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.

A Room of Light

Have you had the opportunity to enter a room filled with like-minded individuals as yourself? The feeling is welcoming and warming and you feel as if you belong. When the intention is for the good of all, the feeling can be felt as being surrounded with light, making you feel you are treading the right path.

We had such a thing happen to us this past week. We attended a citizens meeting against crime in our small town. This meeting was a working meeting, unlike the bigger one I reported on last week (see "ODDITIES"). It was a small group. Only fifteen folks. But as each one spoke from the heart, there was nodding and agreement going around the table and we could see that we were all, more or less, on the same page.

There was a guest speaker from the Pinal County Sheriff's Office on crime prevention. He told us that the hardened criminal uses three things to his advantage: Motive, Ability and Opportunity. While Motive and Ability is nothing the Average Joe can do anything about in deterring crime, Opportunity is. So he supplied ways we can take away the opportunity for crime to occur and save ourselves the problem of being a victim. He wasn't trying to make us feel paranoid, just a bit extra vigilant so complacency (or laziness) doesn't result in a criminal getting the upper hand.

Agreement resounded on these points: That we are dedicated to seeing the "Same-Old, Same-Old" system of crime and punishment this town has used in the past go by the way side. That we all feel overwhelmingly that this town is worth saving and we're going to see it get cleaned up. That the days of hiding criminals behind familial ties is over. People are going to step up and do their duty: report crimes and suspicious activities; agree to be witnesses in court cases, if need be; look out for their neighbors and their neighborhoods; and refuse to be victims. The resounding affirmation was that no longer would people be afraid of reprisals by the 'bad guys'.

It's a big job. We have a lot of work to do. But we're going to start with small steps with our dedicated group of fifteen and we hope to recruit more as the tide turns and things change. We have the backing of the mayor and the town council and the chief of police and his staff. We're not some vigilante group charging out on a white horse to save the town. We're going to start turning over the rocks and cleaning up the decades of debris piece by piece. There are lots of things we could be doing if our numbers swell, but some important ones to get started with. Talk is of forming Citizens on Patrol groups that will go through neighborhoods to aid the police during periods of time when crime occurs and the police cannot be everywhere at once. We're going to do some publicity to get the word out to the general populace that our group exists. We plan to start a youth group to get the word out to young people.

Light will shine into the Dark and Light will rule the day. It won't be easy. But those of us in that room this week realized that something special is happening in Superior and things are going to change. I'm very grateful to be a part of this.

Oddities

We attended a citizens' committee on crime tonight. Our little town, Superior, our newly adopted little town that I think is so quaint and unique has a grimy little underside. It is Crime. It isn't any sort of shoot-you-dead-crime like in the big cities. But it is undeniably crime-ridden. There's some folks in town who don't have a lot of money. And that's fine. Nobody is holding any of that against anybody. But there's some folks who don't have a lot of money and who don't work either and who have a penchant for meth and other illegal drugs. They also seem to have a knack for helping themselves to other people's stuff, like stealing their cars, breaking into their houses and stealing anything that might appeal to other folks. So, that's why this crime meeting came about.

See, we were broken into last Memorial Day. Our house was. We were up in Dillon Beach then but our little house was victimized by some Have-Nots who shinnied up the deck posts and broke out our sliding glass door and entered the living room and then tried to steal the television set. I say, try to, since they didn't get out of the house before the burglar alarm went off and the police finally came. They did succeed in getting the big heavy TV off the shelf and they did succeed in splintering the door all to heck. So that is why we were particularly interested in this citizen's committee on crime.

Bill attended a town council meeting in August and voiced his concern that businesses weren't going to move into Superior if they had to worry about a rising crime rate. Folks wouldn't be crazy about moving here and raising a family if they had to keep worrying about theft of their possessions. And the many retired folks looking for a quaint town to retire in would look elsewhere with an out of control crime rate. So maybe his little speech in August did some good, for in September a citizens' committee on crime was started and tonight they had members of the police department, the mayor, the sheriff's department, the district attorney, the probation department and the local justice of the peace and a superior court judge come to talk to folks to tell us what is what.

Family is a big deal in this little town which I applaud. Isn't that the foundation of Small Town Life, raising one's family and being proud of them and living one's life surrounded by one's family? That's the way it 'should be'. But what also is, and maybe not so laudable, is that in this town when some member of one's family messes up, the family members protect them and don't make them 'fess up. It has undermined numerous crimes in this town that should have taken people to court and did not. That, in turn, has turned a lot of law abiding citizens against the police for 'screwing up' and not prosecuting So 'n So's son because there wasn't enough evidence. Inevitably, as the mayor put it with a huge dismaying sigh, "there's too much finger pointing and not much else". Well, finger pointing isn't going to do it, so that's why the different groups of law enforcement were there.

What it looks like will happen is that there's a good group through the sheriff's office already working in the schools and a citizen's group maybe trying to get another youth group started outside of school. There's a movement within the city police department to have citizens groups do some patrolling, do some clerical work in the department itself and have a neighborhood crime watch program started. The mayor urged folks to step forward and not be afraid of retribution. The town council has begun abatement proceedings for neglected properties which breed criminal activities. It's all positive and it will all take work, but it appears the town is on the right track.

It wasn't all a Love Fest however. There were some folks there who were resentful at the police department for past mistakes. They wanted to air their gripes. It's a small town, they're entitled to it. Old grudges aren't easily forgotten by some, even if maybe this wasn't the place to air real old Dirty Laundry.

But there is one old fellow who has just worn out his welcome in this town. He claims there is a lawless faction of druggies on his block and he airs his complaints at every town council meeting about the useless police department until you want to jump out of your chair and gag him with a dirty sock. The man wouldn't know how to win folks over with constructive remarks. He only knows how to complain and make a great fool of himself. More than once, we have heard the mayor remind him he may only talk for three minutes while he drones on about his problems and those of the police department and those of the town council endlessly.

When I saw he was sitting in the front row tonight, I groaned inwardly. But for the most part, he appeared to be minding his manners and only interrupted a few times. Until the end. Then he started spouting off and interrupting the speakers. I watched the chief of police and the mayor at the podium and noticed that their eyes weren't looking at the man at all. It was as though he weren't there. Bill and I were sitting to one side but in the second row so we could see this man's face sideways. And when I slid my eyes over at him, I did a double take. Was that a ring in his nose? A blue plastic ring?

Quickly, I looked at Bill's face, who was watching the current speaker talking. Mentally, I urged him to take a look at the Bothersome Man's face. It seemed to work. In a few moments, Bill's eyes flicked over that way and then looked down at me.

I dug my elbow into his side. "Is that for real?" I whispered.

"No shit!" Bill slid me a quick grin and turned his attention back to the speaker.

I looked again. No shit, for certain. The Town Agitator was sucking on a blue plastic pacifier. But he kept popping it out of his mouth when he was vexed and had to interrupt a speaker with a question.

I was mortified with embarassment by the man. What in the world were the representatives from the county and the law enforcement agencies wondering by the likes of that man in our meeting? Would they think Superior was a joke? Would they think the rest of us law abiding citizens were a bunch of ninnies too? Or would they just think, well, Superior is just a little town with a big problem: You gotta take the Soup with the Nuts!