Letter to Editor about Wolfchase Galleria

[Sky King]

I sent this letter to the Commercial Appeal concerning their ban and the recent armed car jacking. If they publish it, I will be surprised. The main reason to send it is that I put it out in front of the public that there are people who are willing to stop doing business with them because of their decision. You know the mall would rather such publicity just die out as it is not positive. The more we run that up the flag pole so to speak for all to see the more attention the mall management has to pay to it. They are not going to air their dirty laundry, so we have to air it for them. People have to know that bans and signs do NOT make their visits to the mall safe.

So here is my letter to the editor of the Commercial Appeal. I have already received an email confirming they received it, now I just wonder if they will publish it.

Sam Cooper
Memphis Tennessee

Editor,

Your paper reported on a carjacking at gunpoint by two persons in the Wolfchase Galleria mall Thursday.

What should be noted is that Wolfchase mall bans the carrying of weapons on their property and this ban is posted on signage at the entrances to the mall and their parking lots. This event is proof positive that criminals are not detered by bans such as this. These bans only serve to prevent law abiding citizens the ability to provide for their own protection as it is obvious that mall security and the police can not be everywhere all the time.

Bans such as these and postings only advertise to criminals such as this that at this location they will have a very low chance of encountering a victim who is capable of defending themselves.
By posting this ban, the sense of security that people may feel because they think they are entering a gun free zone is totally false as proven here. How safe do you think this lady will feel about entering this property again?

A search of various crime tracking data bases on line shows in the last 12 months, at the address of Wolfchase mall there have been 27 assaults, 2 agravated assaults, 10 cases of intimidation, 4 individual robberies, 62 thefts from motor vehicles, 24 thefts of vehicle parts and accessories among many other crimes listed in other catagories.

We all remember the fate of the Mall of Memphis. High crime resulted in it being tagged the "Mall of Murder" and it had a very short life eventually being closed and torn down. Crime is going to follow the money and this event is proof positive of that and their posting will do nothing to slow it down.

[TNReb]

Well done!

[Sky King]

Well they actually printed it in todays (Wednesday, June 23) edition. They did do a little editing to shorten it a bit but it didn't effect what I said so it's ok.

[GraceOutcast]

Excellent

And here is the link

Gun bans embolden criminals
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/20 ... wednesday/

[Pat McGarrity]

Back in the late '90s, Wolfchase Galleria had banned legally armed customers, creating a safe working environment for criminal predators, but had reversed their policy after many of us contacted them. It looks like the ban is back, so I won't be.

Sam did an excellent job of articulating the backwards logic of the ban in his letter to the editor that the CA (www.communistappeal.com) actually published. BIG thanks to Sam for bringing some common sense to light!

Pat

[Pat McGarrity]

From TFA Member, Detective Jim Williams, MPD, Ret.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: PatjaxTEC@aol.com
Sent: 7/3/2010 5:14:08 P.M. Central Daylight Time
Subj: Re: Excellent LTE re. Wolfchase by Sam Cooper.


Sam was absolutely right about crime killing off
the Mall of Memphis. When I worked at the nearby
East Precinct on Mt Moriah Road, we had an office
joke about the perils of shopping there:

"I went to the Mall of Memphis today. I got out
of my car and ran into an entrance with two
robbers chasing me with their pistols, telling me
to come back. When I got ready to leave, I looked
outside to see if my car had been stolen or not,
and then ran back to my car past two different
holdup men (they had changed shifts already). "

Crime was so high there that the MPD did
something for that mall they had never done before
nor since for any shopping center: they assigned
30 uniformed officers to roam the Mall parking
area, free of cost (the City normally charged a fee).

When I worked in the Auto Theft Bureau, they
sent ten of us detectives to look for car thieves
in the MoM parking lot. Working in ten different
cars to spead our eyes out into a total-coverage
view, it only took ONE HOUR for us to watch a
car being broken into and stolen. It looked kind of
different to see ten unmarked ATB cruisiers,
blue lights flashing, clustered on American Way
as we blocked in the just-stolen car and arrested
the car thief. It was like fishing in a barrel.

The sheer weight of crime, with continuous purse
snatches, robberies, shootings, and carjackings
made the customer base give up and leave the Mall
to the criminals. Then the bulldozers came.

Please forward this to Sam for his own amusement,
as well as to any other TFA members you wish.

Jim

[fl0at]

Yup. Wolfchase no longer holds any interest for me.

I guess I'll contact my eye doctor and let her know I'll need my records faxed elsewhere.

[Sky King]