08/12/2011
“Spate of brutal killings aside, Arlington crime is declining”
That is a real headline, from the April 10 Dallas Morning News.
The editor who came up with it had to have done so with tongue planted firmly in cheek, right?
“Any city of that size is going to have crimes of that nature,” said Elzie Odom, Arlington’s mayor from 1997 to 2003. ‘You’ll get people who will come to town and kill a pastor in his own church who was beloved by everyone. Or you’ll get a person who’ll come to town and kill his girlfriend and try to kill her daughter and kill a police officer.
“These are crimes that you used to would never have heard of here, but they’re happening now everywhere.”
No, this is not a satirical essay. I can’t swear that Mayor Odom said that, but the DMN definitely published that statement, and attributed it to him. Perhaps it was made by a pod person that looks just like Mayor Odom, or a robot in his likeness programmed to spew multicultural newspeak, while the real Mayor lies a molderin’ in his grave.
Michael Patterson, the son of a mid-1980s’ Arlington mayor, argues that a steady diet of horrific murders is simply normal for a city Arlington’s size (365,000 residents).(This is Arlington, Texas.)
“That’s a function of our size, a function of our density. It’s the function of a lot of things.”
Following Patterson’s logic, if crime went down in Arlington, the city would need to change policy, say through an “import-a-rapist” program, subsidizing felons who agreed to move there from even more felon-rich jurisdictions, say, the Houston, or Dallas-Fort Worth area.
The tone of the article is, ‘Arlington has arrived. The one-time sleepy little caf is now a player in the big leagues.’
Such crimes are not a function of Arlington’s “size” or “density”; prior to circa 1960, lots of American cities were that large and dense, or moreso, without having a steady diet of atrocities. No, “it’s the function of a lot of things,” like:
1. Diversity;
2. Diversity; and
3. Diversity.
According to the U.S. Census, Arlington was 18.3 percent Hispanic and 13.7 percent black in 2000. Don’t ask me why the Census Bureau is providing such old figures in 2011, but given the explosive rise in Hispanic population in Texas (41.8 percent) over the past 10 years, and its much higher rate of increase than all other demographic groups, we can be pretty sure that Arlington is even more diverse now than it was in 2000. (According to CLSearch, as of 2010, Arlington was up to 15.18 percent black, and 24.26 percent Hispanic, increases of 10.8 and 33 percent, respectively.)
Anyone who is either a student of demographics, or has simply been around the block and is honest, knows that the more “diversity” a jurisdiction enjoys, the more horrific murders it will also be blessed with.
Note, too, that it is unlikely for a city Arlington’s size to enjoy a drop in violent crime overall, at the same time that it is suffering a wave of brutal murders.
In any event, this headline is one of my all-time favorites, joining “Headless Body in Topless Bar” (New York Post, 1982), and “Ford to NY: Drop Dead” (Daily News, 1975).
Reader bmerbob commented,
“Other than that, Mrs Lincoln, how’d you like the show?”
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