Pubdate: Tue, 20 Sep 2016
Source: Star-News (Wilmington, NC)
Copyright: 2016 Wilmington Morning Star
Contact: http://www.starnewsonline.com/section/submit01
Website: http://www.starnewsonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/500
Author: Charles Carrington Cox

DRUGS AND VIOLENCE

All the nationwide rhetoric over lamentable black-on-black killings
and lives matter doesn't ever seem to highlight the obvious reality
that most of the shootings are drug-turf related. Every gang protects
its square blocks and guns down intruders, unfortunately putting
innocent people in the crossfire no matter where. If the Russians or
Mexicans carved out turf and gunfire erupted, the conversation would
revolve around white on brown killings, for instance.

Decades ago I read about a supposedly true event in a New York county 
where Latinos and whites had installed themselves in a poor town where 
virtually all industries had closed. The underfunded city and county 
police couldn't cope with them.

The authorities hatched a plan and sold it to the Feds. The locale was 
categorized as an organized criminal enterprise involving players from 
other states and a foreign country. That construct put the DEA, FBI, 
local, county and state police in the mix. Result: the task force 
launched a surprise raid and arrested and prosecuted everyone involved 
in the enterprise.

Couldn't such an approach be applied on our challenged streets?
Wilmington itself has become a shooting gallery; drugs are at the
epicenter of most of it.

Charles Carrington Cox
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MAP posted-by: Matt