Stupidity Revisited

This is a revelation to no one who pays attention:

• To slow down the ever-increasing number of armed robberies in Oak Park this year, police are hoping falling temperatures will help chill the crime wave.
  
  There has been a more than 130 percent increase in armed robberies in 2008 compared with the same period last year, officials said, and although crime usually drops once school begins, there has been no respite this time, said Police Chief Rick Tanksley.

And the source of the increase?

• Police cite the country's economic situation and believe many of the offenders are Chicago residents crossing over the Austin Boulevard border looking for easy targets.
  
  "Some predators may see Oak Park as the promised land," Tanksley said.

Oak Park is an overly liberal suburb of Chicago. We've spoken to people who relate police stories difficult to believe. Stories about being ordered not to patrol alleys, not to perform traffic stops on roving gangs of Chicago licensed vehicles, told every crime is to be a detective follow-up, and no proactive policing whatsoever.

The entire story stirred a memory of two years ago, a reporter from the "Chicago Parent" magazine who related a story about picking up three young hitchhiking rapscallions from Austin wandering the leafy streets of Oak Park with some tale of woe, who almost ended up killing the reporter. As you might expect, she felt bad about defending herself and maybe injuring someone who would have killed her over an automobile without a seconds hesitation.

Seems things haven't changed in Oak Park much - willfully blind victims offering themselves up to the lawless element of society. And then wondering why they get assaulted, battered, robbed and even killed.