Stranger(s) in a Strange Land: White People in Baton Rouge

Eric Holder? 

"His people" were the attackers in this case, so he'll remain silent -- as will the Department of Justice. 

Barack Obama? 

One of Obama's Sons... or the type of person Eric "My People" Holder seeks to shield... beat up a white family in Baton Rouge for being in the "wrong neighborhood"

If he had a son, he'd look more like 41-year-old Donald Dickerson, the individual behind bars for knocking a hate white male unconscious -- so no press conference will be called where he can say Mr. Dickerson was merely "acting stupidly." 

For a white family trying to get gas in a zip code (70802) of Baton Rouge known for being one of the worst and most violent - probably due to it being 80 percent black - in the city, it was a case of being introduced to the concept of Black-Run America (BRA) [Police: Family attacked for being in "wrong neighborhood", WAFB NBC, 5-13-13]:

He was in the "wrong neighborhood" is just one reason a man gave as to why he was punched in the face. His wife and daughter were also hit. Police arrested one man and ticketed two others. They are all accused of punching the family. 

 At the corner of Plank Road and Scenic Highway in Baton Rouge sits a Chevron gas station. It's off I-110 near Memorial Stadium. A family stopped there to get gas Sunday around 10 p.m. "Upon our arrival, we located three victims who were attacked in the parking lot," said Cpl. Tommy Stubbs, spokesperson for the Baton Rouge Police Department.  

 The owners of the gas station did not want to comment on camera, but said there's a wide variety of customers in and out of the store in the daytime. At night, though, it's not the safest of places, especially with the area having some of the highest crime in the city. "It was a small scene but it got to be a big scene after the fight broke out and it was a big scene when the police came," said Keisha Henderson, a witness. Stubbs said a man wearing a pink shirt was in line trying to pay for gas when Donald Dickerson, 41, started making fun of him, leading to an argument.  

 "The defendant (Dickerson) approached the white male victim," the police report stated. It went on to read, "the defendant told him he was in the wrong neighborhood and he was not going to make it out." The victim said that's when he "was punched and knocked to the ground."  

 At this time, his wife got out of the car and ran to help her husband. The victim said, "he continued to struggle with the defendant and was eventually knocked unconscious, which later he awoke in the hospital." His wife told police, "after running to help her husband, she remembers falling to the ground and (being) knocked unconscious."  

 According to a close family friend, that's when the couple's teenage daughter got out of the car to check on her parents and, "observed a female punch her mother in the face, when her mother then fell to the concrete, hitting her head on the surface." The daughter was also punched in the face.  

 "There were only three suspects but there were multiple people in the parking lot," said Stubbs. Of those three, Dickerson was arrested and charged with second-degree battery.  

The other two suspects, Devin Bessye, 24, and Ashley Simmons, 22, were released on site after police wrote them each a summons for simple battery. When police were questioned about why all three defendants were not charged with felony second degree battery, Stubbs responded, "Because you have to have disfigurement for a second-degree battery charge, and only one victim had disfigurement and he was attacked by the one suspect that we booked." 

 However, Louisiana law defines second-degree battery as "bodily injury which involves unconsciousness, extreme physical pain or protracted and obvious disfigurement."  

 The victim suffered "a broken eye socket, broken nose, and several lacerations to the face," and his wife was knocked unconscious. "I feel that's racist," said Henderson. As to why officers only charged one suspect with second-degree battery, police said under former Police Chief Dewayne White, officers were told to take all offenders to prison. Towards the end of his term, the policy changed and officers were told to use discretion. That's the policy in place now. 

 As to whether this falls under a hate crime, police said early reports show it does not meet the statute but remains under investigation.All three defendants, Dickerson, Bessye and Simmons, have had run-ins with the law prior to Sunday's incident.

In 2012, 23 of the city of Baton Rouge's 83 homicides happened in zip code 70802 (27 percent). Zip code 70805 borders this one, with 14 more homicides occurring there in 2012 -- meaning 44 percent of all 2012 homicides in Baton Rouge happened in two zip codes. 

Zip code 70805 is 86 percent black. 

Remember, early this year a mall in Baton Rouge was locked down because of black flash mob violence. Also recall, that murder is almost the exclusive avocation of blacks in Baton Rouge:

Yesterday the Baton Rouge Advocate published a lengthy analysis of the 2012 murder stats in the city. Take a look at this PDF of one of the inside pages. Last year, 83 people died by homicide in Baton Rouge. Of that number, 87 percent were black, and 87 percent were male. Two-thirds had been in trouble with the law before, and one-third had been in trouble with the law for drugs. The median age of victims: 26.
Of the perpetrators, the median age was 22. Get this: 96 percent of them were black, and 90 percent were male. Almost two-thirds had previous arrests. One out of four had a drug record. 

