Story of the week….

Imagine taking your family to the county fair. It’s a beautiful warm summer night scheduled to be topped off by a spectacular fireworks display. Your two young children proudly carry the stuffed animals and prizes that they’ve won throughout the day.

You start to work your way towards the area of the fairgrounds where the fireworks can best be viewed, and you hear what sounds like firecrackers being set off nearby. Only pieces of pavement are being kicked up at your feet and you hear high-pitched whizzing sounds past your head, not realizing that they are bullets.

People start to scream. People start to run. You go to grab your kid’s hands to lead them to safety but one of the kids is missing. A person running by looks in your direction and screams “Oh my God, your baby!”

The scene changes to slow motion from behind your eyes, and you see your youngest son on the ground not moving. A pool of blood is forming around his head. You look around for help but all you can see is a stampede of people rushing towards you.

People running away from some moron who thought there was nothing inappropriate with pulling out a 9mm semi automatic pistol and shooting into the crowd of people with no regard whatsoever for their safety.

Common occurrence? I’m thinking not! That’s why I’m writing about it!
Drive by shootings happen all the time where innocent victims get shot instead of the intended targets. We describe that in detail in our book “CopTalk”. But this incident was inexcusable even for a low life gang-banging idiot.

A place where there are numerous children and families in attendance. A place where “Fun” is the goal of the day, not watching your son get shot before your very eyes!
What could have prevented this tragedy from happening? What could this family or the other 9 families have done to prevent this? (Yes, 10 people total were shot that evening during this incident.)

NOTHING! It’s not like you took your family into a high crime area and took your kids to play in a park dominated by drug dealers and gang bangers. You went to the county fair. You ate good food, you saw your kids petting farm animals, and you went on rides with your kids at the carnival. You had a great day, and for the first time in their young lives, your kids were going to see real fireworks while almost sitting underneath them.

Almost.

Sorry ladies and gentlemen. Because some adult with no brain matter pulled out a gun at a crowded family outing and shot 10 people, and because of the riot that followed afterwards, the fireworks show has been canceled.

What happened from that one cowardly act?

10 innocent people were shot and hospitalized. Children included.

Hundreds were terrified.

The fireworks show was canceled.

Thousands of people who didn’t know what had happened, got pissed off and took it out on the cops. The cops got pissed off and weren’t “Officer Friendly’s” anymore.

Now the County is considering canceling all future fireworks shows. This incident, plus the gang related riot from last year where juveniles threw M-80’s and firecrackers into the heart of the crowd at the very same fair, put a bad taste in the mouths of the board of supervisors.

Or, how bout waving the magical metal detector wand at the entrance? That will keep those nasty gang persons out. That will teach them a lesson. How dare they bring their guns here!

No one could figure out a motive as to why this happened. Now the D.A’s office is saying that this idiot (They didn’t call him an idiot, I did!) who did the shooting, was shooting at rival gang members. Ah, that’s better. At least now we know why 10 innocent people were shot at a County Fair! But we’ll show him! We’re going to add gang enhancements to his charges so now the penalty will be extra hard! (Choke, choke, Gag, gag, yeah, OK.)

Now, attorneys have gotten involved (I wonder who called who) and some of the victims are suing the County for their misfortune. Not enough cops. Not enough security.
(Then when you do overload the place with cops, these very same people complain that there were too many cops there! Those officers were way too hard on those teenagers. They were just having a little fun.) Sometimes you just can’t win!

This is the bottom line. (As I see it.)
There was nothing that those innocent people could have done to prevent this from happening. Nothing! Except maybe having not gone to the fair in the first place. Was that an acceptable alternative? No!

There was nothing the cops could have done to prevent this from happening. Metal detectors at the gates? Do you know how many of these people looking for trouble go over the fence at these functions to bypass the gates? Think about it. Most of them can’t even afford the few dollars it cost to get inside legally. Plus if they go through the gate they can’t smuggle in their alcohol.

Canceling all future fireworks shows? There ya go. That’s a way to pay back all the hard working citizens of your county who thought they could share a family event on a summer evening, supporting their County fair with their families and friends.

Does one bad apple spoil the bunch? NO!

I don’t know where this guy came from, but even active gang bangers in my area had no sympathy for that act of irresponsibility, and their words of disgust towards him were a lot worse than what mine are here. They say that there’s a time and place for everything and that wasn’t the place. That was a neutral area.

What do we do?
We need to do something because after all, we are partially to blame.
We make it easy to buy illegal guns on the street. Want your eyes to really open wide. Read our chapter on gun control in “CopTalk” and find out how gang bangers boldly buy guns from gun stores, and who they use to do it!

We make it easy for gang bangers to be gang bangers.
“The teenage years are too late to start parenting.” Society is beginning to make a start against banging by use of the “gang enhancements” charged with criminal offenses, but we have a LONG way to go! Every misfit in a gang that I see on a street has parents or a parent at home that aren’t parents! These kids grew up with no respect for anyone and anything for a reason!

