Lawrence Township Trustee Mike Hobbes is announcing today that his office will withhold poor relief for any family whose children have not attended school.   I like the idea, why should the taxpayers fork over their hard earned money so a bunch of people can sit around and watch television all day?

But the fact that these children are missing school is symptomatic of a bigger problem.

Part of the reason we have a crime problem is because the only people who don’t seem to think it’s a problem are the people most impacted by it.  They don’t cooperate with the police, they don’t send their kids to school, but somehow a good chunk of them have found the route to the public troth.

I’m not saying build a fence and leave them to their own devices, but until the people in these crime-ridden communities decide that they’ve had enough, crime will never get under control.

Scott Newman made his comments this morning as law enforcement officials were dealing with a murder-suicide that began in the 5700 block of Georgetown and ended following a high speed chase at 25th and Pennsylvania; taking the city to 72 homicides this year.

Newman says the County is increasing the efficiency of the criminal justice system so criminals are not bonding out quicker.  He also says they’ve added about 40 public safety assistants to take care of paperwork, freeing up officers to deal with the crime problem.

In addition, Newman says they have targeted 50 beats with the worse offenders, noting that about six percent of the offenders are responsible for most of the crime.  Luckily the city is above the national average in solving homicides.  The national average is 61 percent, while Indianapolis is 71 percent.

Newman also stressed the importance of re-entry programs for ex-offenders, noting that there were more than 5,000 ex-offenders released into Marion County over the past several years and 74-percent of committed another crime within three years of being released.

If you were wondering how a prominent pastor’s daughter ended up being a victim of violent crime, my police sources say her husband was allegedly mixed up with some bad actors and the motive for the killing was to send him a message.

If you were wondering how police caught the guy who allegedly shot a TV photographer and and a freelance photographer at a house fire last week, it’s easy. They traced the bullet and found the shot came directly from the man’s home.

If you were wondering what the vote total was that got Gabrielle Campo her party’s nomination to take on Andre Carson it was Campo - 40, Patrick O’Connor - 18, Ray Irwin - 15, Kevin Green - 2.

And if you were wondering why the second Saturday night of Indiana Black Expo had fewer problems than last year (32 arrests in 2008, 76 arrests in 2007.  90 curfew violations in 2008, 111 curfew violations in 2007) in addition to good police work and faith-based patrols, here’s another one, $4 a gallon gas.

I do it to get a feel for the atmosphere and to see what problems occur when thousands of teenagers are unleashed on downtown Indianapolis and what the impact would be. I was pretty harsh in my critique last year, this year was a little different.

First of all, every IMPD officer who worked the event deserves a giant raise in pay. They kept the pedestrian traffic moving, which I think went a long way to keeping the silliness down to a bear minimum. There were some arrests for curfew violation. But there were no shots fired last night to the best of my knowledge and I was out until 2 a.m. Also with the way this week has gone, IMPD exercised great restraint and managed to keep a good sense of humor about the whole evening.

The worst criminal offense I saw was a person (an adult) picked up for weapons possession. There was one incident I saw where a cop told an 11-12 year-old to keep moving and the 4′8” kid tried to get in the 6′4” officer’s face. His little friends held him back and took him away. The Officer just gave the kid that “you are not worth the paperwork of me smacking you so get somewhere!” look.

Now with that said, I do think Expo should do a seminar for teenage girls about self-respect. I saw a lot of girls wearing clothes two sizes too small. I have seen more loin cloth on Indonesian tribal garb. There is no way my 14-year old daughter would be allowed to leave the house looking like she worked in a Vietnamese brothel. But apparently, somebody did. Either that, or the kids left the house with a change of clothes. What’s even worse were how the more “full-figured” gals looked like two pounds of rump roast in a one-pound bag. I agree last night was warm, but walking around half-naked was not the right way to beat the heat.

I think Expo officially has a new mission next year. It’s to end the “clothing optional” portion of that second Saturday night.

• More intensive supervision of officers in the field
• Tighter accounting and inventory controls of search warrants and seizures of drugs and money
• Bringing back the previous practice of polygraph tests for officers assigned to narcotics enforcement, vice, intelligence and property room
• Creating the position of recruiter in order to ensure the department attracts the best, high quality candidates, including establishing a presence on college campuses
• Establishing a staffed Office of Career Development with the task of guiding officers toward more directed career goals, cultivating management and leadership skills, and providing more consistent evaluations and training
• Requiring performance evaluations on a regular basis

Of course had the people who had been running IMPD before Greg Ballard took over had done some of this, maybe these steps would not have been necessary.

Marion County Grand Jurors served a search warrant last week on the headquarters of the Russel Foundation seizing computers, IRS records and other documents.

Bateman is listed as the Chief Operating Officer on the charity’s website.  Bateman would not comment on the warrant to RTV 6, but he would only say he has done nothing wrong.

I will be the first person to stand up and say a search warrant is not guilt and Bateman and I, while having philosophical disagreements at times, have always been cordial to each other.

However, this news can’t be good for Marion County Democrats in general and Black Democrats in particular.   Bateman’s potential troubles come on the heels of Doris Minton-McNeil being arrested on disorderly conduct charges.  And last year Monroe Gray and Ron Gibson found themselves at the center of controversies.

I don’t know who’s running the local Democratic party these days, but these incidents are evidentiary of an absence of leadership and getting people in line.

Using compiled aggregate date from Pollster.com, I’ve put together a list of states where the candidates are ahead and where they are tied.  For purposes of this blog, if there is less than a three point difference in the poll, it meets my definition of a tie.

John McCain

• Alabama - 50-35 
• Alaska - 45-41
• Arizona - 44-40
• Idaho - 52-39
• Kansas - 48-38
• Kentucky - 49-36
• Louisiana - 55-35
• Mississippi - 50-44
• Nebraska - 52-36
• Oklahoma - 42-37
• South Carolina - 45-39
• Tennessee - 41-36
• Texas - 43-39
• Utah - 52-33
• West Virginia - 45-37
• Wyoming - 53-40

Barack Obama

• Arkansas - 42-39
• California - 52-39
• Connecticut - 53-35
• Delaware - 50-41
• Hawaii - 61-31
• Illinois - 50-37
• Iowa - 45-38
• Maine - 55-32
• Maryland - 55-30
• Massachusetts - 53-32
• Michigan - 47-38
• Minnesota - 51-34
• Montana - 48-43
• New Jersey - 47-37
• New Mexico - 48-38
• New York - 51-33
• Oregon - 48-35
• Pennsylvania - 48-38
• Rhode Island - 55-31
• Vermont - 63-29
• Washington - 50-37
• Wisconsin - 50-40

Virtual Tie

• Colorado - 44-42 (Barack)
• Florida - 45-43 (McCain)
• Georgia - 47-43 (McCain)
• Indiana - 42-42
• Missouri - 44-44
• North Carolina - 44-44
• North Dakota - 43-43
• Ohio - 45-42 (Barack)
• Virginia - 46-43 (Barack)

Applying that math to the electoral map, you get the following breakdown…

• Barack - 272 Electoral Votes
• McCain - 134 Electoral Votes
• Undecided - 129

Of course November is a long way away and four months is a long time and anything can happen, but this is what the race looks like today based on the available poll data.

Daniels

• $6.7 million at the beginning of 2008
• $3.37 million raised this year
• $7.3 million spent
• $2.8 million on hand

JLT

• $437,690 at the beginning of 2008
• $2.5 million raised this year
• $1.46 million spent
• $1.04 million on hand