Message to Mumbles, Patrick, Barrios and all the other MA gun grabbers.

[LoginName]

Here's a novel idea...

How about actually unleashing the wrath of God on the culprits, miscreants, gang-bangers, etc that are responsible for this kind of crap instead of enacting do-nothing/feel good legislation that only punishes law-abiding gun owners?

School crime rises, reflects Hub violence
More weapons are confiscated

By Tracy Jan, Globe Staff | December 29, 2006

The number of weapons confiscated in and around Boston's public schools has risen 42 percent in the last five years, mirroring a citywide rise in youth violence.

School police found 577 weapons, mostly knives, in the 2005-06 school year, compared with 407 during the 2001-02 school year. Violent crimes, mostly assaults and robberies, increased 14 percent during the same period, with 902 occurrences in the 2005-06 school year. The crimes include assaults against teachers, other school staff, and students.

The increase in school crime has intensified police and city officials' desire to figure out how to stop neighborhood problems from reaching the school yard, city and police officials say.

Eight out of 1,000 youths in Boston were victims of shootings this year, compared with 6 out of 1,000 in 2005, according to a City Council report.

Students have told school police and principals that they fear for their safety on their way to and from school and carry weapons -- including knives, box cutters, and razor blades -- for protection. The students often stash the weapons in bushes, dumpsters, and planters around school grounds before entering the building, police say, and retrieve them on the way out.

"We're a reflection of the neighborhoods," said John Sisco, chief of the Boston School Police. "The vast majority of serious incidents start in the neighborhoods and spill over into schools."

Part of the increase in weapons found may stem from more rigorous searches for them, said school police, who have begun conducting sweeps of school yards for weapons. Of the city's 38 high schools, 16 now use metal detectors. The school system is also adding surveillance cameras to high schools in Charlestown and West Roxbury to monitor hallways and entrances. The crimes have occurred primarily in high schools and middle schools, officials said. The middle and high school population in the city has dropped 3 percent since 2001-02, according to state enrollment data.

Charlestown High School installed two walk-through metal detectors in October after two students were arrested for a shooting outside the school. The machines, though, haven't eliminated the problem. After the machines were installed, school police found more knives on the school football field and in a neighboring housing development, said Headmaster Michael Fung.

Gang problems have surged in the last two years, Fung said, and some groups of Charlestown High students, who come from all over the city, have run into problems with neighborhood gangs.

"It's a hot public health issue that should be dealt with," Fung said.

The trend in the current school year is more positive, school officials said, with both violent crimes and the number of weapons confiscated down compared with the same period last school year. From September through December, school police found 199 weapons, including two guns, compared with 232 weapons during the same period last school year.

School officials said the system has been expanding violence prevention programs at all grade levels, and teachers and staff have been trained to be more vigilant about reporting incidents, even minor ones, to school police.

"We have put in place a real effort to make school safety our first priority because it's a prerequisite to learning," said James McIntyre, chief operating officer for the Boston Public Schools.

Braulio Soto , a senior at The Engineering School in Hyde Park, said violence at his school has dropped since the 1,100-student Hyde Park High was converted into three small schools -- the 350-student Engineering School is one of them -- two years ago.

"It's gotten safer, little by little," Soto said. "Everybody watches out for each other. If there's a fight, a teacher will be there in five seconds because it's a small school. I actually feel good walking down the halls."

School police have also cultivated better relationships with students in the last couple of years and rely on them to report weapons and other violence, Sisco said. The school system now has 82 police officers, who work in all middle and high schools; there were 67 in 2001. Most of the 38 high schools and 18 middle schools have two to four officers, he said.

But Richard Stutman, president of the Boston Teachers Union, said more school police should patrol school hallways. The school system does not break down which assaults on staff happen to teachers, but the union, based on members it has worked with, estimates that students assault 80 to 100 teachers a year, usually when teachers try to break up fights, he said.

In November, a 14-year-old student at Madison Park Technical Vocational High School in Roxbury punched his teacher in the face and fled. Police found him with a loaded gun in his waistband.

Chuck McAfee, Madison Park's headmaster, said all types of students, including those on the honor roll, are carrying weapons for protection. Most have no intention of ever using them in school, he said. At Madison Park, any student caught with a weapon is suspended and sent to a counseling intervention center for five days, he said.

McAfee said he is concerned by the number of young people with bravado attitudes who are quick to throw punches for minor reasons, including because classmates look at them the wrong way. Students who fight are suspended and cannot return without going through peer mediation, a program that Madison started two years ago, McAfee said. The program, where peers try to help other teens find peaceful solutions to their disputes, has helped cut down on fights, he said.

Manuel J. Rivera, superintendent of the Rochester (N.Y.) City School District and who will become Boston's next superintendent in July, said he has been addressing similar problems in Rochester. Rochester has added more crime prevention programs along with more metal detectors, security cameras, and school police, Rivera said.

