Like most cities these days, Louisville is under seige by an abnormally high homicide rate. The theories for this phenomenon, which is happening in nearly every city in the US, are interesting, to say the least. Some are sound, some are stupid. Unfortunately, what’s being done falls on tiptoeing down the middle politically, which is resulting in no improvement.
Here’s a map of Lousiville’s homicides for the past 6 months. The prior 6 months are identical; the mapping system I have access to only goes back 6 months, for some reason though.
See any pattern here? I do. The red line going down the middle is where most Louisvillians would identify west Louisville from East Louisville. And I have a feeling the homicides on the east side were perpetrated by at least a couple of people that came over from the west side and were involved in a robbery or other crime that went south. There just isn’t a lot of violent crime on the East end, which is where I happen to live, and was a consideration when deciding where to live in Louisville. West Louisville also happens to be predominantly black. (But don’t tell anyone.)
Unfortunately, the people that need to be able to see this can’t for some reason. This map’s a lot like the one you’d find of Chicago, or any city in the USA these days. The homicide rate has exploded since Ferguson and the uproar over Michael Brown’s death. People want to blame it on all sorts of things, but to me the most logical is that after Ferguson, and subsequent calls of violence towards police, in addition to an outward display of hatred for police by the very communities that need them the most, police have taken a more hands-off approach to policing those areas. West Louisville in this case. Who can blame them? They’re being gunned down execution-style as a thank-you, when they’re out trying to help people for a relatively paltry salary. Although I believe the police in Louisville are paid quite well, compared to the rest of the country. Not enough to go out and face a violent death every day, though.
