It's deja vu” all over again, as Yogi Berra once said.
Only it’s not baseball this time, but a deadly game manifested in the street riots of Great Britain.
I’ve seen it before, unfortunately. And I guess I’ll continue seeing it again, because, for some reason, people don’t want to -- or simply can’t -- learn the lessons of history, human nature and the ways of preventing or stopping the criminal acts that are going on in the streets of British cities.
In some respects, I blame the media for the intensity of the current riots going on in Great Britain.
They haven’t learned that the need for public attention by gang members is constant.
And, the more attention they get, the more they act out.
Examples: Throwing gang signs is a gang member’s MO. He wants to be identified. Advertising through graffiti is another example of gang PR at work.
Who in law enforcement or in community affairs where gangs proliferate, hasn’t seen gang tattooing on a gang member? Shouting gang identification during a gang attack is a common occurrence.
Rioters are a gang. And when the media plays into their hands by building up their presence, building up their potency and threat, giving them interviews and television coverage only increases the ego boost that they want from the world … and encourages more of the same activity.
We know that gang members support each other, just as families do.
We know that gang members have poor social skills, and so do angry mobs. We know that gang members have a lack of emotional controls and their responses are violent; so do all “gangs” of people. I used to say that gang members are always waiting for a riot to happen, even if they have to create it.
I was the head of the Hard Core Gang Division in the L.A. District Attorney’s office for years, and watched the drive-bys that went down on a daily basis.
I’ve seen the media capitalize on the violence, often fanning the fires.
In some perverted way the rioters are actors.
And the acting out that we are seeing in such cosmopolitan cities such as London and Birmingham is, make no mistake about it, gang activity rising to the massive community riot level.
Look at it closely: They stem from the same causes; they all enlarge and create huge community problems for the same reasons.
Yes, we can blame poverty. Yes, we can blame lack of home attention and discipline. Yes, we can blame poor school methods and results. Yes, we can blame isolating anger and frustration. Yes, we can blame poor community relations and planning. And yes, we can blame law enforcement methods and lack of appropriate or proportionate responses.
But, for me, I blame our failure in forgetting what we have learned over the course of time.
No, I’m not saying that we should ignore gang members … or rioters.
