and security for its citizens. If government does not provide protection for its citizens, then the citizens will provide it for themselves...and what the citizens provide will not be as professional and polished as a trained police force.
The gated community that George Zimmerman is a resident, has been the repeated target of crime. Zimmerman himself had made repeated phone calls to the local police to report suspicious behavior/crime as had been requested by that department. Other members of the community had made calls as well. As far as the cops were concerned, that wasn’t excessive in a neighborhood fighting petty crime.
The neighborhood was on edge, particularly since they had suffered 8 burglaries in the past 14 months. Including the terrifying experience of resident Olivia Bertalan:
21 year old Bertalan was home alone with her infant son one morning last August when a man came to her door, knocked, and rang the bell. She peered out the window and didn't recognize the man. But then called police when another man came to her back door.
She ran upstairs clutching her son and locked herself in a bedroom as the second man entered her home. Terrified, both she and her son cried as the man tried to enter through the locked door of the bedroom. Both men ran when police arrived, but not before stealing a laptop and digital camera.
After the crime she was afraid to come home. She and her husband got a dog, as advised by police. "It was terrible," said Bertalan, who moved from the neighborhood last month because of this and other burglaries.
"There was definitely a sense of fear in the neighborhood after all of this started happening, and it just kept on happening. It wasn't just a one time thing. It was every week," she said. "Our next-door neighbor actually said if someone came into his yard or house he would shoot him. Everyone felt afraid and scared."
For years, Twin Lakes has been beset by crime which finally lead them to start a neighborhood-watch organization last September. The burglary of Olivia Bertalan’s home in August seems to have been a catalyst
There was a large sign post at the entrance of this gated community saying it had neighborhood watch and suspicious people would be reported to 911. This should give someone new in the neighborhood fair warning as to why they may be followed or watched and should invoke a sense of cooperation and understanding from those visiting.
As state and local governments drown in debt, they are cutting back. The California town of Vallejo went bankrupt due to spiraling costs. As a result city managers asked for concessions from public employee unions to help get the city back on sound fiscal footing. The unions wouldn't give up benefits or wages, as a result the town had to lay off police and fire forces and is now skeleton staffed with less, but more expensive personnel.
Oakland California, a financial basket case, did not have enough police officers last fall to respond to a violent beating which resulted in a death of one of its citizens in their own front yard. Police forces were busy patrolling the Occupy Oakland gathering.
These stories will be repeated around the country as budgets get tightened. Critical numbers of law enforcement will be reduced and response times to crimes will be lengthened. Some juristictions will no longer respond to certain types of crime because they just can't afford to hire enough police to respond. Revenue enhancement policing will be increased as municipalities struggle to bring in more money to their coffers. Speed traps are on the increase and traffic violations are watched for with an eagle eye as they bring in fines.
Communities are having to come to grips with the costs involved of protecting their citizens. Some communities are trying to cut costs by having non police dept technicians collect evidence at crime scenes. There is also talk of privatizing some segments of police work, such as traffic enforcement and other non violent crime areas.
Some communites are getting rid of their local departments of police and fire altogether, finding them too expensive to maintain, they are sub contracting with regional sheriff and fire depts to serve their needs. Many communities are now using private fire fighting services and considering using private security companies to proivide basic protections.
All of this doesn't bode well to the citizen that think instant help will be there with a 911 call. In many cases when danger is seconds away, the police are just minutes away and the difference between you living to be able to defend yourself in court, or dying and being carried away in a casket....is your right to bear fire arms.
There will be calls for tighter gun controls because of the Trayvon Martin shooting, but more restrictions only give the criminals a bigger advantage. Look at the cities with the tightest gun controls, it doesn't put a dent in the criminals owning guns. As a result citizens feel the need to enhance their security with more neighborhood watches and by purchasing fire arms for their personal protection.
His Twitter account refers to Trayvon more than a dozen times using the @NO_LIMIT_NIGGA nickname. One such post makes reference to Trayvon having “swung on a bus driver” a few days before he died. This is a textbook self-defense case, and I’d urge anyone reading to look at the full set of facts before drawing conclusions.
Thanks again...
Most excellent! Thank you.
Your homepage shows a Vermont flag ..... welcome to Texas? ;)
I live in Houston, and a couple of years ago we had problems in the vicinity with extra-patrol agreements some neighborhoods made with their precinct constables and commissioners.
There was a performance problem (the constables were just too thinly spread), and the local media did a big story about it.
My own neighborhood decided not to participate because of the expense (plus, it's a civic-club and not a homeowners' association), and felt vindicated afterward. We have a citizen patrol and a watch program as well.
Changed it to Texas.
Good, solid sense... How insensitively racist of them. Interesting that Irish Central would publish it, as they seem more lefty liberal than this. Kudos to them.
Welcome!
I agree. IIRC, in the media it was stated that school officials could not 'identify' (establish the owner) any of the items, so no charges were pressed. No proof, no charges, no legal relevance.
Yeah, that is strange.
I have lived since 1993 in a rural setting. In N Calif, I knew that under the best of conditions, the Sheriff would NOT get to my house in less than 10 minutes—more like 20.
Being armed was the only sensible thing.
A known drug dealer lived on the back end of the dead end road, but because of the location of his residence, the cops could not get a good place to observe him for prosecution. His customers were up and down the road every Friday & Saturday—when they got paid.
One pair of his customers—mother/daughter narrowly missed part of my road fencing, hit a large boulder & shot into fencing that was not on the road. Did about $2000 worth of damage. They were fighting over the drugs which the drug dealer had just sold them. The daughter had just gotten out of ‘rehab’ less tham 30 hours earlier. She totaled the used car that ‘Grandma & Grandpa had just bought her to celebrate her ‘rehab’. They came to the scene & were not happy!!
The drug dealer himself came onto my property once in broad daylight. He ‘wanted to talk to me’. I held my ground with my shotgun. Called the Sheriff himself just after I got him to leave my property. Told Sheriff what had happened & asked what would have happened to me if I shot this bum OUTSIDE of my house. He basically told me they would celebrate his demise.
One often has to take care of themselves. I intend to do just that.
I still want to know whom that jewelry belonged to.
IMO, this kid was a punk in training for full fledged criminal activity. Now, he is no longer headed for a life in and out of the prison system.
His parents have been wearing rose-colored glasses. Especially his ‘mom’.
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