This comes at a time when the tourism trying to jinn up CR as a eco friendly country. It is scary for all of us especially now Security minister, Gustavo Mata says it is going to get worse unless all departments work together. And the police are out gunned for sure.

Also, this from a rival publication covering Mata’s presentation:

“An analysis as of August found that 145
of the 370 murders up until then were what he called vengeance
or ajustes de cuentas.. . . Some 202 of the crimes until August or 55 percent of the total, were
related to organized crime, he said. The others included 92 as a result
of arguments or fights, 42 that took place within family members and 10
as a result of robberies, according to the minister.”

If we do the math, we see that 57 of 202 killings attributable to organized crime, about one in four, were of people other than the intended target.

However, if we use our heads, we might question whether all of these 57 killed were exactly “innocent bystanders.” People who hang out with wannabe gang leaders aren’t themselves usually upstanding citizens.

True, there ARE innocent people killed, and more of them hurt, and I don’t want to make light of them. But there are fewer innocents killed this way than there are innocent pedestrians killed by motor vehicles.

Neither is acceptable, but maintaining a sense of proportion is important. It is because we hear calls for a better-armed police force and citizenry to combat this gang violence.

Problem is, a 2008 Rand Corporation study found that the NYPD cops miss their targets 70% of the time too, and by some estimates a quarter of all police shootings in the US are of innocent bystanders. So cop shootings aren’t any more accurate than thug shootings. (In fact, one study I read showed that the criminals were better shots.) Are we to expect Tico cops to be better shots than New York’s finest?

And this is before we consider the lousy accuracy of armed citizens. Now there’s a loaded cannon aimed at innocent bystanders, if I can be forgiven for the analogy.

While I understand why you or others could have a problem with my first sentence (since I do too), your reservations may relax somewhat if you put it the problem in the context of the alternatives.

When the alternatives are more heavily armed police and citizens (see the comments) I’m pretty sure that the results will be the killing of more innocents. When the alternatives are those Mata wants–longer incarceration of 5000 inmates, easier confiscation of property, and a specialize law enforcement unit–there are also tradeoffs. Indeed, reading between the lines, I suspect that Mata wants a heavily armed specialized unit under his personal control, a potentially dangerous change.

It’s all well and good to be concerned about the innocent victims, and I am too. My point is just that the cure could very easily become worse than the disease.

I can’t even recall now how many children and innocent bystanders have been hit by stray bullets or cought in the crossfire so far this year, we can’t even report on most of the incidents because we don’t have staff to cover it, but just pick up a copy of Diario Extra and see for yourself (it is sort of their niche, as you well know). For every one dead so far this year there have been many more wounded, and I would venture to say that nearly half of the wounded were not the intended victim.