“Police and a neighbor with an AK-47 rifle responded to gunshots in the 1200 block of Brotherson Street around midnight Saturday,” Peoria Illinois’ pjstar.com reports. Yup, you heard right: both police and a concerned citizen armed with a rifle responded to gunfire. “Witnesses told police, who were responding to a Shotspotter alert, they saw a man with an AK-47 nearby after they heard gunfire.” Uh-oh . . .
The man, who lives nearby in the 1300 block of West Kettelle Street, told police he took his rifle outside after he heard gunfire. He has a valid FOID card, according to the police report, which added the rifle did not appear to have been fired.
Good on the Peoria PD for not blowing rifle guy’s brains out. Wanna know why a Peorian would be taking to the streets with an AK-47? Check this from neighborhoodscout.com:
With a crime rate of 45 per one thousand residents, Peoria has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes – from the smallest towns to the very largest cities. One’s chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime here is one in 22. Within Illinois, more than 96% of the communities have a lower crime rate than Peoria . . .
Violent offenses tracked included rape, murder and non-negligent manslaughter, armed robbery, and aggravated assault, including assault with a deadly weapon. According to NeighborhoodScout’s analysis of FBI reported crime data, your chance of becoming a victim of one of these crimes in Peoria is one in 149.
Based on the number of murders reported by the FBI and the number of residents living in the city, NeighborhoodScout’s analysis shows that Peoria experiences one of the higher murder rates in the nation when compared with cities and towns for all sizes of population, from the largest to the smallest.
Property crimes that are tracked for this analysis are burglary, larceny over fifty dollars, motor vehicle theft, and arson. In Peoria, your chance of becoming a victim of a property crime is one in 26, which is a rate of 39 per one thousand population.
In fact, this story highlights the ineffectiveness of the ShotSpotter system at preventing crime or catching criminals. In 2013, the town mothers and fathers forked out $400,000 for a three-year contract. Then re-upped for $495,000 for the next three years. And the PPD keep showing up after the fact, late to the game. How great is that?
ShotSpotter or not, after 110 years, Caterpillar’s moving its world HQ from Peoria to Deerfield, taking some 15,000 jobs with them. Reducing the economic opportunities for Peorian youths — many of which see organized crime as their best lifestyle alternative.
Yes, of course Peoria’s crime is gang-related. Twenty-some of them plague the metropolitan area, apparently, with twenty police officers assigned to anti-gang units. I wonder if the $900,000 lining ShotSpotter’s pockets would have been better spent upping the anti-gang unit’s budget. Or something . . .
Wow. Peoria, 50 years ago, used to be the model community for middle class America.
…And, taking a look at the Demographics, I see why. Median income and a couple of not to be named factors.
What are you? A factorist?
Ok, I’ll say this again so maybe people will finally start to understand.
IF IT MAKES F&*^ING SENSE AND/OR WILL ACTUALLY SOLVE A F*&^%ING ISSUE THE GOVERNMENT WILL NOT WANT IT, DO IT, OR ENDORSE IT!! HOWEVER IF IT SPENDS MONEY USELESSLY, MAKES PEOPLE FEEL “GOOD”, AND WILL MAKE POOR DUMB B@#$*&%# VOTE FOR A CONTINUATION OF THEIR POLICIES THEY WILL GLEEFULLY BLOW EVERY LAST DIME OF YOUR MONEY IN ORDER TO TRIP OVER THEMSELVES PURCHASING SAID ITEM OR IMPLEMENTING SAID POLICY!
this concludes my daily P.S.A stay safe out there.
There’s nothing for the public good the government does well or competently?
(There’s *zero* sarcasm in that…)
Very little. There are somethings that were handled competently but then they created agencies to deal with it and then those agencies started to experience mission creep so now there’s a huge mess such as found in federal law enforcement where you have the FBI, DEA, ATF, and Marshals all investigating the same case at the same time.
I’ve maintained for years that our military is good in spit of the government, not because of it.
