by Jack Lee
If you live in Chico you know there are some streets or neighborhoods that have more than their share of low-life’s and calls for service by the cops. These areas are crime riddled and a few of the really bad neighborhoods just happen to be close to northwest corner of the CSUC campus. An area where students should avoid, if they can.
Can you guess what is the main thing these rough areas have in common? Yep. . .welfare. This question was way too easy. So, what else do you think these places have in common? If you said, single parent families with lots of kids who all have different last names, you would be right. And dare I say it… yes, there’s at least a 50-50 chance alcohol, drugs and/or child abuse is involved somewhere.
This is the kind of high risk environment that produces future inmates. The kids in these hoods grow up to be predators and they do real bad things to people..people like naive college students who wind up being raped, beaten or stabbed because they didn’t know they were at risk in our nice little community.
Walk down Columbus Ave. in the daylight and you’ll see what I mean, what a zoo! Then come back after dark, no on second thought, better not unless you are looking to be victim. Between you and me, if that whole street was blown up, I bet crime would drop by 20%! The police know this only too well. They spend way too much of their time in these areas and I know they would do something about it if they could. Ask any officer and they will tell you 10% of our population are generally responsible for 90% of the calls. Well, it just doesn’t have to be like that.
There’s no good reason why the people of Chico have to put up itinerant bums, punks, drunks, dopers and criminals endangering lives and property. The City of Chico needs to get tough to match the tough threat. And I bet they could, if the new Chief really wanted too, but right now he’s still new and just getting settled in. So, we may have to wait a little longer for some action…but time is not on our side, nor his. People are expecting a lot from the new Chief.
Crime is a big problem that seems to be getting worse every year – take a look the violent crime stats above? Average out the graph and you got a constantly growing problem.
What could be done? Here’s a really old tactic, but it still works great to clean up seedy areas. The cops could start notifying the slum-lords that their property may soon qualify for a red-light abatement (seizure) because of re-occurring crime on the premises. Whoa, now that always get’s the landlords attention. It often results in a whole lot of evictions too! Now that’s but one of dozens of pro-active things that can be done if there was half a will to do it.
I sure hope this Chief starts getting some inspiration, because the guys on the department would love to be making some good busts and taking back the streets from hoods, instead of simply doing tedious patrolling and responding to crimes after the fact. That’s bad for moral! A cop is there because he wants to make a difference – he wants to drop crime right on its head, but he must rely on his bosses to let him.
Here’s another idea…I’ve long wondered why the police don’t try to use a police decoy in these high crime areas? Wouldn’t take much trolling to bag some felons. But, for some reason we sure haven’t seen much creative law enforcement? With all the high tech electronic surveillance equipment available, the stake out cars, ect. you would think the cops would be all over these dirtbag predators. Wonder what’s holding them back? (see above)
I’ll make a real safe prediction, if something isn’t done about the violent crime here, the word is going to get around and then students are going to start looking for safer places to attend college, then we all lose.
Chico has always been a nice place to live and I would like to keep it that way, but the liberals in city government have been working against us property owners, catering to the welfare bums, parolees and psychos like they were family…hmmm, maybe they are? As a result, Chico is sliding right into the sewer with crime just like Oroville. Do we really want to be like Oroville?
how about the military guy up in Redding who tried to have his pregnant girlfriend murdered? I wonder what “hood” he grew up in!
Chico has always been a nice place to live? Tell that to the late Dr. and Mrs. Joseph Chiapella, tortured for three days in their Chico home and finally murdered, by a guy the college sent over to mow their lawn. And then there was the beating death of that transient, right in Downtown Chico – killed by two drunk Butte College students, just beaten to a pulp with one of those large water bottles. And let’s not forget the boy from Willits who was beaten to death by the boy from Vallejo – two Chico State students living at “The Zoo”, getting into a fight over a car.
I could go on, but I’ll get to the point. Explain to me how the cops could have prevented any of those above crimes? Explain to me how structured overtime protects us?Tell me, when will Chico PD start DOING THEIR JOBS?
