Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski, 1968-2008
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Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski, 1968-2008
Philadelphia has lost one of its finest: a father, a husband, a native son:
"Basically we lost another good officer," said John McNesby, president of Lodge 5 of the Fraternal Order of Police. "He's a hero. He gave his life fighting for what he believed in, which was protecting the citizens of this city."
"Yesterday, police closed off the quiet, tree-lined block of Claridge Street in the Northeast, where the Liczbinski family lives, to give the family some peace.
A neighbor, Michael Cosgrove, said one of his fondest memories of Liczbinski was, when he would come home from work, his daughter, Amber, would run up and give him a hug.
When it comes to crime, the bottom line is this. The so-called "conservative" voices are right. There is something wrong in the culture of this this city when people -- if these heartless thugs can be called that at this point -- have such little respect for the life of a little girl's dad that they will gun him down in cold blood...for what? Sgt. Liczbinski's murder is no isolated incident, but the third killing of an on-duty cop in just two years after a decade in which none were killed. Something has gone horribly off-kilter here.
And yet the so-called "liberal" voices are right, too. There is also something very seriously wrong with the culture of this state when people can possess a high-powered Chinese SKS assault rifle, a still-legal weapon that has about as much to do with Pennsylvania's beloved sport of deer hunting as a hand grenade has to do with horseshoes. And yet lawmakers from the state's relatively placid countryside continue to impose their outdated and inadequate gun laws on a city where the deer are few -- but the killing of human beings is plentiful.
There's only one way it ends. The vast majority of decent citizens of this city and this state come together and do it all -- better community values but also better gun laws, more cops on the street but also more jobs in the worst neighborhoods. It's a tall order -- it takes courage and money and time, all things that seem to be in short supply at time around here.
But Stephen Liczbinski's three children, and their generation, deserve nothing less from us.
I truly sympathize with advocates of gun control legislation, but it's just way too late to do anything about it. There are just too many guns on the street already, and even if legislation would ever pass constitutional muster, the black market would still thrive. Guns are like drugs. The only way to ever stem the flow will be to stem the demand. Good luck with that.— SteveMG
How much more money can you throw at this problem? How much more time do we have to wait as things go from bad to worse? Or courage, money and time are bearing more fruit in the Middle East than in our own neighborhoods. It's become a lost cause. I hate to break it to everyone but Hope and Change isn't gonna make it all better.— jmc- But some social problems that were once thought unreversible have been -- look at teen pregnancy in America, which dropped by 1/3 from 1995 to 2005. And the way that happened was exactly what I'm advocating here, a kitchen sink approach that tried a lot of things and embraced strategies from the left and from the right, if they actually worked. Crime can be similar -- and in fact crime did drop significantly not long ago (the '90s).— will
Comment removed.- a kitchen sink approach that tried a lot of things and embraced strategies from the left and from the right There's an interesting article in the NY Times \Magazine about a program run by CeaseFire - where ex-offenders with street cred are trained and hired to be "interrupters" that fan out when incidents occur to stop revenge violence at its source. Of course, such a program wouldn't be relevant in a case like this one - but there is evidence that the program has been quite effective at reducing violence overall. Of course, they're struggling for funding whereas corporations that build prisons are getting massive funding -- through the circle-jerk system of lobbyists and politicians -- because of folks like b.at(ch) thow think that throwing more people in prison is the answer to crime. But, well, you know, having huge percentages of our citizens locked up in jails is working so fantastically well, as we can all see. And, you know, like in Japan, you know? No wonder they have so little crime in Japan. Some 80% of the public are locked up in jail in Japan.— Talking point sleuth
- WTF? Now you've disabled html tags?— Talking point sleuth
- oops I guess not - not italics, anyway.— Talking point sleuth
- nevermind.— Talking point sleuth
- Comment removed.
- I think gun control is worth discussing. But if you want to address the kind of think that led to this tragedy, let's talk about parole! If the gunman were still in the can for his earlier crimes, he would not have been there to kill the officer.— P. Walter
- "Chinese SKS assault rifle, a still-legal weapon that has about as much to do with Pennsylvania's beloved sport of deer hunting as a hand grenade has to do with horseshoes. " Funny, my dad goes deer hunting with a 30.06 - which is the same caliber as the 7.62 mm SKS. A hunting carbine would have been just as lethal here as an SKS. The perps also had, from what I heard on the radio, a .44 mag revolver and a .22 revolver. A .22 is extremely deadly when used as an execution-type weapon. But I guess you'd rather promote the scary-looking weapons ban instead of digging a bit deeper beneath the Brady Center mindsets. One of the perps had 17 arrests for robbery. Don't you think that keeping him in jail - permanently - would have been a good use of the American prison system? I agree the prison system could use reforms - such as allowing someone who was a problem as a younger man in his teens and early 20's to have a chance to expunge his record once he matures enough to want to walk away from his past - our current system just doesn't allow that to happen. But the problems in Philly are more about a complete breakdown of societal restraints. And banning certain classes of scary-looking guns that functionally are no different that hunting rifles will not move Philly in the right direction.— db_cooper
- Are you denying that if these particular animals were still in jail Proving once again, when your logic is bankrupt - just go ahead and make up someone else's opinion for them - and then argue against it. No, beyatch, I'm not denying that if these particular animals were in jail that they could not have murdered the officer. What I am saying is that there has to be a more comprehensive approach than simply saying lock more people up. Try reading my comment next time. And I'll add that it is inevitable that mistakes are going to be made - some people released are going to commit horrendous crimes. But that answer to that is to have a better prison system which differentiates better between violent and non-violent criminals, and which involves better programs to help ex-offenders live more productive lives. The alternative to that is to simply lock ever increasing numbers of people in prison. That isn't working. And assuming that you have a sentencing system that doesn't just take everyone found guilty of any crime, throw them in jail, and throw away the key - then it makes sense to have prison systems which don't exacerbate recidividism. And by the way, has anyone seen the "10,000 men" who were going to fix these problems? And that's good - par for the course...say tha people should accept more responsibility for the crime in their own communities, and then ridicule them in their efforts to do so. That will really produce positive results. As if you really cared.— Talking point sleuth
- Agreeing with TPS here -- the article I highlighted a couple weeks ago was about the long prison terms for NON-VIOLENT criminals like bad checks or drig use, kind of apples and oranges. Those 10,000 men could help, though, actually.— will
Will, I've always thought the aging of the baby boomers accounted for much of the decline in crime rates in the 90s. Violent crime rates are now back to pre-1965 levels, about when the boomers started to take the streets as young adults. Some things haven't changed though, since the sixties. The Kerner Commission Report could be redrafted word-for-word and yet be applicable today.- Absolutely right! The semi-automatic rifle these criminals used is no deer hunting rifle. Instead, it is capable of defending the family of a law-abiding citizen from a band of criminals. Pass a law banning it and every other gun in sight, and the decent people will never be able to own one. Only the criminals who buy them illegally will have them. When that happens, people like you and me will no longer be "citizens". We will be "prey".— DonQ
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