From Dan Tepfer, CT Post:
Three months after he was acquitted by a jury of charges in connection with a gangland shooting on a downtown street, 18-year-old Khalil Diaz was shot to death Friday in a car in the Hollow section of the city.
Police Lt. Chris LaMaine said police have a man who they believe was the shooter in custody. The 19-year-old suspect was not immediately identified. “This appears to be a gang-related shooting,” LaMaine said.
Police said the shootings are part of an ongoing battle between gangs in the Greene Homes and Trumbull Gardens housing projects that has left a number of young men dead and wounded over the years. They fear Friday’s shooting will lead to more retaliations.
Full story here.
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Thugs killing thugs, simple as that. 17-year-old with an Audi, wonder where he got that money from. As long as innocent people are not dying I could care less when thugs kill each other, to be honest.
donj, I think we should send everyone using a gun to commit a crime into outer space, not jail. Here is why:
www .msn.com/en-us/video/wonder/here%e2%80%99s-what-would-happen-if-you-fired-a-gun-in-space/vi-BBt0J5a
ICP, two shot:
www .youtube.com/watch?v=uWymf65JbVM
donj, some people don’t understand “thug” is a lifestyle. Thug life is just too deeply rooted in our society for anyone to uproot it with a simple pull to the hand of a thug.
www .youtube.com/watch?v=pIc5dvlyhW4
I’m sure some of you are itching to say something regarding my choice of music to listen to and share. If it’s true music reaches the soul, then why not try music to reach souls in a positive way? Years ago, my old friend Carlos Ramos introduced me to something I had not heard of before. It was called Christian Rap. Let me share this one as “I’m JUST SAYING.”
www .youtube.com/watch?v=LsZenR5wkco
I agree with you, donj. Live by the sword, die by the sword. White, black, Italian, Irish. It doesn’t matter. Would love to meet you some day.
donj,
I am asking you to reconsider your statement, as perhaps you have reconsidered previous personal observations over the past couple years about the killing of a 17-year-old in the City. The young male in question was a son, a grandson, nephew, cousin and perhaps even a father of related family members who have and will continue to grieve for his loss.
This violent incident is an example of “life in the city” for neighborhood children and youth in school. What memory cavity does it get placed in (and retrieved for reflection) as part of normal life?
I am asking some questions as an observer today for five hours at a conference on Re-Entry by Mt. Aery Re-Entry Network and NAACP, Inc. of Bridgeport with speakers discussing Sentence Reform, Effective Law Enforcement, Eliminating Barriers for formerly incarcerated individuals, and presentations by Survivors of Crime. It was a powerful program with personal insights from people who live in the City and care about the people.
If naming a 17-year-old a “thug” allows you to dismiss his violent departure and move along then I suspect you are not alone, for it is not your problem. However, the moment gunfire or other random violence enters your life, where is the community of adults who have your back, day in and day out, raising youth to respect others, make good life choices, and provide necessary resources especially of educational and recreational kinds that provide them an even chance to make good choices most of the time? Where are the members of the public to coach, to mentor, and to serve to limit these tragic events? Time will tell.
John Marshall Lee, well said and thanks. I gave the information about this conference to Joel hoping he would attend because he could bring some things up that could be a plus.
Hi guys, attended the Sacred Heart University graduation at the Arena and took my girls to the ZOO.
The young man in question was also a thug I stand up for black youth doing positive things, not bs like joining gangs and shooting at people. Thugs killing thugs and I sure do not care.
Whenever I see a report of a killing like this, I think back to an observation shared with me by Police Chief Tom Sweeney the year of 63 homicides. He said very few were, in his word, virgins. By this he meant most who died were involved in a life of crime.
It would appear the adults responsible for this 17-year-old did a poor job of teaching right from wrong. Sadly, I must agree with donj’s conclusion.
Great way to deal with a killing, call them names and hope innocent people don’t get killed, now that’s what America needs more of.
