Death By Drug Campaign

January 8, 2003 1:00 PM

Family of 7 killed in Arson - Is an Anti-Drug Campaign Responsible? a lawyer from Johnnie Cochran's high-profile firm says so. He claims that the "Baltimore Believe" program got the victims to speak out against drug dealers and report a few of them - resulting in their untimely deaths last October 16th.

Their names are interestingly missing from the "list of believers" on the campaign's website. You can see the list here I'm guessing this isn't what Nancy Reagan had in mind, huh.
posted by djspicerack (10 comments total)

Bleh. I'm not a big Nancy Reagan fan, but implying that her "just say no" agenda caused these deaths is a bit misleading. (And if you aren't implying that, why post? It's a tragedy, but it's just another tragedy.)

The problem wasn't with the motivation, it was with the incompetence (if such there was) on the part of the police, who didn't adequately protect an informant. Sucks, but it happens.
posted by RylandDotNet at 1:19 PM on January 8, 2003

Not at all am I implying that, I'm just saying that it's a sad state of affairs when people are blaming the policy or program for the deaths of people, rather than the individuals who were responsible for the arson.
posted by djspicerack at 1:23 PM on January 8, 2003

Related stuff here and here.
posted by brownpau at 1:23 PM on January 8, 2003

While I don't find anything interesting in the article you post, that www.washingtonpost.com site is certainly fascinating. Who knew newspapers had started online versions of their print editions? Revolutionary!
posted by signal at 1:24 PM on January 8, 2003

Family of 7 killed in Arson - Is an Anti-Drug Campaign Responsible?

Yes. To about the same degree that having a system of criminal laws is responsible. To about the same degree that the mere existence of, and need for, police is responsible. To about the same degree that personal feelings of social responsibility are responsible. That is to say, not so much.

Here's a novel idea: If we're going to divvy up responsibility, let's start with the drug dealers who actually chose to torch five kids between the ages of 9 and 14. Oh, that's right, you can't sue drug dealers for millions of dollars. What fun would that be for Johnnie Cochran?
posted by pardonyou? at 1:25 PM on January 8, 2003

I wouldn't say that the campaign was directly responsible, but I also know that you didn't have to call a 1-800 number or get your name on a list to see and hear the Believe program's radio-and-television deluge of public service announcements.

The Baltimore Sun story has some more details about this whole sad tale. The family was offered witness protection relocation, but steadfastly refused to be run out by the dealers.
posted by kittyb at 1:29 PM on January 8, 2003

When you read the article that kittyb mentions, it becomes clear that there is really no one to blame (other than the arsonists, of course). The family did a noble and dangerous thing by choosing to stay exactly where they were, and the drug dealers responded in an unsurprising manner. Cochran's wedge here seems to be the notion that the family would have been protected better had they been white; but that's difficult case to make, considering the family refused witness protection. All this teaches us is that inner-city drug-dealers are still evil and that Johnny Cochran still likes grandstanding.
posted by vraxoin at 1:47 PM on January 8, 2003

Personally, I would blame the arsonist for it - but maybe that's just me . . .
posted by cinderful at 4:01 PM on January 8, 2003

While I don't find anything interesting in the article you post, that www.washingtonpost.com site is certainly fascinating. Who knew newspapers had started online versions of their print editions? Revolutionary!

Oh God ... now that was funny. A sense of humor so dry as be very nearly British.
posted by MidasMulligan at 5:40 PM on January 8, 2003

This problem might not even have been particularly expensive to solve.

From the HUD best practices page (on a similar program in Birmingham):

Bearing True Witness against Thy (Criminal) Neighbors

"Police statistics show that crime rates have dropped as much as 60% in public housing communities since the advent of the program. This is proof that when witnesses are able to testify without fear the impact on crime can be dramatic ...

"To date, cash expenses have totaled just $960 for the relocation of two families who testified about a drug-related drive-by homicide."

In 2 months in the Baltimore area, I heard personal accounts of a Post Office burglary, of an abducted and murdered child, a mugging, an armed home robbery, and an exciting tale of making a living by staking out and busting fake doctors from Nigeria and Pakistan, who prey on old folks in the inner city. (Rah, government regulation! Rah, freedom from fear!) I was somewhat taken aback by the incidence of murder and mayhem, but one person thought I'd find it reassuring to know that the violent areas correlated directly with lead poisoning statistics. Supposedly, the reason Baltimore's rate of crime and violence is so high is that the city has never found the funding for proper lead abatement programs the way the rest of the country has. (Gotta fund those federal tax cuts somehow.)

You've gotta admire people in Baltimore for their humorous, open, ironic attitudes, for slapping up those huge "Believe" signs all over the city, and for standing their ground. Now it's on to stage two, in which people start insisting on becoming heroes, not martyrs. Sounds like the "Believe" organizers need to start insisting that believers don't go down with the ship.
posted by sheauga at 5:50 PM on January 8, 2003