Utica UNDER SIEGE!

[rodwilson]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcdbY5VhtkA&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uticaod.com%2Fnews%2Fx1678045377%2FPolice-investigate-beating-found-on-Youtube&feature=player_embedded
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Things are NOT looking UP in Utica. The "group" activities are growing kind of worrisome.

What IS with the cop and his shades?

[rodwilson]

Oh and the fight of course;

www.wktv.com/

[gearofzanzibar]

Crime is down in Utica. The problem is under control. The James Street Community Billiards Resource and Conflict Resolution Center is, despite not being manned, already making a difference.

Together, we're looking forward into a bright future, comrades!

[dgriffin]

It is frankly amazing and disgusting to watch this shit taking place on the same corners I hung out on as a kid in the 1950's. The scenes are more reminiscent of what we saw further up the hill at the zoo than anything that would have been allowed when I was a teenager. Our "gang" was no more than 5 kids and although we got into some minor trouble from time to time, we were respectful of authority, at least when caught. That's because if our number happened to grow larger than 5 or 6, the UPD would have been there in an instant, busting heads of those who didn't cooperate, without any questions being first asked or rights considered. Society in general, as well as our parents, would have been supportive of the police, up to the point of physical injury. Can't do that today. We've given over our rights to protect people who would abuse us.

[rodwilson]

Unreal. This, the melee about a week ago, there was one on Bleeker a month or two back, one on Varick and I saw a "fight spectacle" at Quinn Park about a month ago while I was there for a ballgame.

[Disgusted-Daily]

Shame on Mr Brown for video taping and posting pure garbage and then acts like he really cares for the kids. No 911 call to help save that kids life. This would be without a doubt a hate crime if tables were turned.

You ask what's up with the officer in the background with his sunglasses? Well I ask what would happen if that was a bunch of white guys beaten a black guy? How about the video after, I watched about 30 seconds of it and counted the "N" word being used multiple times, like an everyday word that is used so freely by the blacks and yet so wrong for the whites to use.

I hope they all go to prison like the thugs they portray to be. Nothing more than a bunch of animals acting like animals.

[Ralph]

That disturbance that happened about a week ago that wound it's way from Francis Street up through the hood........

I drove through it on my way home from work. By then they had secured the Square and the group was directly in front of Loretto and spent the next half hour wandering through the parking lots that connect Kemble and Elm Streets.
When I got home I spent the next half hour sitting on my porch out of sight with my riot gun for fear they would come my way.

What's up in Utica?
We let the little things slide.
We listened to a Chief that constantly told us there was no gang problem (even though we and the community knew there was).
We have been overwhelmed with caseloads that judges cannot or will not handle to full resolution.
We are afraid to enforce the laws that we already have....or as LEO's........tired of enforcing them on the street level only to see the cases plead down or dismissed altogether.
We are afraid (the City Council) to enact new laws that will hold others accountable for their tenants actions.

We have become complacent.........willing to let the small stuff slide while concentrating on the bigger picture......which of course keeps changing because the small stuff gets bigger and the bigger picture keeps changing and it goes on and on and on, etc, ad nausea.
In short, we're afraid some S.O.B. might sue us for being friggin' right!

The Cop with the shades?

Probably tired of hearing the same story over and over again for the umpteenth time with no end in sight.
Probably wishes the asshole taping them would go away instead of painting a damn target directly on his forehead bigger then the one already there.
Probably hoping that at the end of his shift he will go home to his significant other in one piece instead of being done like they did Tom.

God help the poor righteous S.O.B. that goes off the deep end one day and has had enough and goes out and pops these guys right in the street.......for secretly the general public will wish they had done the same.
But the rest will crucify him to the hilt and he will die in prison 10 minutes after they put him in general population.

Now......need a bigger picture? This is what it has come to, this is what everyone was warned about, this "is what it is".

Sorry for the "rant", but it's the truth.

I see our LEO's everyday when they come in or go through the drive-thru. They pay for nothing......I send them on their way and tell them to "stay safe" when they leave and pray for them when I hear the sirens scream.
"People" caused this to go on, people keep it in stasis, people are the problem.

Until folks stand up and give a shit and push back nothing will ever change......it will simply get worse. It does not take a grassroots effort, it does not take more legislation, it does not take more Police on the street.

It takes people to solve this, people to "grow a set" and put them to some use besides procreation.

For years I have repeated my mantra over and over........."If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem".

Where the Hell is Batman when you need him?

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[gearofzanzibar]

Aug 11, 2009 1:57:41 GMT -5 Ralph said:

Where the Hell is Batman when you need him?

He moved someplace where he could actually make a difference?

I think your overall conclusion about the need for people to get involved is true, but the problem is that it's so much easier to leave.

Ultimately, the question comes down to each individual deciding "Is Utica worth fighting for?". If the continuing exodus of the best and brightest is any indication the answer is a resounding "no". It's not even worth staying here, much less investing any time or effort into trying to improve things, because every single indicator points to things getting a hell of a lot worse.

The median income continues to fall while the average age continues to climb, even after the influx of thousands of much needed immigrants.