“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant
and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”
-George Washington, in a speech of January 7, 1790
Oh you’re using all caps? Moving along…
Gee my brother went to Bradley University. And my sons father-in-law used to work at Caterpillar. I haven’t been there in many years. Like so many Illinois towns depending on vanishing industry. Sad but this shot crap is a scam. Somebody’s pocketing some hefty coinage…
Is ShotSpotter supposed to make for quicker response to shootings, or just fill gaps in getting police to investigate otherwise unreported gunshots? It seems like it would only be better at catching criminal suspects if it were a lot more accurate, and integrated into a very obtrusive network of surveillance cameras.
Ive said it before in previous posts: shotspotter is only good for verifying where and when shots are fired outdoors and making people “feel” safer. Shootings take seconds and cops will still average about 5 minutes to respond. A 30 second jump on “shots fired” calls from shotspotter vs citizens calling 911 to report it is meaningless. A cop can be sitting in their car and hear the shots, and 95% of those shootings will be done and the suspects GOA when the cop arrives on scene.
Spot Shotter is obviously good at kicking back the gravy to the politicians and administrators making the purchase decisions.
Shotspotter’s goal is to replace the “shots fired” calls from the populace.
The people no longer bother to call anymore, because the police arrive after the fact, then take reports from anyone they can, wasting the time of the locals, to little or no effect. So, the populace stops making the calls.
That’s shotspotter’s only function: to replace “shots fired” calls the people no longer make, because the response time is too long to do any good. The response time remains the same, so shotspotter ultimately does no good, except to let the city ‘fathers’ claim they are “doing something.”
Compare the crime rates for Peoria Il. to that of Peoria Az.,oh thats correct the city of Peoria and all of Arizona have Constitutional carry not shot spotter.
Some victims might have to give their lives to confirm the success rate of Shitsplatter.
Perp: Like, “BANG”
SS: wtf was that? a gunshot! ~ probably – like, over there [electronic shrug]
Perp: See ya
Victim: (gurgles blood) scrawls initials and a heart in blood on the sidewalk silently
SS: Can somebody run in that direction, this distance to see if I’m right?
Police (3 minute response time later [yeah Fing right]) Wow, somebody threw this dead body away right about where Shitsplatter said that something shot ~ some ~ thing [?].
SS: Nailed It.
What a waste of money that could be used to pay for more security and keeping criminals in jail.
Bureau of Justice Statistics studies have found high rates of recidivism among released prisoners.
Within three years of release, about two-thirds (67.8 percent) of released prisoners were rearrested.
Within five years of release, about three-quarters (76.6 percent) of released prisoners were rearrested.
Of those prisoners who were rearrested, more than half (56.7 percent) were arrested by the end of the first year.
Property offenders were the most likely to be rearrested, with 82.1 percent of released property offenders arrested for a new crime compared with 76.9 percent of drug offenders, 73.6 percent of public order offenders and 71.3 percent of violent offenders.
Bring back the gallows and firing squads and it will stop RIGHT NOW!!!
Might makes Right! ALL good people should be WELL armed 24/7… when criminals start dropping like flies they will get a legit job!
Criminals are just opportunist looking for WEAK PREY!
When I breathe my last,
And open my eyes in Glory,
May the first thing I hear be
“Unload and show clear.”
+ But, when you “open your eyes in Glory” play it safe and first assess the threat, identify cover, and ask for a spare mag.
If SS is employed in Peoria, IL, it’s only because you got a severe people problem that’s deserving of some taxpayer human-theater $$$.
I’d say “Fix your problem IL” but you have too much of a build up of stupid POS satan’s blue house of evil (D) and the
PROBLEM
IS
PART
OF
YOU.
Don’t let your sh_t spill out to elsewhere or your DACA is done too.
Said it before and saying it again. Anyone still living in the 3rd world state of Illinois gets what they deserve. They have voted themselves in to this state of HELL and continue to vote for more Hell.
San Antonio Texas had the Shot Spotter system, they just canceled it. Waste of money, not just on the system but on the number of police and wasted time spent running down reported shots. I think they ended up with one misdemeanor charge based on reports from the system. They decided it was better to use the money and personal on more beat cops.
“…your chance of becoming a victim of one of these crimes in Peoria is one in 149.”
