Newark Mayor: Murders Will Be Catalyst for Change
Criminologists blame focus on terror war for rising crime rate.
Aug. 12, 2007 — -- It's almost like something out of a Shakespeare tragedy.
Three college kids, Terrance Aeriel, 18, Iofemi Hightower, and Dashon Harvey, both 20, seemed to have escaped all the traps of this blighted city, only to be devoured by the madness. They were forced to kneel against a wall in a playground and then shot in the head.
The murders have provoked rage and horror throughout Newark, N.J.
Friends of the victims now fear for their own safety.
Mallik El-Amin told ABC News, "Nobody's safe anymore. No matter good or bad, nobody's safe."
Police have arrested a 28-year-old man and two 15-year-old boys, while a search continues for other suspects.
Harvey's mother, Judith Wade, does not hide her rage. "My son was a good boy. He bothered nobody," she said. "And for him to take [him] out that brutally, for him to lay my son down and shoot my son in the head ... I want the same thing to happen to him."
El-Amin blames gangs recruiting young kids. "That's when they're the most vulnerable, going through stuff at home. Or stuff at school," he said. "Most of the kids — they don't go to school all the time, so that's when they recruit, when they're out on the streets hanging out."
Lawrence Hamm, of People's Organization for Progress, said he is not surprised to see a 15-year-old accused of murder. "The streets just take them," he said. "Many of these young people are planning their funerals.
They are only 13, 14, 15 years old. They are telling their friends how they want to die ... There's a war going on here, and it has to stop, because it's tearing our community apart."
After the crack epidemic brought about a spike in violence in the 80s and 90s, thousands more police were sent onto the nation's streets. It resulted in a steady decline in crime rates, which continued for years.
But, two years ago, the trend reversed. Murder and robbery are now rising nationwide.
Some criminologists blame the Bush administration for focusing on terrorism at the expense of local law enforcement.
