Crime & Violence

UPDATE: Check out Phil's book review of De los Maras a los Zetas here. Despite the daily toll of arrests and busts in the United States, America's drug war is waged largely in other countries. Mexico, for example, is likely to see more police killed in a bad weekend than the US will see in an entire year. And in Colombia, the drug war is now part of a messy civil war/war on drugs/war on terrorism with casualties—police, soldiers, guerrillas, paramilitaries, civilians—on a daily basis.

Chronicle editor Phil Smith (that's me) will be the guest on Kootenay Co-op Radio's "Fane of the Cosmos" program Sunday night. Based in Nelson, BC, Kootenay Co-op Radio is the independent voice of the Kootenay counterculture.

Sunday saw another article on the worrisome level of drug trade violence plaguing Mexico. (The link is to the Arizona Daily Star -- the web page attributes to the Dallas Morning News, but I could not find it on the DMN web site -- let us know if you spot it there.) The tone was ominous:

The scale of the lawlessness, its geographical reach, and the apparent inability of the government to keep it in check threaten Mexico's political stability, some analysts warn.

Analyst Javier Ibarrola of the Milenio newspaper says it is worse than it has ever been:

"I have never seen anything like this, ever," Ibarrola said.

Music lovers have long appreciated Brazilian composer and musician Gilberto Gil's enormous talent and his contributions to bossa nova, tropicalismo, and other uniquely Brazilian music forms. Of course, Gil was never just a musician; he and Caetano Veloso, another giant of Brazilian music, were imprisoned by the military dictatorship in 1969 for "anti-government activities," and the pair went to exile in London and the US after they were released.

The San Franciso Chronicle has reported that 30 suspected drug dealers were arrested in a crackdown on drug hot spots on Thursday. More arrests are planned as the sweep continues. Mayor Jerry Brown explained the reason for doing the sweeps:

"This violent subculture is very much connected to the sale of drugs in the same locations, year after year.''

Talking tough for the media, Brown continued:

"Oakland is not the place to do criminal business."

Captain Dave Kozicki added to the tough talk:

"Every drug dealer out there should be looking over their shoulder, wondering whether or not they, in fact, sold to an undercover officer."

Maybe some Oaklanders will be impressed, but I'm not. Frankly, I think comments like Brown's and Kozicki's are pretty silly. Clearly Oakland is a place to do drug dealing, or the drug dealers wouldn't be there. Do they seriously believe the drug trade isn't going to continue, in basically the same form, with at most an extremely brief (probably already over) and highly partial reduction? Or just moving to different locations? Obviously these are not the first drug arrests Oakland police have made during the "year after year" to which Brown referred. While I didn't look at all the details, a search of the SF Chronicle's archives going back to 1995 on the words "Oakland Drug Sweep" pulled up 130 listings -- I'm sure they weren't all really about drug sweeps, but a lot of them clearly were. Guys, the drugs are still there from after the last time you did this, and the time before that, and the time before that, and the time before that... The way to make Oakland -- and all of our cities -- no longer places to do criminal business is to end prohibition. Sweeps and busts only move the trade from place to place or hand the business from one seller to another. Only drug legalization can actually make that kind of crime not pay. Let the Chronicle know what you think by sending them a letter to the editor. Send us a copy using our new -- select the "Copies of Letter You've Sent" option -- or post a copy in the comments here below.

Following the life-without-parole murder convictions of three ringleaders of the Chester, Pennsylvania "Boyle Street Boys," an editorial in the DelcoTimes called on the community to "unite to defeat the criminals." The operation sounds pretty ugly. According to the editorialist, Andre Cooper and brothers Jamain and Vincent Williams ran a lucrative cocaine operation in the Highland Gardens section of Chester until 2003 and "[f]or years... depended on the "Snitch & Die" mentality to ensure the silence of those who witnessed their illegal drug and weapons business... One of their murder victims was a teenage drug dealer whom the gang members suspected of being a police informant... Another was a federal witness, a 33-year-old mother of two, who was executed in her sister’s car the day before she was going to testify against gang members. Her own cousins were among those who plotted her killing."

Steubenville, West Virginia, has an interlocking problem of drugs and prostitution, The Intelligencer in nearby Wheeling reported this morning. The article was prompted by an anti-prostitution sting operation that rounded up six men and five women Wednesday night.

"The prostitution and the drugs go hand-in-hand," [police chief William] McCafferty said. "Most of the (prostitutes) are drug users, and that's how they support their habit. None of the men who are coming here to purchase the product the women are selling are from Steubenville, and we don’t need them in our city.

Orlando, Florida, has joined the ranks of cities experiencing rising homicide rates after years of partial relief. According to the Associated Press (article link to the Orlando Sentinel web site), the city has recorded 33 murders this year -- the first time the number reached 30 since 1982, but with nearly half of the year left to go. Much of it appears to be about drugs:

Orlando, Florida, has joined the ranks of cities experiencing rising homicide rates after years of partial relief. According to the Associated Press (article link to the Orlando Sentinel web site), the city has recorded 33 murders this year -- the first time the number reached 30 since 1982, but with nearly half of the year left to go. Much of it appears to be about drugs: