It’s been a long time since Bridgeport has experienced a wave of violence such as the first four months of 2012. It’s been worse, much worse. Hopefully, we’ll not revisit what it was like in the late 1980s and early 1990s when some neighborhoods were war zones. Back then the city averaged a murder a week, sometimes more as drug gangs ripped themselves to pieces and took innocents along with them.
These things run in cycles and generally parallel economic conditions. When the economy tanks violence increases. The trend is eerily similar.
And sometimes a three-year-old girl stopping a bullet shakes residents into action. Politicians respond much quicker when residents are cranked up. Bridgeport’s electorate has gone to sleep the past five years and then residents wonder when elected officials do not respond.
I dare say most of the folks alarmed by the shooting of a three-year-old girl have not voted in recent elections. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t yell and scream. But keep in mind pols respond much quicker when you yell and scream, and you vote regularly. Something to think about when you’re mad at City Hall.
