Nobody should feel encouraged by statements from Democrat Mayor Jorge Elorza or the other Democrats who run the city after another shooting in Providence on Saturday night.  Elorza may claim to “understand that our community needs and deserves to feel safe,” but that isn’t possible when authorities refuse to be clear about what’s going on.

Most relevant, here, is the early taste of wokism that swept Providence in 2017, essentially deeming talk of “gangs” to be racist and ultimately making it more difficult for police to get their heads around violence, much less prevent it.  All that remains, then, is the hope that blind-folded police work plus somehow getting weapons off the street will fix the problems without acknowledging the reality that the Providence area has a growing gang culture.  That is not going to work.  Worse, the more government creates interactions between residents and authorities that have nothing to do with the problem they’re actually trying to solve, the more mistakes will be made and the more injustices perpetrated.

In contrast, John DePetro posted  an investigative report on his site yesterday that shows how mysteries can be solved if we accept the reality of gangs.  Investigating the murder of Miya Brophy-Baermann, a young woman murdered in Providence in August, John spots a person featured in a local gang member’s rap video who lived in the area in which Brophy-Baermann was murdered and speculates that the shooting was a case of mistaken identity.

Not only does this context give new significance to reports that the victim of Saturday night’s shooting was “a rapper,” but it shows exactly how deadly Providence’s “Community Safety Act” can be.

With a lead like the one John provides, police could work with information about rival gangs and their vehicles to solve the crime and make arrests.  But since 2017, they are forbidden to have even “written notes” of anybody associated with gangs or gang members outside of an official “gang list,” and factors such as “association with other people identified as gang members” cannot be used to include them.

Thus, it would appear possible that no police officer in Providence can legally have a written note that the person who lived near the Brophy-Baermann shooting was in a video with a violent gang member and therefore devote resources to investigating a connection of other gangs to the shooting.

Little wonder Providence officials avoid the word “gang” like a hex.  They’re complicit in these deaths.

But what’s the local media’s excuse?  What’s the voters?

Featured image by Luis Villasmil on Unsplash.