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The Shadow Knows…..What We Must Learn
In the forties, there was a radio show known as "The Shadow." In this show, the main character was a vigilante type hero who fought for justice. Anyone who was a fan of the show could always expect the trademark line from the show that is still as popular now as it was it then. It went something like this, "Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of men?" After a brief pause, the announcer would reply, "The Shadow knows!" In this fictional world, we could always count on the Shadow do be ready when evil was near. Unfortunately, this method of fighting crime is not of much use in the real world.
But, we can utilize the philosophy that the Shadow counted on when he battled evil. The Shadow was always prepared, as we must be. We must prepare ourselves for the worst-case scenarios and hope that they never occur. We must prepare our budgets with special attention to public safety manpower and equipment and hope that we never have to use them. If we look back one day and see that we overreacted and this all out commitment was not needed, it will have been money well spent. We no longer have the luxury of saying that we will just see what happens and react to it then. The truth of the matter is that in today's world, once it happens it is too late to react. We must make diligent efforts to ensure that "it" never happens at all.
I have never met Chief Richard Pennington of the Atlanta Police Department, but I am fastly becoming a fan of his. I was on my way home the other day and he was a guest on a local radio talk show. The host was asking Chief Pennington about the traffic problems in Atlanta and what could be done about it. Chief Pennington offered a few suggestions and then made an abrupt turn as to their subject matter. Pennington stated that he hoped that Atlantans never became so aggravated with traffic that they would forget about the real problem facing Atlanta. In his opinion, and in mine also for whatever that is worth, the real problem is crime. Traffic is inconvenient and nerve racking, crime is deadly. We must never put any single issue above the prospect of making our communities safe.
Of course, there are some positives to ignoring the crime in our area. If we continue to do so, traffic will no longer be a problem. We will no longer have school overcrowding, the need for more parks, more roadways, upgrades in our water system, or any of the other needs that we hear so much about. If we continue to ignore crime, people will start leaving here like Falcon fans in the third quarter. When people begin to feel that they are unsafe and that their families cannot enjoy a basic quality of life that only a strong law enforcement presence can provide, they will begin looking at other places to live. We have already seen some of that here in our county. Sure, we still have plenty of people moving in, but we are losing a lot of our old time folks who just do not like picking up the paper every day and reading about another murder that has occurred.
We are fortunate that we have been able to keep our heads above water from a crime statistics perspective. However, we must not get in the practice of spin doctoring certain statistics just to make our numbers sound better. We must look at these numbers closely and decide what must be done to bring them down. Simply saying that they are very compatible with our neighboring counties is the easy way out. We must take a look at the parts of our county that are suffering the most and see what needs to be done, what must be done, and then go about the business of just doing it.
As we end this year with the highest homicide rate that we have ever had, we must make our New Year's resolution one of commitment that 2004 will have the lowest rate that we have ever had. We must commit to ensuring that 2004 is remembered as the year that gangs were not in the headlines. It must be the year that our local officials came out in public and recognized that safe communities are the most important function that we all strive for. Anything less than this type of attitude will play right into the hands of those who continue to prey on our county for criminal intent. Are these goals, while admirable in theory, actually achievable? Only the Shadow knows…..and only time will tell!
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