Once again a mother and children and family and friends are mourning a useless death, this time on the West End where a businessman was gunned down in a robbery.
Darryl Terry had opened his Allendale shop less than two months ago in Sheraden in the West End when a robber entered. In an attempt to get away, leaving the robber with the money and whatever else he wanted, Terry ran out the doo. However, the robber followed and gunned him down, not only shooting him, but shooting him multiple times after he was down.
This brings several questions to mind. How much money could have possibly been in the register? Small stores do well, but not to the point where they are worth robbing. Yet one of the biggest reasons stores don’t locate in Black communities is just that, robberies.
I had a friend who took over a community store from her father. Between her, her mother, her sister, and some community people, the store served the community. Sure the prices were high, and they only sold certain items, but they got constant business. Bottom line, they were a service to the community as most of these small stores are. But she had to close her doors because of a number of robberies. Her fear was that one day one of those fools would pull the trigger, and her mother, her sister, or one of the community people she employed would be dead. Was it worth it? She said no and closed the doors, leaving some community people who had fallen on hard times without a job, and a community without a convenient store. And we ask why don’t Black folks have anything?
I’m still trying to understand the mentality of these boys. I’m sorry but I can’t force myself to call them men. They don’t want to go to school; they don’t want to work; yet they expect the world to give them something. They lay like snakes waiting for someone else to get something then they pounce on them to take what that person has worked for.
It has gotten to the point now where many of the small store owners or managers keep a weapon behind the counter to defend themselves, and there have been many instances in which they have used it to fend off these thugs.
No one has been arrested yet for the murder of Darryl Terry.
If we are going to grow as a community we must put an end to the senseless murders, and let potential businesses know that it’s safe to open a store in our community.
In McKeesport and throughout Pittsburgh and Allegheny County, Blacks are asking why are the rate of unsolved murders so high? Murders in White communities are generally solved within a few months, but Black murders stay on the books, as unsolved, and there are a whole lot more of them. Why?
Well in conversation with law enforcement officers a lot of them say that in White communities there is a whole lot more cooperation, where Black communities have the No Snitch rule, or I’m going to take care of this myself.
Many, if not most of the Black homicides are generally linked to drugs, which means the killers and victims are generally linked to drugs, not all the time but most of the time.
Now if this is true, one would think it would be easier to solve the homicides or shootings because the police should know who the criminals are, who’s competing with who for territory, which means keeping an eye on certain individuals. Well this is not happening because shooting, after shooting, after shooting, is occurring and nothing is happening. Most of the shooters aren’t caught.
Which leads me to this.
If most of the homicides and shootings are among Blacks, and in the Black community, maybe, just maybe we need more Black police officers from these communities. I’m just sayin’.
We hear about undercover officers who find out who’s doing what and bring them down. But if all the police are White, and getting Whiter, and the few Black officers are getting older how can you possibly put undercover officers in the community to entrap these criminals? How do you disguise a White man as being Black? Or an older Black cop as a young man?
If we want more of these crimes solved in the Black communiy we need to hire more Black police officers, and if they aren’t passing the test then we need to change the test because something is wrong with the test.
Hiring Black police officers would first give young Black men and women highly paid well-respected jobs. Plus, if you select people from the community they would know that community better than someone from another community because they have lived in the same block, went to the same schools and grew up with them. They would know who the thugs and hoodlums are as well as the good guys. If a shooting or homicide occurred, they would probably be able to catch the guilty party faster because they know where to start looking compared to someone who was just learning the community.
Bottom line…if more Blacks police officers were hired many of these problems would be solved. There would be more crimes solved in the Black community, the homicides and shootings would decrease, and there would be fewer out of control cops in the neighborhoods. It all goes back to employment, and hiring from the community.
(Ulish Carter is the managing editor of the New Pittsburgh Courier.)
