A gunman opened fire in broad daylight near Eight Mile and Beech Road in Southfield on July 19, and the suspect is still on the loose — another reminder that working Americans can't even go about their business in the middle of the day without dodging bullets.
According to WDIV ClickOnDetroit, Southfield Police responded to the shooting at around noon. No injuries have been reported, and a small stretch of Eight Mile Road was temporarily shut down while officers processed the scene. The road has since reopened. That's the good news. The bad news: police say the suspect has not been taken into custody, and the investigation is still in its early stages.
Notice what's missing from the official account — any description of the shooter, any mention of a motive, any explanation for why someone would fire a weapon on a busy commercial corridor at lunchtime. The public is simply told to call Southfield Police at (248) 796-5500 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-SPEAK-UP if they know anything. In other words: solve it yourself.
This is the pattern in cities run by politicians who talk about gun control while failing to control the criminals already on the street. Eight Mile Road has long been the dividing line between Detroit and its suburbs — a fault line of economic decline and rising disorder. When shooters operate with impunity at noon on a Saturday, it tells you everything about deterrence in the area: there isn't any.
The second outlet provided for this assignment, Variety, was covering an entirely unrelated story about production schedules on HBO's upcoming Harry Potter series — a story about British child actors and studio schooling that has nothing to do with a shooting in Michigan. That a crime story and a Hollywood puff piece were paired as co-equal coverage tells you something about the priorities of the national press.
Meanwhile, back in the real world where ordinary Americans live and work, a suspect who fired a gun in public at midday remains free. Anyone with information can contact Southfield Police or Crime Stoppers anonymously.
The question that lingers: how many more midday shootings before the people who run these cities admit their approach isn't working?
