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.
DeleteI agree. Tuerk and Roca shouldn't get any credit. Roca was a patrolma. For 3 months!!! It's fact. He doesn't know anything about being a beat cop. Promise neighborhood is a joke. They show up after shootings. Big deal
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?
7:50 - And there’s the problem.
DeleteWe have a Mayor who won’t proactively police the areas that need it because he doesn’t want to offend the people living there or be called a racist. Then you have a police chief that either agrees with that approach or who is willing to go along with that approach just to keep his job.
The ironic thing is that all racial groups deserve to have safe neighborhoods and criminals taken off of their streets. Pandering to certain racial groups - and the organizations that claim to represent them - by not properly policing certain neighborhoods is actually the racist policy.
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.
ReplyDeleteDoes the FLOCK system make Promise Neighborhoods redundant? What are their success rates on solving or preventing crimes.
ReplyDeleteI think what most people miss is that the shooting/homicide victims in the city are typically targeted. There aren’t many unintended victims. If someone has the will to shoot at someone else, there isn’t much to prevent it, just ask the secret service. You can have all the protection and planning in the world, but one motivated person can still get some rounds off.
ReplyDeleteWhat the technology has done is to help quickly capture the criminals, in this recent case within the hour, preventing them from committing future crimes. Anyone who studies justice knows a small percentage of people are responsible for a majority of crime (recidivism rates).
It amazes me that there’s a bi-weekly complaint on this blog about double parking, yet the police make a quick arrest for attempted homicide and people can still find a way to complain about that. Had there been no arrests, that would have been the complaint.
It’s the only profession where you’re hated for both doing, and not doing, your job.
Glad to be retired.
Why should targeting shootings pose less a danger than random acts of violence? Far more people, both the targets and unintended victims are killed or injured by targeted shootings than though random acts of gun violence. As well, targeted shootings are almost always a result of criminal activity and likely related to criminal networks in their neighborhood. One can find no comfort in that thought.
DeleteBy the way, you have heard about the Broken Windows Theory of crime reduction? The premise is very simple, the people who violate so called nuisance laws and engage in petty offenses are very likely the same people who commit far more serious crimes. This approach took NYC from the crime ridden, high homicide dystopia of seventies, eighties, and early nineties to the NYC we knew 20 years ago where people didn't even dare run yellow lights, you could walk, and take the subway fearlessly. It was a wonderful place, it is no longer as this approach has been abandoned.
DeleteYes, I’ve met him. The broken windows theory was from George Kelling, who the city actually hired 15 years ago to give suggestions on how to proceed with enacting such a policing style. After seeing the city his main suggestion was that it needed 500 police officers to effectively implement his ideas. The city has less than half that number of officers.
DeleteThat's nonsense. Allentown used the broken windows approach under Heydt and the number police under his administration was, in my memory not much different than it is today. I also participated in local government hearings on the value of this model on our neighborhoods. Charlie Dent and Jenn Mann were part of that.
Delete2:08 - I think that’s the point many are making here. We need more police.
DeleteInstead, City Hall wastes money on groups like Promise Neighborhoods, to appease those who wrongly believe the police are the problem.
I also believe that competent leadership in the Mayor’s office would not only have police targeting problem properties and neighborhoods, but they’d also have the zoning, code enforcement, SWEEP, and other city offices target those neighborhoods as well.
Again, our current mayor unfortunately too often views the enforcement and lifting of standards in neighborhoods as racial or cultural harassment. The result ends up being the worst kind of discrimination, as the people living in those neighborhoods are deprived of the equal protection they deserve.
Vacation destination and entertainment extravaganza, Allentown PA. We're the circus carnival spinz daily epicentral.
ReplyDeleteThe shootings are on YouTube and scrubbed faster than faked factual calculation.
Your stats need updating. Citing studies from 20 years ago is meaningless. From what I've read, Allentown crime is perpetrator to perpetrator. Nobody is robbing or attacking unknown victims.
ReplyDeleteThere are a few problems with that conclusion. It justifies diverting public safety funds to nonsense like Promise Neighborhoods, to resolve disputes among criminals. Furthermore, our criminals are not marksman, innocents do get shot. Lastly it accepts a low quality of life, which a small city like Allentown shouldn't have to live with.
DeleteApparently this is another administration that lacks the knowledge and the will to improve the quality of life in Allentown's urban neighborhoods. The ordinances are in place and the successful history of vigorously applying available techniques has proved that they work. Critically, however, the institutional knowledge chain was broken by Pawlowski (the genius) and thus far, subsequent leadership has failed to rebuild the mechanisms needed to affect improvement.
ReplyDeleteWell, that's just wonderful... WHY can't the same system detect fireworks being set off right under the cameras???... after all, they are illegal within a certain distance of residences... answer: they don't want to!!! All part of the plan to force us out.
ReplyDeleteAnd here we are, just as promised above: a story about shootings (where the police made an immediate arrest no less) again devolves into a complaint about minor issues. I hope they stop responding to shootings so they can file fireworks citations and give tickets for double parkers.
DeleteApparently you don't live in an area where fireworks, speeding no muffler cars, rolling speaker cars, chronic double parking, and yes, shootings, are not a daily, if not hourly, occurrence. Newsflash for YOU.... it's ALL important to the quality of life in beautiful, historic, downtown $hithole Allentown... kindly take your rose colored glasses off and welcome yourself to real life in most of Allentown... and it's spreading to the West end... rather quickly, if you bother take notice.
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