SCHENECTADY County mulls amnesty on illegal guns Goal of program is to get deadly weapons off the streets BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter
The county may roll out a gun amnesty program this spring as part of a Stop The Silence summit in Schenectady, District Attorney Robert Carney said. Several church leaders have asked for an amnesty program to reduce the number of guns on the street, Carney said. He expects that many parents would confiscate their children’s illegal guns if they were assured that no one would be prosecuted. “The churches are interested in the possibility of a gun amnesty program. We think that is an appropriate part of this,” Carney said. But the program would be limited. “We’re not talking about paying people,” Carney said. “We’re willing to give amnesty for possession of the weapon.” Illegal gun possession charges range from a misdemeanor to a class C felony with a prison term of up to 15 years. Although owners would escape possession charges, they wouldn’t get amnesty for any crimes committed with their weapon, Carney added. “You can’t turn in a murder weapon and expect to get immunity from it,” Carney said. The amnesty program is still in development, as is the rest of the proposed summit, which is intended to encourage residents to speak up when they witness a crime. Mayor Brian U. Stratton proposed a summit after two murders occurred last September among dozens of witnesses, all of whom refused to speak with police. They said they didn’t want to snitch, even though they weren’t involved in the crime. Police later got some witnesses to talk but have not made any arrests. Stratton had hoped to run the summit before Jan. 1, but officials now hope it will happen this spring. “I’m still working on it,” Stratton said. “It’s a very important thing. It’s just taking more time to pull it together.” He and Carney want Ronald Moten to speak at the summit, but haven’t yet heard whether he’s willing to come to Schenectady. Moten is co-founder of Peaceoholics, an anti-violence organization in Washington, D.C., and specifically addresses the issue of snitching in his talks. He emphasizes that residents aren’t snitching if they help police catch criminals in their neighborhood. They’re making their community safer. Carney has made the same argument in Schenectady, saying that there’s a difference between being an innocent witness to a crime and being a criminal participant who talks to police in exchange for a lesser sentence. “There’s a big difference between cooperating with police on witnessing a crime and cooperating with police to turn in your accomplices,” he said. CONFIDENCE ISSUE Stratton also wants to build a sense of confidence in the police. Some residents who are willing to help police say they have been targeted by criminals who punish them for speaking to officers. In many cases, criminals learn who is reporting crimes to police because dispatchers announce callers’ names and addresses over the police radios. Patrol car radios can be clearly heard on the street while police handle a call, allowing the suspects to hear the names of their accusers. Sometimes dispatchers specify the witness’s name and address and then add that the witness wants to be anonymous. Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett said there’s no way to grant those callers true anonymity. “People have to understand, when they call in certain forms of emergencies, like gunfire, it’s just there’s no way you can do this [anonymously]. You just can’t guarantee you can keep people’s identity anonymous,” Bennett said. “That’s the hard and fast truth of the work we do.” He said officers will try to offer anonymity. After a gunshot killing on Sept. 13 on a busy daylight street on Hamilton Hill, officers handed out phone numbers and offered to talk to witnesses by phone so no one would know they had “snitched.” But on emergency calls, officers usually go straight to the caller’s house, revealing the caller immediately. “To the degree possible, we’ll try to protect people’s identity,” Bennett said, but he added that police must confirm details gathered in a 911 call and interview witnesses at once in preparation for a possible trial. He said residents must not let publicity deter them. “It also has a risk if you don’t say anything. You could be the next victim. Look at the price you pay if you don’t report,” he said, arguing that “the price of silence” is letting killers roam the street. Carney said an important part of the summit will be educating residents about witness protection programs offered at the county level. “We want to try to educate the community,” he said. “If there’s fear, we have some resources to deal with that — if it’s real, if there is a risk.”
The fear on the street is no different than the 'fear' instilled by the union bosses back in the day.....I work with folks from Schenectady, and to be honest alot of folks have moved out of Schenectady hoping for better in other cities---they say it is better other places....
