Gang Violence coming to South Bibb?

I read a WMAZ-TV story in which a gang consultant mentioned gang graffiti on a stop sign along Houston Road. Maybe it was put there by thugs to mark future territory. It makes me unhappy to see this and I hope we have the South Bibb ethic, handed down from generation to generation, which makes everyone make those who want to "trash up" the neighborhood very unwelcome.

I believe much of the gang activity in South Bibb will be bred in the new houses growing where soybeans once did. There is an apartment complex and trailer park between Hartley Bridge and Houston Road to provide fertile ground. I am hoping at some point in the future that a community meeting will bring up this issue.

Warner Robins likely has more of a gang issue than its spinmeister, Detective Karen Stokes of the local police, wants to tell us (per WMAZ TV reports last year). Let's not make the same mistake. Identifiy that the problem exists, and to what extent. Then freeze out the gang members and their permissive parents. It would not hurt for everyone who is compentent to handle a gun to own one- if nothing else for deterring a collateral effect from dope fiends who seek to harm property or person.

Given what happened to Deputy Joe Whitehead I do not see where the Bibb County Sheriff's Department will be leninet in the event of drug and gang apprehensions. They don't need to be. With using deadly force they should stop short of being judge, jury and executioner- but VERY short.

If this were 75 years ago the only gang members you would see in South Bibb would 1)have stripes where people in the neighborhood beat them or 2) be headed out on a wagon with their belongings.

I heard an elderly man tell me some 15 years ago of a crippled WWI vet who drank too much while his kids starved. The locals burned a cross on his front lawn. Yes, he was white. When this failed to modify his behavior they took a stick and beat his butt.

I will say this; if I move to another town with as much or more of a gang issue it will be where intellect and hard work rule whenever the gangs do not. If Middle Georgia does not deal with the issue and keeps on relying on Robins AFB to save its economic hide we will be a festering ulcer much like a dying Steel Belt town.

KAT