Guardian Angels

The Guardian Angels put on a presentation today at the City of Refuge Worship Center in South Peoria. I attended and these are my observations:

I am a little familiar with the group and their mission so what I heard today was a review of their mission statement and that they are here again to see if they can build a volunteer group same as the roughly 60 cities they claim to have volunteer groups.

Approximately 30 people attended today’s meeting, with Aaron Schock and myself the only elected officials from the community in attendance. Aaron was holding a TV exit interview as I was coming in. I stuck it out thru the whole question and answer program.

Only two members of the audience appeared to be of black descendents.

There were no husky black or white younger people in the audience. All the traveling entourage with the Guardian Angels was fairly young and pretty husky.

The Guardian Angels are a charitable foundation founded 26 years ago. No financial statement was offered so I don’t know how much these young men are being paid to travel the globe setting up red beret groups and how much it costs to keep the operations running. It was my feeling that most in the audience thought the presenters was (I wanted to use “were” here but my spell-check said “was”) volunteers. My belief is that they are staff and are all paid including all expenses. Correct me if I’m wrong. The community would be well served if they are staying at, say, the Grandview Inn.

No information was passed out to say how much this charity takes in, how much comes from taxpayer funded grants and no testimonials, to my knowledge, were presented to their success in other communities.

Some in the audience criticized our police department. I suggested the criticism should be directed to the Juvenile Court System in Illinois which has created what the sheriffs department says is a “revolving door” of approximately 300 troublemakers in the community that cost this communities taxpayer’s millions of dollars. Some of these juveniles either correct their ways or move up to what used to be called the “big house” but is now known as our “warehouse system” with its sex, drugs and other types of recreation. Many poorly informed citizens think “warehousing” is cheaper than teaching potential and actual inmates a trade, (either before they are ever arrested or while they are incarcerated) and how to work, get and hold a job when they are released back into society. (Some 6 million inmates processed last year). What poor judgment from these usually intelligent people!!

We have turned into a “soft on crime” society. People talk about “the broken window” theory but few evidently believe strongly enough in this theory to push hard for early firm action on small misdeeds. Judges by law or sometimes by their personal feelings, issue unequal penalties. A distant relative of mine served over 5 years for threatening to “cut” somebody in a bar fight. Inequities can cause much resentment toward law enforcement when you are held against your will for a period of time.

For killing somebody, some people get off with less than five years. Stories of unequal laws or interpretation of are rife in our country. Before the well meaning neighborhood associations sign on to this program, I suggest they will need more support from fellow Americans with darker skins than I saw in the audience today. Also, I would expect our new police chief is or should be quite familiar with this group and he should advise the community. To the community itself, remember that laws can backfire and cost the innocent victim or intended victim more that it costs the perpetuator of a crime. For example, if you had a clothes line in your back yard and a burglar fleeing with your television was injured running into it, you could be sued by the burglar for not having the clothes line marked with white flags. As a volunteer, you might try to get the license number of a drive by shooting and get yourself shot.

These are all observations and food for thought. I didn’t sign up. That we need volunteers to report to the proper authorities “suspicious” activities in our neighborhoods; of this I have no doubt. If officers of the law fail to act, this should be reported to the highest authorities. In turn, these enforcers of the law should be commended for actions that reinforce your feelings of safety in any sector of our community. We should all be the best that we can be as citizens.

Will we all be “safe” someday? I suggest the answer is no, at least not in this world. Then again, we never were!!