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Sch’dy gun amnesty program needs more of an incentive
Schenectady isn’t the only city in the region to experience a rash of gun violence this year. As anyone who’s paid attention to the news lately knows, there have been plenty of shootings in Albany, too, prompting the creation of a 13-member task force to study the issue. Action would be a better idea. In Schenectady, a two-month gun amnesty program was announced last week with the cooperation of local clergy. But as of Saturday morning, only a single person had responded. She did, however, turn in seven guns belonging (legally) to her late husband, so that’s seven guns that can’t find their way to the streets if, say, she had a change of heart in the future and decided to sell them, or if her house was burglarized and the guns got stolen. In other words, it’s better than nothing. But let’s be realistic: How many people with guns in their homes are likely to turn them in when there’s really no incentive except that they won’t be held accountable if the weapon wasn’t duly registered? Probably not many, and certainly not the ones most likely to use their guns in some illegal way. Part of the problem is that police don’t go out of their way looking for illegal guns and rarely make arrests for possessing them unless a crime is committed. So the carrot — giving up an illegal weapon with no questions asked — is worth almost nothing because people realize there’ll be virtually no stick when the amnesty is over. The city created a buyback program eight years ago, offering a $50 supermarket gift certificate (courtesy of the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department, Schenectady Municipal Housing Authority and Price Chopper). It wasn’t entirely successful — some people took advantage of the offer to get rid of useless junk weapons — but roughly 100 guns got turned in. Such programs have worked elsewhere: Perhaps the key is a requirement that the gun prove capable of firing. But with no incentive, it’s hard to imagine the current amnesty program yielding many guns.
This ill conceived plan will never get the guns off the street that the police are looking for. The thieves, muggers, rapists, drug dealers, and home invaders aren't going to turn in their guns no matter what the city offers.
Re April 7 editorial, “Sch’dy gun amnesty program needs more of an incentive”: After reading your editorial, I can’t help but say saving a life should be the biggest incentive to turning in guns. Why must it be “you need to give me something before I do the right thing attitude,” and why would you encourage that kind of thinking? Encouraging words from editors, rather than negative discouraging words, might help in the effort to make this a safer place to live. If someone is thinking about turning in a gun, positive words just might help make a difference. Let me say that avoiding tragedy, saving a life, keeping someone out of prison is the incentive that makes the lasting difference. I encourage you to help change the world by being a positive influence. BARBARA HEISE Rotterdam
Re April 7 editorial, “Sch’dy gun amnesty program needs more of an incentive”: Why isn’t the Schenectady Weed and Seed program facilitating this program? Where is the program, with its millions of dollars in federal funding to give out cash incentives to our young people to turn in their illegal hand guns for cash? Where are the rewards? I hope this is a first phase of a much grander program. I hope that Schenectady comes together to evaluate how well it went and extends the amnesty period, because we need to get the guns off the street. Let’s give people reasons to turn in their guns, like jobs, money and other alternatives to illegal activities. Schenectady District Attorney Robert Carney needs to partner not only with the religious community but also with the businesses community, educational institutions and human service organizations to reach out and build trust within the community. Right now, people seem wary of the program. AMELIA MINDEL Schenectady
Barbara and Amelia need to get their head out of the grass. I think that although I am not a gun owner, I am going to have to write to the Gazette stating my feelings on their letters.
Stratton joins push for gun restrictions BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter
While some illegal gun owners think the city should cut down on violence, not gun ownership, city officials say a crackdown on illegal guns is the most direct way to stop that violence. Mayor Brian U. Stratton is hoping to cut off the source of illegal guns. He has joined the Mayors Against Illegal Guns movement, which is pushing for more gun restrictions at the state and federal level. Among them: requiring legal gun owners to immediately alert police if their gun is lost or stolen; requiring background checks on gun store employees; and regulating the way in which decertified gun stores get rid of their stock. “Those are some of the common sense things,” Stratton said. “You can’t really do it on a local level.” Some gun owners dismissed those ideas, saying that anyone can get their hands on an illegal gun. “You know somebody who got a gun. You got an uncle with a gun? You got a father with a gun? Then you can get a gun,” one 25-year-old man said. He was one of many adults who said they carry illegal guns on Hamilton Hill. Legally, it’s not easy — a resident must be 21 before even applying for a pistol license. To carry it on the streets, the gun owner must also persuade a judge to issue a concealed weapon permit. Locally, such permits are very difficult to get, forcing most residents to choose between breaking the law or going unarmed into what they consider very dangerous situations. Robert DiGesualdo, a deliveryman for Highbridge Pizza, has chosen to go unarmed. But he wishes he could carry a gun. “Right now, there’s really nothing we can carry that’s legal enough. You can’t carry a gun,” he said. “If they have a gun, you need a gun. What are you going to do, mace ’em?” Tom King, president of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, is on his side. “If you are a legal and lawful citizen and you have not been convicted of any crimes, you should be able to carry,” he said. “But it’s nearly impossible to get a concealed carry permit. In New York City, it is impossible.” Gun advocates suggested that if more lawabiding citizens were armed, criminals would hesitate to threaten strangers, who just might pull out a gun. But city officials are hoping to get those criminals to give up their guns instead of arming everyone else. Punishment is not working, Carney said, so he is trying to get social groups, parents and the clergy to help him persuade teens to put down their guns. “One of the reasons people don’t commit crimes is they don’t want to be punished,” he explained. “If they’re immersed in a culture where many of them expect to go to prison, prison is not a deterrence. They don’t care about changing their behavior to avoid that unpleasantness. So we have to look at nontraditional ways of reaching them.” That’s why he supported the gun amnesty program, even without any money to offer as an incentive, he said. “The thing that made it worthwhile is we were engaging with the clergy. They wanted to do it. They can get messages across that maybe we can’t,” he said.
