Thinning The Herd….Social Darwinism at work.

 

 

 UPDATE:  I tried to get info from the police (and it IS Public Record) and they would tell me nothing. However, a reporter did email me with the police report. Apparently this kid on the motorbike was carrying a small passenger, a young child and he ran the red light and both of them ended up in the hospital, with severe head and body injuries.  This kid refused to sign anything in the presence of his mother.  Thinning the herd is a harsh term, but perhaps it’s just damn appropriate when these kids are allowed by their stupid parents motorbikes, no helmets and no effort to any intelligent thinking.  Social Darwinism at work.  That’s what we’re left with here in Atlanta.

Thinning the herd.  And should we care?

Sounds awful, especially when  applied to children, but this is an attitude I can’t call by any other name.

SW Atlanta is plagued by 4 wheelers and motorbikes. The police don’t give chase because as they say: “If they wreck, it’s on us.” Well, they don’t take this behavior seriously, either.

(And, according to the officer I talked to, they also realize that many of these ‘kids’ are drug dealers. But they don’t chase. And the drug dealers know this, and so do all of my neighbors.)

Thursday, Friday and Saturday a motorbike ran up and down our street, into the Metropolitan Parkway and around the side streets. The driver looked to be about twelve, with no helmet and there were little kids, also without helmets on the back of his small motorbike. Some of them were barefoot but none of them had helmets.

I called 911 Thursday, expecting an officer at least to investigate the situation, but according to the report (today, Sunday) when I made inquiries, ‘officer did not find either kid or bike.” So he left for another call.

Talking to other neighbors, they said “good that you called”, but what about them? They are so damn passive until something strikes them. Then they are hollering for the police.

This morning my upset neighbor called me. Last night this same kid on the motorbike ran a red light and was hit by a speeding car. It took a while for the car to stop and the bike was just in pieces. Ambulance, fire trucks, police  but nothing reported in the news this morning. We still don’t know if this kid is alive or dead. But looking at the bike, it is hard to believe that anyone could have survived this accident.

I was going up my street today and another kid, this one older, was revving up. I pulled into a driveway to turn around and see where he was going, and he almost hit me coming across a speed bump. I got the standard glare. I went another way around, not to chase him, but to see where he was going. He picked up a kid that looked like he was five years old, barefoot, and of course, no helmets on either of them. They raced down this long street with other kids playing with a basketball. Dangerous activity at any time of the day.

I came home and called 911. Told them I wanted to talk to the responding officer. No show.

(three hours later, still no-show. Ho-hum)

UPDATE: officer did show up after 2-3 hours, but there was nothing she could do.  The policy of the Atlanta Police Department  (according to this officer)  is to not chase these kids on 4 wheelers, etc…even though they already know that they are either drug dealers, or have warrents out on them.  They flip the police the bird and take off. So….the much ballyhooed fight against drugs in Atlanta on the southside is at a standstill.  The drug trade knows that these boys can’t be chased so they use them as the mules (carriers) for the distribution.  Or so the APD says.  According to this officer, SW Atlanta has a huge issue with these 4wheelers.  The young boys on the motorbikes are scouts or soon to be involved in bigger ways with the drug trade.  This probably is part of the direct fallout of the Atlanta Cheating Scandal, where teachers and principals were changing grades to push these kids forward (for years)  and they certainly weren’t prepared for anything except dropping out and the drug trade.

Interestingly, I was told by the officer at the Zone 3 precinct that “I should continue to call 911 every time this happens”. However, they don’t respond apparently to this ‘kind of call.’

Obviously a  waste of my time.  But for some reason, I do care.  I am a mother.

I was told today that after June 1^st, there will be legislation to license, register and tag each motorcycle, motorbike, scooter. THEN maybe the Atlanta Police Department will do something about this menace to children, but I don’t believe it.  And I didn’t get this information from the APD.  They don’t seem to know their ass from their hand.  I got it from another close neighborhood.

Where in Hell are the parents? Where in Hell are the Preachers, Ministers, so-called community leaders? Twitting their thumbs waiting for someone else to address these issues?  And nobody does, and these ‘children’ become the newest group of criminals who plague our communities.  The court   system is overloaded and is a revolving door here   in Atlanta.  Some of these ‘youth’ have 15 to 20 arrests and that’s before they hit 20 years old.

We are told the police can do nothing and this behavior is historic with the APD. Depending on the officer, the procedures change and so do the laws. Worse trained bunch of cops I have ever seen. There has been a helmet law in this state since 1969. I checked. This is probably the best law around concerning motorcycles, but apparently the APD doesn’t find this even worth following.

So, we will be continuing to watch the “thinning of the herd”. Ignorance and arrogance abounding in SW Atlanta. And I highly doubt  this behavior would be tolerated in other more ‘toney’ parts of Atlanta. The only thing I could think of was to throw this situation to a reporter I know, and see if she can make anything of it. Other than that, I am left scratching my head.

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2014