Manchester crime thread

[toowm]

Sounds like you're going to have lots of company in your quest to help clean up the neighborhood. I hope they don't adopt the bullhorn approach: "Stay inside and lock your doors. We are here to protect you."

Hah, my housemates and I (the vast majority of whom are FSP members) were joking about how we should convince more FSP-ers to move into this neighborhood. Instead of cops being shot, robbers would be  The news would be filled of reports on how outraged citizens gunned down a burgler So, comeon, everyone: buy houses in Ward 5!
But it's not my quest, in anycase. I'm just renting a room until my husband gets here. Then we'll find somewhere else to live. It is sad to see the neighborhood go downhill, though, I like a lot of the architecture.

I grew up in a poor, gang-infested neighborhood. Every time a "solution" came from a mayor or police chief there would be more harassment of normal folks. Friends of mine would join gangs just to have a group that trusted them. One time there was a community-led effort that specifically asked the cops to be available, but relied on citizens groups to be a local presence to deter crime. Kind of like the Guardian Angels, but most of the leaders were mothers and grandmothers. I worked well until some of the leaders moved out of the area, because it was still economically depressed. I visited the area in the 90s, and things were much better, because there were jobs.

I think the community needs to be energized, and not look to others (especially cops) to clean up the neighborhood. And everything we can do to improve the NH economy should help everyone?s opportunities.

[Rochelle]

Yet another point for NH: they're still shocked and outraged at murder.

Little Rock is less than twice the size of Manchester (180,000 vs. 110,000), and has had 43 or 44 murders so far this year (I've lost count).

True, it's good, but let's hope they don't overreact towards it because of the fact they're not used to it and try to get more programs and that sort of thing that in the end will only make the amount of crime worse.

I think the community needs to be energized, and not look to others (especially cops) to clean up the neighborhood. And everything we can do to improve the NH economy should help everyone?s opportunities.

But how do you energize a community? How do you bring jobs to a neighborhood where a lot of people here are immigrants who might not speak good english (if even they are able to get a job) or have low levels of education?
A neighborhood watch might be a good issue, but hell, who's going to be watching at 3am in the morning   Not I!
I think this case was more or less out of the ordinary, the guy was from Mass, he was spoiling for trouble, had robbed tons of places already, etc. He just happened to be staying in a poor part of town instead of splurging the money from robbing places on a nice hotel.