As for that crack about Oroville – listen Jack, next time you’re out on that ranch in Butte City, you can think about my grandmother’s old friend Anna Cecil. Ask the folks down at the Afton Store about the 83 year old woman who was raped and murdered in her home out there. They’ve never caught the culprits. Sleep tight, locked and loaded.
Hot topic Jack, I hope this gets people thinking about what can be done, verse whats happening right now in Chico.
Yes a stronger police presence is needed ,at least until we can thwart the criminal element from invading Chico any more that it has already. I feel that one place to start is rebuilding a City council that is pro active toward community safety, verse the anal direction the majority of five have taken on issues of this nature. I.E Holcomb for example, who’s idea of creating a homeless tent city would only add to the the problem of street crime. A city the size of Chico should only be expected to help it’s citizens re enter society as a productive person, not invite the world to camp here for free room and board. Of the people I know on the CPD, they are as concerned as I am, but when a city council and city manager restricts the police department as they do , the only positive remedy would be replace them with Civic stewards that have basic common sense, and less of the Bay Area liberal ideology. Chico was once a great place to raise a family, however these past liberal council majority’s have turned it into a destination of the aimless, and criminal faction you are taking about, while depleting ALL city cash reserves on frivolous projects, like the ‘PLOW’. So until the Welcome sign is removed by a safer community minded group on the council, and we deal with the scope of current crime problems at hand, one can bank on the fact, that nothing will be done by this majority of Five on the current council!
There is a difference between sudden unexpected violent or criminal events and the criminal culture that exists in our cities today. Jack is looking at ways we could discourage these criminally intentioned elements. Unfortunately the police can mostly act only after crimes are committed.
Section eight, administered by HUD, has helped to make our cities less safe by moving criminal cultures into our neighborhoods through liow cost housing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_8_%28housing%29
TAX DOLLARS PAY THE REST! THE FEDS HAVE NO MONEY THAT THEY DO NOT TAKE FROM WORKING/PRODUCING AMERICANS.
Moving section eight housing into the suburbs seems to have been the big idea back in the early eighties when drive by shootings were terrorizing poor communities in big cities. This move may have been well intentioned, and I hope it has helped some families with young children, but the menace of the criminal culture was supplanted along with families looking for opportunity for their kids.
As for hitting those absentee owners there are certain limitations that make eviction a challenge. HUD requires judicial action to evict and California eviction laws are pretty tough:
http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/landlordbook/evictions.shtml
Even if the tenant chooses to leave quietly, the property is often pretty much destroyed and neighborhood property values continue in a downward spiral.
The current fill in building policies in our fair city will create a few future ghetto areas…little boxes jammed into small spaces easily become low rent areas as first home buyers move on.
I don’t think there is much hope of saving us from the current criminal culture. If there is any hope at all it would follow getting the people back into churches and committed to the stability of the family. A strong no quarter attitude toward criminals is also needed but for that we will need prisons and very strict sentencing. It may be that the private sector will have to be enlisted to make this cost effective…our current public prisons are very expensive to run. We need to end prisoner perks, like exercise equipment and television.
I’m also all for Arpaio Tent Cities with hard work requirements for first and minor offenders.
Bottom line: we need to send the message that we will not tolerate criminal behavior and if you do the crime life will be very hard and very restricted.
Yep… this is why I got out of the house rental business.
Juanita, the murdered woman you speak of lived just down the road from the ranch, we pass it every day or we did until they finally tore the place down. The word was, she was murdered by an illegal Mexican passing through. The Doc and his wife, they were done in because well meaning liberals lowered the bar and allowed a predator to attend CSUC and he did what predators do.
He murdered these people in cold blood and he should never have been here and he wouldn’t have been here, except for the idiot liberals who invited him.
If we had no affirmative action in the college system at the time we probably would have avoided a lot of problems, but on the flip side a lot of decent, struggling minorities got a break. They didn’t commit any crimes, so things like that murder became a trade off… in blood… for them. I hope they appreciate it .
