Celebrating your heritage at
a parade unites your sense of pride with others who have the same passion for
the culture. Unfortunately, what it’s come down to is that celebrating your
heritage also means you risk getting shot at, stabbed or attacked in the midst
of a crowd. What’s even worse is that our city doesn’t have a handle on parade
safety – namely the safety at the West Indian American Day parade. According to
the Wall Street Journal, officials note that it’s the “most violent public
event in the city.”
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| It's time for a parade in the city!!! Woo hoo! |
Borough President Eric Adams
held a press conference a couple of weeks ago, addressing the violence that
took place at the West Indian Day parade – during which Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s
aide was seriously injured after being shot. Forget about the fact that the
victim, Carey Gabay, was simply “caught in the crossfire” of a gang violence
which left him clinging to life. And forget about the fact that the gunman’s
been on the loose for a while now.
The fact that we’re
constantly talking about “cracking down on gun violence” with no real plan of
action is very disturbing. What provokes someone to bring a weapon to a highly
attended public event and open fire on innocent people?
The Daily News reported last week, after local pols got together for a
press conference, that “guns are to blame for the violence, not the festival.” Let’s
get real! An object just fired ITSELF
into a crowd? That damned gun! How dare it go off! The celebrations aren’t the
problems, the guns are! We told those dang guns to stay off the streets, didn’t
we?
I have one question for
politicians who are “addressing violence at and around J’Ouvert
celebrations.” What about other parades? St. Patty’s Day? The Columbus Day parade?
How about potential violence at the Pride parade? The Dominican Day parade? The
Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade? How many shootings have taken place at these
highly attended festivities? Where are the leaders and coordinators of those parades? Maybe they can share
their secrets for having a smooth-running celebration…
Making a statement on how “these shootings need to come to an end”
is like shooting a gun in outer space. Hey, Jupiter can use some random acts of
violence too!
The only parade we have in Canarsie is the Memorial Day Parade –
and we haven’t seen gun violence break out in the midst of our celebrations.
According to Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson, many of the
firearms obtained by local residents are brought here from the south. On a national
scale, who’s responsible for putting an end to gun trafficking?
Many leaders are their own worst enemy – saying that Stop Question
and Frisk unfairly targets minorities, and that its tactics need to be
reformed. Why? If we had police officers conducting Stop and Frisk in and
around the West Indian parade perimeters, maybe that goon would have been
caught sooner and the gun would have been taken off of our streets. But no…that
gun is most likely still in circulation.
What measures do we need to take? How about turning our parades
into mini war zones with armed soldiers in army fatigues at each corner ready
to apprehend someone who brandishes a weapon? How about checkpoints set up 24
hours before and after an event where police officers examine the insides of
your pockets, bags and clothes? How about metal detectors all over the damned
place? Where does it end?
Unless we take preventative physical measures and CATCH someone
who’s armed, we’re not going to resolve the problem of gun violence. Our city,
along with the NYPD, doesn’t have the money to place armed guards at every
intersection near Eastern Parkway – and is that what we want to see when we’re
trying to celebrate our freedom to…celebrate?
I’m not saying that if the
parade was completely canceled that gun violence in that area wouldn’t exists.
After all, those damned guns have a mind of their own and put themselves in the
wrong peoples’ hands. Shoot, I thought I had the answer…
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