http://www.mdjonline.com/articles/2006/ ... 221010.txt

Silence on illegals speaking volumes
Thursday, June 8, 2006 1:24 AM EDT

Shocking. Horrifying. A 9-year-old boy is axed in the head on a beautiful summer evening just blocks from where I grew up in Sandy Springs.

Police believe they shot and killed the perpetrator of this atrocity after a chase and a fight, but they're still looking for a "red car with a wobbly wheel" whose passengers also may be involved. What really happened and why a child would be the target of such ruthlessness is still speculation at the time of my deadline.

On a previous night, a newlywed couple enjoys a horse-drawn carriage ride near the Marietta Square. Usually idyllic, the evening gives way to blood and pain as an old minivan rams them from behind and the man driving escapes into the night, unwilling to heed four victims' cries for help.

In east Cobb, two men stalk a mom after puncturing her tire at a bank. Just minutes later, she feels lucky to have escaped with her life after her money is taken on the side of the road.

In the parking lot of a local jewelry store, South American gang members conduct surveillance on unsuspecting traveling salespeople, who'll soon be victims of their increasingly violent heists. Atlanta now ranks sixth in the nation for these multi-million dollar interstate crimes.

Add up all of these recent news stories and more, and the common denominator among them is that the bad guys are routinely able to find a safe haven among illegal immigrant communities surging in metro Atlanta.

Conversations I've had recently with law enforcement officials point to this being one of their biggest frustrations on the job - one felt for years.

Meanwhile, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin signed a City Council resolution last month saying Atlanta police should not be required to enforce immigration laws, or even detain illegals charged with criminal acts, unless the city receives "sufficient reimbursement" to do so.

According to Perry McGuire, the GOP candidate for attorney general in Georgia, this resolution is tough on our police.

"The City of Atlanta is now holding law enforcement hostage to the compensation issue," he said in a recent Atlanta Business Chronicle op-ed piece.

As if this "don't ask, don't tell" craziness isn't bad enough, locating the bad guys is getting tougher each day, say friends in the trenches. Most illegal immigrant criminals don't have a lease or driver's license and stay in enclaves where false identities are the norm. They're often used to a culture of violence, especially if they're from places like El Salvador (witness the rise of violent machete-wielding gangs like MS-13).

"They hit and run like guerilla fighters," I'm told, using our porous borders as a revolving door.

So my question for Shirley Franklin and others going easy on illegals is this: Where are the liberal voices raised against criminal atrocities in our own cities?

The silence is deafening.

lbarmstrong3378@comcast.net