UNITED STATES—This might sound odd, but I can vividly recall when the pandemic erupted in late march it started to have a major impact on crime in this country, it seemed to head downward. Philadelphia, New York City, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles are just a few of the major cities that has seen a spike in crime recently. Perhaps this was a direct result of the stay-at-home and shelter-in-place orders that forced Americans to stay home. People could not get into altercations and the likelihood of an opportunity of crime diminished because so many more cops appear vigilant on the streets with less people out and about.

How I wish we could rewind back to the months of April, May and June. It feels like the level of violence in this country has taken a turn and not for the better. Is this because people are frustrated to death about Coronavirus and there is a ton of pent up anger that people are just reacting with violence? That is possible, but if that is the case that is a sorry excuse in my opinion. It would be nice to see people be a bit more rationale with their actions and not resort to violence and not have a care in the world about it.

The only other rationale regarding the spike in violence is the pandemic and its impact on many people’s financial stability. There is the argument that if there are jobs people are less likely to commit crimes like robbery and burglary, but at the same time I don’t believe that. In some odd way, some people just see to have no qualm about committing a rape, a burglary, a robbery, a murder. I don’t understand that about our society, I just don’t understand how people can commit heinous crimes without having a second thought about what they’re doing before they do it.

Where is that conscience? Where is that little voice in that head saying don’t do it, think about what you’re doing? I know it is not null and void, I’m sure people have those voices transpiring, but it raises the question as to WHY they don’t travel the road to redemption versus the road to hell. It is becoming a bit more spiritual than I care to be, but the violence in this country right now is frustrating.

I hate turning on the news and having to hear about a kid, someone under the age of 6 being shot dead as gunfire erupted outside the home he or she lived in. With that said, it raises a bigger blinder to the fact, why people are just firing shots at random homes because they want to retaliate against someone because of X, Y and Z. The level of violence rather it’s gang-related or just random is just beyond frustrating in this country. Who are we as a country when this explosive level of violence seems to take a blind eye to so many people?

Violence is violence people regardless of what is transpiring and we should be hitting the streets against it. We need to be loud and boisterous about the violence in this country, the crimes that go unsolved and seek justice for those families and those victims. We need to make people realize that we will NOT allow our cities or states our country to be run by criminals.

Crime is not just a job for the local police, neighborhoods and communities play a role to. We have to report and let it be known what we see. This mentality of being quiet, not snitching snitch allows criminals to continue to get away with the crimes they commit. We are just as powerful as cops, but we’re not vigilantes and that is the last thing we want in this country because if we allow random people to take that label there is no telling what could erupt in the United States.