Last Wednesday two shooters were apprehended immediately after shooting their victim with a shotgun from their car. They were apprehended by a high-tech system which combines gunshot detection with license plate cameras...The system is called Flock Safety, and it costs Allentown $1.5mil for a two year lease.
Police chief Roca bragged on Facebook about the quick arrest. Local political kingmaker Jennifer Mann was the first to respond with "Great work." She is Tuerk's mentor and this is an election year.
Although I'm glad the shooters were quickly apprehended, I wish that Allentown hadn't degraded to the point that we need the Flock system, and I wish that we didn't have such people cruising our streets with shotguns. Although I realize that the slope was downhill before Tuerk's term, I have little faith in his ability to improve the situation.
artwork by Mark Beyer
So you are saying people shouldn't be allowed to exercise their God given second ammendment rights? As we speak I have a S&W model 29, norinco with extended clip, and barrette 12 gauge with slugs in my vehicle on the way to work.
ReplyDeleteTuerk is our only hope he stood up to Orange man and knows his way around a Bodega, vaya con Dios MM!
anon@6:38: firing a shotgun out the car window at someone on the sidewalk is not a 2nd amendment right. btw, you would be more of a real macho man by signing your name :)
Deleteanon@6:38: Rather than standing up to Orange man, Tuerk missed an opportunity to promote Allentown. Because his grandmother is Cuban, he claims to be Allentown's first Hispanic mayor. There was a full blooded Cuban here that night, Marco Rubio, U.S. senator. Tuerk should have taken the opportunity to welcome Rubio to Allentown and gave him a tour.
DeleteIt’s funny, it seems like just a few months ago we were being told how great this technology was after the perpetrators of a murder at Fountain Park were apprehended.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the tech didn’t help the victim of the Fountain Park murder, and it didn’t help the victim in the latest shooting either. Apparently poor aim was what kept the latest victim alive.
In any event, those gunshot detectors certainly aren’t making the city safer. Those who have lived here long enough also remember when Ed Pawlowski told us cameras on every corner would make us safer as well. And yet the shootings still continue, and nobody feels safer.
In reality, as long as City Hall is going to tolerate an “anything goes” mentality in the city, the shootings will continue and there will be more victims in the future. City Hall policies have made the city attractive to criminals, and there are an infinite number of criminals willing to use a firearm when committing their crimes. The current mayor has done more to welcome and draw them here than he has to beef up the police force to stop them.
I can only hope that the latest city budget included funding for additional chalk for the police next year. They’re going to need it for the body outlines.
You can criticize this high tech system all day long, I'm impressed and I also say "Great Work" to APD for getting 2 bad guys off the streets of Allentown and more importantly sending the message to other violent criminals.
ReplyDeleteanon@7:47: I'm not criticizing the Flock System, (I agree we need it now) but I am criticizing both Tuerk and Roca. Their woke attitude contributes to our distress. For example, the funds(state of Pa.) going to Promise Neighborhoods should be spent on increased law enforcement....Tuerk pandering to them is totally inappropriate.
DeleteIt is nice to know Allentown rents a system to monitor crime as it happens. Presumeably records are kept to record when and where it happens, with maps showing the locations and time the offenses occour.
ReplyDeleteNow, can the APD go from a reactive force to a pro-active force and use this information to actively patrol and show itself in crime hot spots of the city based on the information this system provides to prevent the crimes from happening also?
Catching criminals, no matter how sophisticated the detection system, after they commit their crime is curing the symptom without addressing the disease. Patting yourself on the back for catching one out of every 25, 50, 100 criminals ain't gonna do it. Allentown should be cutting off the bottom at the same time they're trying to grow the top and stop sending resources to political donors' companies that do nothing to make Allentown a better place.
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