Small Town Terrorism

Our crime committee is getting down to the nitty gritty these days. A hard core group of between twelve and fifteen of us are now meeting once a week to hash out a host of items. The end of the month is a week-end festival in town called Apache Leap Days. The Crime Free Superior group is going to have a booth to get the word out to the community that we mean to do things in a different way and to recruit more members. We're selling raffle tickets for a kid's bicycle and we're going to have information and sign up sheets for our citizens' group: Volunteers In Police Service.

The biggest hurdle we've bumped up against in this basically small town of four thousand souls is a Biggie all right. It reeks of Old World politics or crime ridden neighborhoods of big cities. I certainly never expected to find it in this pretty little town. But it's here all right. The other night we heard story after story about it. It's name is Retaliation.

I don't know how long it's been going on. But Retaliation seems to be the word on every body's lips and why the public at large is loathe to tell the police what they can plainly see happening on their streets and sometimes even their door steps. It was said that mothers and fathers of grown children won't even turn in their own kin because they are afraid of their own family using violence against them. Employees witnessing criminal acts while they are working refuse to give details because they are afraid of being beat up, or worse and/or their property vandalized or destroyed. Retaliation seems to be the poison that is vaporizing this community when it comes to getting rid of the bad guys. And it has got to be stopped.

The chief of police told us that the word we've got to get out to the community is that Retaliation will not be tolerated in Superior any longer. That we've all got to be good witnesses and stand up for the victims that come forward to testify against these small town thugs. It is only when the bad element sees the good folks step forward and say, "Stop this! This isn't the way it's going to work anymore!" that we can get back to the way things should be.

I have to pause here and tell you, I never dreamed this basic struggle of Good vs Evil, the Light Souls against the Dark Souls could be playing out in a small mining town in the Sonoran Desert in this twenty first century. I mean, if this had been Tombstone, perhaps, a hundred and thirty years ago where the Bad were running amok and you didn't know if the lawmen were the good or the bad, then, I'd believe you. But I really, really thought things were different now. Well, duh! I'm fifty-eight years old and you can call me naive, for I never would have bet things were this bad here.

Our group has been told by others that they've tried to change things, and sorry, it doesn't change. They've 'been there-done that'! I know. I know: it's hard to change things when a group of Newcomers swoop into town and decide to 'clean it up'. The Old School folks don't especially relish a band of Do-Gooders changing things. But we're going to give it a shot. We certainly don't aim to piss off the locals, those good law abiding folks who have had to live with such a slimey underbelly of fear and lawlessness all these years. But I really feel that this little band of "Do-Gooders" might just change things after all and bring about some change. It's going to take a lot of work, but I'll keep blogging on now and then about this group and let you know if we pass or fail.