From the Journal Star:
A 38-year-old Peoria woman was pronounced dead at 6:45 p.m. at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center after she was found about 45 minutes earlier next to a vehicle parked in the 800 block of Northeast Adams Street near Wayne Street.
Police said the victim, who suffered multiple stab wounds to her upper body and arms, was unresponsive when they arrived.
Police are calling it a domestic disturbance, and there’s a suspect already in custody.
Hey, Ardis, how about more prayer. That really worked last year! (Not.)
Elaine,
I would ask you to consider saved lives in your conclusion. Without the prayer, it would have undoubtedly been worse.
Well, that’s the trouble with praying for things. When it doesn’t work, it works. Twist and turn.
I do believe in the power of prayer, but I understand the cynicism of those who do not believe in its power simply because prayer and its results are a very subjective, often unprovable event. However, the meetings that were held served a secondary but important purpose. They brought community members together–some from the community who are affected by the violence on a daily basis and some who only read about it in the newspapers. Any effort that brings people together to find solutions to a problem can’t be considered a useless effort.
Let’s pray for 14.4 million to fall from
the skies and see what happens. Although I guess the budget would be immeasurably worse if we don’t. Laughable.
If it was in fact a domestic disturbance, do you think more police protection would have helped this young woman, CJ? That’s quite a leap you are making there.
Whatever — I don’t CJ attributed the death to the police cutbacks. Where did you see that?
Jim, when you asked your parents for something (especially, something absurd), did they ever say “No.” Don’t you regard “No” as a legitimate response to a request?
My amazing powers of discernment predict that CJ will start counting every Peoria homicide and either subliminally or overtly attribute the homicides to cutbacks in Police protection, thereby trying to re-assign the blame away from the people that commit these crimes to elected officials, law enforcement, etc. Oh, gosh. Maybe I’m just being silly…
Where did C.J. blame this crime on the cutbacks?
Sharon, the prayer groups that the Mayor held only brought out the do nothing Pastors of the areas churches, mostly black churches. The biggest mouthed one being that pastor down at the purple church in the old Soldz building, Tim Criss. He got the money for his monument from us. Government grants and what ever else he can suck up from the city. The only thing that changes is his Lexus from year to year. These churches think nothing about protesting in masse at district 150 meetings when they perceive a racial issue but you’d think the men of these churches could form action groups and patrol their neighborhoods and see about getting the youths off the street corners. Trying to get these kids involved along with their parents in their schools and volunteering as a church group inside the trouble schools. Naw, no TV cameras at those events. Only at marches and prayer meetings with the mayor.
Emtronics, I do know that the pastors of my church and members of my congregation were there, too. Tim was one of my students, so I always have a hard time leveling the criticism. (But affluent preachers do bother me, too–at least, I don’t believe any minister should live better than the average member of his own congregation). Also, I do believe that no one else could do the job of heading kids in a different direction better than a committed church. Also, I agree that the prayer meetings could have been just as effective with only God listening instead of all the TV cameras–there is a Bible verse about the Pharisees praying in public.
Emtronics is spot on about the pastors.
EmergePeoria, I always hesitate to criticize black pastors (and administrators) without adding that their white counterparts are no less guilty, etc. Certainly, the church (black and white) has lost touch with young people. To one degree or another hypocrisy is one of the church’s most obvious sins. In fact, in my own classes I found the black young people went to church in greater numbers than did their white classmates. However, as with adults, the reasons for going might be more social than spiritual.
Through some sophisticated tracking software and the cooperation of some undercover police officers, I’ve been able not only to figure out who “Whatever” is, I even got a picture of the mind-reading anonymous commenter:
I’m not picking on black pastors Sharon. Yes white pastors dominate the field in com shaw. The New Jim Bakker is the biggest fraud yet. In this area, it happens that it is mostly the black pastors. Don’t pray, tell me it’s working, then when it obviously fails, tell me it’s working.
Emtronics–I understand and agree. I didn’t know we were putting TV preachers into the mix. That’s where we’re talking about real money and fraud. The main exception on my list would be Billy Graham.
I thought this story was about a woman killed by her husband. I don’t quite understand how pastors got in the mix.
If you do want to see a church that cares about young inner city kids, check out Riverside Community Church and its mission, Dream Center Peoria.
Ben: simple. woman > killed > boyfriend > maybe husband > domestic violence > murder > more crime > less police > prayer for less crime > pastors who pray for less crime > do nothing preachers.
Simple.
Emtronics: Unless there was a police officer in the car with them, I don’t see how less police has any bearing on this case. The husband and wife were in a car together and started fighting. She got out of the car and he got out and stabbed her.
Ben: relax it was just a map to answer your question. I haven’t brought up anything in regards to this issue about less police or whatever. Only that praying for less crime and that issue. After reading the new full details in the PJS about this crime, I can only say this is definitely a horrendous crime in front of a child no less. This guy qualifies for Piece of Sh*t of the week award for sure. How it happened can be debated all day long here but please don’t put words in my mouth.
Reduction of police force has nothing to do with this killing. Check the guys record and see how many times, if any, he was arrested and released. Maybe with a concealed carry law, she MIGHT have been ELGIBLE to carry ajnd protect herself. Maybe if D150 had voc/tech, he might have turned out to be a meat cutter or welder.
After a homicide is committed, there are all kinds of ifs.
Problem is, there really aren’t many job openings in Peoria unless one wants to work with there hands. There again, not a chance, everybody, (includes drop-outs) is going to go to college and have a white collar job.
I think we all went off on a tangent on this one (on the prayer issue), but I don’t think C.J. or anyone else originally suggested this crime had anything to do with fewer police on the street. Of course, this crime did take place on a street (not in a house) apparently in plain sight in a high-crime area, so police on patrol might have been able to spot the crime in progress. Merle, you are so right; when District 150 dropped industrial arts, home ec, etc., it made a decision to prepare young people for college only–what a mistake! That just isn’t working out too well (now we’ve started another sidebar to turn into a tangent). 🙂
Widmer sez: ” Maybe if D150 had voc/tech, he might have turned out to be a meat cutter or welder.”
I say: That’s a new low even for you Merle. Love that Right wingnut logic.