Working Woman: Yes, Cary is one of the ten safest cities in the US. Do you ever go to Charlotte? Greensboro? Los Angeles? Richmond?

Are you petrified, terrified, scared to your wits end when you leave the borders of Cary and go, well, just about anywhere else?

I doubt it. What you are is afraid of Durham. Sorry, the stats don't bear out the ill will of years of bias.

I live here. I go out walking all the time. I go out walking after dark, in fact. And feel perfectly safe. There are parts of town where I wouldn't feel safe doing that. Just like there are parts of Raleigh where I wouldn't do that.

Of course, Cary is the town that for years effectively prohibited providers of low-income housing (like Habitat for Humanity) from operating. I guess when you create a virtually exclusive community, life's so much easier.

What are you going to do about the other 300 million Americans? Life's easier when you can ignore society's problems. But that's not an American way to live.

Ok - Why is he labled BLACK MAN ? He's just a Man and a victim I don't see that color should have been a issue of this Man I am White and wondering why it was written up as "Black man was shot in Durham" you nerver see " White man was shot"in Durham- Just wondering

ncwebguy: The number of homicides in R. and D. are about the same so far this year. Does Raleigh have a bigger population? Yes. Yet I suspect it's much the same demographic -- SES-disadvantaged, troubled youth, etc. -- committing the crimes in each, and that the cities have similar numbers of these populations.

fatchance: I guess my question is, what, exactly, do you expect Durham leaders to do differently? They've been asking for more DAs, more judges, more magistrates -- for *years*. That's a state function, the local govt. can't help. The county jail is just for people awaiting trial, and it's maxed out... the long waits for trials helps put accused criminals back on the streets. Bail levels were just raised, some ten-fold. Raleigh has 700 sworn officers -- Durham, 500. So we have our share of law enforcement, too.

No, most of Durham's problems stem from root causes of violence, not lack of law enforcement. And Durham is working on solving those problems, too, not ignoring them.

Raleigh is no more or less "economically exclusive" than Durham. The difference between the two is the "economically inclusive" areas of Raleigh have residents with more common sense and are less violent than their Durham counterparts. Durham has the misfortune of having fewer residents, so every "bad" one stands out more than in a heavier populated city. Cary has very small pockets of economically less fortunate, and are "kept in line" by a zealous police force and a *boring* town no one wants to explore by car or foot.

Part of that comes from fear, with RPD assigning more officers to higher crime areas. But another part comes from the culture of the community. There are gangs in Raleigh, but (for whatever reason) they aren't as woven into neighborhood's fabric as they are in the economically depressed areas of Durham.

Durham-Raleigh...you & those living in Durham should be ticked off. Ticked off enough to do something about the situation. The leadership there obviously is not doing enough and has let the situation there get as bad as it is. Perhaps when the residents get to ticked off enough you'll use your voices & voting power to help make changes.

And how do you think we get on our high-horses? We use all the headlines about violent crime & drugs in Durham as steps.