One of the tragic and wearying parts of life in the 21st century is the epidemic of the use of guns against one another.
Resolution or even reduction of fatalities remains a distant dream, a goal that’s never seemed so far away.
In our streets, shootings and deaths have reached those unable to vote. Victims aged 17, 14 and 12 have died in Decatur this summer.
We're all helpless against violence. We have no promising plan to put an end to it. None of it. We’ve become so inured to the violence to our eyes glaze past it.
But let someone bring up anything about guns and we perk right up, retreat to our corners and start yelling at one another.
All the while, funerals for gunshot victims are held around the country, the state, the city.
People are also reading…
Most maddening, even the systems we have in place don’t always work, a dangerous situation when one mistake can lead to deaths. Whether the weapon is illegal, illegally obtained or acquired with officials overlooking red flags, systems break down.
The system we rely on most, meanwhile, is being crippled at its base – by we the people.
Police report receiving "no cooperation whatsoever" from people present at crime scenes. They also report officers confronted by a "large crowd with several aggressive people."
If there is a group of people who have witnessed or have some pertinent information, surely one of them does not have a standing warrant or a prior record or any other reason to fear or be distrustful of police.
The one thing we implore of witnesses is that they step forward when given the opportunity. For multiple reasons, some of which are wholly understandable, people are reluctant to discuss anything they’ve seen with authorities. With that concern in mind, Crime Stoppers exists to offer an anonymous way of providing investigators with this valuable information.
As we’ve said before, if that’s the change we need to make to take a further step toward halting the nightmare on our streets, opening those lines of communication might be a decent place to start.
Call Crime Stoppers at 217-423-TIPS. Callers do not have to give their names. Crime Stoppers will pay up to $2,500 for information leading to an arrest on the incident.