Crime in St. Croix How to evaluate objectively

You ok, NoOne?

Psst... don't encourage me.

NoOne, sweetie ... Take a deep breath and step away from the puter ... All is well here, and everything will be ok. We've had some bad sh!t happen here, but we'll be ok. Yes, the bad stuff really sucks, but we'll get over that and move on.

Oh I'm done for the night. Get this strait: whenever someone asks about how crime is in the USVI, I will speak up. I have lost so many friends and family down there it is not funny.

EDIT: specifically this is what sets me off:

"There are many horror stories told on the internet forums ranging from murders, armed restaurant holdups (Cane Bay), petty theft as well as testimony to police ineptness and/or disinterest as well as charges of out right corruption. Is it to be believed or is it a gross exaggeration?"

It's not a gross exaggeration by any stretch of the imagination...

St. Croix is the most hated place on the planet...if you even dare to mention that you're thinking of moving here, you will be assaulted with a barrage of negativism. This island has been home to thousand of people who now hate her with a burning passion. There are very high expectations for this most-hated island, the highest being that nothing bad is ever supposed to happen here, because humans are different here. This place is supposed to bear the full weight of the capitalism experiment, with none of the consequences.

The funny thing is, there are many people here who can afford to live anywhere on the planet, and they choose to remain on St. Croix. I guess we are a special kind of stupid, given the fact that we may be dismembered, robbed, home-invaded, or shot dead at any given moment, and we can't even enjoy things as simple as sitting in a restaurant. Heck, that's almost as bad as not being able to enjoy sitting in a movie theater in Aurora for fear of being shot with an AK-47 by some deranged maniac! Our schools are as unsafe and violent as the one in Sandy Hook where some nice guy killed over twenty babies.

I like reading the posts on this message board, they are very, very entertaining. However, if you are thinking of moving to the most despised, hated, and violent place on earth, where the murder rate is higher than in Gaza, Detroit, Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, or San Francisco, you are obviously as crazy as those of us who love it here...in which case, you should just move, and totally ignore everything on this board, and just read it for its considerable entertainment value.

where does anyone say they hate the island-this thread was started by someone looking for info about crime, i am thinking because they were told horror stories by people who do not live here. it was suggested they look to the fbi stats, also people told some of their very true stories with horrible outcomes. nothing that was posted is a lie/lies. all truth which you always want to downplay.
fbi stats do not lie

I don't fixate on the negative aspects of living on STX.

If you're the nervous, paranoid type who can't deal with standard American urban violence, don't come here.

No one robbed me at the restaurant I ate at on Saturday night nor at the golf course on Sunday.

where does anyone say they hate the island-this thread was started by someone looking for info about crime, i am thinking because they were told horror stories by people who do not live here. it was suggested they look to the fbi stats, also people told some of their very true stories with horrible outcomes. nothing that was posted is a lie/lies. all truth which you always want to downplay.
fbi stats do not lie

I don't see the poster as downplaying anything. The truth of the matter is that the question is unanswerable and "stats" are "stats". I have been affected by violent crime twice in my 30 years of living here but know hundreds who've been here way longer than I who've never had either violent or non-violent crime affect them first hand.

The likelihood of your being a victim of crime here is no lesser or greater than living in any urban community.

Heck, that's almost as bad as not being able to enjoy sitting in a movie theater in Aurora for fear of being shot with an AK-47 by some deranged maniac!

No one robbed me at the restaurant I ate at on Saturday night nor at the golf course on Sunday.

Yeah like the Fountain Valley Massacre at the St. Croix golf club now known as Carambola, didn't happen. Not many places in the World have more than one mass murder, and the USVI is right there in the stats:

30 YEARS AFTER MASSACRE, LABEET'S FATE UNKNOWN

LaBeet, who would now be 55, was believed to be the leader of the gang that gunned down eight people at the Fountain Valley golf course on Sept. 6, 1972. He is one of 74 people on the FBI's list of fugitives believed to be living in Cuba today.

Like LaBeet, a Vietnam veteran who claimed he was railroaded in part because he is black, several of the other fugitives on the list are wanted for high-profile crimes carried out as part of their struggles against the U.S. establishment.

Assata Shakur, formerly known as Joanne Chesimard, is a former Black Panther who escaped prison in 1979 after having been convicted of killing a New Jersey state trooper.

She and Guillermo Morales, a member of the Puerto Rican separatist group Armed Forces of National Liberation (known by its acronym in Spanish, FALN) who escaped prison in 1979 after being convicted of firearm violations, are among those who made their way to Cuba to escape U.S. authorities.

Our schools are as unsafe and violent as the one in Sandy Hook where some nice guy killed over twenty babies.

Yes they are:

School Violence May Have its Roots in Social Injustice

The only outlet that seems to spark a reaction, in the minds of many Virgin Islands children, is violence. The only time people seem to pay attention to these children is when they are stabbing each other. This is not acceptable.