Unfortunately, the city of BRIDGEPORT Police Officers fuel these types of comments. Their public comments try to diminish the lives of all involved in order to make it feel like no big loss.
And I guess Tom White believes if you blame it on their parents then that too make it seem alright.
Many former drug addicts have changed their ways and become contributing members of society. Unfortunately this young man will not get that opportunity.
Bob, think before you post such bullshit. You missed the part of the two detectives who witnessed the shooting, gave chase and captured the shooter with the gun used recovered. No big loss? The victim had plenty of opportunities, days after the acquittal he was back to his gangbanging ways. Go back to the crime stats recently released and notice the increase in the number of stolen cars. Some of the stolen cars have been and will continue to be used in drive-by shootings or as part of their hunting games.
Go back to the story. He was arrested once before. Arraigned. Charged. Stood trial and found not guilty. So what’s up with that?
So O.J. is totally innocent? The prosecutor needed two witnesses who went missing before the trial started. Prosecutor should have delayed the trial. Bob, are you sure the witnesses weren’t threatened? If the trial of the alleged shooter falls apart, the prosecution of the alleged driver will fall apart too.
donj, you are a fool and like Tom White feel the need to further punish the family of this young man with your ignorant comments. The fact is you have no idea whose Audi this young man was driving, mother, father friend or what. Your ideas and philosophy are not representative of the black community and I think the city of Bridgeport would be better served if you moved your black ass back to where you came from.
Don and Bob, Tom White is Bridgeport’s Pat Buchanan with social issues and all one has to do is to read or look at some of Buchanan’s YouTube speeches. He’s not a racist but he’s no friend.
“AM I MY BROTHER’S KEEPER?” This is in quotes because it is a direct quote from a certain source. Your job is to find the source of the quote. (With Google that will be easy.) Consider the source from which it came and the answer to that question from within the direct source. And then answer the question for yourselves.
Put your sword away! All who use a sword will be killed by a sword.
“If anyone is destined for captivity, into captivity he will go; If anyone is to die by the sword, by the sword he must be killed.” Here is a call for the perseverance and faith of the saints.
Bridgeport presents a bleak future for most of the young people living here, and their parents. Until we make Bridgeport a hopeful place in real, tangible ways, we are going to continue to see these tragedies play out. The US needs to refocus its priorities on our own people and stop squandering our resources making trouble around the world. We need to put our resources in our failing cities and stop failing the people of our cities. If we do this, we’ll be happier as a country, and the world will be happier. Indeed, the world needs a breather from our expensive, destructive experiment. Our style of democracy and economics isn’t even working out that great at home.
Jeff, America will look into these social issues when it becomes a problem for white mothers like now when the government is now looking into the heroin problem in the white community, it was no big deal when it was in the black community.
Ron, I pretty much agree with you. Anyone who wants some insight into what’s going on in poor black and to a large degree Latino neighborhoods all over the country needs to read “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by civil rights litigator and legal scholar Michelle Alexander. If you can’t do that at least check out this short video by the author:
newjimcrow.com/about/book-trailer
Unfortunately Ron, you are right. I worked as the director of a substance abuse prevention/treatment program some years back in a mixed, suburban-urban catchment district. The wealthy suburban towns of the district didn’t want to make much noise about the serious heroin/drug problems in their towns, and didn’t want to play into helping to provide the resources to address the rampant problems in the city. The suburban towns felt they could handle the problem in their towns and insulate themselves from any worsening of the problem by isolating themselves from their urban center by putting a public-safety ring around the urban center and discouraging interactions between their towns and the urban center. As you already know, this “solution” didn’t work and the problem continued to worsen in those suburban communities. Now those communities see the synergism in being part of the solution to the problems of their urban center, in the context of solving their own substance-abuse epidemic, rather than in isolating and marginalizing the urban center as they seek to deny their worsening problem. They have had to admit everybody is in this problem together and urban and suburban communities are socially and economically interrelated and interdependent. They have discovered urban problems become suburban problems by virtue of an undeniable interdependence. The lily-white suburban towns are now willing to identify with and work with the racially diverse urban center, because they recognize it isn’t just “their” problem and as long as the problem exists in the city it will exist in the suburbs (and vice-versa).
