Omaha is starting to look like Chicago in the Roaring Twenties. Deadly running gunfights in cars, drive by shootings and plain old assassination murders are happening more frequently. It would seem that the police are helpless to solve these murders, let alone stem the increased frequency.
Omaha Police Chief Warren blames this police impotence on the public. I guess that makes sense on some level, but does he really mean that they can't catch the bad guys because the victims are afraid to help prosecute or is it that they don't want to turn in their fellow criminals.
Last year at this time the city had recorded eight homicides. There have been 14 murders this year and that's on par with the homicide rate for 2003.Either the victims won't talk because they are afraid of the criminals or else the 'victims' are also criminals. Either case would explain their reluctance to help the cops. In both cases, the blame is on the criminal justice system, including the police.
Chief Warren says, "Obviously the Omaha Police Department is concerned about the recent outbreak of gun violence. We have identified reducing violent crime as our top priority. It makes it difficult when we don't have the cooperation of victims and we don't have the cooperation of witnesses."
Why are the victims and other witnesses afraid? They know the police can't protect them. They know the courts will let them down; the baddies will be right back. And if the victims aren't really victims but participants, casualties of some sort of dope war? They clearly don't fear the police or the prosecutors or the judges or even their own muderous kind.
O tempore, o mores!
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