CRESCENT CITY’S FIRST DRIVE-BY; OUR YOUTH AND GUNS

Mar 21, 2023

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By Investigative Reporter – Linda Sutter – March 21, 2023

Crescent City had its first drive-by shooting last night on Kern Street. Seven shots were fired into a home on Kern Street, nearly hitting an elderly woman.

When the police responded to the home they detained a minor male until they realized he was not a suspect but a victim.

Currently, our youth have access to firearms. It is reported that buying a gun off the streets in Crescent City is not only easy but fairly cheap. The going price is between $100 to $200 depending on the condition of the gun.

So the time is here. Our community is not without worry. Everyday you turn on the news and there is another shooting. I only hope that our law enforcement is ready if it is brought into the school.

I asked for a comment from Sheriff Garrett Scott and at the moment of this writing he was not available to comment.

Comments

5 responses to “CRESCENT CITY’S FIRST DRIVE-BY; OUR YOUTH AND GUNS”

AOA

March 22, 2023

It is not guns that are the issue, but rather justice and educational systems that preach tolerance toward youthful offenders committing violent crimes.

In my youth, during the 1950s and 1960s, most of the boys in my school carried pocket knives. Though there were many fights in the schoolyards, nobody would dare pull a knife because it was a brand of cowardice. The rules of a fair fight dictated that the most skilled and strong would prevail, and using any weapon was cheating. I also hunted from a young age, and carried either a shotgun or rifle openly on the streets as I walked to a friend’s house for the next camping and hunting expedition. Nobody ever reported me to the police, or seemed to believe it to be a threat. Shootings were uncommon among adults, and unheard of among kids. Drive-by and school mass-shootings had not been invented.

We are indeed lucky to have escaped random shootings in Del Norte County for so long. The entire country is awash in violence; much of it committed by youthful offenders. In large cities, swarms of high school kids and younger are involved in beatings of the disabled and elderly, most often without provocation or obvious motive; just of shits and giggles! San Francisco is now experiencing an epidemic of high-school age kids involved in mass fights in shopping malls, with many innocent bystanders beaten into the ground.

Our schools are more intent on teaching Cultural Revolutionary dogma and gender fluidity than the basics of living in an orderly society. Perhaps they should go back to teaching reading, writing, math, science, history, and civics. Maybe they could even teach the laws that the members of a community are required to observe. Not that teaching the permissive laws of California would do any good; it is OK to jaywalk, steal anything valued below $950, and solicit prostitution among a long growing list of other offenses.

Our Board of Supervisors are contemplating the closure of our juvenile detention facility because they have only one inmate. Seems there are plenty of young criminals that need to be locked-up. With the epidemic of drugs and shoplifting, this facility could also well serve for overflow from our adult jail. It all comes down to our Prosecutor’s Office. Will they take a stand against the monumental failure of California’s justice policies? Do they have the guts to stop catch-and-release? Will they address all crimes in Del Norte County? If not, then we should consider a recall and replacement of our County Prosecutor.

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Bryan Welton

March 23, 2023

Yes I believe the juvenile hall was here when I was a troubled youth. Taught me I don’t want to be in there anymore and I better straighten up. Now kids don’t have any punishment for their actions and are getting away with a lot more than we could have when I was growing up here. I hope something is done about this. I would like to see the Juvenile Hall open back up and kids having harsher punishments to teach them life is not a game no turning back after you make the wrong move sometimes also really disappointed that Bar O Boys Ranch was closed down. Also that was a really good program

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1. Samuel Strait
  
  March 24, 2023
  
  The reasons that youth, as well as adult incarceration is no longer employed goes well beyond the simple notion of having a place to “lock them up”. It can be laid directly at the feet of Sacramento and their belief that a criminal, at least those that are in the system, are not incarcerated if some form of rehabilitative justice is available. In most cases this can often lead to the form of catch and release with admonishments to behave. California has reduced the inmate population by 50% since Newsom became governor. Youth offenders, unless they commit a very serious crime, are not typically lodged in juvenile hall. Few face any sort of serious punishment as you experienced some years ago and the lesson you learned is largely unavailable to the judicial system. We are living in an era where valuable lessons learned from the societal response to crime has taken on an entirely different form, making it difficult to justify the expense and the “learning” lesson from incarceration. A big part of the reasons for the closure of juvenile hall. Society can’t have it both way. If you eliminate the ability to incarcerate as a preventative for crime, you eliminate the need for places of incarceration, and in many cases the ability to deter crime as well.
  
