Wednesday Rewind: Follow-up on past stories
Cleveland Mayor Announces Crime Prevention Initiative
On July 20, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb announced the RISE Initiative. RISE stands for Raising Investment in Safety for Everyone. The initiative is in response to an uptick in crime, including carjackings and shootings, that has taken place over the last few months.
High on the priority list is police officer hiring and retention. Cleveland is currently short about 200 police officers, which is affecting the patrolling of neighborhoods and the pursuing of criminals.
From the city’s press release: “The Department of Public Safety is finalizing a contract with a local marketing consultant, who will develop a robust, comprehensive strategy and campaign for officer recruitment and retention. The department’s current numbers reflect challenges being felt by agencies nationwide experiencing an unforeseen reduction in police safety forces over the last three years.”
RISE is also addressing the high rate of carjackings in the city. “The Division of Police partnered with Cuyahoga County and launched a pilot program that will focus on addressing carjackings and car thefts across Cleveland,” the press release states. “The goal of this Cleveland-centered program is on intervention, where the use of pretrial monitoring will help with a more efficient court response to these types of incidents.”
Other steps include using $1 million in funds from the American Rescue Plan (ARPA) for the development of a safety lighting project in Downtown Cleveland. You can read the full press release from the mayor’s office here.
Crime continues to plague areas of the city. Last week, about 40 cars were broken into in one night of mayhem in the Tremont area. Although Ring video showed a suspicious car in the residential neighborhood, police were unable to get a license plate. The criminal(s) remain at large.
Also last week, a woman in her early 40s was boxed in by two KIAs at a traffic light on the city’s east side. A man got out of one of the KIAs, reached into the woman’s partially lowered window, unlocked her door and pulled her out of her vehicle. A male teen then pointed a gun at her head, while a woman stole her phone and another woman punched her in the face. Finally, they stole her vehicle, leaving her alone on the street late at night. When police arrived, they informed her that she was the third victim of an armed robbery in the city in as many days.
Canadian Wildfires Keep Burning
At the end of June, a Canadian forest fire agency reported that 497 active fires remained in Canada, almost half of which were out of control. Quebec, Ontario and Alberta are experiencing the most fires, and the smoke has made its way into Montana and all the way to the East Coast. Air quality alerts are common in many Northern U.S. cities.
Recent dry weather has a lot to do with the amount of forest fires this year. Also, according to Mark Maslin, an earth system sciences professor at University of London, “The forests aren't managed, and therefore all of that fuel—i.e. the dead wood, etc. —isn't cleared, just because [the forests are] massive,” he told Newsweek. “And so what you have is a stockpile of fuel which can be ignited very easily."
Meteorologists say that consistent, heavy rain is needed to quench the fires. In the meantime, firefighters from around the world have descended upon Canada to help with at least containing them. Included among these heroes is a group of singing firefighters from South Africa. About three dozen men and women sang and danced as they arrived in Alberta, signalling a sign of hope and solidarity.
Whose Cocaine Was It? We’ll Likely Never Know.
After an investigation into who might have possessed a bag of cocaine found at the White House in early July, the United States Secret Service drew this conclusion: They don’t know where the cocaine came from and how it got into the White House.
To close its investigation, the Secret Service issued an official statement, which you can read here.
‘Sound of Freedom’ Brings Greater Awareness to Trafficking?
Even while some critics have pooh-poohed the movie Sound of Freedom for being a right-wing conspiracy theorist’s take on child sex trafficking, other publications are producing articles about aspects of trafficking to heighten awareness. The New Yorker recently published an in-depth piece on whether hotel chains should be held accountable for human trafficking. The article focused on teenagers coerced into sex trafficking and the pimps who operated their businesses out of hotels like Days Inn. While The New Yorker article doesn’t focus on children abducted from South America for trafficking, it does shine an important light on the illegal activity that happens in plain sight in this country as well.