Resorting to Prayer to Stop the Black Violence in Indianapolis...

Sandy Hook or the Aurora, Colorado “Dark Knight Rises” mass shootings were perpetrated by white males, who obviously suffered from mental illness.

They were tragedies, but neither city suffered property depreciation from these incidents.

In H.G. Wells novel War of the Worlds, Gods wisdom (and natural selection) helped save humans from the martian invaders. No such divine intervention is coming to save Indianapolis, despite prayers to the contrary

They were abnormal, atypical reminders that crazy people live among us; and that we should bring back state-supported institutions for the mentally ill, to protect society from those delusional individuals.

But what do you say of the typical, normal black-on-black violence (fatal or nonfatal shootings) in major cities, the kind you see ubiquitously discussed on the local news broadcasts in cities like Baltimore, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Birmingham, New Orleans, Memphis, Chicago, etc.?

Every night a similar story is told: “police are responding to the scene of a gun crime. Black male suspect…”

The fear of living in cities with large black populations, where the frequency of these types of shootings represents a legitimate fear for private citizens and business owners, is a realistic reminder of just what an anomaly a whiter mass-shooter is in our country.

From the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) comes the “Firearm Violence, 1993-2011” study produced by BJS Statisticians Michael Planty, Ph.D., and Jennifer L. Truman, Ph.D., we learn:

In 2010, the rate of firearm homicide for blacks was 14.6 per 100,000, compared to 1.9 for whites, 2.7 for American Indians and Alaska Natives, and 1.0 for Asians and Pacific Islanders (figure 5). From 1993 to 2010, the rate of firearm homicides for blacks declined by 51%, down from 30.1 per 100,000 blacks, compared to a 48% decline for whites and a 43% decline for American Indians and Alaska Natives. Asian and Pacific Islanders declined 79% over the same period, from 4.6 to 1.0 per 100,000. Although blacks experienced a decline similar to whites and American Indians and Alaska Natives, the rate of firearm homicide for blacks was 5 to
6 times higher than every other racial group in 2010. As with other demographic groups, the majority of the decline occurred in the first part of the period and slowed from 2001 to 2010.

So, blacks have a firearm homicide rate of. 14.6 per 100,000 versus 1.9 for whites; white mass shooters are so infrequent to warrant incredible, wall-to-wall media coverage against the reality that constant, consistent black gun violence adds up to a topic most people would rather avoid.

Or pray it goes away.

Back in 2008, in 73 percent black Birmingham, Alabama, the black mayor called a prayer session where they donned burlap sacks and appeared humbled before God, praying for an end to black-on-black crime and violence.

In 2012 Montgomery, Alabama, black churches launched “Operation Good Shepherd” (sending black clergy to crime scenes courtesy of the black suspects) and also prayed for an ending of black-on-black violence.

Prayer doesn’t interrupt black violence or help those calling out for divine intervention when they are the victims of said violence.

Unlike Jack Frost in the winter, prayer doesn’t deter black-in-origin gun crime. It hasn’t worked in Montgomery, it hasn’t worked in Birmingham, and it won’t work in majority-white Indianapolis, where the minority black population works overtime to monopolize violent crime in the city.

Now, a city where the “Your Life Matters” campaign was started by the white Republican mayor to specifically target high rates of black crime [Mayor Greg Ballard outlines initiative to curb black-on-black violence in Indianapolis, Indy Star, 3-14-14], prayer is seen as a more viable deterrent to crime than the silly black-helmed Ten Point Coalition.[Praying for peace in Indianapolis, WTHR.com, 4-17-14]:

As we approach the Easter weekend, some local churches are using this time to stand in unity praying for peace. 

For months, Indianapolis Metro Police Chief Rick Hite and Public Safety Director Troy Riggs have been calling on the churches in the city to get more involved in the communities to help target crime at its root. 

At noon, there was a strong showing of unity by church leaders from many churches of all faiths that they are rising up and joining as one to pray for peace. They gathered at the Indiana War Memorial to pray. 

In 2013, Indianapolis recorded its highest murder rate in seven years and based on early estimates, the city is on pace for even more this year. 

Most recently, Indianapolis Metro Police recorded ten shootings in a three-day period earlier this month. 

Rev. David Hampton with Light of the World Christian Church says he believes it's the church's responsibility to go beyond the four walls and help to improve the community the churches serve. That's what he and many other local pastors hope to accomplish today. 

"Jesus in John 13:34 said to love one another as I have loved you. So we want to use that as a way to unify our city and to also demonstrate there is unity among our leadership. If there is no model of unity among our leadership, how can we expect young people and those committing violence to see a need for unity?" said Reverend David Hampton, Pastor of Light of the World Christian Church. 

