Given the nature of their work and public interest in their remarks, elected officials are bound to make embarrassing gaffes from time to time. But they’re most likely to stray far over the line of civility — and into inflammatory meanness — when they’re trying to show how tough they are. Recent comments by Sheriff Jim Hammond and state Rep. Richard Floyd fall in that category.
Sheriff Hammond hit that note in a talk to the Brainerd Kiwanis about how the rising level of gang violence, which in Chattanooga at the moment is mainly associated with young black males.
“We need to run them out of town, put them in jail, or send them to the funeral home,” he said. Though he did cover the broader need for intervention and social programs, his reference, essentially, about shooting to kill and bury young gang members reasonably elicited earnest and well justified criticism from Chattanooga Police Chief Bobby Dodd and former city detective Napoleon Williams, a community advocate for intervention to help steer young males away from gangs.
Dodd, whose police department carries the bulk of the work, and personal risk, of quelling mounting gang violence, rightly pointed out that violence needs to be reduced — not aggravated — by heated political rhetoric that might simply provoke deadly gunfights .
“Prevention and intervention are keys to stemming the steady flow of young men joining the gangs in the first place,” he said. “Stop this steady flow and we stop the violence.” Though the department has assistance from parents, churches and community organizations, he said his department’s resources are already overburdened with the task of “suppression and prosecution in an attempt to keep the violence in check. … It’s time for the lip service to stop.”