Can We Prioritize Our Outrage?

IMG_3468, originally uploaded by Prince of Petworth.

Tonight was the hardest night I’ve ever had putting up posts for the blog. Earlier today I received an email from someone who’s girlfriend was assaulted and robbed earlier this week in Shaw. The reader wrote in order to warn folks particularly women to be vigilant and extra cautious. The email literally brought tears to my eyes. For those that know me personally, I am not one to cry easily. In addition to this horrific incident I received 8 other emails in a 24 hour period related to other crimes and quality of life issues (from all over the city). I don’t intend to post every crime that is related to me but I do think we as a community need to be outraged.

You see I was reading about the outrage of the proposed Tivoli North banners and I’m thinking we really need to rally as a community to fight against the unacceptable level of crime we’ve been seeing. This is not simply, we live in a city and crime exists, suck it up situation. And I’m not saying that other issues aren’t important. But if people can be rallied and outraged over a banner that would go up on one street, ostensibly, to help local businesses, I’d like to think people can get equally if not more outraged over the horrendous crimes we’ve been hearing about.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how we can rally as a group and put some pressure on our Councilmembers.  I honestly feel that it is important to see more police walking and/or biking the streets.  Remember “community policing”?  What happened to that?  We have power in numbers and there a lot of us in PoPville.  So what should do?