Punishment is not working, Carney said, so he is trying to get social groups, parents and the clergy to help him persuade teens to put down their guns. “One of the reasons people don’t commit crimes is they don’t want to be punished,” he explained. “If they’re immersed in a culture where many of them expect to go to prison, prison is not a deterrence. They don’t care about changing their behavior to avoid that unpleasantness. So we have to look at nontraditional ways of reaching them.”
Herein is one cause of the rampant criminal activity in the City of Schenectady. Our Schenectady County District Attorney holds the opinion that "punishment is not working". He accepts pleas for many crimes that are being committed in the City of Schenectady. It is his job to prosecute those accused of criminal activity. He should push for maximum penalties, not hand slaps. Parents of minors who commit crimes should be held accountable and jointly responsible for the actions on their children. Those parents whose children are packing heat and out on the streets at night know what their kids are up to.
I can't believe it is Carney talking about punishment! He controls that area!
We won't get started on 'Carney'. He's another whole story!!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
SCHENECTADY Some kids eager for real guns Pistols called cool as violence escalates BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter
Next to a sign begging children to turn in their guns, a boy is giggling as he opens his cellphone. The preteen is eager to show off his prized possession: a photo of a gun. He says he can’t turn in the weapon during the city’s gun amnesty because the photo has been faked. He made a toy gun look like a deadly weapon. That’s a secret. He wants his friends to believe it’s real, to think he’s breaking the law. To say that he’s not interested in the gun amnesty is a gross understatement. But these are the people that city officials say they must reach if they’re going to put a stop to the increasing gun violence in Schenectady. Officials are so concerned about increasing gun violence that they are now talking about paying people to turn in their illegal weapons. So far, the city’s free amnesty program has netted just seven guns, all of which were legal, and the violence outdoors has escalated. “In March alone, we’ve had 24 calls for shots fi red,” said police spokesman Kevin Green. “Out of those, fi ve people were actually shot. That’s pretty alarming actually.” In April, the shootings continued. Then this past Tuesday, a man was killed, shot in the back on Bridge Street. “Some cities go months without shots fired; we’re going pretty much every day,” Green said. “It’s pretty scary.” But among many of the young in one of the city’s poorer neighborhoods, guns aren’t scary. They’re cool. On Hamilton Hill, 13- and 14-year-olds gather in nice weather to play a game they love, in which they re-enact a drive-by shooting. Sometimes they play with paintballs, using expensive guns that they have spraypainted to look like real weapons. This night, armed with BB guns, they shot holes in each other’s apartment windows. Then they turned on each other. BBs flew down the sidewalk. Victims shouted, aimed their own guns and shot back. Passers-by quickly moved out of the way. No one tried to stop them or lectured them on the danger of mimicking real guns. Several adults just shrugged, saying it was a harmless game. On another occasion, a boy playing the game took refuge in the Craig Street Boys and Girls Club. He refused to leave, knowing that outside, other boys were waiting to ambush him. The boys outside finally lost patience, slammed open the doors and fired paintball guns into the hallway. ‘ITCHING FOR GUNS’ “Nobody got hurt,” said club Education Specialist Solange Warner. “They’re not real guns, they’re BB guns. They’re trying to pass it off as real. It proves how hard you really are.” Warner sees it all the time. “Fourteen and 15 is the normal age where they’ll come up to me,” she said. “One kid kept saying, ‘Don’t look in this box!’ So of course I look in the box and there’s a gun. He told me he wasn’t going to shoot someone, he was going to shoot out someone’s windows.” She took heart from the fact that it was only a BB gun. But that level of gun love is dangerous, District Attorney Robert Carney said. “There are some so enamored with their guns that not only do they have it, they’re itching to fire it,” he said. “They pose the greatest risk.” He thinks the problem is best addressed on a psychological level. “They’re itching for guns because they aren’t getting what they need somewhere else in their lives,” he said, citing children who don’t grow up with their fathers, don’t know how to earn respect from their peers and feel as though they have no control over their lives. Carney said it’s a phenomenon prevalent among the youth. “I assume it has something to do with empowerment and being respected and taken seriously,” he said. Although younger teens want guns because they’re cool, Carney is convinced that the older teenagers who actually get a real gun are involved in crime. “To know how to buy and obtain an illegal weapon tells me they are involved in illicit activity that causes them to be attacked,” he said. STREET VIEW Many men disagreed, saying they started carrying real guns in their late teens after being attacked one too many times on Hamilton Hill. Some