The City of Carbondale is known for its tranquility and rural hospitality, but not all is well in our fair community. Last year saw a disturbing increase in the number of gunshots reported in the area, according to Carbondale Police statistics. About 140 incidents were reported in 2001, nearly twice as many as in 2000.
The police attribute the rise in gun shootings to increased drug activity in the area. The city's east side was reported to have the most concentrated activity. But if you think it's just an east side problem, think again. Drug violence is a problem everywhere, including quaint Carbondale. Around our nation, drug violence has creeped into shady suburbs, once the safety havens of the middle-class. We tend to look at the problem only from an urban standpoint, but we need to start looking in our own backyard. We need to recognize that this is not a ghetto problem. This is a social problem that is beginning to ripple to every American citizen.
This problem is not just relegated to any one area in the city or the region. The entire community has to focus on this problem. The Daily Egyptian, which reported last Friday on the issue, will make the effort to explore in-depth why this violence is happening and the reasons behind it. We will also look for solutions. One solution, as pointed out by the police with respect to the shootings, is for people to report it as soon as it happens.
In some cases, the shots are not reported until days later, thus hampering the police in their investigation. If people want crime out of the neighborhoods, they have to help pitch it out. The easiest way for crime to spread is for the community to be silent. We cannot be silent. Nor can the Daily Egyptian ignore the magnitude of this story.
The Daily Egyptian published the story on the rise in shots fired in the city on the front page of Friday's edition, accompanied with a photo of a bullet hole in the wall of a home that was shot up last week. In the photograph, a young child points to the bullet hole above the trash can in his bedroom. What seems to be homework hangs from his bedroom door. Another bullet hole was found lodged into the wall just a foot above his sister's bed where she lay asleep at the time of the incident.
Although we were criticized for running this photo and the story so prominently, we believe strongly that Carbondale needs to be aware of this growing problem. Victims of these shots are not just statistics. They are real people: little children doing their homework, moms and dads and, quite simply, our neighbors.
We understand that our readers do not always want to be confronted with the negative. But our role is to be informers. We find this increase of gun violence startling, and we will not stand by silently as the Carbondale Police and community brush the issue aside, or chalk it up to "just a bad year."
We encourage our community and University leaders to passionately tackle the issue of safety in Carbondale, so we can yank this trend into reverse. We demand to see more fitting, well-thought-out solutions than more D.A.R.E. programs and patrol stops by the police. We have great minds here at our Research University that can investigate the roots of the problem and tell us how to solve it.
Published on 11/17/05; 12:24:44 PM
