Indiana

What?s Wrong With This Picture?

By Abdul Hakim-Shabazz

WARNING:  If you are someone who is easily offended or overly sensitive, I suggest you skip today’s post.

I’ve been doing my end of the year look at the city’s murder rate.  I say murder rate because murder (an unlawful killing)  is different from homicide (a killing), police action shootings and shootings done in self-defense.   Unless someone gets whacked in the next couple days Indianapolis should come in at about 100 murders, one of the lowest numbers since 1997. 

However, out of those 100 or so murders, 57% were African-American and 53% were black men, and a third of the murders were black men under 30 killed by firearms. 

It’s never a good thing when 25 % of the city’s population account for more than half the killings.  We can speculate and debate the reasons for the high murder rate.  But more importantly I hope that in 2010 one New Year’s Resolution will be for Indianapolis’ black community to stand up and say “enough is enough” and start to do a better job of policing its own and work to improve conditions that cause these kinds of problem in the first place.

Full post as published by Indiana Barrister on December 28, 2009 (boomark / email).