Cut Down

Sylvester Brown, a columnist for the St. Louis Post Dispatch, laments well the death of Jarrett Williams, a 56 year old neighborhood fixture. Jarrett was slain by a kid who he roughed up while thwarting the theft of a car. Shot in the back, Williams died and his murderer escaped.

Brown said of Williams' killer "You nicked the spine of an already crippled community" and cites a tragic statistic. Ninety-four percent of black homicides are committed by blacks. Of course, Brown wasn't calling for more white people to start killing black folk, or that black murderers should turn their attention to white folks. I think what he is getting at is that the black community has, as represented by the murder issue, a contempt of their very own lives. As tough as it can be to be a minority in this city, the fact that blacks prey upon their neighbors has a particularly sickening irony to it.

I share this view, if I understand Brown properly. Crime is worse in Williams' community than mine. However, there is at least one crucial difference between my neighborhood, and the neighborhood where Jarrett Williams met his bitter end.

That difference is that we appreciate and cooperate with the cops.

I'll allow that there might have been a robust neighborhood watch going on where Williams lived. I can also easily see Williams and his friends as the kind of people who believe in law and order. However, the impression I have from the way crime and punishment unfold in predominantly black sections of the city is that the citizens are vulnerable because of the estrangement between the law abiding and law enforcement.

In my neighborhood, we have no problem ratting out somebody who moves in and makes trouble. I have counseled young people strolling my sidewalks peeking in cars that they need to move along lest somebody (like me) call the police. They know I mean it, too. Police also know that if they deal sternly with a miscreant in my neighborhood, nobody here is going to treat them like Rosa Parks and belittle, berate and insult the authorities.

When I was growing up, I was told not to sass a cop, that when The Man talks to you, it's "yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir". Mom and dad warned that the fastest way to get your head hammered was to disrespect a cop. I decided that the best way to not worry about the cops is to stay out of trouble.

There is a reason that young black criminals feel they can commit mayhem with impunity, and I fear it is because in most cases they can. While there are obviously other social factors at play here, not the least of them are economic, education and family issues, the reality remains that if the citizenry will not cooperate with the police, particularly the neighborhood leaders, there isn't going to be much progress to prevent tragic deaths like Jarrett Williams.

Tim McNabb