Local · 31st May 2009
vigilance without vigilantes
Welcome to Cumberland, home of…
Armed robbery….Extortion….Assault….Breaking and Entry….Sexual Assault…Disturbing the peace….Destruction of private and public property….Creating a disturbance….Theft of a vehicle….Theft of property….Intoxicated in public….Driving drunk….Etc…Etc…
This town is becoming a haven for teenage hoods that thrive in gangs and love to swarm innocent people.
In the last month alone the crimes listed above were committed by useless little hoodlums running around our town like they owned it. Most crimes were simply never reported out of fear and reprisals.
Our friends are being assaulted on a regular basis, our children are being terrorized and robbed, yet we’re allowing this to happen. The RCMP is of limited use and these kids know how to manipulate the system far too well to suffer under it.
People are considering carrying guns before taking a walk here in town, add a six pack to the mix and you’ve got a tragedy waiting to happen.
We all know these misfits, their parents have long ago lost control, or never gave a damn in the first place and these children are free to threaten our great little town, it’s nothing new, remember back when they removed those neat benches because the little bastards were urinating in people’s mailboxes on main street..? Some things never change.
Are we going to allow this forever? I’m certainly not suggesting we arm ourselves and start hunting teens. Most kids in this town are great; they come from respectable and hard working parents, they still say please and open doors for adults and most importantly, they don’t spend their time roaming the streets to see what they can steal or who they can hurt. For that reason alone we owe those kids safe streets in a safe town.
Before summer comes and makes this problem worse, the town should get together and introduce some innovative methods to put an end to this, let’s get off our collective butts and do something before somebody is hurt or killed, this problem is not about to just go away by itself.
council
Comment by dodger on 12th June 2009
some of these "bad kids" are not always from bad homes, they just make bad decesions. as for council.... we have a CAO that refuses to live in this town but gets to make desecions for us.. whats up with that?
RCMP Office in town?
Comment by Editor on 5th June 2009
Dr. C recommends that the village make a small office space freely available to RCMP officers to at least do their village-related paperwork here in the village. The thought is that a police presence may act as a deterrent to criminal acts.
no guns please
Comment by robert on 3rd June 2009
regardless of how mistreated these young people were and are, the populace suffers for it
may i suggest that the town simply get together a group of people that would not mind roaming around at night with video cameras and communication devices acting only as our eyes and ears in a non confrontational way of course
documenting our problem and presenting the results at a future town hall meeting might shed light on this and would help to identify the culprits sooner and force the courts to act too, if not we always have the media to go to, they love videos showing random acts of violence, i just hope we don't end up taping a fatal assault on a friend because we waited too long to act
this is not an invasion of privacy, anybody that attacks in gangs gives that right up
I hope I'm not venting
Comment by dp on 3rd June 2009
I hope I'm not written off simple because of my view's on guns. I'm with you on no guns Robert....but let's all get rid of them, including the RCMP and the government. Let's all just put them down....slowly...at the same time.
I cringe at thinking of a sheriff with a lucky and a splif. (lol)
first of all nobody should be drinking that stuff....especially in Cumberland. Lucky logger did a big ad campaign "Cumberland the luckiest town in BC" the same year they pull funding from the ball team. Personally I would rather support a local brewer like Philips or Vancouver island brewery, they have shown a multitude of support for local events, unlike Labats (lucky). I think Cumberland should make a serious effort to shake off the Lucky stigma.
It just goes to show, that you don't need a good product, just a clever advertising campaign.... hell, it work's for voltswagon.
These" Loser's" we talk of come from very bad homes. They are verbally and sometimes physically abused. They are put down by their parents and shown no love.
It's no wonder they crave attention and act the way they do.....after all their baby sitter was prime time TV ,and has shown them how to be violent, disrespectful, aggressive, etc.
I have confronted these kids on a few occasions with great success.
They feed off anger, so I was polite, asked him to calm down, if he was ok, why he was acting out... all I got was shit and abuse until I asked him if everything was all right at home... then his eyes swelled up and he looked totally embarrassed. We can all sit around speculating on the abuse they endure but we will never really know.
