Notes From D.R. | Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene

The Boston Herald reports on the latest unfortunate developments involving a 10-year-old girl, living in a South Boston housing project, who witnessed a stabbing and wrote a letter to Boston Mayor Tom Menino urging him to do something about the violence surrounding the area.

The young girl’s crusade to clean up the project has been championed by, among others, WRKO-AM talk host Scott Allen Miller, who has had the girl’s mother on his show several times since the original story broke, and who has characterized the crime wave in Southie as evidence of Menino’s inattention to real problems in the city. On this morning’s show, Miller reacted angrily when informed by the girl’s mother that Menino, "running" for a guaranteed re-election, hasn’t even bothered to respond to the girl’s letter.

Miller is right to be upset that Boston has a clueless, classless mayor who can find time to participate in bizarre "talent shows" but cannot spend five minutes writing the girl back. However, it’s a stretch to suggest that Menino should be held accountable for the lawlessness in the project. Menino is responsible for a lot of things, but the problem of violence in Southie is entirely the fault of a) those who commit the violence and b) those who refuse to help the cops clean it up.

Yes, 50 residents of the project confronted city officials on September 22, demanding more aggressive policing from the cops. However, as the officials pointed out, in order to have more aggressive policing, the cops must have extensive cooperation from non-criminal residents.

Unfortunately, that hasn’t been happening in this city for a while. The Boston Phoenix has extensively reported on the problems the Boston Police Department has been having in terms of solving crime, problems stemming from the fact that residents of the city’s various neighborhoods are so paranoid about "police misconduct" that they either a) won’t help the cops solve crimes or b) reflexively acquit suspects arrested by the cops. It seems self-evident, does it not, that South Boston is now one of the “various neighborhoods” in question?

Instead of addressing this point, Miller alleged that if the criminality were occurring in Menino’s Hyde Park neighborhood, more would be done to stop it. Wait a minute–what’s the difference between that argument and the paranoid contention that President Bush would have aided the residents of New Orleans much faster if they had been predominately white instead of predominately black?

Menino is to blame for much of the decline in the city’s quality of life, but he cannot be held responsible for every single thing that goes wrong in the city, just as Bush cannot be held responsible for every single thing that goes wrong in the country. If most residents of the project are apparently reluctant to aid Boston Police in rooting out the criminal element, than how is that Menino’s fault? It pains me to no end to have to defend Menino; it makes me feel like a lawyer who can’t stand his client, but must represent him anyway. However, when the guy’s not guilty of something, he should be acquitted. In this case, it seems pretty obvious that residents of the project haven’t done much, prior to this young girl’s activism, to aid the cops in rooting out the bad guys, and that this is another case of evil prospering because good men do nothing. The prior indifference of most of the project’s residents is to blame for the crime wave, not Menino. It is right to find fault with the mayor for not replying to the girl’s letter. It is wrong to find fault with him for a problem caused by too few residents willing to stand up to crime before this girl did.

UPDATE: More from the Herald.