Short on Sympathy
My good friend and Democratic blogger Jon Easter is taking me to task over my attitude regarding Indy’s spike in murders. On his blog, Easter has levied the charge that I am downplaying the city’s murders because most of the victims (80%) and the suspects (88%) all had mugshots, i.e. prior felonies. Jon says that by pointing out the criminal histories of those involved I am downplaying the seriousness of the city’s problems.
Far from it.
As we say in my old neighborhood in Chicago, “I am keeping things real”. We can have the debate in Indy over whether we need more officers, which by the way I am willing to pay for as long as we do some other things to go along with it.
However, you can’t ignore the real fact that most of the violence is bad guy killing bad guy and usually the two are engaged in bad activity. The problem is when innocents get caught in the crossfire. I have nothing but sympathy for the families of people like Nathan Trapuzzano who are truly, innocent victims of crime. But when one bad actor takes another bad actor out of the gene pool, I’m sorry, I can’t get worked up.
Does this make me a bad person, maybe. But I don’t apologize for thinking the way I do. My heart and sympathy are saved for people who obey the law, pay their taxes and try to live a decent life. This is why I have no issue when the city and faith-based leaders sit down and talk with people who honestly want to change their ways.
But when it comes to the rest of them, my only regret is these guys don’t have the decency, or the aim, to take each other out without innocents getting caught in the middle.