Rochester students, like those in Boston, are carrying weapons for protection, he said.

One neighborhood is so dangerous that Rivera allowed the school system to transport students from their homes to their high school, just across the street. Adults in Rochester have also organized "safe passage routes," standing on street corners to make sure students get to school safely, he said.

The Boston City Council's youth violent crime prevention committee, formed last January, has recommended that more schools teach students about conflict resolution and that the city hire more street workers to connect at-risk students to afterschool programs, said Councilor Michael Ross , chairman of the committee.

"Schools ought to be the safest of safe havens," said council president Michael F. Flaherty. " These are sad times when students feel they need to arm themselves for protection just to come to school."

Suzanne Smalley of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Tracy Jan can be reached at [email protected].

http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma.../29/school_crime_rises_reflects_hub_violence/

 

[blindndead]

???

At Madison Park, any student caught with a weapon is suspended and sent to a counseling intervention center for five days,
No shit If you feel the need to protect yourself you need to get your head checked. Yea OK

 

[Jay G]

I wonder if "more weapons confiscated" might be misleading - in that they are now classifying freakin' NAIL CLIPPERS as weapons?

 

[calsdad]

At Madison Park, any student caught with a weapon is suspended and sent to a counseling intervention center for five days,
No shit If you feel the need to protect yourself you need to get your head checked. Yea OK

Exactly - why is it that whenever we read news reports about kids carrying knives and guns they always get portrayed as gang-bangers or criminals. For anybody whose brain has not gone to mush and who remembers what things were really like when they were a kid knows that the delinquents mostly go after those their own age - meaning the little criminals in the making practice on all of the other kids before they graduate to the adult world. Similar thing to what the criminologists have found with mass murderers and such - they practiced on animals when they were kids and graduated to humans later on in life.

I suspect that a lot of the kids who have to live in these crime infested areas are carrying weapons for the simple fact that if they don't they stand a much higher chance of getting killed. When I was a kid I knew plenty of people who carried knives of different forms all the time.

 

[Len-2A Training]

Yes, but some of carried pocket knives as a tool, never even thinking of it as a "weapon". I did so from ~2nd or 3rd grade onward. Still carry a Swiss Army Knife as a tool, not as a "weapon" (it's just no longer the only thing that I carry ).

 

[matt1956]

thats my concern... sad that we have moved from an age when things like the red ryder bb gun and a swiss army knife were things that every growing boy had to those things now becoming WMD's in the eyes of the schools and public. [sad2]

 

[calsdad]

Well what I remember about being a kid is that all sorts of things happened to you - and the adults by and large really didn't give a shit. If I bully was beating you up you could complain all you want but in the end it was up to you to stop the problem. Getting a few of your friends together and beating the crap out of the neighborhood punk was usually what it took to solve the problem.

Since most of the shootings involve inner city kids I dont think it is too much of stretch to assume that most of them are black - and the kids who are only trying to defend themselves by carrying weapons probably tried other routes to keep themselves safe - only to find that their pleas for help fall on deaf ears. The racial thing figures in because most of the politicians and other assorted busybodies are in all likelihood white. I always detect an undercurrent of racism from a lot of liberal do-gooders, a sort of know it all attitude which myself and a lot of other people attribute to a sort of repressed racism. Kids are not stupid - they figure out the way things work pretty quickly - kids know where to get drugs, kids know where to buy fireworks, and in the inner city I am sure kids find out where to get a gun pretty easily. Kids live in a world of their own somewhat - but I am willing to bet that there are a lot of kids out there who are carrying "illegal" firearms more for their own protection than because they want to use it to kill somebody.

The fact that all of the allegedly caring adults can't figure this out just goes to reinforce the idea in kids' minds that the adults don't really give two shits about them. It also goes to show you Mumbles and all the other gun grabbers really don't know what the f*&% is going on.

 

[Lynne]

Since most of the shootings involve inner city kids I dont think it is too much of stretch to assume that most of them are black -

Or illegals.

 

[SemiAutoSam]

WHo is this guy Mumbles sounds like a name a MOB hitman would have.

 

[Len-2A Training]

WHo is this guy Mumbles sounds like a name a MOB hitman would have.

No, just an ignorant Mayor of the City of Boston, who can't speak a full sentence in anything that resembles English (or Spanish for that matter).

Mayor Tom Menino is known in very wide circles as "Mumbles" Menino!

 

[Thor67]

Since most of the shootings involve inner city kids I dont think it is too much of stretch to assume that most of them are black

When the schools start taking the place of the parents, and 60+% of the community is BORN into a single parent household, It's safe to say that no one is watching the kids!

Politicians and community leaders need to take an honest stand and address the real issues in the community.