Easy ‘solutions’ no answer
Mayor Tom Menino for all his good intentions has become a master at focusing on the trivial.
People are getting shot and killed, a child is gunned down and the mayor wants to ban dirt bikes in the city. Wow, that’s right up there with his jihad against drug-oriented T-shirts in the window of Nike’s Newbury Street store.
T-shirts don’t lead kids to a life of drugs, and banning dirt bikes won’t come close to making the streets of Dorchester or Mattapan safer. All Menino’s rantings manage to accomplish is give the appearance of doing something — a long-standing practice of the political class.
Early Wednesday morning a Dorchester man became the city’s 21st murder victim of the year — shot to death on Olney Street. There is no evidence that a dirt bike (or a Nike T-shirt for that matter) was involved.
OK, so maybe dirt bikes don’t belong in city parks and just maybe someone should have thought of that before a 4-year-old was caught in gang-related crossfire in Harambee Park. At best they are noisy and obnoxious, and at worst provide a high-speed exit for those inclined to shoot and ride at the same time.
But this is what Menino told The Boston Globe in an interview: “It’s become a real hazard in our city. There are too many occasions where these bikes are terrorizing neighborhoods.”
These bikes are terrorizing neighborhoods?
How typical Menino is that?
Of course, police have since said it’s likely that while two people fled on motorized bikes after the Harambee Park shooting, it appears the shooter fled on foot.
And Councilor Charles Yancey told the Herald that his office has been getting fewer complaints about the bikes that seem to have waned in popularity.
It’s summer. More kids are outside, in parks and on the streets. More cops need to be too. But, hey, that’s not nearly as easy an answer as banning dirt bikes.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/editorials/view.bg?articleid=1348841
