… the wicked shall do wickedly …
—Dan. 12:10
7093 Rising Crime Rate
Since WW II ended, serious crimes went up an average of 214%, tabulated as follows: Murder (up 263%), Rape (up 100%), Robbery (up 263%), Aggravated assault (up 215%), Auto theft (up 158%), Burglary (up 290%), Larceny (up 192%).
7094 Closing Office In Capitol
The Organization of American States has closed its central Washington office because the area, just one mile from the White House, is a hotbed of crime. The Library of Congress is now closing a half-hour early so its employees can get off the streets before dark—the time when muggers become most active.
Nowhere in the nation is the crime rate more drug-related than it is in Washington, D.C. The nation’s capitol has become a center for narcotics traffic.
7095 Church Security
New York’s Riverside Church spent $100,000 a year for its security program—more than the entire budget of most smaller churches—because of the growing crime problem.
—Christianity Today
7096 Schools And Students Violence
Washington (UPI)—Assault, gang warfare, robbery and other violence in America’s schools have become a “serious and costly national problem” that should be a major target of crime-control efforts, a research study reported.
The Senate Juvenile Delinquency Subcommittee reported an 85.3 percent increase in assaults on students and a 77.4 percent increase in assaults on teachers in the 1970s. The report said this violence is still increasing.
7097 U.S. High Schools
In the early 1970s, almost 2/3 of United States high schools have suffered disruptions. The incidents range from peaceful sit-ins to savage riots.
As a result, the typical city high school required one full-time policeman, three to four civilian security guards, and 15 paraprofessional aides doing security work.
7098 Guns In The Home
The private arsenal in U.S. homes now totals 90 million weapons, according to an estimate by the FBI. Family gun racks in the 63 million U.S. households boast 35 million rifles and 31 million shotguns. Add to that 24 million handguns. The small-arms inventory for the U.S. armed forces: 4.8 million guns.
—Newsweek
7099 Protest From Church Members
Parishioners at St. Philip the Apostle Catholic Church in Columbus, Ohio, turned in their handguns, including their children’s toy guns, at a Sunday mass. The action was in response to an appeal by parish priest Richard Engle, who said the guns would be melted down into crosses. Engle, who handed over his own .22-caliber target pistol, said the appeal was prompted by the attempts on President Ford’s life. The priest and his people plan to send crosses manufactured from the firearms to Ohio’s congressional delegation as a protest against the proliferation of handguns.
7100 Canada’s Rent-A-Cop
Toronto (Reuter)—Private security personnel—or rent-a-cop as they are known here—now outnumber public police by two-to-one in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province.
The private security industry is booming and appears to be heading for a major controversy over the training and powers granted to private guards.
Rent-a-cop has very limited powers in the province but not many people—including the security personnel themselves—seem to realize it.
The other big problem is that the demand for guards is so great that training in all but a few of the best-run agencies is cursory and the turnover of personnel is very high.
7101 TV Shoot-Up
When the San Francisco Giants lost a baseball game, Gerald Bishop lost his temper and pumped 17 rifle bullets into his television set. The bullets went through the walls of his mobile home and penetrated the walls of a house 300 yards down the road. After his arrest, Bishop asked policeman John Grimes: “Haven’t you ever wanted to shoot your TV set?”
7102 The Stun Gun
Calm and smiling, the blonde young woman turned to the Miami gas-station attendant, raised what looked like a gray flashlight—and fired. “I fell on the floor and couldn’t move,” recalled William Lawson. “It was like sticking your finger in a wall socket … the worst pain I ever felt.”
Though he did not know it at the time, Lawson, 27, had been felled by a brand-new, high-voltage weapon called the stun gun. More properly known as a Taser, the gun was developed for law-enforcement use. No police force has yet bought it, but thugs are apparently less cautious about trying something new. Nine Tasers were recently stolen from a distributor near Miami, and police there were afraid that the gas-station robbery may be only the first.
The Taser, powered by six rechargeable nickel-cadmium batteries, fires two barbs attached to 18 feet of fine wire. When the barbs hit a human, a current that can build up to a three-watt, 50,000-volt charge leaps through the closed circuit. The shock instantly disrupts the victim’s nervous system, his eyes close, and he slumps to the floor jerking spasmodically. When the current is turned off, muscular control returns immediately, but a mild state of shock persists.