"We feel like the church's mandate to minister must go beyond the four walls. If we're going to be a church of the community then we need to be a church that's for the community, not just preaching to the choir. We see our mandate as going out and helping to improve the community that we serve," said Hampton.

Prayer.

For peace.

Because the frequency of black-in-origin violence/gun crime is so great (despite financial resources and more police dedicated to stop the problem), divine intervention is the only solution to a persistent problem plaguing cities across the country.

Prayer.

For peace.

This isn’t H.G. Wells War of the Worlds, where the microorganisms strategically placed by God on earth, to which man was immune, defeat the Martian invaders:

“From the moment the invaders arrived, breathed our air, ate and drank, they were doomed. They were undone, destroyed, after all of man's weapons and devices had failed, by the tiniest creatures that God in his wisdom put upon this earth. By the toll of a billion deaths, man had earned his immunity, his right to survive among this planet's infinite organisms. And that right is ours against all challenges. For neither do men live nor die in vain.”

No, every geographic region of America that succumbs to the black undertow regresses to the black mean; violence is endemic, the sound of errant gun shots a nightly reminder of true climate change courtesy of black people.

The powerful ending to Wells’ masterpiece of alien invasion fiction can’t be replicated in real life. All cities that go majority black endure a natural electro-magnetic pulse, reverting the civilization that attracted them (think Detroit in 1920 -1950, replete with high paying jobs created by white ingenuity… the same real estate is now occupied by a population that is 83 percent black, completely incapable of possessing the entrepreneurial zeal to open a salvage company) to nothingness.

Black-in-origin gun crime in Indianapolis will not be stopped by prayer; just ask the pious Nathan Trapuzzano, the 24-year-old devout Catholic who was murdered by black 16-year-old career criminal Simeon Adams.

Rev. Harrison, leader of the Ten Point Coalition in Indianapolis (created to weed out black violence in the city) has no victories to show for his dedication to peace. He failed to stop Nathan Trapuzzano's murderer.

No, not murdered. Executed. [The case of Simeon Adams: 'Gun crazy' youths concern authorities, Indy Star, 4-15-14]:

Simeon Adams was supposed to be home when veteran probation officer Tracy McDonald knocked on the front door March 4. 

But for the ninth time in less than a month, the 16-year-old, who was under house arrest for auto theft and resisting arrest, wasn't there. 

The next known contact anyone in law enforcement had with Adams was nearly a month later. That was when police found him bleeding from the neck after a furious gunbattle four blocks from his house. 

In between, authorities suspect Adams launched a bloody crime spree through Indianapolis' Westside, including the shooting death of 24-year-old Nathan Trapuzzano, an expectant father out for a morning stroll April 1. 

It could be argued that their paths never should have crossed. 

Adams was known to carry a gun and could have, perhaps should have, been locked up in Juvenile Detention that morning. Yet Adams was considered a moderate risk. 

Even after more than a dozen probation violations, McDonald, Adams' probation officer, chose not to send the teen to detention. Instead, Adams was on the street pending an April 7 hearing in Juvenile Court. McDonald resigned Thursday, the same day Juvenile Court Judge Marilyn Moores complained about his hands-off handling of the youth. 

At the same time, Adams' criminal history was far from unique; Marion County's juvenile courts deal with about 200 handgun cases each year. Teens take guns to school, wave them at strangers, shoot them at random. 

Kill innocent strangers. 

The block where Adams was shot teems with idle teens, many of them with guns, neighbors said. "All these kids got guns," said Charlotte Watt, 70, who hid on the floor in fear the night Adams was shot. "Out there, they got guns; down there, they got guns. They gun crazy."

It’s not ‘gun crazy youths’ terrorizing Indianapolis, necessitating the creation of the “Your Life Matters” program and keeping Rev. Harrison of the embarrassingly inept Ten Point Coalition in the spotlight; it’s crazy black youths using guns as a means – a as a tool – in ending disputes over the most trivial of matters.

Charlotte Watt, when she states, "they gun crazy," 

Where God gave man a biological weapon to repel the Martian invaders in Wells’ novel, those hoping civilization can survive in Indianapolis are left with Rev. Charles Harrison of the Ten Point Coalition to try and put a stop to the almost exclusively black violence threatening the stability of the city. [Rev. Charles Harrison's Crime-Fighting Coalition Is in the Line of Fire: The Ten Point Coalition aims to reduce gun violence and black-on-black crime in the city's urban core, yet it is the group and its leader, Rev. Charles Harrison, who find themselves coming under attack., Indianapolis Monthly, 3-14-14]:

Several nights a week, three middle-aged men keep vigil in portions of Indianapolis that largely exist in the past tense, discarded wrappers that once contained something of value. This boarded red-brick building, they remember, used to be a grocery store. The empty, snow-covered lot on the corner was the site of a home, a nice one. The van in which the men are traveling tonight—one of this harsh winter’s coldest—groans as it skids to a stop in front of a house on the near-northwest side. 

