June 18, 2018
Killing Pedestrians in Ferguson and America
Jack Kemp
J. Cashill writes about Ferguson, St. Louis
From the article:
"From time to time, the media tell the truth about issues that have a racial edge, usually by accident. Such was the case in February of this year, when a local TV news crew visited a largely black St. Louis neighborhood to follow up on a hit-and-run incident. A speeding car had struck two ten-year-old boys and kept on going. Local people were outraged. School principal Stella Erondu told the reporter, "It's just like the wild, wild west. Anyone can do whatever, drive however they want on these streets." Other neighbors echoed her comments.
The reporter on the scene had no reason to doubt the neighbors. While he was there monitoring the intersection in question, an estimated 50 percent of the drivers blew right through the stop sign.
Back at the studio, the news anchor expressed shock at the "blatant disregard for children, the laws, everything in this neighborhood." He called the situation "unbelievable." It may have been unbelievable in the anchor's neighborhood, but in urban St. Louis, reckless driving is something of a norm.
If these local news people were willing to shed some light on a serious problem, their betters at the Washington Post prefer to keep their readers in the dark. A recent Post article that focused on St. Louis led with the perfectly useless headline "Pedestrian deaths soar nationally as SUV use increases."
The reporter made the case that pedestrian deaths nationwide were up 46 percent from 2009 and attributed the increase to there being more SUVs on the road. This correlation explained close to nothing. From 2006 to 2013, as SUVs increased in number, pedestrian deaths declined, as did overall auto fatalities, the latter by 25 percent.
Pedestrian fatalities did not start spiking until 2015. In that year, they increased 9 percent from the prior year. In 2016, they increased 12 percent over the total in 2015. The 2017 numbers were almost identical to those of 2016.
As it happens, pedestrian fatalities track closely with homicides. This may not be a coincidence. From 2006 to 2014, homicides nationwide declined steadily save for a minor blip in 2012. This trend resulted in 3,000 fewer murders in 2014 than in 2006.
After August 2014, the trend abruptly reversed itself. In 2015, murders rose at their fastest pace in a quarter-century. In 2016, America experienced 17,250 murders, 3,086 more than in 2014. In sum, from 2014 to 2016, homicides increased 21 percent, and pedestrian traffic deaths increased 22 percent.
There appears to have been a precipitating event, certainly for homicides. In August 2014, Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri. A furor ensued, particularly in the St. Louis area, where Ferguson is located. The police pulled back to protect themselves from physical harm and legal jeopardy, and the thugs moved in to fill the void left behind."
End excerpt.
A NOTE FROM TIM, A LIFELONG RESIDENT OF THE AREA WHO GREW UP NEAR FERGUSON:
As you can imagine I have a few things to add to this.
First, driving in north St. Louis and north County is a blood sport and always has been. You have to know how to drive up there, and that means you have to be aggressive, butting your way into lanes and whatnot. I went to high school in south St. Louis but lived in north st. Louis County and I basically learned to drive in these neighborhoods. It's, uh, a different way to do things. Stop signs are suggestions, and the adage "lead, follow, or get out of the way" is the motorist motto. You have no idea how many accidents I've seen over the years because of careless and plain crazy driving by inattentive or careless motorists.
Second. as I pointed out in American Thinker a few years ago Ferguson is a fairly large city with numerous major thoroughfares and a lot of the motorists who were being stopped were cutting through Ferguson from other, largely black, communities so it was hardly a matter of excess when stopping them. Ferguson is surrounded by black communities, and so it should surprise nobody that a larger share of blacks are stopped than whites. Oh, and the whites who live around Ferguson tend to be older, so they are on the road less and are more likely to drive the speed limit and obey stop signs and the like.
Third, the point Mr. Cashil doesn't make, is this is also an issue about pedestrians. Remember what precipitated the shooting of Mike Brown in the first place; Brown was strolling down the middle of the street and Officer Daren Wilson told him to get on the sidewalk. As Wilson drove away he saw Brown go right back to the middle of the street, so he turned around and confronted Big Mike (and I had seen Brown walking in Ferguson before - he was BIG) and Brown, who knew he had just strongarmed a store clerk and stole cigars, figured it was all going down so he punched Wilson and tried to wrestle his gun away.
The point is Brown was a pedestrian disobeying the law. There is a lot of that in those black communities, and it is often done just to thumb everyone in the eye "I can make you stop or drive very slowly and you can't do anything about it". There is, I believe, also a notion that if they get hit they will win big money in a lawsuit. Whatever the motivation, there is a lot of jay walking and other pedestrian lawbreaking, and it has gotten worse since Ferguson because the cops are afraid to confront someone just for blocking the street.
So, we have drivers emboldened by the DOJ report who are now driving carelessly, we have bad drivers enjoying the lack of enforcement in Ferguson, and we have more and bolder pedestrians daring people to hit them. It's a recipe' for just what is happening.
When the laws aren't enforced you get more of what they are designed to prevent. It's certainly not rocket science, but in the end the media will try to somehow blame it on white racism rather than anarchic behavior by people who "resist" authority and think laws should not apply to certain segments of society.
