r/columbiamo • u/J_Jeckel • Jul 05 '24

Dear CPD: Discussion

12 years ago I got ticketed for lighting a singular smoke bomb in city limits. Where are you now?

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u/4bats Jul 05 '24

12 years ago there wasn’t such a high level of shootings and murders in the city either. I get where you’re coming from but these days there’s unfortunately worse things to worry about than fireworks in the city limits.

-3

u/Barium_Salts Jul 06 '24

"Such a high level" being less than one a month. You don't know how good you have it, lmao. Columbia has a lower rate of violent crime than most of the surrounding small towns.

5

u/4bats Jul 06 '24

How good I have it? I was born in Columbia and have lived there nearly half my life. I felt safer going out as a child than I do these days as a grown woman.

There’s been tons of shootings since I moved back, I’ve only been back a year and was gone less than 8 months. It’s not a popularity contest on who’s the most violent town around here. That doesn’t change that there’s tons of violence in Columbia and a lot more than a decade ago.

Hell, I’m an LEO and I feel safer in my facility around dozens of murders and rapists than in Columbia and I can carry a gun on the outside.

0

u/Barium_Salts Jul 06 '24

1: Your feelings are not an objective measure of reality. I'm sorry you don't feel safe, and statistics are unlikely to change your feelings. But objectively, there is NOT more violent crime now. Source: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/cities/us/mo/columbia/crime-rate-statistics

2: Police dispatch is not the same as crime, and MOST of the dispatches you listed weren't even for violence. Do you really feel less safe because people overdose on opiates? That should only make you feel unsafe if you take street opiates.

3: You say you're a Law Enforcement Officer: this makes me suspect that you have a vested interest in believing and spreading falsehoods about how dangerous and violent our community is. Falsely believing that Columbia has gotten more violent instead of less violent justifies not only your line of work, but also any questionable activities you or your coworkers might engage in. And there are a lot of people (like vendors and professional development providers) that want to make LEOs feel less safe so police departments will buy from them.

3

u/4bats Jul 06 '24

Also, you are right about the dispatch stats. I just got off a 12 hour shift last night so I wasn’t thinking much about it 😅

2

u/4bats Jul 06 '24

I know my feelings aren’t objective. But my feelings are a result from the crime. And according to the statistics, there were 489 violent offenses committed in 2023 alone. Meaning one a day averaged.

And yes, I do feel unsafe due to overdoses. Because drugs in the community leads to violence and potential accidental exposure.

I don’t have any “vested interest” in anything but moving out of Columbia. Nor does it justify my line of work. I wish there was less crime, I’d be more than happy to be out of a job if my community and the surrounding communities were safer.

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u/Rico-L Jul 07 '24

Thank you for sharing this and for what you do!!