I've warned Greensboro's elites for years now there would be consequences to not addressing crime and the poor economic circumstances they helped create in Greensboro's less fortunate neighborhoods. Now just as I warned back in 2005 that crime is spreading the the areas where you shop and tourists stay.
Of course even that area is safe in comparison to say, Downtown.
Remember folks: unemployment in North Carolina is at 16% and even higher in Greensboro less fortunate neighborhoods. The thieves have ambitions and have long since figured out there's nothing left in my neighborhood to steal. And there's the old saying, "You don't shit in your own sandbox," that seems to be catching on with the gangs to avoid detection. That leaves you.
Seriously, I get these from GPD every day and there are a lot more of them in places Greensboro leaders would rather they not be than there are in my own Phillips Avenue neighborhood long touted as one of the places no one dared to go. But don't you dare try to take police officers out of my neighborhood. Never again will we return to that. Never again.
Of course, I try to keep it all in perspective when I think about Greensboro's criminal element and nothing does it better than the words of the late, great Woody Guthrie:
"Well, as through the world I've rambled, I've seen lots of funny men. Some rob you with a sixgun, some with a fountain pen. As through this world you ramble, as through this world you roam You'll never see an outlaw drive a family from its home..."
