Imagine that you throw a huge party every year...A special BBQ or an annual family get together that includes months and weeks of preparations. Maybe you feel so good about the event that you decide to invite some of your co-workers - they're like family!! OK, so a few people who were invited gave you a hard time - always stirring problems and arguing over food servings or who should help with the cleanup.
You ban those few "bad seeds" from the party - inviting some new and exciting revelers to your special function...Those new people wind up practicing some of the same poor social habits thing- and then your regular guests - the ones who are well behaved - are frustrated to the point where they become violent and it's not a celebration of anything... It becomes more of a social experiment, seeing who can make it through your shindig without raising hell!
After a few years of senseless planning and headaches, you decide not to throw your party any more. Instead, you safely visit your friends and family at their house and lay the hectic "celebration" days to rest...
Unfortunately, the same scenario seems to be playing out when it comes to the West Indian Day Parade - now called the New York Caribbean Carnival Parade (or as I coined it the Carnage Carnival)- but namely J'Ouvert, the celebration leading up to the colorful parade attended by thousands of New Yorkers. Nothing will stop the guns from blazing and nothing will stop those few violent bad guys from stirring problems at an event that is supposed to bring people together instead of tearing them apart and sending them to the hospital.The two teens who were shot and killed during the early morning party on Monday, September 5th, probably didn't surmise that this would be their last parade. As if last year's bloodbath, which resulted in the death of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's aide Carey Gabay, wasn't enough, more violent hoodlums decided to rouse another round of tragedy at this year's festivities. WHY?
I wholeheartedly agree that cancelling J'Ouvert is a MUST for our city. The NYPD will never be prepared adequately - or equipped with enough man power - to handle the violence that precedes the Caribbean Carnage Carnival.
As I've questioned in prior columns about this parade of bloodshed, have you ever seen a more violent gathering during a celebration in the city? Why is this one of the ONLY events in our city where guns make more appearances than politicians?
The one question I keep asking - to no one in particular - is how are the events at J'Ouvert different from terror attacks like the ones that took place in France in November 2015? How are these crowd shootings in our city different than the ones that take place in a movie theater, mall or house of worship in a small suburban town? Let's not bring up black-on-black crime when we can also say James Holmes committed white-on-white crime when he killed 12 people and injured 70 during that Colorado movie theater shooting in 2012. Someone opens fire with no mercy and no regard for human life...PERIOD!
Regardless of color, nationality, background or age, someone who carries an illegal weapon with them to a function or meeting place that's supposed to be peaceful, inviting and productive for those in attendance has clear intentions to ruin the day with violence by endangering thousands of innocent people.
Let's get real - asking those thugs who bring guns to J'Ouvert every year to "please stop"....please "leave your weapons at home"...It's an irrational request being asked of irrational individuals who haven't been stopped - and won't be stopped - by a wall of police officers.
Cancelling J'Ouvert - and possibly the entire parade - would not only eliminate gunmen taking to the streets on this planned day, it would save the city millions of dollars on not just the basic security - but beefed up security the city paid for this year as well. In my opinion, the cost of additional officers at the parade was a waste of tax payers' money and a waste of NYPD deployment. Those officers - reassigned from other precincts to cover parade detail - could have been in their own command keeping those neighborhoods safe.
Unless someone can cough up enough money and resources to place hundreds of metal detectors in and around the parade, as if it's an airport or city building, the celebration should NOT go on and the open invitation to gangsters should no longer be announced. They're probably going to go bullet crazy in the confines of their own community anyway! Keeping these home-grown terrorists who have irrational vendettas off the streets is impossible. Doesn't the NYPD know this by now?
No one likes when the bad guys rain on their parade - but a hail of bullets storming at revelers every year should be enough of a reason to call it quits.
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