If one more
weeping crocodile talks about the “tragedy” of Aquan Salmon,
I’m going to give up on 
watching or reading the news altogether.
I wouldn’t shed a tear for that kid if I was chopping onions while
watching the end of “Old Yeller.”
Every day, scores of good people are taken before
their time unexpectedly and through no fault of their own – killed by
drunk drivers, airplanes falling from the sky, or stricken by cancer.
I’ll save my sympathy for them and their families and not waste it on
a delinquent youth who met his end, according to reports, after
joyriding around at 2 a.m. and fresh from clubbing a woman over the head
with a toy gun in order to steal her purse.
Say what you will, but the streets of Hartford are a
little bit safer because of the action Officer Robert Allan took on the
night of April 13, 1999.
The media coverage of this incident has bristled with
anti-police bias and, in some cases, has been no less than astounding.
A news article from The Hartford Courant described the end of Salmon’s
cruise about the neighborhood as follows: “Salmon and his three
teenage friends bolted from the white Cadillac they had rented
(emphasis added) for $10 to $15 because Allan was chasing them in his
cruiser.”
Rented? As in from Hertz or Avis? What
happens in city neighborhoods is drug users, as often as not white
suburbanites, will loan their car to drug dealers for a few hours in
exchange for a small amount of drugs, usually crack cocaine.
A friend of mine who works with drug addicts in prison told me of an
inmate he knows who did this regularly. About one time in ten he
didn’t get his car back.
Witness accounts differ as to whether or not Salmon
and his buddies exchanged drugs for the Cadillac they drove that night.
Some of them said the owner of the car was given a cash sum of 10 or 15
dollars. Which is just about the price for a “rock” of crack
cocaine.
A writer from the Courant wrote in consecutive pieces
about the Salmon investigation that it should be understandable why kids
in Hartford need weapons to protect themselves from the police and what
Officer Allan should have done is run away from the scene.
She ought to re-check the level of whatever
medication she must be on.
I’d like to drop her off at the corner of Mather
and Enfield at two in the morning and see how fast she starts looking
for one of the big bad cops she likes to bash. And just what she
would say if one did come to her aid and, seeing she was in trouble,
turned and fled.
Meanwhile, back in the ‘hood, a squadron of Al
Sharpton wannabes , are out on the streets demanding “justice” for
Salmon. These people are in the anger business. If they
really cared about black kids meeting violent deaths, they would sign up
for the Big Brothers or any of the other mentoring programs which exist
to help impoverished youth.
In the Tuesday night debate, black Presidential
candidate Alan Keyes said that when he has been pulled over because of
his race, his anger is directed not at the police, but at the young
black men who commit a disproportionate share of violent crime. It
is they, he said, who create the atmosphere of mistrust and suspicion in
which our law enforcement community must operate.
That is way too sensible a sentiment to be expressed
in most of the media.
Like anyone else would be, I’m sure Salmon’s
family is pained by the loss. By most accounts his grandmother tried
gallantly to raise him after his mother was arrested on felony charges
and her children were removed from her custody. But we
should understand the likelihood of an early end for Salmon was secured
long before Officer Allan put on his blue uniform that night.
Salmon was in and rarely out of trouble his whole life.
Salmon had an uncle, too. According to the
testimony of the three boys who were riding around with Salmon in the
wee hours, they ran into him that night and pretended to chase him with
their realistic-looking toy guns. The uncle laughed.
But none of that really matters. For some
reason, wherever and whenever incidents like this happen, it becomes an
issue of blame. Officer Allan is not to blame, but he makes a
tempting target for those who want to show just how sensitive and
enlightened they are without regard to facts and reality.
What does matter is that this kind of thing will
happen again. A bad end is the likely destiny for a bad kid.
And then people will go through the same sort of fault-finding
exercise. And nothing will come of it. And then it will
happen again. Laying blame is never a solution. It is like
trying to reach the horizon; the answers will remain just as far away as
they ever were.
The loud and misplaced sense of justice over the
Salmon incident is yet another obstacle for the unsung and largely
unnoticed people who are working in poor neighborhoods to guide troubled
youths into the ranks of the law-abiding. If there are any tears
to be shed here, it is for them.
February 17,2000
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