Random Soapbox for Saturday 7/2/16

I don't mean to go off on a rant here, but ...

... meet murder victim #4:  Patrice Mardy.

Now I'm not saying that it's the work of a serial killer ... but I'm not saying it's not.

That bit of paranoia aside, Patrice's body was found last month in the same 'hood where Robert Reagan died in the fall for snitching on the drug dealers who were working the corner outside of his apartment 10 blocks away from where I live.  And that's also the same 'hood where two more african-american youths were murdered for the holidays.

Walking as I do each day on my lunch break (a perk of the remote workforce if ever there was one), I get to see the posters when they go up begging for tips to help solve the crimes.

Here's a tip -- the kids in the 'hood sell drugs on their bikes.  I know because in the old house, which was a few blocks closer to the murder-lot (it's a church parking lot next to a gas station on the corner), the crazy guys across the street used to get their "orders" delivered to them -- except for the day when the one guy went a little nuts and got in a dispute with his bike drug courier and stood in the middle of the street waving a gun around (something I got to see as yet another "perk" [?] of the remote workforce).

I thought for sure victim #5 would be found last night -- seeing as how there were cop cars at each corner down there AND a helicopter flying overhead -- but it turns out that was just an unrelated case of a woman in handcuffs running away from a cop car after she was pulled over for DWI  (did I mention that there a lot of episodes of 'Cops' based in my county of residence?).

So far, in addition to the posters begging for tips, there was a community picnic in the murder lot put on by the police.  A few weeks ago, there was also a show of force at that corner ... except that turned out to just be a bunch of trainees for traffic cop school that they were running that afternoon at that intersection.

By the way ... the photo accompanying today's post is the one on the poster and not the mugshot photo of the victim.  I didn't want to be accused of any kind of bias or inappropriately imply that the murder might have been a drug deal gone bad.  Oops.  Except now I kind of did.

Here's hoping there'll at least be another picnic!  Or maybe that the church will start putting security guards on their murder-lot!  Or maybe that the murders will stop!  Until then ... at least it's not Chicago (where I used to live)!

THE LATEST MURDER:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/fort-lauderdale/fl-fort-lauderdale-homicide-reward-20160610-story.html

THE MUGSHOT OF THE LATEST VICTIM:
http://www.mhomes.info/florida/fort-lauderdale/patrice-mardy/186935051

THE LATEST NON-MURDER HULLABALOO:
http://www.local10.com/news/crime/woman-in-handcuffs-escapes-from-police-in-fort-lauderdale-