All we do know is they lack positive coping mechanisms and there certainly not going to learn them from their parents.
Maybe if their shown a glimpse of positive reactions in the village they will not end up behind bars where they can learn how to be a real criminals!
frustration
Comment by STAR on 3rd June 2009
Sorry Carol, did not mean to target you, just frustrated at how little our community cares at times. You're right, a cave sounds good ..
re: Where? Are you kidding
Comment by carol on 3rd June 2009
No, don't live in a cave but sometimes in this heat it might be nice.
I asked where? to get a discussion going on this topic. It looks like it worked. The vigilance without vigilantes post is a good one. Getting a few comments on it helps bring attention to it.
I've lived here for a long time and have seen a lot of stuff over the years.
The Cumberlander's Content Policy
Comment by Editor on 3rd June 2009
A suggestion to some of you submitting comments:
I encourage responsible communication meant to inform rather than to offend. The Cumberlander is not a venue for simple "venting."
Please have a look at The Cumberlander's Content Policy, found under the Help portion of the menubar.
where?? are u kidding??
Comment by STAR on 3rd June 2009
carol asks where? carol must live in a very deep cave not to see what is going on in cumberland, she is very fortunate to live in a calm section of town, i don't ! the roving gang of thugs is scary
but stop looking to others to help, this is our problem
right on
Comment by HW on 3rd June 2009
This is absolutely dead on, who wrote this? He/She should be mayor..I still remember the bench debacle, it was shameful
get off your ass bates and do something
no guns please
Comment by robert on 3rd June 2009
both of the previous writers have points, but one fact has to be looked at and accepted, the kids we're talking about are a small group of losers that have long ago been abandoned by their parents, they are NOT representatives of our youth, they are aberrations
these kids give light to the local cumberland joke about father's day being a very confusing day for some here in town..
dp makes a good point in hiring local people to patrol, maybe even a volunteer thing...but please no guns ! a sheriff in dodge would be great for tourism and very appropriate too, with a joint in one hand and a lucky in the other he/she would make a great media star
where the hell is the town council again??
I'm with you
Comment by dp on 2nd June 2009
I'm with you.....the world would be a better place if we all had hand guns, but try and get a permit to carry in town. Disarm the population and they are useless...hell, it worked for the British in India and even for old uncle Adolph and the Nazi party in 1930's Germany.
So if you think the kids in dodge are bad you should try Courtaney or even worse Comox.
Some punk, kid, high on cocaine in his daddy's Lexus is far more dangerous than what we have here. What's worse is how the RCMP are provoking and assaulting kids and young adults. While were getting together we should talk about creative way's we can police our community other than sub-contracting out to the RCMP, which cost us tax payer about 50K a year for there substardrd and abusive service. Hey, how about an on call sheriff that we can elect. 50K a year would cover a guy's (or girls) salary. And it would make me feel good about spending that money locally rather shipping of to the thugs in Regina.
Peace and love to you all.
"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest."
Gandhi
Chapter XXVII, "The Recruiting Campaign," in his autobiography, My Experiments with Truth:
Where?
Comment by carol on 2nd June 2009
I would be interested in more specific details. Where are these events occurring for the most part? Downtown? The Village Park? I am aware of some of the recent window smashings, tire slashing etc. If things are happening in the Village we need to share information to work for an improvement. Some areas of Cumberland are fairly quiet.
If people are considering carrying guns, that is a serious issue. Not a good choice, at all.
I spent time as a volunteer on the Community Justice Board, the Youth and Family Court Board, helped with a youth issues forum and spoke to various youth workers in the Valley about Cumberland youth. A few years ago the John Howard Society sent a youth worker into Cumberland looking for the kids, trying to help. There are a lot of good kids in Cumberland. There are also kids dealing with poverty, substance abuse, a lack of parenting at home, learning disabilities and some of the stress happening with the unemployment situation in this Valley etc. How do we connect with those kids before some of them escalate to worse behaviour? Usually there might be a few hard core leaders and the rest are just followers of the bad behaviour. The R.C.M.P. care but they don't have enough staff or funding to handle everything. What is the Village council doing?