It's always the same. There are the usual stories, columns, and editorials that follow a particularly horrific killing in Milwaukee.
In this case, they were sparked by the murder of Jasmine Owens, a four-year-old playing outside a home when she was shot in the head in a drive-by shooting.
A revelation related to Jasmine's death is that the 26-year-old who was also shot in the incident isn't cooperating with officials.
He's unwilling to offer information to investigators that would help get her murderers off the streets and bring them to justice.
In my opinion, he's guilty, too. He has blood on his hands as well. He is just as gutless, to use Mayor Tom Barrett's term, as the thugs who shot and killed Jasmine.
From The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Jasmine's death was one of two homicides in the city Monday and among seven shootings overall - a level of violence that served as a grim backdrop to a Tuesday morning news conference, scheduled well in advance, at which Police Chief Nannette Hegerty announced plans for stepped-up patrols of violent neighborhoods, beginning Sunday.
"Some gutless thug decided he would solve his problem by shooting a 4-year-old girl," Mayor Tom Barrett said at the news conference. "What a tough guy. He can brag about that to all of his buddies, that he took out a 4-year-old girl."
Barrett said Hegerty's plan, the Neighborhood Safety Initiative, would put teams of police officers in cars and on the streets in city hot spots, and would "send a message to the drug dealers, gang members and the thugs: We're coming after you."
Common Council President Willie Hines, who represents the district where Jasmine lived, called for collaboration between residents and police to make the city's streets safe again.
"How we got to this point is perhaps a matter of opinion, but the action we must take is not," he said in a statement. "There is a time to build community and there is a time to strike with decisive force. When 4-year-old girls are gunned down as they sit on their front stoop, we are well past the point of relying merely on our own grass-roots community-building initiatives. We must strike fear in the hearts of criminals."
Hines is right.
Debate about how the city got to this point is beside the point right now.
What matters is taking decisive action to stop the thugs.
There should be a zero tolerance policy.
Jim Stingl outlines several of the instances of violence that have occurred in the vicinity of Jasmine's murder, on "the very same street - the 2800 block of N. 29th St. - and a one-block radius in each direction."
It's a horrible litany.
Stingl asks, "Will this madness ever end?"
There doesn't appear to be any end in sight to me.
The Journal Sentinel's editorial demands change. In general, it's a very vague piece.
Mayor Tom Barrett, Gov. Jim Doyle and Police Chief Nannette Hegerty are increasing the police presence, taking guns off the street, as they announced at a news conference Tuesday.
But much more is needed. Inner city neighborhoods must rise up and reclaim themselves. Youths must get mentors. The inner city must get an infusion of jobs.
And Jasmine's death should prompt much soul-searching.
"Soul-searching"?
This isn't a time for soul-searching. I don't think bringing in Oprah or Dr. Phil is the answer. There's no need for navel-gazing.
Step one is to get the thugs off the streets, lock them up. Concrete action is needed immediately.
That can only happen if the community assists in the effort to take back its neighborhoods.
The residents have to help, working with authorities so they can apprehend the bad guys.
This "We don't trust the police, so we don't talk" stuff is crap. That's an excuse, and a lame one.
Yes, people have suffered wrongful shootings and beatings at the hands of some abusive cops; but the police didn't shoot this four-year-old in the head. Police aren't responsible for the hundreds of shootings in Milwaukee. Some perspective is in order.
Nothing is going to change until neighborhood residents choose to end the violence by refusing to tolerate the chaos. They can do their part by cooperating with authorities.
Every person who has information related to the gunfire that killed Jasmine Ownes and still refuses to come forward is complicit in perpetuating the culture of violence that plagues the city.
They are part of the problem. Their failure to do what's right gets innocent children like Jasmine killed.
Recalling the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., "The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people."
The solution to the violence will come when the good people are no longer silent.
People are so quick to call Iraq a quagmire. Milwaukee residents don't need to look that far away. They can find a quagmire in their own backyard.
Will they surrender to the thugs?
Will they continue to sacrifice their children and allow them to become victims?
Will they demand victory and the unconditional surrender of the thugs responsible for terrorizing their neighborhoods and killing their children?
Is it an impossible, hopeless, unwinnable situation?
I think they control their destiny. The madness can end.
They can stop this seemingly endless cycle of violence and misery if that's what they want.
They can be part of the solution or they can contribute to the problem.
Nearly everyone will claim that they want the violence to stop. The question becomes: Who is willing to act to make that happen?
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