Juanita, as a cop who worked the streets of Oroville. I know up close and personal how mean that place can be, even though there are plenty of decent folks living there. The small minority of bad people make it miserable. And it doesn’t take much. Sadly, Oroville was a dumping place for parolees, it was home to a lot of people living on the fringes of society. It was the Welfare Center. We also had the south side, a rough place. We had the rednecks, the bikers, the gangs, the crank labs too. At one time Oroville had the highest per capita violence of any city in the state. We need to learn from what happened to Oroville because Chico is starting to look a lot like Oroville.
Hey you rich people are complaining about the plethora of trash that fills our streets yet you refuse to fund programs that will educate and rehabilitate these people. Instead you blame them for wanting a handout meanwhile our government is funding a no bid jihad against poorer nations.
How much would it take to educated and rehabilitate “these” people Rex? Do we have enough to cover everyone who needs it, but doesn’t want it? How do you force them Rex? C’mon, I’m waiting for some answers. And whats a no bid jihad?
Rex I don’t know what rich people you are referring to but I do know there’s a big hole in your argument.
America offers all children a free K-12 education. Multiple scholarships for higher education are available and many go unused year after year. A lot of students manage to get higher education degrees by working and going to school. If they can accomplish these things it’s possible for others to do the same.
The blame for the plight on many of these people, if that is what we are dishing out, is on themselves for failing to take advantage of a free education and their own innate skills and abilities. There are other factors that figure in but a lack of educational opportunity isn’t one of them.
Also a lot of money is given freely each year to places like the Salvation Army to help the homeless and indigent. We pay taxes…a lot of taxes…for various programs to help the poor…so for you to say we “refuse to fund” programs is not really the truth either.
Drug or alcohol abuse and/or mental problems plague a lot of the people in our streets and many of them refuse help. The progressive big idea to set some mental patients free in the seventies has added to the problem.
“What is a no bid jihad?”
When Israel points us at their enemies, our soldiers fight in the name of Christ and haliburton and G.E. go in to rebuild their infrastructure using billions of our tax dollars.
Tina, it is hard for an under privileged person to take use of many of our bureaucratic opportunities when they are busy worrying about sustaining their own basic human needs (food, shelter, healthcare, safety, etc…) The amount of money we put towards helping and educating people is a pittance compared to what we spend on wars, government salaries and bailouts. Your argument assumes that everybody has had the same healthy upbringing and guidance you had, but the truth is that the people on the street don’t know how to get off the street and there is no one willing to teach them. The people that steal and commit crimes aren’t doing it because they like it, they are doing it to feed themselves the only way they know how. There are so many solutions that don’t even get brought up because both sides of the argument have been taken over by the mainstream and marginalized. In my opinion it would probably be cheaper to feed these people and give them all the drugs they want, than it would be to keep locking them up and having them come out more dangerous and mentally ill than when they went in, over and over again.
About 1990 or so,I read in the ER someone warning about gangs in Chico, She stated that it is beginning and we would do well to “nip it in the bud”, this woman was given grief to dare suggest that gangs were in Chico,
Sad that people did not listen.
Harriet the one agency that had the best opportunity to nip gangs in their very beginning was LAPD, and their stupid liberal mayor Tom Bradley and their stupid liberal council put an end to it. LAPD could have wiped out 90% of the budding street gangs we now see moving up the coast and infecting small towns like Chico. WHAT A FREAKIN SHAME AND DO LIBERALS TAKE ANY ACCOUNTABILITY WHATSOEVER FOR THIS DISASTER? Of course not.
Rex: “When Israel points us at their enemies, our soldiers fight in the name of Christ and haliburton and G.E. go in to rebuild their infrastructure using billions of our tax dollars.”
How old are you, Rex? It seems like your worldview is pretty limited.
