Northeast News
June 11, 2014

Last week the Daily Rag (Kansas City Star) penned a wonderful shill piece, er, editorial, extolling the virtues of the city’s free hot dog and t-shirt give-away program also known as Aim4Peace. The editorial noted that the group’s “violence interrupters,” – that’s a job title believe it or not – do great work bringing the murder rate down. The Star piece also notes that the city’s homicide rate is actually trending downward and then advocates that another influx of federal money, $1.2 million to be exact, should help the group do their job even better.

Like it takes training to give away hot dogs and have “meetins.” This is the trailer park part, watching the Aim4Peace leeches jumping for the proverbial $5 bill in a feeble attempt to justify their gigs and stay gainfully employed. God forbid the city doesn’t have enough free hot dogs and t-shirts as it is now.

This feisty news-dog has never subscribed to the “we can’t arrest our way out of this problem” mindset and never will. That’s the whole problem. Criminals know they won’t get punished in Jackson County. Suburban counties don’t have this problem. Hello!

Here’s a radical thought. Dissolve this festering, nepotism ridden excuse for a program and give the former staffers litter bags so they can go pick up trash along the highway. Throwing more cash at this group isn’t going to bring the murder rate down by one soul. What will bring that rate down is effectively arresting and prosecuting bad guys and sending them away to punch plates for a while. Once again, we’re not holdin’ our breath.