And your chance of becoming a victim of one of these crimes in the neighborhood where this story took place is about 1 in 1. I grew up in the Peoria area, and that part of town is pretty sketchy, to put it mildly. Back when I was living there, the crime and gang activity was fairly contained, but like Chicago, most of the city is blighted by that shit now. I’ve still got family up there, and I’m doing my damnedest to convince them to get the hell out of Illinois.
The real shocker in this story is that the good guy with the AK-47 hasn’t had the rifle stolen from him yet.
Peoria used to be the archetype for Middle America. Before they rolled out a new act, a new speech or a new ad campaign, entertainers, politicians and Mad Men would ask, “Will it play in Peoria?”
And now it’s a hotbed of crime? Damn.
It’s what happens when the major employers leave town. With thousands unemployed, all the small businesses that depended on the patronage of all of those employees failed and closed up shot. In a matter of years, what was once a nice blue collar neighborhood becomes a hell hole.
Same thing happened in the Detroit and its suburbs when most of the auto industry disappeared. Without jobs, neighborhoods became blighted with foreclosures, and the foreclosures caused everyone else’s property values to fall. Before long, 85% of the homeowners were underwater, and gangs were moving into the vacant buildings, stripping out anything of value, and either selling drugs or abandoning them to the homeless.
Did government play a role? Of course, but its role was not exclusive. Because the government can create only so many jobs, and without jobs, the community dies. Those who remain are entirely dependent upon government largesse, and the value of hard work is completely lost.
Stunning Asian women in Stockbridge are seeking older men. I’m in Stockbridge every day and all I see are black women.
All the Asians live in Chamblee.
That’s how I knew that add was bullshit.
You needed a lot less than that. Just extract the words “women”, “seeking” and “older men”, and run them together.
I live in one of the small towns outside of Peoria and can tell you the vast majority of shootings are confined to the “South Side” as it is known locally. It is a pretty impoverished area of the city with nothing going for it. Otherwise Peoria isn’t that bad.
This is why Inget concerned (angry) when some idiot politician (usually but not always a Democrat) suggests we turn ourselves over to ‘scientific’ methods. Invariably, this means that some so-called ‘genius’ has some wiz-bang gadget that he swears will solve all our problems if we mail him a check. But as I have told management at my workplace on occasions too numerous to mention, a tool, by itself, cannot solve your problem. It can only make it a little easier/more convenient, but men must still roll up their sleeves and get dirty. So the question is: when does a tool fail to add enough value to those with their sleeves rolled up that it becomes a liability. Shotspotter seems to have failed that test long ago.
“And the PPD keep showing up after the fact, late to the game.”
As I keep saying, this is the fatal flaw in Shotspotter: response time. It’s the same, with either Shotspotter or a “shots fired” call.
Still no fix to the fatal flaw in clicking on the “Notify me of follow-up comments by email” button, either.
im shocked ppd didn’t detain this guy and confiscate his rifle. im still waiting for my pocket knife back for when i was searched and sat in the back of a squad car when i reported a hit and run 5 years ago
No good deed goes unpunished.
My guess is peoria got worse after chicago cleaned house and removed a bunch of section 8 housing (including cabrini green) going on a decade or so ago……the roaches scattered to other towns throughout the midwest…..rockford, dubuque, south bend, kalamazoo, grand rapids, benton harbor…….all with crime rates that spiked within a few years of chicago’s rennovations…
Local governments have shunted money away from the cops.. property tax dollars tend to wind up in the pockets of local bigwigs in the form of tax-incremental financing (TIFs). That’s why Chicago neighborhoods have run amok, why 80 Chicago elementary schools were recently closed and why neighborhood libraries there got the chop. TIFs were initially intended to bring free enterprise to blighted neighborhoods. Now what we have is crony capitalism, corporate welfare, on the taxpayer’s dime: not free enterprise but enterprise for free! Small towns such as Peoria (where my grandfather was born) have succumbed to the TIF plague too.
$900,000 Does anyone smell kickbacks!
$900,000 You know dam well somebody is getting kickbacks!
I can’t for the life of me figure out what that shotspotter nonsense is supposed to accomplish. Is it just to help them find the bodies faster? Running after noises just doesn’t seem like a very effective crime-solving technique, especially since criminals are well known for running away from the scene.