“The corner boys, as they are sometimes called, are part of what is perhaps the most visibly anonymous demographic in the country. Young and black, feared and marginalized, they are the ones most likely to be viewed as a suspect in a crime and most likely to become the faceless victim of one.
Nevertheless, if you want to know what’s behind the rash of homicides in Trinidad — 24 so far this year — and to get a different take on how to stop the killings, these are guys to go to, on their turf and on their terms.”
So what Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy did was get out of his car and talk to them. Kudos to you, Mr. Millow.
The whole column is here.
I second your kudos to Mr. Milloy. Strange as it may sound to folks far removed from the corner, media should be talking to these guys more often. It makes for better journalism than blood and guts sensationalism and groveling to drug warriors. A question officer Pete; one of the guys mentioned keeping an AK under his truck. On “The Wire,” the corner boys often keep their chrome in the wheel well of a nearby car. Is this common strategy in the mid-atlantic. I don’t know if it’s common in my neck of the woods.
I certainly knew enough to look in the wheel well. But I think by now the wheel well is a bit played out.
But I can’t think of a better place. I mean, you need the gun near. And you don’t want it on the ground where somebody can bend over and see it.
Are there SUVs over 6.5 feet tall? If so, just putting the gun right on top would be great. Covered with a tarp or something.
Well, one characteristic of public drug markets is that their participants always adapt and find new ways to avoid detection. They keep killing each other, the political establishment yawns, and REAL police and citizens alike lose out.