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.

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