of them suggested that a gun would have immeasurably helped a man who was savagely beaten by 30 teenagers as he walked through the neighborhood on his way home from work last week. They said the man could have scared the youths off if he had been armed, but Carney said the fight would more likely have ended up with someone dead. “Would it have scared them off or made it more likely someone would be killed? Did some of them have a gun?” he said. “It’s an escalation of violence. We need deescalation.” He said that even on Hamilton Hill, law-abiding citizens do not need a gun to protect themselves. “A person who lives in this community and is a productive member of this community is not going to need a gun to protect himself,” he said. Longtime residents of the Hill said Carney has no idea what it’s like to live in the impoverished area. Although some of the young people interviewed for this story admitted buying marijuana and implied that they also sold drugs, others said they need a gun even though they aren’t involved in gangs or drugs. “It don’t matter,” said one 26-year-old man, who carries a pistol. “You’re living in the ghetto, man, c’mon. No matter where you go, you still need it.” A 20-year-old man, who asked that his name not be used, said he started carrying a gun long ago to keep himself safe. SELF-PROTECTION “If you’re going to have cops everywhere I go, I’ll turn in my nine,” he said, using a slang word for gun. “Before you ask me why I carry a gun, ask a cop why they carry a gun. They tell us we can’t carry weapons but they carry four weapons on their waist.” To prove his point, he said he was threatened by a stranger with a gun when he walked unarmed through Hamilton Hill after a latenight party. The attacker, along with four other people, stood in the middle of the street and cocked a gun, pointing it directly at him. “I unzipped my jacket to show I didn’t have any gun,” the man said. “And his friend said, ‘I know him, he’s cool.’ And he kept saying, ‘You sure? You sure?’ ” The attacker eventually let him leave, but the man said the incident left him shaken. “I didn’t know him,” he said. “He thought I was somebody else. The only way you get out of that situation is to have a gun.” Others offered similar stories. One 19-year-old man said he was shot and robbed for his cigarettes. Now he carries his own unlicensed, illegal handgun. “Apparently [N-word] got money for guns and bullets but not cigarettes,” the white man said in disgust. SHOOTING VICTIMS Carney acknowledged that occasionally, an innocent victim is shot on Hamilton Hill. Last summer, two women were injured by stray bullets when a man opened fire on a crowded street. He was aiming at another man but missed. In 2005, two teenagers shot a man and two bystanders in an attempt to steal a gold chain necklace. “So it does happen,” Carney said. “All of them were innocent victims.” But, he said, it wouldn’t have helped if the victims had guns. “I think it would have just meant more bullets firing and more potential for innocent victims,” he said. The men interviewed for this story seemed to agree. They said that if they pull out their guns, they’re aiming to kill. “We don’t have a problem with murder,” a 20-year-old said. A 25-year-old added, “I’m trying to live out here. Nobody wants to carry a gun. You have to. People got beef out here. I’ve been shot — shot at, you dig?” He paused a moment, pretending to think about what he would do if he was shot at again. Then he demanded, “When is it cool to get shot and not shoot back?” UPHILL BATTLE Many groups are firmly dedicated to quashing that idea. They’re trying to train children to never pick up a gun. At the Craig Street Boys and Girls Club, employees spend much of their time mediating disputes and teaching the children confl ict resolution. In honor of Martin Luther King Day, the club hung up a calendar and tried to have 40 days of nonviolence. Every time children got into a fight, a day was crossed off. In the end, they’d managed only 22 peaceful days. New program director Adrienne Pagerey also instituted a policy of calling parents in for a meeting whenever their children got into a fight. So far, the results have been discouraging: only about half of the parents show up, and some don’t seem to understand why Pagerey is opposed to violence. “Some say to me, ‘I understand my son got into a fight. That’s what I taught him to do,’ ” Pagerey said. “That was shocking to me.” She keeps enforcing the no-fi ghting rule anyway. “If the kids fight, they have to leave. We lost a lot of our population when I took over,” she said. In the computer lab, club technology specialist Jacqueline Smith banned all violent Internet sites, including MySpace, which she said has some videos of gang violence. “We’re trying to break the chain. In the middle school, they talk about fighting all the time. It’s glorified. Why? The parents do it,” she said. She figures the club has only a few years to teach the children another way of life. “By the time they get to 16,” she said, “the streets already got them.”
DUH---CRIMINALS ALWAYS GET THE GUNS AND ALWAYS USE THEM........police are restricted as to how, when and where they use their guns...not to mention the other political BS involved......the rest of us get to sit back and watch??--I dont think so......
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
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