Not everyone had a happy Independence Day

[taurusowner]

ALTON, Ill. -- An unruly mob lured emergency personnel to a housing complex near St. Louis with reports of a blaze, a shooting and other crimes, then attacked them with fireworks and bottle rockets, authorities said..."Our firefighters got in there and started doing their thing, and out come the fireworks" including bottle rockets and Roman candles, Harris said. "It does appear we were lured in for that purpose."

Separately, police officers were showered with bottle rockets fired from behind buildings at the same housing complex when they investigated a call falsely claiming someone had been shot and reports of fireworks being set off.


Police officers and firefighters were attacked again when they returned to the neighborhood to douse a blazing box early Monday

The police involved returned fire with pepperballs and other less-than-lethal weapons.  I'm not sure I would have gone that route...


http://www.bnd.com/2010/07/06/1319928/ill-mob-shoots-fireworks-at-police.html

[MicroBalrog]

I'm not sure I get it. Why would you do that?

I know that there are ideologies that bring people to hate police, but I can't imagine the inhabitants of housing projects to be fans of such. So why would you lure cops in and try to assault them?

I'm not a big fan of law enforcement myself, but I am not sure I would have even THOUGHT of this.

And attacking EMTs and firefighters? That's just the lowest grade of scumbaggery.

[Monkeyleg]

And attacking EMTs and firefighters? That's just the lowest grade of scumbaggery.

That started decades ago. I remember firefighters in some major cities refusing to go into certain neighborhoods without police backup.

[Kingcreek]

I'm not a big fan of housing projects. If you're gonna put that much social dysfunction in one place, it ought to have bars around it. I'm sorry to say it if anyone is offended, but the welfare/entitlement system has created generational poverty and dependance. We have children raising themselves with no parental guidance whatsoever, and children having babies, and children that never met thier daddies, etc and the result of all that is we get animals that depend on big government (and our tax dollars) for everything. 

[Iain]

I'm not sure I get it. Why would you do that?

Been going on for years. At some point you've got to give up on attempting to figure out how other people think, or don't as the case may be.

[Balog]

Been going on for years. At some point you've got to give up on attempting to figure out how other people think, or don't as the case may be.

Ayup. Amazing how once you get away from the old Biblical "If you don't work you don't eat" idea, people start turning feral.

Also, I know someone who works in the same building as the local medical examiners office. Independence Day is their busiest day of the year.

[Tallpine]

Why isn't DHS investigating this as "terrism" ? 

[Monkeyleg]

I'm not a big fan of housing projects. If you're gonna put that much social dysfunction in one place, it ought to have bars around it.

Yep. One of the scariest places I've seen is Cabrini Green project in Chicago (I don't know if it still exists). At one point the police wouldn't even go in there because of "snipers" shooting at them from the balconies.

[HankB]

I'm not a big fan of housing projects . . .  

The purpose of housing projects is NOT to provide housing for the poor; the purpose is to funnel public money into private pockets via funding builders, architects, various "studies", etc.

Yep. One of the scariest places I've seen is Cabrini Green project in Chicago (I don't know if it still exists). At one point the police wouldn't even go in there because of "snipers" shooting at them from the balconies.

They also did things like drop TVs and furniture on police from upper floors if the cops approached too closely . . .

[cambeul41]

I can't imagine the inhabitants of housing projects to be fans of such.

I suspect that projects residents are MORE likely to hate LEOs.  A large percentage of them, their friends, relatives, and neighbors have and will be arrested.  They do not see the law as their protector, but as their oppressor.

[wmenorr67]

Should have called in an air strike.

[BReilley]

TVs and furniture

Given the subject - isn't "TV" synonymous with "furniture"?

[Boomhauer]

I can't imagine the inhabitants of housing projects to be fans of such. So why would you lure cops in and try to assault them?

Clearly you are not familiar with the inhabitants of housing projects in the US. In short- they are often animals. They leech off society, commit loads of crimes against the productive members of society, and they utterly hate the cops...they try to kill police officers quite frequently, succeed many times, and when a cop shoots in self defense, it's an opportunity to sue.

[Viking]

Clearly you are not familiar with the inhabitants of housing projects in the US. In short- they are often animals. They leech off society, commit loads of crimes against the productive members of society, and they utterly hate the cops...they try to kill police officers quite frequently, succeed many times, and when a cop shoots in self defense, it's an opportunity to sue.

Pretty much the same over here.

[Stand_watie]

Clearly you are not familiar with the inhabitants of housing projects in the US. In short- they are often animals. They leech off society, commit loads of crimes against the productive members of society, and they utterly hate the cops...they try to kill police officers quite frequently, succeed many times, and when a cop shoots in self defense, it's an opportunity to sue.

