Image
Southeast San Diego had long struggled with an image problem plagued by street gangs, drug dealing, assaults, and homicide throughout its communities. In 1992, Councilman George Stevens campaigned against any official designation of the area as "Southeast San Diego" since the name labeled the area in an entirely negative light.
The San Diego Police Department's Southeastern Division includes some of the city's peak crime areas including the neighborhoods of Encanto, Paradise Hills, Lincoln Park, Chollas View, Skyline, Shelltown, and Southcrest. Many of the inhabitants in these neighborhoods are working class or lower-income, and a typical sight that is evident throughout Southeast San Diego are homes outfitted with iron bars over the ground-floor windows and doors, and in many cases, cast-iron gates and chain-link fences guarding driveways, a reflection of the perceived need for security in these high-crime urban neighborhoods.
Although crime has gone down citywide, shootings are still a regular occurrence throughout Southeast San Diego, and the area routinely has a disproportionate amount of homicides in relation to the rest of the city. Additionally, many crimes in the area are not reported to the police which makes it difficult to give a completely accurate assessment on crime statistics in Southeast San Diego. Over the last few years, statistics from the San Diego Police Department show that about half of all homicides in the whole city had been accounted for in southeastern San Diego neighborhoods (covered by both the Central and Southeastern Districts), a substantial figure considering Southeast San Diego's relatively small geographic size and population in relation to the rest of the city. For example, in 2004, of the 62 homicides in the City of San Diego, 32 of them (roughly 16.4 murders per 100,000 residents or three times the national average of 5.5 murders per 100,000 for that year) had been accounted for in sixteen southeastern San Diego neighborhoods, from Barrio Logan to Lomita Village. In comparison, the northern San Diego suburb of Mira Mesa, which covers a substantial geographical area sizeable to Southeast San Diego's, 21.4 square miles (55 km2) to Southeast San Diego's 21.2 square miles (55 km2), had no homicides for that year.
The rash of violence in Southeast San Diego had been met with community outrage over the years and prompted a series of anti-violence marches and rallies. More recently in 2005, as a response to the spike in violence in the area, hundreds of middle school students took part in an anti-violence rally from the Lincoln Park area to Gompers Park in Chollas View, echoing chants of "Peace in Southeast" as they marched.
In 2010, the Southeast San Diego neighborhoods of Logan Heights and Lincoln Park were featured on The History Channel's Gangland television series. The show documented the Logan Heights Gang in the Season 6 episode titled "The Assassins," which first aired on February 19, 2010. Less than three months later, the Lincoln Park Bloods were featured on the Season 7 episode titled, "Vendetta of Blood" which first aired on May 14, 2010.
Read more about this topic: Southeast San Diego
Famous quotes containing the word image:
“Nowadays people’s visual imagination is so much more sophisticated, so much more developed, particularly in young people, that now you can make an image which just slightly suggests something, they can make of it what they will.”
—Robert Doisneau (b. 1912)
“The image cannot be dispossessed of a primordial freshness, which idea can never claim. An idea is derivative and tamed. The image is in the natural or wild state, and it has to be discovered there, not put there, obeying its own law and none of ours. We think we can lay hold of image and take it captive, but the docile captive is not the real image but only the idea, which is the image with its character beaten out of it.”
—John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974)
“The hero was distinguished by his achievement; the celebrity by his image or trademark. The hero created himself; the celebrity is created by the media. The hero was a big man; the celebrity is a big name.”
—Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)