We make it a mere inconvenience when a gang banger goes to jail.
Should going to jail be an incentive not to commit a crime? Of course.
Is it? Of course not.

I was going to knock the criminal justice system here, but I already do that in a tactful manner in the book.

Just consider this. Most the time carrying a concealed firearm is a misdemeanor. You can carry brass knuckles, a throwing star, a billyclub, or a double-edged dagger and that’s a felony, but hey carry a gun in your waistband and it’s a misdemeanor. Go figure, makes sense to me….NOT!

MAKE THE PUNISHMENT FIT THE CRIME AND YOU’LL SEE A DRAMATIC DECREASE IN CRIME. PERIOD!

In the California Penal Code, section 245 (3) (b) reads this way.
Assault with Deadly Weapon – Punishment;
Any person who commits an assault upon the person of another with a semiautomatic firearm shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for three, six, or 9 years.

I can’t comment on this particular case because it hasn’t gone to trial yet, but you can get my train of thought by this example.

Eighteen year old male in a gang shoots at a rival gang member and hits an innocent victim instead. Paralyzes the college student bicyclist that happened to get in the way. He gets sentenced to 3 years in state prison but because he prolonged his trial date by using jailhouse tricks, he gets 12 months credit for time already served. He gets another 3 months shaved off for being a model inmate with a job sharpening pencils, and another month shaved off for taking school classes where all he learned to do was use word perfect to type “jail mail” letters to the female inmates.

This guy probably isn’t even going to see state prison. He’ll do a state charge in county jail and will be released even earlier if he is eligible for parole or probation. That’s IF he gets convicted of a felony. (I won’t even touch “let’s make a deal” where the guy pleads guilty to a misdemeanor and the DA accepts the offer to keep the 100% conviction rate looking good!)

How bout the victim. Sentenced to “Life” in a wheelchair. How bout the pain and suffering of both the victim and the victim’s family?

How bout this?

How bout “OK Johnny, you haven’t been a problem to society in the past so I hereby sentence you to the minimum 3 years in the state prison. See you in 3 years and not a day sooner, and if you come back to my court for the same offense it will be 6 years!

“But Judge”, Johnny cries, “I’ve already served 12 months with good behavior”. Judge says “You didn’t serve anything until I sentenced you thirty seconds ago, see you in three years!”

Johnny gets lead away knowing he won’t see the free world again for 3 years and not a day sooner. What Johnny should be thinking about is what the judge said about “next time”. Next time it will be 6 years. Be stupid enough to do it a third time and it will be 9 years.

Let’s do the math:

18 years old and gets sentenced to 3 years prison. Gets out at age 21.

At 21 he’s still young and dumb and shoots somebody else at a party. Sentenced to 6 years. Gets out at age 27.

At 27 he doesn’t want to even look at a gun because if he gets convicted again? A sentence of 9 years would make him 36 when he gets out.

I’m thinking that if Johnny knew that he could waste up to 18 years of his life he’d be thinking twice about using a gun. I’m hoping he’d be thinking real hard about doing 3 years for a first offense instead of banking on getting out after serving a year county time and opting for felony probation.

The young “bad apples” of society today fear nothing in regards to the court system, because even they know that “It’s too easy”.

They don’t fear the police, they don’t fear anybody, and that is what we have to change! Make the punishment fit the crime. When I was a Deputy Sheriff I had to start my career off working in the jails with the inmates. One of the first things I heard the older and wiser inmates telling the youngsters, was that “If you’re going to do the crime, be prepared to do the time.”

Crime is out of control, because the population of young offenders incarcerated today know that they’ll do no real time for the serious violent offenses they commit.

Put your hand on a warm stove and it’s not going to hurt. You’ll do it again.
Put your hand on red hot stove and the pain will be excruciating. You’ll never do it again.

It’s time to turn up the burner. There’s an easy way to do that, and it’s called “Zero Tolerance!”

One last thing. It bothered me that some of the victim’s families were so quick to point blame EVERYWHERE except where it was due.

I’d say that 99 percent of you reading this right now have never been in a riot situation where people have been shot and a panic stampede started. I’ve been in several. And it is almost virtually impossible to come up with the suspect.

It would have been so easy for this guy to slip into the crowd to never be seen again. To never be identified, and have to take responsibility for this inexcusable and irresponsible reckless act.

To the quick thinking cops who made an immediate arrest while the suspect was still on the fairgrounds, and who recovered the weapon as well, WE SALUTE YOU, as do millions of others who appreciate your efforts. To the civilian witnesses who provided valuable information leading the cops in the right direction, God Bless you. Time and time again, we could not do our job “for you”, without you!

To the people with the lawsuits going, who is suing the guy that pulled the trigger? I don’t think I heard his name mentioned in the long list of people to blame.

The moral for this story of the week?
Turn up the burner, turn down the crime! Stay safe out there! JL