Less than a week after a historic meeting at Invictus Ministries, to address the recent wave of shootings in Pottstown, another shooting occurred Sunday afternoon!
In broad daylight, a young man was shot after being “dropped off” in Pottstown’s central historic neighborhood. This youth was evidently from “out of town”. That raises all kinds of questions and could be another article.
With an admitted “drug war” being waged to control Pottstown, where does this leave us, the residents of Pottstown? We were told Wednesday, that as citizens, we are not doing enough to aid police. We need to step it up and report crime when we see it. Okay, I will admit citizens need to be involved and help the police. However, this situation seems to be beyond the scope of our own police department so “citizen involvement” at this juncture is fairly dangerous other than anonymous reporting of crime.
If these “gangs” are willing to shoot someone in broad daylight it tells me they are fairly confident they can get away with it. They are not afraid of our local law enforcement. This brazen attitude would suggest we need to enlist additional help. More preventive measures need to be put in place. Telling people “if we put more police on the streets we will have to raise your taxes” is not a strategy. Sorry, that is just lame. If our taxes can not give us adequate police protection, we need to consider other creative solutions like outsourcing or mergers. We need to be PROACTIVE, not reactive.
I urge our leadership to think outside the box. People would be relieved if the State Police or other additional law enforcement professionals were enlisted to supplement our police department until this crisis is over. What we are doing is not working. This problem will continue until these criminals get a clear message they are not wanted in Pottstown and their lives will be made a living hell if they come here and ply their trade.
There is no shame in asking for help!!! Continuing to blame unarmed and untrained taxpayers is not going to solve this problem!
Other Pottstown blogs have commented on this subject as well:
http://savepottstown.com/2010/11/14-year-old-boy-victim-of-latest-pottstown-shooting/
http://codebluepulse.blogspot.com/2010/11/its-time-to-declare-state-of-emergency.html
http://sanatogapost.com/2010/11/22/reportage-and-commentary-on-sundays-pottstown-shooting/
Roy's Rants - For Your Information 
Thank you Roy. My family and I are so frightened we have knots in our stomachs and we are afraid to go out our back door to the garage, in the alley. PLEASE HELP US. It is too late to ask us for our help, the drug dealers and the cars that we have turned in have gone nowhere – they are STILL ON OUR STREET DEALING DRUGS and the same cars are still driving up. We have put ourselves in jeopardy to get information for the Police and now the drug dealers know who we are and they are threatening us. I will not do anything more to help the Police THEY MUST CALL IN REENFORCEMENT NOW NOW NOW.
It’s time for a state of emergency. Those who serve the taxpayers of this town need to step up and fix the problem now or resign.
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…and they are not afraid of going to prison. The word on the street, among the young people, going to prison has become a badge of honor for the shooters, drug dealers and gangs. When they get out they are met with “hero’s welcome” from their home boys. So how about reconstituting the chain gangs. Like Sheriff Arpaio dress ’em in pink t-shirts and striped pants, put them to work cleaning up the mess they have helped create in Pottstown. They won’t look so heroic to their associates. Treat them to evening courses in manners, etiquette, the english language and religion. We could have years of nearly free labor and when they are sent back out into the real world they have some skills with which to get job and live in the world like decent human beings.