The infrastructure is falling apart. When the Mayor of a city just says, flat out, that there's no possible way to keep the sewage system functioning without magical money fairies sprinkling $100 million dollars into the till, there's a problem.

The proportion of tax exempt properties continues to rise.

The ranks of the tax consuming population continue to explode while the tax producing minority dwindles.

The overall tax load, already one of the highest in the nation, is set to soar once the "stimulus" money runs out.

Just look at yourself- you're sitting on your front porch WITH A LOADED SHOTGUN.

Seriously, ? Utica is turning into a goddamn Mad Max movie, replete with roving gangs and powerless, ineffectual law enforcement. AND IT'S NOT GOING TO GET BETTER.

Let me say that again, because I don't think it's really sunk in for most people. THERE IS NO POSSIBLE WAY FOR THE SITUATION IN UTICA TO IMPROVE. It's finally reached the point where it's physical corruption, the weed filled lots and the empty storefronts, the ugly tangle of exposed wiring and substandard sewage pipes, is only exceeded by it's psychic corruption.

You of all people know how warmly the cabal in power embraces people who actually give a damn and want to change things. At some point you just have to accept that they won. Their backroom deals and out and out looting of the public till is never going to end, even as the no-go zones grow larger and larger. Hell, what do they care? They're retiring out of state with a nice, fat, tax exempt pension. They don't have to worry about loadin' up the Remington and sitting on the front porch.

There comes a point where every creature suffering from a fatal infection is effectively dead, with no hope of survival, but still keeps stumbling along. Inside it's organs are shutting down, it's body is filling with poison and bile, but on the outside it still has some semblance of life.

That's where Utica is right now.

[bblvr]

What really bothers me is that none of these people have been arrested. The kid that got beat up is afraid to do anything. Well the police have proof that this happened, so why can't they do something to protect this young man. We can give all these police raised, but we can't arrest the people that do the crime. It just doesn't make sence. If crime is down why does the police calls log lie? Larceny, criminal mischief, DV, disorderly group, fights.

[dgriffin]

Ralph, your'e right.
Gear, you're right ... very right.

Ralph, you've got to get out of there. Easier said than done, I know. There aren't enough people with enough resources or willpower to help these past paradigms we call cities to turn back from their trip to hell. You can view what's happening as a city being taken over by rabble, or you can see it as a vacuum filling as a population leaves for greener pastures. It's both.

The racial side of the issue is first an unfortunate combination of a half century of guilt driven feelings for an entire segment of the population that a full century ago we were treating like animals. But it's also plain arithmetic.
The structure of our economic society is evolving to a level where we have large groups of men and women for whom we have no tasks. We don't have anything for them to do. We'd better invent something fast, before they invent it themselves.

[concerned]

Don't get all upset this fight was planned by the man who was video-taping. All the people fighting were paid to stage the'cornhill gang'. I heard that this guy goes all over the city looking for a way to bring his own message about this city doing nothing for the blacks in the cornhill area. Think about it, how did he all of a sudden show up at the exact minute the fight broke out?
This same thing happenned a few years back when a group of girls staged a fight amoung themselves with one of there friends video-tapping the fake fight and yes some of the girls in the fight walked away really brused.

[rodwilson]

Someone pointed out that the victim was also arrested in the party coming from the party from the Polish Center.

[concerned]

Yes, and this guy's website is called A.G.A.M.E. A game. In the openning he is shown with his face blanked out smoking a cigar. He has a motive for what he is doing.

[Ralph]

Ya know Gear….I am constantly amazed at you either completing my thoughts or pulling the damn words right out of my mouth! LOL!!!

But what you are saying is the truth, and I have seen it in far more places than just Utica. It tends to happen in cities that have lost population not only due to socio-economic factors but to the old urban sprawl idea as well. Which I suppose are both interconnected much more deeply than we think.

When we decided to move it was for a lot of these factors as well as personal ones. When we decided not to move it was more based on our ability to sell and relocate and find employment in an area which became instantly worse than we are.

So in fact we are for all express purposes trapped here. Though I would not feel the same if I was living in North Utica or outside the city, the problem would still be here but I could turn a deaf ear of sorts to it………which is what so many have done and why we are where we are.

It’s interesting to remember when I worked at Oneida National Bank across from the Stanley, old man Sheldon would walk up Genesee St. with the previous days receipts to make his deposits without a thought in the world about it. Today he wouldn’t make it twenty feet from the old store and he would be toast. But I digress.

Dave, I would sever a body part to be able to get out of here! Where the hell am I going to find a house this size that we could actually afford to buy though? On what they pay me I may as well forget it, or anything else, I can’t even afford to pay attention.
Trust me, If I could simply walk away from it, I would, just like so many others. Sad to see that I actually wrote that.

Gear’s analogy about a creature with a fatal infection couldn’t be truer. And those of us that are familiar know that while that creature is dying on the inside……there is usually a host of maggots feeding on the outside at the same time. Makes no difference if they are the local power elite, or the thugs on the street……still maggots.

[dgriffin]

Aug 11, 2009 14:47:55 GMT -5 Ralph said:

Dave, I would sever a body part to be able to get out of here! Where the hell am I going to find a house this size that we could actually afford to buy though?

I'm sorry, Ralph. Yes, I know that.