—Time
7103 Caretaker’s Pet Control
A woman in California had to go to the hospital and was worried about what might happen to her pets while she was away. So she hired a neighbor to take care of them. After she had been in the hospital a while she went home to check up. And this is what she found:
The neighbor she had hired to take care of her pets had killed her dog, because it ate too much. He had sold her chickens. He had given away all the canaries, because they wouldn’t sing. He had made the rabbits into pot pies, and sold all the goats except those that ran too fast for him to catch.
With all this accomplished, he decided that the woman didn’t have any use for her barn. So he tore it down and sold it for lumber. While rummaging around the basement he found an iron box containing six hundred and thirty dollars of the woman’s savings. That encouraged him to go treasure-hunting, and he dug all over her land until it looked as though dive bombers had been around.
But in one act he went too far. The woman had a horse, an aged animal of thirty years. Nevertheless, he got ten dollars for that horse. What infuriated the horse’s owner most was that old Dobbin had been sold to be cut up for dog food. Now, that was a bad mistake in the West, because, as the judge informed the man when he was brought into court, the stealing of a horse, even a thirty-year-old one, was a felony in California.
7104 New Year’s Eve At Emergency Room
When we were medical students, we thought that one of the greatest misfortunes that could befall an intern was to get assigned to the Emergency Section of the Philippine General Hospital on Christmas Eve. Some of us were ready to work three successive Sundays, or any three other holidays, as long as we did not get that one day of the year. There was only one other fate that was more dreadful—to get assigned to the Emergency Section on New Year’s Eve. For Christmas Eve may be a busy night, but New Year’s Eve is terrifying. Once I thought I would write a story based on my experiences and I set down a diary.
Dec. 31, 10:00 p.m.—The first firecracker case of the evening. The usual patient, the usual story, the usual ending. Boy, 10 years old, playing with firecrackers, brought by his father. A big one exploded in his right hand and took off two fingers. Burns, second degree; hemorrhage, secondary. Wounds dressed and cleaned, antitetanic serum given, sent home.
10:25 p.m.—Male patient with high fever. We explained to his two companions, both men, that we could give him some medicine, but we could not admit him as there was no vacancy in the medical wards. They told us they did not know where the old man lived. We tried to get information out of the patient, but he did not feel like talking. When we looked around again, his companions were gone.
10:55 p.m.—Woman in labor. Obstetrician on duty called. How would it be like to be born on New Year’s Day?
11:10 p.m.—Another firecracker case. This time it is the face that is burned. No more eyebrows, eyelashes, hair. Probably no more eyesight.
11:40 p.m.—A busload of patients this time. Head-on collision somewhere on the South Road. The sedan didn’t have a chance. One of its passengers was dead on arrival, another had a fractured arm, two others had multiple contusions, abrasions, etc. While we were giving a blood transfusion, the twelve o’clock whistle blew. Happy New Year, everybody!
Jan. 1, 1:15 a.m.—We finally finished with the last of that bus collision case. I thought I counted 24 patients in all who needed some examination and treatment, but the register showed 29. Always, one bad traffic accident ties up all the staff and facilities of the Emergency Section. No wonder this section is the source of 99% of public complaints. The noise had died down somewhat, and I thought all the firecrackers had at long last been exploded. My mistake. Here comes another boy in the arms of a woman. From where I sit, I can make a diagnosis: Firecracker burns.
1:50 a.m.—Man, over forty, unconscious. Heart attack? The smell of alcohol from his breath was so thick it would have ignited if you struck a match. But you can never be sure.
2:35 a.m.—Now they are coming in, the minor cases. Indigestion from too much good food, bruised lips and black eyes from “friendly arguments,” a bleeding peptic ulcer, a little girl with meningitis. All routine cases. Let’s get some sleep.
—Selected
7105 “Crime” And Payment
Floyd Berryhill, president of the Fort Wayne Bus Drivers Union, tells about the eight-year-old who walked right past Floyd’s fare box without paying. “Hey,” Berryhill called back, “where’s your fare?”
“I’m Crime,” the kid told him with a straight face, “and everyone knows that Crime doesn’t pay!”
7106 “Just To Shoot Man”
The Sunday-school teacher was horrified when she saw the picture one of her pupils had drawn. “Why it looks like a cowboy walking into a saloon!” she said.
“It is,” said the child. “But it’s all right. He’s not going to drink anything. He’s just going in to shoot a man.”
—E. E. Kenyon
7107 Epigram On Violent Times
• Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short lived.
—Lincoln
See also: Fear ; Murder ; Sins Abounding ; Terrorism ; Rev. 6:8.