Robert Laurie

Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Detroit bore the stigma of being the most dangerous city in America.  Then, things seemed to get slightly better.  For a while, Washington D.C., New Orleans, Chicago and Los Angeles tossed the “most dangerous” title back and forth like a hot potato.  Not to be outdone, last year Motor City criminals reclaimed their crown.  In 2011 Detroit was once again the U.S. city in which you are most likely to be murdered.  So far, in 2012, things are getting worse.  Crimes like robbery, rape and non-lethal assault are down, slightly, but still far ahead of most cities.

So the city has taken the bold step of cracking down – on the victims.

Earlier this month, to combat auto theft, Detroit police banned parking on certain streets in the downtown entertainment district.  Violators who chose to park in normally legal spaces had their vehicles towed away, at their expense.  In short, the city banned parking in public parking spaces, because the vehicle owners might be the victim of grand theft auto.

During the week before the measure was enacted, 44 cars were broken into.  After the plan went into effect, there were no incidents whatsoever.  Of course, if police found vehicles occupying the spaces in question, they simply hauled them away and charged owners a ransom for their return.  Approximately 20 vehicles met this fate.

According to Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee, the scheme was a great success.

“For the short term it was a successful outcome,” he said. “But the feedback I got was not positive.”

Negative feedback?  Really?  Perhaps Detroiters would rather the police stop the break-ins the old fashioned way by, let’s say, actually catching the criminals. Maybe they’re not comfortable with the police-state mentality that suggests there’d be no crime, if only we could rid our city of these troublesome law-abiding citizens.  Whatever their objection, the public got their way and the endeavor came to a screeching halt.

Sadly, however, the city hasn’t learned its lesson.

During a Tuesday afternoon City Council meeting, President Pro Tem Gary Brown suggested that businesses could be forced to close at night, in order to deprive criminals of temptation.

“If we didn’t have gas stations and Coney Islands open after 11 o’clock,” Brown said, “if we had an ordinance that required people to get their gas between 5 o’clock in the morning and 11 o’clock – I don’t know if you have a constitutional right to go get gas at 2 a.m. . . .  You can get it between 5 in the morning and 11 at night.  If, in fact, we save lives, we harden the target and we reduce crime.”

To sum up the ramblings of our former police chief, if residents weren’t allowed to be in the city – making a living at night – they’d be far less likely to entice violent offenders. Pay no attention to the late-night worker whose house payments depend on his overnight diner. Ignore the couple who is about to run out of gas at 3 a.m. on the corner of Gratiot and Conner.  Whether you sell burgers or gas, if you’re making money in Detroit after dark, you’re the problem, not the criminals who’d like to harm you.

In short, Brown believes that you wouldn’t have gotten raped if you weren’t dressed like such a slut.

It’s the kind of backwards thinking that has always been used when law enforcement has given up on what’s right in favor of what’s easy. Since the City Council can’t figure out how to stem the tidal wave of crime facing Detroit, they’ve taken to removing what Brown refers to as “the targets” – namely, the taxpayers who generate their salaries.

How sad that, in a city that has made such strides, we’re still saddled with impotent politicians seeking the easiest way out of the mess their policies have created.

© 2012 North Star Writers Group

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