Looks like Chattanooga is headed in the right direction being down from 10 to the 11 spot in the Ochs’ crime rate report. We are being reassured by the Police Chief that it’s not that bad and that the Ochs report is deceptive in the way it collects its statistical data. I bought that for a couple of days until I just read the article in the Chattanoogan.com this morning about this weekend’s kidnapping rampage right in the heart of the riverfront area downtown. Hopefully potential tourists won’t catch wind of what went down this weekend, and if it’s up to the local media, they probably won’t.

I am still trying to soak all of this in as I read and reread the article, but it sounds like all of this went down on Saturday and we are just hearing about it Tuesday. Did the Police Chief know of all of this while at the same time standing in front of the cameras claiming in so many words that Chattanooga doesn’t have a crime problem? At the end of the day though we do have to commend the Police Department in solving this case and getting these thugs off the streets – at least for now until the courts let them loose to terrorize the streets again.

I cringe to think about what is going through the one victim’s mind right now knowing that he told the thugs where he lived only to find out later that they had attacked someone he knew well and/or was related to. I guess there are more questions than answers as I continue to read this article, and hopefully the media in this city will get to the bottom of what really happened and fill in some of the obvious holes in this disturbing story.

After reading the story and some of the details that have been given so far, I boil it down to this when I take away the criminals and the victims: This crime was due largely in part to the fact that there are dozens of pawn shops in this city that are fueling the fire. They create the market for stolen goods, and in my opinion it stands to reason that pawn shops are biggest reason that Chattanooga is showing up so high in the rankings on the Ochs report. They fuel the fire for almost every home and car break in, and in this case two kidnappings.

When a restaurant is caught serving alcohol to someone under the age of 21, they pay a dear price in fines and are shut down for a time by the Beer Board, as they should be. What penalty is given to pawn shops that except stolen goods day after day in this city? A pat on the back for helping the police solve the crime that they fueled?

Please correct me if I’ve got some of my facts and assumptions wrong about this issue, and please expand on my thoughts if you agree where I’m going with this.

Robert Maner
Brainerd