How Many More?
The gun violence continues unabated in the City of Philadelphia, and this time a police officer was killed. Officer Gary Skerski, a 16-year-veteran, was fatally shot as he responded to a report that someone was robbing a bar. As of now, the killer remains at large.
Hardly a day goes by without reports of a shooting. Eleven Philadelphia officers have been shot in the past 25 months. Three officers have been shot at in the past three days alone. The police have shot more than a dozen people in 2006. And on it goes.
The pervasive level of gun violence is THE number one issue facing the City and its residents. Not the wage tax or business privilege tax. Not whether the population is dropping or whether the real estate market is cooling off. And certainly not whether -- God help us all -- Philadelphia makes a bid to host the 2016 Olympics.
I don't know what the answer is, but I do know that the political and business leaders who set the agenda in this city are not the ones getting shot. But they and those of us lucky enough to live in safer parts of the City are the ones who can ensure that the resources necessary to address this problem are provided -- especially to the police and to the residents of terrorized neighborhoods.
Enough.
Hardly a day goes by without reports of a shooting. Eleven Philadelphia officers have been shot in the past 25 months. Three officers have been shot at in the past three days alone. The police have shot more than a dozen people in 2006. And on it goes.
The pervasive level of gun violence is THE number one issue facing the City and its residents. Not the wage tax or business privilege tax. Not whether the population is dropping or whether the real estate market is cooling off. And certainly not whether -- God help us all -- Philadelphia makes a bid to host the 2016 Olympics.
I don't know what the answer is, but I do know that the political and business leaders who set the agenda in this city are not the ones getting shot. But they and those of us lucky enough to live in safer parts of the City are the ones who can ensure that the resources necessary to address this problem are provided -- especially to the police and to the residents of terrorized neighborhoods.
Enough.
posted by FCB at 5:30 PM
1 Comments:
Someone asked me about this today and, rather than a calm explanation of current events, she got, instead, a tirade on the tragedy of gun violence in Philadelphia - a rumination over the fact that people live here in neighborhoods barely safer than Beirut. I am rarely affected by this state of being here in the City in which I live, so I can only imagine the anger and frustration of those who are. I so want to hear their voices and their anger reported in the press. The silence is killing . . .
-- A friend in Philly
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