  Reply
  1. AOA
    
    March 24, 2023
    
    Well put Sam. However, considering the fact that “Mental Health Services” are the single largest expense for Del Norte County, can we consider these services to be a success?
    
    It is no secret that all Health Services are facing a critical shortage of skilled workers ever since Covid, and Mental Health Services are no exception. This does not preclude for-profit Mental Health Service Providers from contracting with Counties, like our own, to increase the workload on understaffed facilities for substandard services. Once under contract with Del Norte County, they are off-the-hook in terms of performance. We do not audit their services to assure they are providing what they contracted for, and even if they were found to be in breach of contract they would probably get no more than a stern letter of warning. Of course, Mental Health is not the only recipient of California’s financial largess, with Homeless Housing Providers, and Environmental Engineers likewise feeding at the public troth on “Mandated Programs;” but then, those are two other huge cans-of-worms.
    
    I consider these Mental Health Service expenses, much of it paid to facilities in other Counties, to be a reciprocal form of graft for the Gavin Newsom’s white collar organized crime group. The Mental Health Coalitions were major contributors to Newsom’s elections, and in defense against his recall. In return State money is provided to Counties so that they may pass that money on to Mental Health Service Providers to support State Mandated “Programs.” Annually, we have a rubber-stamp day at a Board of Supervisors’ Meeting where all Mental Health Service contracts are approved en-mass, with little or no deliberation or oversight. After all, these are State Mandated programs, and the list of providers were approved by a rubber-stamp committee of days-gone-by so far back that nobody remembers. Why rock the boat?
    
    Considering the financial magnitude of these Mental Health Services, we should have some oversight to determine if we are getting what we pay for. If not, we should stop payment during a probationary period so they can fix the problem. If their lack of performance originates from gross negligence or fraud, leading to a legal breach of contract, then the moneys paid to them in the past should be clawed back to the County.
    
    Despite the patina of wealth and prosperity portrayed by our local government, Del Norte County is an impoverished realm. Most of our industries have been driven bankrupt by high taxes and environmental requirements, and what mercantile establishments remain are being driven under by decriminalized shoplifting catch-and-release. The “Destination Resort Community” hustle that has duped much of this community for nearly 20 years is an absolute “Field of Dreams,” with no tangible results. “If you build it, they will come” is the ghostly tome droned from City and County Elected Officials. So we built stuff, and they did not come; just another reason that we need to build more stuff. Meanwhile, what visitors that do arrive are sharing motels and hotels with the homeless, druggies and prostitutes while exploring “where the Redwoods meet the Sea;” as the late Bill Stamps coined it.
    
    The only industry that is prospering by leaps-and-bounds is our local government. While the average Joe and Jane have incomes that hover near the poverty line; government managers take home six figure incomes. Our elected officials seem to have no care for how money is spent. Easy come, easy go. Local tax revenues go to State coffers, then is distributed from the State back to the Counties, and the California Government determines how it will be spent. What are the results of those expenditures for our County’s homeless, drug addicts, foster children, veterans and criminals on release?
    
    Who cares?
    
    Reply
Jory j. Baldwin

March 23, 2023

I agree 100 percent these young kids get away with things that my generation would have never got away with young or not they need to be held accountable. California as a state sucks to say the least. I cannot believe that they are going to shut down the Juvenile Hall. Keep letting these young kids or future run amuck with no consequences. This is what you get.

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