J. Cashill writes about Ferguson, St. Louis
From the article:
"From time to time, the media tell the truth about issues that have a racial edge, usually by accident. Such was the case in February of this year, when a local TV news crew visited a largely black St. Louis neighborhood to follow up on a hit-and-run incident. A speeding car had struck two ten-year-old boys and kept on going. Local people were outraged. School principal Stella Erondu told the reporter, "It's just like the wild, wild west. Anyone can do whatever, drive however they want on these streets." Other neighbors echoed her comments.
The reporter on the scene had no reason to doubt the neighbors. While he was there monitoring the intersection in question, an estimated 50 percent of the drivers blew right through the stop sign.
Back at the studio, the news anchor expressed shock at the "blatant disregard for children, the laws, everything in this neighborhood." He called the situation "unbelievable." It may have been unbelievable in the anchor's neighborhood, but in urban St. Louis, reckless driving is something of a norm.
If these local news people were willing to shed some light on a serious problem, their betters at the Washington Post prefer to keep their readers in the dark. A recent Post article that focused on St. Louis led with the perfectly useless headline "Pedestrian deaths soar nationally as SUV use increases."
The reporter made the case that pedestrian deaths nationwide were up 46 percent from 2009 and attributed the increase to there being more SUVs on the road. This correlation explained close to nothing. From 2006 to 2013, as SUVs increased in number, pedestrian deaths declined, as did overall auto fatalities, the latter by 25 percent.
Pedestrian fatalities did not start spiking until 2015. In that year, they increased 9 percent from the prior year. In 2016, they increased 12 percent over the total in 2015. The 2017 numbers were almost identical to those of 2016.
As it happens, pedestrian fatalities track closely with homicides. This may not be a coincidence. From 2006 to 2014, homicides nationwide declined steadily save for a minor blip in 2012. This trend resulted in 3,000 fewer murders in 2014 than in 2006.
After August 2014, the trend abruptly reversed itself. In 2015, murders rose at their fastest pace in a quarter-century. In 2016, America experienced 17,250 murders, 3,086 more than in 2014. In sum, from 2014 to 2016, homicides increased 21 percent, and pedestrian traffic deaths increased 22 percent.
There appears to have been a precipitating event, certainly for homicides. In August 2014, Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri. A furor ensued, particularly in the St. Louis area, where Ferguson is located. The police pulled back to protect themselves from physical harm and legal jeopardy, and the thugs moved in to fill the void left behind."
End excerpt.
A NOTE FROM TIM, A LIFELONG RESIDENT OF THE AREA WHO GREW UP NEAR FERGUSON:
As you can imagine I have a few things to add to this.
First, driving in north St. Louis and north County is a blood sport and always has been. You have to know how to drive up there, and that means you have to be aggressive, butting your way into lanes and whatnot. I went to high school in south St. Louis but lived in north st. Louis County and I basically learned to drive in these neighborhoods. It's, uh, a different way to do things. Stop signs are suggestions, and the adage "lead, follow, or get out of the way" is the motorist motto. You have no idea how many accidents I've seen over the years because of careless and plain crazy driving by inattentive or careless motorists.
Second. as I pointed out in American Thinker a few years ago Ferguson is a fairly large city with numerous major thoroughfares and a lot of the motorists who were being stopped were cutting through Ferguson from other, largely black, communities so it was hardly a matter of excess when stopping them. Ferguson is surrounded by black communities, and so it should surprise nobody that a larger share of blacks are stopped than whites. Oh, and the whites who live around Ferguson tend to be older, so they are on the road less and are more likely to drive the speed limit and obey stop signs and the like.
Third, the point Mr. Cashil doesn't make, is this is also an issue about pedestrians. Remember what precipitated the shooting of Mike Brown in the first place; Brown was strolling down the middle of the street and Officer Daren Wilson told him to get on the sidewalk. As Wilson drove away he saw Brown go right back to the middle of the street, so he turned around and confronted Big Mike (and I had seen Brown walking in Ferguson before - he was BIG) and Brown, who knew he had just strongarmed a store clerk and stole cigars, figured it was all going down so he punched Wilson and tried to wrestle his gun away.
The point is Brown was a pedestrian disobeying the law. There is a lot of that in those black communities, and it is often done just to thumb everyone in the eye "I can make you stop or drive very slowly and you can't do anything about it". There is, I believe, also a notion that if they get hit they will win big money in a lawsuit. Whatever the motivation, there is a lot of jay walking and other pedestrian lawbreaking, and it has gotten worse since Ferguson because the cops are afraid to confront someone just for blocking the street.
So, we have drivers emboldened by the DOJ report who are now driving carelessly, we have bad drivers enjoying the lack of enforcement in Ferguson, and we have more and bolder pedestrians daring people to hit them. It's a recipe' for just what is happening.
When the laws aren't enforced you get more of what they are designed to prevent. It's certainly not rocket science, but in the end the media will try to somehow blame it on white racism rather than anarchic behavior by people who "resist" authority and think laws should not apply to certain segments of society.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
09:01 AM
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