So Ron, the sooner Bridgeport’s suburbs recognize/admit isolating and dumping on Bridgeport is going to have a boomerang effect on them, the sooner they will take the pragmatic step of advocating for the socioeconomic resurgence of their essential urban center. The sooner white communities admit it is impossible to be isolated and independent in the modern world, the sooner they will realize all problems in all communities will ultimately become shared problems, by choice, or not.
Now tell me the difference between Tom White’s comments when he mentions anything about race and Pat Buchanan.
Racist Attack on Obama from Pat Buchanan
youtu.be/4sGJgqJvFNY
Ron, my comment made no mention of race. You concluded the social ills I refer to only involve people of color. Gang violence is rooted in social ills that have been researched and commented on for decades.
Perhaps Lennie will post a story that has direct implication to bias based on race that we can comment on.
Tom White, c’mon man, you know exactly what you are saying and doing, it’s call “Dog-whistle politics” and you’re good at it.
O’Reilly Wants Trump To Be A Bit More Subtle With His Racism
youtu.be/1Vb-DfqOLuE
*** Whether they’re Bloods, Crips, Latin Kings, Neta, M/S-13, 5%ers, White Wolfs, M.C clubs, Skinheads, etc., they’re all in CT in one place or another! Some working underground, some working above ground and some just chilling for the time being. However the young teen gang-members are basically just making noise, creating drama, playing “tit for tat” time to pay back! Killing each other, not for the right to make more money or take over new territory but just because you’re from another side of town and your boys did something disrespectful in our ‘hood! A girl might be involved, a shooting, a b-ball game, money or drugs, etc.? ***
dog-whistle politics
A type of political speech using code words that appear to mean one thing to the general population but have a different meaning for a targeted part of the audience.
The Economist: “Over the past few weeks, a new expression has entered the Westminster lexicon: dog-whistle politics. It means putting out a message that, like a high-pitched dog-whistle, is only fully audible to those at whom it is directly aimed.”
Source: Taegan Goddard’s Political Dictionary.
Ron, I never heard this expression. Learn something new every day.
Now I’m hesitant to say anything. There might be a code my Ovaltine decoder ring cannot handle.
Tom White, you’ve been in politics too long to not totally understand what “dog-whistle politics” means. Corporations have diversity training as well city, state and federal government in order to stay out of workplace lawsuits. Both Democrats and Republicans have used dog-whistle politics in their history in talking about blacks. Go back to Ronald Reagan and how Lee Atwater used the “Southern Strategy,” and Regan speech writer Pat Buchanan. Once again Tom White, you know exactly what you are saying and you know and understand the history of the Republican Party and “dog-whistle politics.”
Ron–The community will stand up and act when gang problems affect white mothers? Do you mean things like the mafia or the Russian mob? I guess since your whole world is BPT you have a very myopic view of these problems.
The young male in question was a son, a grandson, nephew, cousin and perhaps even a father of related family members who have and will continue to grieve for his loss and none of these people did anything to help him BEFORE he got killed. Now, we need to do something? Maybe they did not know he was in a gang. If his people did not know or did not help him, what should we do?
John Marshall Lee // May 14, 2016 at 3:48 pm starts a good dialog on what to do. He said, “five hours at a conference on Re-Entry by Mt. Aery Re-Entry Network and NAACP, Inc. of Bridgeport with speakers discussing Sentence Reform, Effective Law Enforcement, Eliminating Barriers for formerly incarcerated individuals, and presentations by Survivors of Crime. It was a powerful program with personal insights from people who live in the City and care about the people.”