Snipers fire at their victims from speeding cars. An infant is killed by a stray bullet that shatters the window of her home. Her family and neighbors live in a war zone where the fear is just as real as that experienced in Beirut, Sarajevo and Mogadishu. Gangland is expanding. Modern-day mobsters branch out from major urban centers to small communities and rural areas, bringing drugs, weapons and violence.
Gangs are out of control, and innocents are routinely caught in the crossfire.
Witnesses are intimidated or gunned down. The police are targets, yet officials often seem confused about how to deal with the problem. In practice, however, the solution is not so simple. Because some misguided politicians have permitted themselves to be snookered by clever criminals playing the race card. To view gang activity as in any way related to the civil rights and social welfare struggles of law-abiding citizens is perverse.