     While generally correct, this observation is not universally correct re the U.S. I lived in a housing project in the obviously non big city having state of Maine as a child, and while the observation you make was true-er for the residents of this housing project, than for the average resident of Maine, I doubt there were enough of the maldoers you're describing there, to fairly constitute "often". True, there were the guys who'd beat up their wives every few months, and the guys who'd get drunk and loud on weekend nights, but most typical were divorced moms working crappola jobs and dad and his paycheck nowhere to be found. Least typical were my family and the family next to us in our duplex (only duplex in the project) who were Fundamentalist Republican Baptists and Fundamentalist Republican Jehova's Witnesses.

[Scout26]

Yep. One of the scariest places I've seen is Cabrini Green project in Chicago (I don't know if it still exists). At one point the police wouldn't even go in there because of "snipers" shooting at them from the balconies.

Not there anymore.  Gentrified (aka Daley kickbackified) out of existence.  In 2000 I took a job with a compnay that had it's headquarters in one of the Gentrified old warehouse buildings across the street (Kingsbury and Evergreen) from Cabrini-Green. (My job was in the old Western Electric Hawthorne Works cable plant, just east of Cicero and Cermac on the Westside.)   I should have gotten the hint when my First day, I go to fill out the paperwork at said company headquarters and when I pull into parking lot, half of the Chicago PD is gearing up SWAT-style for a multi-building, multi-person raid on Cabrini-Green.  

[Bigjake]

Not there anymore.  Gentrified (aka Daley kickbackified) out of existence.  In 2000 I took a job with a compnay that had it's headquarters in one of the Gentrified old warehouse buildings across the street (Kingsbury and Evergreen) from Cabrini-Green. (My job was in the old Western Electric Hawthorne Works cable plant, just east of Cicero and Cermac on the Westside.)   I should have gotten the hint when my First day, I go to fill out the paperwork at said company headquarters and when I pull into parking lot, half of the Chicago PD is gearing up SWAT-style for a multi-building, multi-person raid on Cabrini-Green.   

They should've imploded the place, like they do old casinos out in Vegas.  WITHOUT alerting those infesting the place.

[S. Williamson]

They attack firefighters and EMT.

Why not let fire and disease run their course, then?   

[Scout26]

They attack firefighters and EMT.

Why not let fire and disease run their course, then?   

Part of the problem is that they were drawing them into said ambushes with fake 911 calls.   Some/Many/Most EMT's & Firefighters have the Coast Guard Mentality:  You have to go out, you don't have to come back. 

[S. Williamson]

http://tinyurl.com/nrcb3

[MicroBalrog]

http://tinyurl.com/nrcb3

Except the problem is with this approach - the boy who gets eaten by the wolves tomorrow may (will likely be) a different boy from the one who cried wolf.

[S. Williamson]

But if it saves just one EMT, firefighter, or police officer's life, wouldn't it be worth it? 





 

[Hawkmoon]

I'm not sure I get it. Why would you do that?

I know that there are ideologies that bring people to hate police, but I can't imagine the inhabitants of housing projects to be fans of such. So why would you lure cops in and try to assault them?

I'm not a big fan of law enforcement myself, but I am not sure I would have even THOUGHT of this.

And attacking EMTs and firefighters? That's just the lowest grade of scumbaggery.

I acknowledge that I am generalizing, but I used to work for a large municipal public housing authority, so I am basing this on my personal experience with the overwhelming majority of our residents. I've been "out" for more than 20 years, and I'm sure things have gotten worse since then rather than better.

Micro, you have to recognize that here in the U.S., it is the dregs of society who live in public housing. Collectively, they have no respect for authority. They are only interested in what "the man" can and will do for them. There is no sense of personal responsibility. There is no morality. Collectively, the people in public housing are not immoral, they are amoral. Human life has no value to them. There is no discipline of children, so they raise up undisciplined adults ... most of whom are functionally (if not literally) illiterate.

To such "people" (I use the term loosely, since many of them are closer to animals than to people), shooting fireworks at police and firefighters is just another way to have fun. "The lowest form of scumbaggery"? What else would you expect from the lowest form of scumbag?

We had a sitework contractor doing projects for the authority who was widely believed to have serious Mafia connections. It was known that most of his workers were ex-cons, and a professional cage fighter would think thrice about taking on some of these guys. THEY would not work in our projects past the time when school let out, and they would not send in a crew of fewer than three man to do even the smallest task. Why three? One to handle the rake, one to watch the back of the guy handling the rake, and the third to guard the truck ... with a shotgun. Remember, this was more than 20 years ago.

When I started the job, the director of the agency personally escorted me to each project and introduced me to the key residents in each location. The reason was so that the residents would know I was one of the people who was off-limits to being mugged in the project. But ... he cautioned me to never EVER go to any of the projects after dark.

[Bigjake]

Hence why welfare needs to end, and those "people"  can either starve or become useful.

[KD5NRH]

my family and the family next to us in our duplex (only duplex in the project) who were Fundamentalist Republican Baptists and Fundamentalist Republican Jehova's Witnesses.

You're not helping any arguments against walling the places off.