The porch lamp, a single exposed bulb, is one of the few sources of light on the block. A man lived there, they say. He was duct-taped to a chair and shot dead. 

The man was Terry Day, one of Indianapolis’s 125 homicide victims in 2013, the highest number recorded here in seven years. 

From the Department of Justice (DOJ)... gun crime is virtually a one-race problem in America, certainly in Indianapolis. 

On streets to the east and west of this one, in neighborhoods like Riverside, Crown Hill, and United Northwest, the stories told by Eddie Owens, Darryl Jones, and Anthony Neal ring the same: abandoned, razed, dead. The men will measure the success of this three-hour shift as they do the others: A good night is a quiet one. 

Owens is one of the few paid employees of the Ten Point Coalition, a faith-based group whose members—90 percent of whom have criminal records themselves—want to prevent violence, specifically gun violence, among young African-American males in the city’s urban core. Jones and Neal are volunteers. They call themselves O.G.s—Original Gangsters. 

These nightly sweeps, bare-bones affairs that require street smarts and shoe leather, owe their meager existence to an unsteady stream of taxpayer dollars, grants, and donations. And yet, according to at least one city official, Ten Point is an “integral” part of fighting crime in Indianapolis. Jones, one of the volunteers from the van, is more blunt: “We go where the police can’t.” 

Ten Point crews are often alerted to potential flashpoints by the IMPD’s staff chaplain and sometimes even the department’s higher-ups. Their bright vests serve as a kind of human yellow crime tape; the 25 volunteers and four full-timers routinely act as buffers separating the police, grieving friends and family, or warring factions. They broker deals between rivals. They share street-level intelligence with law enforcement and watch over potential hotspots. They offer curbside counseling, referring scores of people to social programs and job leads. They play basketball with those who are open to changing their ways and, for those who stay headstrong, eventually pray at their funerals. 

Ten Point and its vocal president, 53-year-old Rev. Charles Harrison, have a knack for finding trouble even when they’re not looking for it

African Americans were victims in 108 of the city’s 125 homicides last year. Frustrated by what he sees as indifference on the part of some city leaders, specifically black Democrats, Harrison is not shy about sharing his opinions on TV (he’s frequently interviewed by reporters at crime scenes) and in the newspaper. He often turns to Twitter to draw attention to crimes involving guns and isn’t above calling out politicians. 

“Where are our black elected officials?” he asks. “If the Klan killed as many blacks as blacks have killed blacks, they’d all be screaming from the mountaintop. But they’re not. They’re quiet. I feel like we are doing this by ourselves and fighting a losing battle. And there’s no outrage over this epidemic.” 

Harrison fears Ten Point has become a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound. In his 16-year tenure, he’s seen violence on the street reach an epidemic level. The homicides Ten Point works often begin as simple arguments. Many are drug related. Disputes occur over territory, robberies, and retaliation. “Kids are no longer resolving fights and disagreements with their fists,” he says. “They’re turning to guns, killing one another without a thought.” The flood of illegal firearms—the acquisition of which is the quickest way to earn respect, Harrison says—is only part of the problem and isn’t necessarily a new development (though IMPD did seize 51 more guns in 2013 than in the previous year). A poor economy and high unemployment, coupled with a recent surge in heroin use, he argues, have exacerbated a dangerous situation, making it toxic.

No, it's just black people. Not some externality, just black people. 

Indianapolis is only 28 percent black, yet 86 percent of the homicide victims were black (as is the case in every city, nearly 100 percent of the suspects in black homicides are black).

Prayer will not save the city of Indianapolis. Those who prayed for divine intervention to save Rochester, Camden, Trenton, or Newark were only greeted with depreciating home values and the fond memories they can recall of a city once safe for civilization.

Prayer did not save Detroit, where the decaying housing stock, built by a long-departed people, is a tangible reminder God didn’t intervene.

The Ten Point Coalition and prayer won’t save Indianapolis.

It didn’t save Nathan Trapuzzano.

As tragic as any shooting is, a city can survive the psychos and mental cases who engage in mass shootings like the ones in Aurora and Sandy Hook; they can grow stronger. A city can not survive continuous, unrelenting gun violence (fatal or nonfatal) that is entirely black-in-origin. 13 WTHR Indianapolis