Most of the murders took place in the poorest parts of the city. 

What can we learn from these statistics? That murder in Baton Rouge is almost entirely about young black men from the poor part of town killing other young black men from the poor part of town. It’s mostly a matter of thugs killing thugs.

What does all this mean?  

Outside of some lucky black kid excelling at football and getting recruited by an SEC (Simply Erase Caucasians) school like LSU, Auburn, or Ole Miss, they'll end up as almost all other blacks do in Louisiana -- helping creating a community that drives away businesses, boasts the worse schools, has low property value and high crime rates [High crime rate bad for Baton Rouge area business: Experts say successful small businesses can play big role in driving crime from affected areas, Baton Rouge Advocate, 6-12-12]:

The majority of homicides during the past six years happened in four of the city’s ZIP codes, with the 70805 ZIP code — bordered by Airline Highway, Choctaw Drive and the Mississippi River — being the most deadly. Violent crime in Baton Rouge peaked in 2009 when 75 people were slain. Last year, there were 64 slayings within the city limits. 

Image is everything 

While fatal business holdups are uncommon, lesser crimes such as armed robbery or burglary plague fast-food restaurants, convenience stores, discount centers and other businesses in the area, undermining the community’s economic survival. 

A Popeye’s restaurant on Choctaw Drive, the Family Dollar discount store on Plank Road and an Advance Auto Parts store, also on Plank, have recently experienced “repeat instances of where they have been robbed by individuals with hand guns,” said Cpl. L’Jean McKneely, a Baton Rouge Police spokesman. When contacted for comment, store officials were either unavailable or unwilling to talk. 

Why is all the murder found in Baton Rouge happening in almost exclusively black areas of the city?

The fear is that such crimes turn away businesses, which then makes a neighborhood less desirable for its residents. 

“Crime and violence can have a snowball effect on non-positive impacts within a community, just based upon the broken window perception and concept,” said John Smith, president of the Baton Rouge Downtown Business Association and vice-president of programs for 100 Black Men, citing the urban-decline theory that a building with broken windows is a sign of apathy and neglect, attracting criminals to an area. 

“If you are located in an area where it is perceived there’s a lot of crime and violence, by default, people say, ‘I don’t want to go there.’ So the real, big impact that it has is on perception,” said Smith. “The second impact it has is on the cost of goods and services, and your bottom line. Because if it is perceived that this is an area where there’s a negative perception, insurance premiums go up.” 

North Baton Rouge has no shortage of liquor stores. What’s missing from the business landscape are the basics for neighborhood and business development: supermarkets and restaurants, banks, shops and services such as dry cleaners, said the Rev. Raymond W. Johnson, bishop of Living Faith Christian Center, a Winbourne Avenue church with a sign at its sanctuary’s entrance that warns, “Protected by armed guards.” “We have one store, Hi Nabor, and a couple other smaller stores,” he said. “Eating establishments are almost nonexistent. You have some fast-food. A lot of liquor and tobacco and those kinds of really not good moral things for the community.” 

It’s a business environment that suffers from the corrosive effects of endemic crime, said 100 Black Men’s Smith. 

“The businesses that are remaining are those that you basically go in and you come out relatively quickly,” Smith said. “If a person doesn’t feel safe and secure, they don’t spend much time in an establishment. And that potentially impacts the types of establishments you might find in an area.” 

The future for 70805 and other high-crime areas of Baton Rouge is not entirely bleak. Smith, of 100 Black Men, is working on an initiative to get residents trained in pipe-fitting, welding and electrical work in an effort to combat the perilously high unemployment and low job skills among the area’s residents. The North Baton Rouge Training Institute is holding a community meeting Thursday to introduce this effort, announced Metro-Councilwoman Ronnie Edwards. Up to 60 people could qualify for program.

You know what an all-black area in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Atlanta, Birmingham, Memphis, Mobile, Orlando, Columbus (Ga.), Montgomery, Nashville, or Charlotte will attract? Crime, college football/basketball recruiters, and investors hoping to strike it rich in the payday loan/title pawn industry. 

And a white family merely hoping to put gas in their car, unknowingly putting their lives in danger in the process. 

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