Sprauve stabbing puts spotlight on school violence

ST. THOMAS — A St. Thomas youth accused of stabbing another student at Julius E. Sprauve School on April 8 was attending the St. John school because the St. Thomas-St. John District administration transferred him there after a violent incident at a St. Thomas school.

The 15-year-old was removed from Bertha C. Boschulte Middle School last year after he was involved in a January 2009 assault that left a 15-year-old with a crushed skull.

Details of St. John school stabbing emerge

Around 10:30 Thursday morning, a teacher noticed blood on a 14-year-old student's shirt.

"He was acting as if nothing had happened," Francis said. "When the teacher told him, 'you have blood on your shirt,' he just shrugged his shoulders."

The teacher realized that the blood was the student's and told him to go see the school nurse, Francis said, but it was some time before the boy showed up in the nurse's office. He was taken to Myrah Keating Smith Community Health Center, where he was treated and released. He was stabbed in his left rib cage.

The student initially was unwilling to tell campus police who had stabbed him, Francis said, but he eventually divulged the identities of his attackers.

2nd Stabbing Reported At Virgin Islands School

CHARLOTTE AMALIE, U.S. Virgin Islands - A high school student was injured in a second recent stabbing at a U.S. Virgin Islands high school, a local newspaper reported Wednesday. The 12th-grade student was stabbed in the left leg during the fight on the Central High School campus on St. Croix island Tuesday, The Virgin Islands Daily News reported. Police arrested a 16-year-old student in the incident. The students' identities were not released. Also on Tuesday, two youths were stabbed and injured in a fight at a high school on the island of St. Thomas

Two High School Students Injured in Stabbing

Two teenage girls were stabbed during a fight with a 17-year-old male at Charlotte Amalie High School on Friday afternoon. According to police reports, a female student attempted to break up a fight occurring between another female and a male student when the male student attacked and stabbed both.

The male suspect is in police custody and both female students, aged 15 and 16, were taken to the Schneider Regional Medical Center, said Melody Rames, V.I. Police Department public information officer.

Rames said the female students were taken to the hospital for treatment of gashes to their forearms and that one student also had a knife wound to the back of her neck.

And even less deadly of course:

Shooting causes panic at school

ST. CROIX - Gunfire erupted mid-morning on Wednesday in the Aureo Diaz housing community and the effects of the shooting reached into surrounding communities.

V.I. Police detectives are investigating the non-fatal shooting that occurred about 10:20 a.m., Police spokeswoman Melody Rames said Wednesday afternoon.

Majority of charges upheld in shooting near school

ST. CROIX - The second man involved in a shootout near Elena Christian Junior High School more than a week ago appeared before a magistrate Wednesday, where probable cause was found for all charges except first-degree reckless endangerment.

Two men charged in fatal shooting near school

Two men were arrested and charged Wednesday in last month’s slaying of a 27-year-old man near an elementary school on St. Croix.

Officers executed warrants on Gillian Napier, 32, and Kalif Flanders, 22, both of Paradise Mills, charging each of them with first-degree murder, attempted murder, possession of an unlicensed firearm, possession of an unlicensed firearm within 1,000 feet of a school zone and reckless endangerment in the May 13 shooting death of Luis Encarnacion behind Evelyn Williams Elementary School.

where does anyone say they hate the island-this thread was started by someone looking for info about crime, i am thinking because they were told horror stories by people who do not live here. it was suggested they look to the fbi stats, also people told some of their very true stories with horrible outcomes. nothing that was posted is a lie/lies. all truth which you always want to downplay.
fbi stats do not lie

Hmmm...I see you want to get into another of your little wars with me...not interested. Go play somewhere else, child.

You are more likely to be a murder victim on St. Croix if you are involved in illegal activity. Those are the stats. The stats don't lie.

Hmmm...I see you want to get into another of your little wars with me...not interested. Go play somewhere else, child.

just for posterity. For more information about what it really is like to live on the islands, check this thread: https://www.vimovingcenter.com/talk/read.php?4,225370,page=2

NoOne, your undated news clips seem to indicate an obsessiveness in someone who doesn't even live here and apparently hasn't since he was a teenager.

Tough.

Edit: OT you should have put what you wrote in the other thread here!:

This hits home with me very hard and irks me no end. Many years ago my restaurant was the scene of an armed robbery during which one of my regular, wonderful patrons was shot and killed. It was a horrifying experience to deal with but infinitely worse was the ensuing rumor-mongering, the extent of which an outsider could only begin to imagine. The ugly rumors raised their ugly heads for years afterwards, passed on down the line and magnified in the process. Embellishments and lies grew faster and more furiously than mold in a dank space after torrential rain and, up until I closed my place in 2011 I still read and heard about the utter drivel being passed around - and from people who'd never set foot in my place and weren't even on island when it happened.

Oh, and I provided links to all the articles, they are dated, and if they are not, it is not my fault.

I'm sure we can all regurgitate horrible stories, no matter where we live. It is pointless to do so. This is a Black majority community...should I start to regurgitate stories about slavery, or lynchings, or church bombings? There are lots of pictures on the Internet of Black bodies swinging from trees, or burnt to charcoal, with thousands of grinning spectators...stuff that makes Fountain Valley look like a picnic. History is history, move on already...but learn.

