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City officials crack down on flash mobs
Dann Cuellar
PHILADELPHIA - August 5, 2011 (WPVI) -- The city of Philadelphia is cracking down on flash mobs and destructive binges by teens organized by social media.
Flash mobs have happened on several occasions in the city, the most recent last Friday in South Philadelphia.
Friday night, officials took measures by including a huge police presence in Center City.
There are two curfews currently in effect, one for anyone 13 years old and under, beginning at 10:00pm, and another at midnight for everyone 17 and under.
Police teams were out in full force, on foot, on bikes and on mounted patrol, rolling through the streets of Center City.
The message was clear, city officials fed up with violent flash mobs, plan to shutdown any activity before it starts....
July 12, 2011
Obamageddon Coming to a City Near You?
Walter Russell Mead
The election of the first African-American president was widely hailed as a giant step forward for American racial politics. The future, however, may remember this administration as a giant step back for Black America during a period of deepening alienation, anger and despair in Americas inner cities.
Not since the 1960s, when scores of American cities were shaken by one race riot after another, have African-Americans faced such deadly conditions: high expectations and hopes running up against a reality of vanishing jobs, shrinking government budgets and a fractured and fragmented leadership. Barring an unlikely change in economic fortunes we could soon face a new period of explosive anger and even violence; alternatively, the urban poor could fall prey to a new kind of passive despair and anomie as hope dies on one inner city street after another.
Either way, the mainstream presss slowly fading intoxication with the Obama administration has led it to miss the dimensions of the new urban crisis now stalking the United States. The liberal Reagan, they swooned back in the good old days. No the new FDR! No, wait! The new Lincoln!
But as the rosy glow surrounding the administration and all its works slowly dies away, many Americans will be taken aback at the urban crisis that quietly and unostentatiously took shape while the fatuously exhilarated press choirs sang about the hope and the change that was coming our way...
August 7, 2011
American Tinderbox
Walter Russell Mead
For some time now, residents of some US cities have noted occasional incidents of seemingly random, racially motivated violence in which young Black males are involved. The hot weather and bad economy seem to be combining to generate a small but possibly significant uptick this year. The national media are doing their best to avoid looking too closely at this disturbing phenomenon, and perhaps for good reason. What the United States doesnt need is a media firestorm that triggers copycat violence.
Nevertheless some attention should be paid. Journalist Eugene Kane has the bare bones in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Philadelphia While out of town last week, I suddenly started receiving urgent long-distance messages about young black people in Milwaukee acting crazy.
Again.
Last time it happened, I was on vacation during the Fourth of July weekend when a bunch of misbehaving young black people ransacked a gas station convenience store and attacked residents in a park.
This time, I was in my hometown of Philadelphia attending the National Association of Black Journalists convention when my BlackBerry started blowing up with news about what happened Thursday night at the Wisconsin State Fair.
According to reports, it was similar to what happened in Riverwest last month, but on a much more brutal and scarier scale.
When people start reporting they were being beaten by black people for no other reason than being white people at the State Fair, thats pretty disturbing.
Here is a news account of the violence. As Kane points out, Milwaukee isnt the only city to have seen problems like this.
For most of the summer, Philadelphia cops have dealt with a series of so-called flash mobs that turned violent, scores of young blacks roaming the center city area and attacking mostly white pedestrians and shoppers.
Its so bad, Mayor Michael Nutter and Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey recently announced a coordinated response to the problem, which involves law enforcement measures, social responses and neighborhood outreach. Theyre relying on a network of African-American professionals, community leaders and officials in the city to step up to the plate.
On Friday, Nutter said he would increase police street patrols and enforce curfews for young people. The citys curfew ordinance says children under the age of 13 must be home by 10 p.m., and young people between the ages of 13 and 18 must be home by midnight.
Yale sociologist Elijah Anderson has described Philadelphia flash mobs for the Philadelphia Inquirer like this:
Flash mobs have reappeared on the streets of Center City. These groups of mostly black youths gravitate to a designated location at an appointed time. Once there, they become a mob that gathers force as it roams the streets, wreaking havoc on businesses while terrifying and sometimes attacking pedestrians.
Dick Simpson of the Chicago Journal describes the situation in his city:
These well-known social conditions breed anger and lawlessness. And so we now have black flash mobs attacking whites in the Loop, on public beaches along the North Side, as well as throughout the River North and Lakeview neighborhoods.
The term flash mob originated when college-aged kids would converge on a spot like Grand Central Station in New York
and do seemingly-impromptu performance art.
But now, the term is being applied to violent groups. For several years, roving groups of black teenagers have attacked folks on the South and West sides of Chicago as far out as Oak Park.
These young folks in gangs and flash mobs are not afraid of the police. They attack and steal quickly they are gone long before the police arrive. They just move on to another spot for their next attack. The beatings of victims can be brutal.
In a piece on the Black underclass in Chicago for In These Times, Salim Muwakkil interviews a participant.
Jamal Fosters story is an example Foster says he and his friends often travel to North Avenue and Oak Street Beachtwo popular lakefront locations along the Gold Coastto intimidate people and steal whatever they can. We can get some good stuff down there, the 17-year-old says. You cant get no iPods or nothing like that on the West Side. So we go to where you can and when we mob up, even the cops cant stop us.
Law enforcements impotence in halting such crimesmore than a dozen incidents in the first weeks of June aloneis the probable reason Chicago police took the unprecedented action of closing the densely crowded North Avenue Beach on Memorial Day. (The official reason given for the shutdown was to allow medical vehicles access to treat several heat-related injuries.)
The Christian Science Monitor adds Washington and Las Vegas to the list of cities experiencing this phenomenon and discusses another pastime: a game called Knockout King, played primarily by black teenagers, where the point is to approach and quickly strike a stranger, often whites or immigrants, in an attempt to knock them unconscious with the first punch.
Sounds like fun. A twist that is also gaining popularity is the flash rob where a large group of young people descends on a store and loots it. As responsible journalists are always careful to say, the overall trend of youth crime in the US remains headed down, but this particular form of crime seems to be gaining steam.
There are many observations one can make both about the phenomenon itself and about the gingerly way the press wants to handle it.
...
congregate in minutes notice and then do whatever.
Think they are called "flashes".
FREAKING RETARDED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
ahh hell yea lets bring back the good old days...when birth control didnt work and you either went away and have the child and gave it up for adoption or you risk an illegal abortion.....
o hell yea lets go back to the good old days....when women were expected to settle for whatever roles men gave them....ahhh fuck yea i long for them days.....
o hell yea lets go back to the good old days......walk thru a fucking cementary and look at all the graves....infants graves...fuck yea i long for the days of polio and rh factor infant deaths....
fucking idiots....
eddie and beaver didnt ever really exist...just like your good old days didnt exist....
did i call you a fucking idiot? i did ....my work here is done.....(yea my new fucking motto)