The gang bangers in this town have been getting away with terrorizing our neighborhoods for too long, and it’s time for our local police department to adopt another tactic to help eradicate this public threat. Though I bought my home new nearly 25 years ago, the street I live on is now no longer safe. Gang members routinely graffiti everything in sight, drug deals are going on night and day, stabbings and shootings are a regular occurrence, and trash and junked cars line both sides of the streets. These thugs have turned my neighborhood into a ghetto, and they seem comfortable living this way. Unfortunately, I do not have the financial means to move, or I would have done so a long time ago. Most of my family members and friends no longer visit me because they’re too afraid to even get out of their vehicles in my neighborhood.
I fault our mayor for not taking bold steps to get this problem under control. Wherever he lives, he evidently isn’t bothered by the dangerous conditions so many of us now see ourselves living in. But I pray our police department sees the wisdom of getting a gang injunction issued so that these criminals can be arrested and severely punished if they violate the order. The problem has become so widespread that Santa Maria scarcely looks like the peaceful place it once did. Such a pity.
This article appears in Dec 3-10, 2009.
