Trenton, NJ - Art Festival Shooting news video - 1 dead - over 20 wounded - the whole concept is just a bad idea for this city

I have been faithfully using dtube for video posts, but I have to reference the YouTube video at the bottom of this posting for this. I work in this particular city of Trenton, NJ. I am blocks away, every day from where this happened. The organizers run a 30 hour event, where artists get to openly display their art in a big old warehouse and surrounding area. The first part of having the opportunity to display the art is OK. It is a good idea and could bring some nice people and help with a rejuvenation.

The 30 hours is the problem. This city is a disaster area. They are trying to rejuvenate the city. There is no need for this party to run into the hours of darkness, especially when bars start to close.

Starbucks just put in a store about 3 months ago down the street from my office. Although, if you walk these streets, you'll see more abandoned shops and buildings than not. The entire downtown are is basically surviving off of the government workers in the various offices in the area. Most businesses open much earlier, such as 7am and close by 6pm. No one who has a smart head on their shoulders would be walking around downtown Trenton at night to see paintings or shop anywhere. This doesn't mean that putting themselves at risk is their fault though. It is the trash and gangs that live in the city. This is what the festival looked like before mayhem broke out:

Photo credit: Trenton patch.com

Rival gang members got into a disagreement at the festival and there were at least 3 shooters. One is dead, another in critical condition, I'm not even sure about the 3rd one's status. Normal law-abiding people had no guns of their own to defend themselves. I don't know that gang members were necessarily there to enjoy the arts. They were likely there to fight over territory and who they were going to rob or steal from. It is pathetic.

The gun laws in New Jersey are incredibly strict for concealed carry. People basically need to be a politician, an ex-cop, or know someone like a judge, or else they are not getting a concealed carry license in New Jersey. They also have stiff penalties for carrying a weapon, hollow point ammunition and do not honor any out of state permits. People like myself in PA drive here every day, over the bridge into NJ to work. I have a PA concealed carry permit, but I will not bring a weapon into New Jersey though. This means that the only people who have guns at night, are the people who are carrying them illegally; and they are likely obtained illegally as well. One of the gunmen is the dead person in this incident, and had just been released from prison. He was on parole from a homicide charge. I suppose we will consider his parole violated and he is now serving out his sentence, and then some.

Photo credit: Philadelphia Tribune

I just don't see why even the organizers of this event would think that this unsafe city would be a good place to have 30 hour event. They have done it in previous years, without incident and have been lucky. I wouldn't walk down a street in this town at night. I don't even like getting too far away from the government buildings during the day. It is all liquor stores, cash for gold stores, some food stores and little convenience stores. As the summer approaches, I only walk around a few streets where lots of government workers go out to lunch, and that is about it. If they are going to clean up Trenton, it is going to take a long, long time from my point of view. I don't think the recently enacted (even stricter and just a few days ago) gun control laws will help either. There needs to be more of a police presence and incentives for businesses to open up their abandoned buildings and shops again. They need to make people feel safe while they are there. Feel free to comment on whatever aspect of this impacts you. This is a whole mess of guns in the wrong people's hands, gangs, a nice art festival, police not being viewed as a threat, and no concealed carry permits for average citizens, just to name the main issues. What happened with the parole process here too? Someone was just paroled and is instantly right back on the streets shooting at people and ends up dead himself? There are so many tangents in this story to talk about.

Here is the news story video, it is only about a 90 seconds or so, if you're formally from this area or are just simply interested in an art festival gone bad.