Your article of “PTC getting busy with cart path repaving” in the Friday, March 31, 2006, edition of The Peachtree Citizen contains a misleading moral equivalency statement about the Village Park elderly victims of criminal activity which is terribly wrong and victimizes the victims again.
Specifically, your statement, “Police Chief James Murray said there was a vandalism problem that ‘comes and goes’ at Village Park. He added that residents there, who are mostly white, may have been a little too confrontational when dealing with cut-through pedestrians, most of whom were minority youths who live in the nearby Harmony Village and Balmoral Village apartment complexes” was highly misleading concerning the realty of the Village Park elderly victims plight.
You did not report the entire discussion concerning this issue, which occurred during the PTC retreat meeting. Instead, you merely took one statement, out of context, by James Murray for your article. I was in attendance at the PTC retreat meeting when this discussion occurred.
First of all, Police Chief James Murray stated that the Village Park community is comprised of “elderly white residents.” In fact, it was stated that some of the Village Park elderly residents have to use motorized wheel chairs to get around. This is the Village Park demographic.
The “minority youths” are the ones instigating this trouble in the first place. They are breaking the law by trespassing on the elderly white residents’ property.
The elderly white residents have every right to confront these trespassers and tell them not to trespass on their property. The elderly white residents are in their homes, minding their own business, not instigating anything, unless you consider it wrong for these residents to be in their homes in the first place.
When confronted by the elderly white residents about trespassing across their property, did the minority youths become confrontational to the elderly white residents? Do you know all the facts?
What happened to the elderly white residents after they confronted these minority youth trespassers about not trespassing across their property?
Their houses and properties were vandalized and attacked at night with spray paint, a brick was thrown through a window, a Molotov cocktail was thrown on a house, etc.
This was discussed during this PTC retreat meeting that you chose not to report on. Why didn’t you report this to accurately detail the plight of these elderly residents? How much did it cost the elderly resident’s to repair the damage done to their property because of the vandalism? What if one of these residents was hit and seriously injured by a brick that was thrown through their window and/or the shattered glass of the broken window?
In addition to property destruction this criminal act would be assault and battery on the elderly resident. Do you know what a Molotov cocktail is? It is a crude flammable grenade that is meant to set fire to and, burn down whatever it is thrown at; in this case a house with people living in it. If the house had caught on fire and burned down with people in it, in addition to arson, this criminal act would be manslaughter/murder.
These criminal acts of vandalism define the type people who perpetrate them; these are individuals who prey on the elderly and are dangerous to the community as a whole. How would you like living in an environment like this, especially if you were an elderly person? How would you like to try and go to sleep at night knowing that your house and property may be vandalized, bricks may be thrown through your windows, a Molotov cocktail might be thrown at your house and have it catch on fire?
You would be under intense stress from worrying about if you are going to be attacked, as well as worrying about the cost you would have to bear to repair the damage from these attacks. This stress would have a very negative affect on your life and I don’t think you would sleep very well if at all.
This criminal activity is very hateful and needs to be stopped. These criminals need to be arrested so these elderly residents can be protected and live in peace. In addition, these criminals need to be sued for the damages that they have done and, for the pain and suffering that they caused to these elderly victims. This hateful criminal activity needs to aggressively condemned by the media.
Mayor Logdson, during this discussion at the PTC retreat meeting, stated that during the election campaign he had met with some of these elderly residents of Village Park who were frightened and angry because of these attacks. Wouldn’t most people feel the same way if they were being victimized like this?
The elderly residents wanted to know what would be done to protect them from these criminal attacks and trespassing. Since this topic was considered very important and would require a much greater in-depth analysis and resolution recommendations, the PTC council agreed that this issue of how to protect the elderly residents of Village Park from these criminal attacks and trespassing would be discussed at a future meeting.
Your out of context statement framing that the victims “may have been a little too confrontational” implies that the victims are somehow responsible for their being victims in the first place, which is very wrong. These criminals are 100 percent responsible for victimizing these elderly people, period.
Finally, these criminal attacks have all the appearances of a hate crime against these elderly residents and you should be unequivocally condemning these criminals and defending these victims instead of framing the victims’ plight as the victims themselves being somehow responsible for it.
I believe these elderly victims deserve an apology from you for not reporting the complete PTC retreat meeting discussion on this issue which would have accurately described their plight. These elderly victims deserve our help and support.
Stephen Allen
Peachtree City, Ga.
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