Post VIII: Gang Problems in Lincoln, NE

One of the biggest issues facing the local community today is the Scheels gun heist. On Monday, October 1, 2007, a total of 82 guns were stolen from Scheels sporting goods store. According to the police, the heist was gang-related. Three people were arrested: Michael Nimox, Cleophus Collier, and Jameal Gaines. The concern that this causes me, and a lot of other people, is that this seems to demonstrate that gangs here in Lincoln are becoming more and more prevalent through time. This is disconcerting because I believe that nearly everybody is, or should be, desiring gang-related activity to decrease rather than increase. However, as of right now this is not happening. As a matter of fact gang-related activity is getting to be more and more prominent throughout the capital city. I am certain that we need to start trying harder to put an end to this rise of activity among local gangs. There has to be something that we can do to assist the police force in trying to stop it.

All this said, I believe that I do need to point out that, as a whole, Lincoln has been pretty good with not having that many gang-related problems of a large extent. This year, there have been 471 crimes that were suspected to be committed by a gang, and of all those crimes 350 of them were vandalism, mostly graffiti. That is not that bad of a number, although vandalism is not a good thing, it is certainly much better than homicide and other alternatives. However, from this latest robbery at Scheels, it appears that gangs are beginning to become bolder in the extent of the seriousness of the crimes. I think that this is something we, as a city, definitely want to avoid. So I believe that we need to try our hardest to find something that we can do to help our city move in the direction of putting a stop to gangs, rather than simply ignoring them and pretending that they are not a problem.