THE FIRST STREET JOURNAL.

From Detroit:

Martin Luther King Jr. High School coach shoots attackers

Posted: 02/01/2013

(WXYZ) – Police sources tell 7 Action News that a women’s basketball coach from Martin Luther King, Jr. Senior High School shot two men who attacked him as he was walking two basketball players to their cars in the school parking lot.

Police sources say the coach was walking the two girls to their cars when two men allegedly approached and one pulled out a gun and grabbed him by his chain necklace. The coach then pulled out his gun and shot both of them, according to sources.

The man who shot the attackers was 70 years old, according to police.

More at the link.

There is an embedded video in the original of the WXYZ-TV news report, in which the anchorette calls it a “tragedy all the way around.” No, it’s not a tragedy all the way around; it is not a tragedy that two young thugs got shot while attempting to commit a crime, and it is not a tragedy that one of them has gone to his eternal reward, and will no longer be a threat to the community. It may turn out to be a tragedy if the surviving criminal fully recovers from his wounds and is out on the streets again before he is elderly.

The coach had a concealed carry permit and was a reserve law enforcement officer; he was trained with a weapon and knew what to do.

What would have happened had the coach not been armed? At the very least, he would have been robbed, and, in all probability, the two girls would have been robbed. Since the two thugs had been students at the same school — one had recently been expelled for an unspecified offense — there’s a good possibility that either the coach or the two players would have recognized the assailants, which means that the assailants would have had every reason to make sure that the victims couldn’t talk to identify them. Perhaps the anchorette wouldn’t have thought it a tragedy if the coach and the two players had just gotten punched a couple of times and had their money stolen.

So, what will happen now? The coach was licensed to carry a concealed weapon, and he defended himself, so it seems unlikely that he will face any legal problems. But your Editor would not be surprised in the least if he was relieved of his duties because he carried that weapon onto school grounds. (The fact that the assailants also carried a firearm onto school grounds, and that one of them, having been expelled, was legally barred from entering school grounds won’t make a difference.) The coach is not a teacher at the school, so the possibility exists that he won’t have any protection from the teachers’ union.

Not all that far from Detroit, in Chicago:

Chicago hopes to free up cops with shift in 911 dispatch strategy

Department will no longer send officers to the scene of less-serious crimes in certain cases
By Hal Dardick and Jeremy Gorner, Chicago Tribune reporters | February 3, 2013

The Chicago Police Department hopes to free up the equivalent of 44 officers a day by no longer dispatching police for certain crimes, like burglaries and car thefts, in which the offender is no longer at the scene and no one is in immediate danger.

Police confirmed the change, which takes effect Sunday. Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy told aldermen last year he was considering a move in that direction.

The change is not related to plans by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and McCarthy to shift what they indicated was as many as 200 officers from administrative duties to beats, City Hall spokesman Bill McCaffrey said. That change would allow more officers to be assigned to teams that saturate crime hot spots, city officials have said. . . .

Crimes that will no longer result in the dispatch of an officer to the scene include car theft, garage burglaries, criminal damage to property, the passing of bad checks and lewd, obscene or threatening phone calls that don’t pose an immediate danger, McCaffrey said.

More at the link.

One wonders: had Detroit been operating under the Chicago rules, and the coach not been armed, and the assailants simply gotten away with cash and maybe the coach’s car, would the police have even responded? After all, no one would have been hurt, and, with the assailants gone, no one would have been in immediate danger.

As I noted here, the crime in Detroit is a failure of more than just the assailants. Where were the mothers of those two young thugs? Why hadn’t their mothers taught those two young men that no, you don’t rob people at gunpoint. Where were their fathers? Why hadn’t their fathers taught them that the way to success in life is to study hard in school, and to get a job and work diligently at that job? The criminals committed the crimes, but their families and their communities aided and abetted those crimes by not teaching those two boys, long before they ever reached the ages at which they would try to commit those crimes, that you just don’t do that stuff.

When the one thug is buried, his mother will stand at the grave side, crying, knowing that she will never see her son again. Will it ever cross her mind that her son is stone-cold graveyard dead because she failed? If his father is even there, will he realize that his son is in a hole in the ground, having dirt thrown in his face, because he failed in his duties as a father?