Quote:If there's a shooting in Jacksonville, there's a better than average chance it occurred in the northwest quadrant of the city.  Other areas have their issues, but that seems to be the one that's most commonly in the media for shootings.  Unfortunately, that's the nature of the beast in any large city.  You're going to have areas that simply aren't safe.  Most locals know which areas to avoid.  However, that blight is branching out into other areas, and it's giving them a bad reputation as well. 

 

I live in an area of town that has always had great neighborhoods, but there are pockets even in this area that are almost like no-man lands where you don't want to be after the sun goes down.  We've got neighborhoods with million plus dollar homes, and within a mile or two you've got several older apartment complexes that have become havens for public housing, and sadly, where there's public housing, there's an increased risk of elevated crime levels. 

 

Where I live, it's a well established, older neighborhood that has nice homes, quiet streets, and great neighbors.  Unfortunately, we've got apartment complexes surrounding us that tend to have a sketchy element to them.  We've seen an increase in burglaries in our area that are being perpetrated by kids who are being sent out by adults to "test" the area by breaking into homes.  If they're not caught, they'll call in the cavalry and the adults who sent them show up to clean the place out.  It's usually the kids who get caught, and they usually wind up with a slap on the hand.

 

A good friend of mine is one of the investigators who is trying to catch the people responsible for the burglaries.  They actually know who is doing the majority of them, but they've been unable to catch them in the act, and they're not unloading the stuff they're stealing in the traditional manner.  Most of this stuff gets trucked off to flea markets in other areas to avoid being caught. 

 

A neighbor behind me was broken into a few months back, but the crime was interrupted because he came home at lunch to pick up some meds and caught the kids inside his house.  They tore out the back door and ended up coming through my yard.  I work from home, so I was sitting in my office on a conference call when this head popped up directly in front of my office looking for a way to get away from the homeowner who was chasing them. There were 4 kids involved, and they scattered immediately, but the JSO was already in the neighborhood taking a report from another elderly neighbor down the street they had just burglarized.  So, when the kids took off running, the K-9 and air support were already in the area looking for them.  They tracked them into one of those apartment complexes, and caught one kid because, being the criminal genius he was, he broke into these houses wearing this Dora the Explorer backpack, and this obnoxiously bright striped shirt.  Made him easy to find.  None of the kids were over 16.

 

Had these kids decided to kick in my back door, they would have been greeted by a [BAD WORD REMOVED] off homeowner with a Glock at the ready.  It's a shame we have to be armed and prepared to defend our homes from human debris like this, but I guess the mindset that it's easier to just steal from others than to earn it yourself is just too strong to resist for some people. 

 

When I see the reports of these senseless shootings around town, it's sad.  We've devalued life to the point where someone can be killed over a couple of bucks, or even worse, just because.  We've got people being murdered in night clubs, drive by shootings at gas stations, and random murders in sketchy areas of town.  Many are tied to the drug trade and deals gone bad, or robberies involving drugs / cash.  These incidents give many decent areas of town bad reputations, and it's a shame.

We've been having a problem with that kind of thing over here in Riverside too. It's a problem here because we have the alleys behind our houses that hardly no one ever uses any more since the city whined about having to drive down them to pick up the garbage. I work from home too so 90% of the time I'm home during the day so I try to keep an eye out for my neighbors places.

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