Israel is an ally for several reasons. We are both secular democracies. That means religion is a matter of choice in both nations. Our laws and mores are both heavily influenced by the Ten Commandments and teachings of the Bible but we are both still secular. Neither nation has an interest in taking over and ruling in other nations.
Israels enemies ARE our enemies because they hate both countries for this reason. it is a threat to their desires to establish a worldwide caliphate ruled by a Muslim Imam under Sharia.
I offer the following quote as evidence…there are many more:
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=291
Ayatollah Khomeini said, “Americans are the great Satan, the wounded snake.”
Given the Ayatollah’s opinion I recommend the following article about how he came to power:
http://townhall.com/columnists/dineshdsouza/2007/01/29/giving_radical_islam_its_start/page/full/
Our country has NEVER fought in the name of Christ! We defend ourselves and others under the banner of freedom. It is the ONE duty that the federal government was given under the Constitution.
Haliburton and GE are among the few companies in our country with the capability to quickly put in place those things that are necessary to support our military in defense of the nation. It’s not a big conspiracy!
” Your argument assumes that everybody has had the same healthy upbringing and guidance you had…”
Sorry big guy that’s not an excuse that holds water. A lot of the kids IO went to school with were from poor families. My own mother was an orphan by aged twelve. She was pushed, as she put it, from pillar to post as a teenager until she married my dad at aged 21. She managed to clean house, cook, and babysit for the people that took her in and still get good grades and win a music scholarship. Her experience after her dad died in 1928 was a lot of days when she, her mom, and six brothers had very little to nothing to eat! The depression years were tough but most of the kids still managed to take advantage of the FREE K-12 education that our nation provided.
Attitudes, excuses, and temptations to take up the use of drugs and alcohol, rather than working toward a solid future, are the self imposed handicaps that plague street people…unfortunately our culture has encouraged and celebrated all of the wrong things and people have had little to support them in making good choices when they are brought up poor or parent-less (including emotionally absent). However, the individual cannot be forced to get himself help and no amount of funding will help until he does. This is basic. They teach it in AA but it applies to all addictions including the addiction to failure.
“In my opinion it would probably be cheaper to feed these people and give them all the drugs they want…”
Rex if that’s the answer why not just let them die of hunger in the streets; it would be cheaper to shovel up their remains and dump them in a land fill too.
Look I understand it’s a problem but to suggest we don’t spend enough attempting to help these individuals is just not true:
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1258
Defense and international security assistance, $718 billiontotal includes the cost of supporting operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, funding for which totaled $159 billion in 2011.
(Total war cost $159 B…Safety net and food stamps $466 B and $78 B…
Social Security $731 billion
Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP: $769 billion.
Safety net programs: $466 billion
http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/20/cbo-cost-of-food-stamp-program-increased-135-percent-over-last-4-years/
Do some googling and you will find entries that show American charities are spending a lot on the homeless:
http://www.charitychoices.com/charities/StVinVill/default.asp
http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2010/062010/06142010/554174
http://www.use.salvationarmy.org/use/www_use.nsf/vw-dynamic-index/6DD4E6A690626DFE80256CF5004A9041?openDocument&charset=utf-8
During 2006 the Army spent $3 billion in serving people
Gotta go…back later
Wow, Jack, I never knew the inside of your mind. I’m sorry. I wish you’d take the CTA off your mailing lists – we don’t want to take part in that rally you’re planning this fall after all.
Wow, Juanita, then consider yourself removed. But, until I hear that from Casey, the CTA stays on the mailing list.
Look, ever since the beginning of time Christians and Muslims have been trying to exterminate each other. Why we as a nation take sides is a sign of ignorance. If people could just see that religion is a fake construct and that god isn’t real than perhaps humans could start evolving harmoniously instead of killing each other over fake ass religions and resources. Their extremism is a direct result of our oppressive policies.
“Look, ever since the beginning of time Christians and Muslims have been trying to exterminate each other. Why we as a nation take sides is a sign of ignorance.”
Rex…some might see this as supporting the side who doesn’t wish infidels dead and actively tries to make them that way.
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