Fast Eddie Friday...Sweeps Week.

It was sweeps week in Kansas City and by sweeps I don't mean Television ratings, I mean raids, police raids. The numbers speak volumes. 231 warrants cleared, 93 new arrests, $97,328.60 worth of street-value narcotics recovered, $11,071 in U.S. currency recovered, $60,000 worth of stolen property recovered, 40 illegal handguns recovered during a warrant sweep this week in four violent areas of Kansas City.
The areas make up just 4 percent of the city’s land area but have accounted for almost half of the city’s homicides and drive-by shootings this year. Here's the rub, I'll be go to hell, but I can't find a single mention of exactly where those four areas are in the local media. There is mention of 39th and Cleveland, and another bust around 64th and Paseo among the assorted print and TV media, but not a single rundown of the exact location of these "areas". The media is afraid to offend, they don't want to be seen as biased or judgemental. So I went to the source, KCMO Police Chief Corwins blog. He has a map. No big surprise that the areas in question are the east side along 39th and prospect, midtown from Broadway east to Van Brunt, which is actually 2 areas combined, and 63rd to the lower 50's bordered by Troost and Prospect.

There are already some rumblings that the cops used military style tactics, and in the days to come there will be the usual suspects complaining about profiling, racial disparity, etc. I don't necessarily think that everyone who questions the Police tactics is playing the race card, some are genuinely concerned that the raids won't address the ongoing social issues of these mostly poor, mostly black populated parts of town. Not to discount the very real disparity or racial profiling that takes place, but in this instance, it's a moot point. The short answer is, the Police raids won't solve or even address these issues. Then again, the police aren't social workers, they are law enforcers, they did what they are supposed to do. The numbers prove the method to be appropriate. If the tactics used resemble street sweeps in Iraqi villages, maybe it's because these areas most resemble war zones. When 4 percent of the land mass in KC is responsible for 50 percent of the drive bys and homicides, it doesn't take a brainiac to figure out where to start looking.

Poverty and crime, they seem to go together like biscuits and gravy, bread and butter, Martin and Lewis, you get my drift. The cops aren't targeting John Q, the working stiffs, the law abiding albeit poor folks who make up the majority of the residents of these areas. They are targeting the thugs, the gangstas, the 16 year old with the sks assault rifle. Poverty doesn't necessarily breed crime, in fact I've got my own theory, based on my own history. Crime is born of greed and laziness. Sure there are exceptions, rape, crimes of passion, domestic violence, child abuse, but by and large criminals are in it for money, it's what makes them tick. If poverty was the chief motivator for becoming a criminal, then I would never have been one, Bernie Madoff would never have run a Ponzi scheme, you don't choose a criminal path simply because you are poor. The majority of the folks who live in these areas are decent hard working people, they aren't criminals. They made a choice to live right, despite the deck being stacked against them.

I know there will be someone who is more than happy to give me a history/sociology lesson. A bookworm, or Social Activist who will quote case studies and the racial disparity in the justice system and prison populations. In other words, somebody who never spent a day in The Life. I spent a big chunk of my life as a criminal, I've known more criminals than square people. I don't need a book or a skewed study from Harvard, to explain why people become criminals. I lived it, and you can't trump life experience with charts and graphs.

But MM, why is there such a disparity in prison populations? Why are so many young Black men and boys murdered or in prison if it's not about race? You are full of shit.

Are you done? Well, allow me to retort.

Gangs and the street level drug trade. These are the two main reasons why prisons and graveyards are so densely populated by young black males. It's the violence that permeates the gang culture, and the street level drug trade. Aside from Meth, the majority of White criminals are involved in Burglaries, forgery, fraud, property crimes. Sure there are exceptions to this rule, but by and large these crimes don't result in death. In all of my years of hanging paper and defrauding financial institutions, I never used a gun or harmed a hair on any ones head. Keep in mind I'm talking about crimes motivated by greed. White guys do some creepy shit, they are more prone to be serial killers, and seem to turn up in large numbers in the creepier sex crimes, but those aren't crimes for profit.

Young black criminals, the gangstas, they deal in drugs, they fight over turf, they come armed and ready, with little hesitation to spray bullets and take lives. The culture revolves around being flashy, showing off. These young guys are in your face, it's "hey look at me". Gangs, even loosely knit unorganized like the gangs in this city, have a propensity towards violence. They are trying to corner a market, and in the drug trade, that requires shooting people. Sure there are societal and economic factors that predispose these guys to get involved in gangs, guns, and drugs. If they were better educated, they would probably gravitate toward less violent, lower profile crimes, but they would still be criminals. The truth is simple, you have to make a conscious decision to become a criminal, especially a career criminal. We make a choice at some point, the decision to get rich quick, to break the law. If being poor was really such a huge factor, most of the city's poor would be criminals, and that's simply not the case. In the criminal world, there is only one color that matters, dollar bill green. Would we have less crime in the future if we had better schools, parenting, less poverty? Sure we would, or at least less violent crime. But you can't blame societal ills for the decisions people make of their own volition. Crime is born of greed and an "I want it now" attitude. End of story.

Have a safe weekend, see ya Monday.