This is a community of humans living in a system that is based on accumulation of money and possessions. Wherever you find humans, you will find crime. You learn to protect yourself and your loved ones, but no amount of hand-wringing is going to change the basic human conditions that create crime. It is insane to act as if any community is safer than any other...you take your chances wherever you live, and you maintain situational awareness.

It is insane to act as if any community is safer than any other...

Sure, in 2010 the USVI had more than twelve times the murder rate of "other community(s)" on the US continent - it is insane to act as if the USVI community is as safe as any other US community.

How do I measure the major crime stats?

-Remove the domestic violence. Doesn't affect me.

-Remove the gang on gang violence. Doesn't affect me.

-Remove any crime in public between 9:00 PM and 5:00 AM. Doesn't affect me.

- Stop counting the police shooting a bad guy as a Murder.

So from my perspective, it isn't that bad here.

This one from 'noOne" deserves a great big LOL:

"Yeah like the Fountain Valley Massacre at the St. Croix golf club now known as Carambola, didn't happen. Not many places in the World have more than one mass murder, and the USVI is right there in the stats:
"

...not many places in the world have more than one mass murder???? You're kidding. right?

OK. let me tell you what the difference is: if you're Black, and you kill eight people, it is infinitely worse than if you're White and kill over 70 people like Breivik (Scandinavia, 2011).
BTW, four of the Fountain Valley victims were Black...FYI.

Right on, CruzanIron...I feel exactly the same way.

It is insane to act as if any community is safer than any other...

Sure, in 2010 the USVI had more than twelve times the murder rate of "other community(s)" on the US continent - it is insane to act as if the USVI community is as safe as any other community.

LOL!!!

Well, stay away, then...we certainly don't need cowards ...BTW how is that "open carry" thing going for you? Y'all are so scared up there you feel a need to carry AK-47's with you to Home Depot...I feel perfectly safe in my local Home Depot LOL!

Tough.

OT you should have put what you wrote in the other thread here!:

And obviously your apparent reading comprehension and lack of empathy is such that the reason I don't contribute to "crime threads" totally eludes you. I don't always agree with NativeSon but where this subject is concerned I do.

How do I measure the major crime stats?

-Remove the domestic violence. Doesn't affect me.

-Remove the gang on gang violence. Doesn't affect me.

-Remove any crime in public between 9:00 PM and 5:00 AM. Doesn't affect me.

- Stop counting the police shooting a bad guy as a Murder.

So from my perspective, it isn't that bad here.

Exactly.

OK. let me tell you what the difference is: if you're Black, and you kill eight people, it is infinitely worse than if you're White and kill over 70 people like Breivik (Scandinavia, 2011).
BTW, four of the Fountain Valley victims were Black...FYI.

You brought up race, not I. It seems to be important to you - at any rate, it was a massacre in the USVI.

-Remove domestic violence. Doesn't affect me.

-Remove the gang on gang violence. Doesn't affect me.

-Remove any crime in public between 9:00 PM and 5:00 AM. Doesn't affect me.

- Stop counting the police shooting a bad guy as a Murder.

And I quote, AGAIN:

Heat On the Street (Pulitzer Prize web site)

The ready availability of guns turns simple disagreements into deadly encounters. In the last five years, 34 percent of all homicides in the territory resulted from arguments that got out of hand.

no one says:

"
You brought up race, not I. It seems to be important to you - at any rate, it was a massacre in the USVI.
"

...race is important to everyone...it is insane and dangerous to think otherwise.

Yes, and there are even serial killers from down there (who knows how many people he killed there and got away with):

Los Angeles Police Pin Old Murders of Three Women on Dead Serial Killer

Now, nearly three decades after the original crime, detectives say they have found their man: a wanted fugitive from Miami who has been dead since 2007. In late June, blood tests confirmed that Larry D. Hubbard, who went on the lam in 1977 after he escaped from a Florida prison, is the killer, detectives say.

[...]

Police arrested 28-year-old Larry D. Hubbard, a self-employed, married janitor from the Virgin Islands, and charged him with false imprisonment. He was sentenced to six months in prison and four years' probation.

DNA links Florida prison escapee to four California killings

LAPD Det. Luis Rivera last September requested a sample of Hubbard's blood from the Florida coroner. A few weeks ago, detectives said they finally had the last piece of the puzzle: a DNA match.

Man Who Committed Suicide In 2008 Linked To Several Unsolved Murders

Larry D. Hubbard, who was found living in Pomona after escaping Florida following a conviction for a 1974 robbery, has been linked to two unsolved Los Angeles murders in 1980 and two more in 2000 in Pomona and Riverside County, LAPD detectives said.

NoOne, has anyone suggested counseling?

Hmm lets do some extrapolation here... approximately 12x the murder rate, with approximately 1/3 due to arguments. Hmm... 1/3 of 12 is 4, so you are four times more likely to be killed in an argument in the USVI, than to be killed by all other means in the average US city.

Comfy.