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In Galveston, Sunday evening, a resident in the 3300 block of Avenue S was having a cook-out in his yard with some friends.

A woman that was a stranger came and sat down with them. The resident asked her to leave. She initially refused, so he called the police. The woman left. She returned around 10:15 p.m. with four men who assaulted the homeowner and his guests, hitting one with a brick and stabbing another.

Two victims were hospitalized.

The woman and one male suspect were arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

http://www.galvnews.com/story/156868" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This incident is not typical of the area (I drive or ride my bicycle through this block several times a week). Some of you may know 35th and S as the location of Queen's Bar-B-Que.

A large number of grifters and apparent drug addicts live around there, either in a cheap motel or abandoned houses. They can often be seen panhandling and worse on the Seawall, which is a block away. The perpetrators in this case were probably among that population.

- Jim

Yikes. Maybe a BBQ AR would've been appropriate.

This comment in the comments section kind of struck me as weird:

"So readers, if a strange woman shows up to your house and demands BBQ, just give it to her."

I usually don't read the comments because they are usually vacuous.

Really, the solution to this kind of thing is a security fence.

Bums can be shameless. Some of them have a monstrous sense of entitlement.

Need I add that mental illness and drug abuse make the situation worse?

- Jim

seamusTX wrote:I usually don't read the comments because they are usually vacuous.

Article comments are like the proverbial train wreck to me...I can't help but look.

SQLGeek wrote:

seamusTX wrote:I usually don't read the comments because they are usually vacuous.

Article comments are like the proverbial train wreck to me...I can't help but look.

+1

They are usually good for a laugh or two.

Some places have an active front-porch and front-yard culture. At least they know their neighbors.

It wouldn't work in River Oaks or whatever snobby place that you may be familiar with.

- Jim

I think I live in a relatively safe neighborhood. I know my immediate neighbors and have never carried outside when doing yard work or washing my car, ect.......... If I did live in a "bad area", I would never go out without it.

Habanero Rub (improvised pepper spray lol) may have come in handy too

I don't know any of the details, but I suspect the attack was fast and caught the victims by surprise. The typical honest citizen is not prepared for assault by street thugs.

- Jim

man i cant wait to get down there. no matter where youre at you must be prepared. come on memorial day!!!

god bless.

Regarding front yard culture...

I live in what seems to me anyway to be an upscale neighborhood — not stinkin' rich (we're not in Southlake), but a very nice neighborhood. For the most part, the residents are friendly with one another, but tend to be busy enough most of the time that front yard culture isn't a daily thing. But at least a couple of times a year, the folks on my block get together for some occasion or other. Sometimes it's a Christmas party in one of the neighborhood homes. We have gathered for candlelight prayer for a cancer ridden neighbor on her front lawn. Other times, we "declare" a block party, unofficially close off the street (it's only one block long and only the neighborhood uses it, so we don't bother involving city hall and all that permit nonsense), drag all the lawn chairs, picnic tables, and barbecues out to the street, and have a whoopdie-doo. Somebody or other usually produces a pony keg, and a good time is had by all. We also have spring and summer time "Tuesday Lawn Chair Society" meetings, when we'll just spontaneously gather lawn chairs on someone's front lawn and hang out, while the kids run up and down and play all over the place. It started on Tuesdays, which is why we called it that, but it is really more spontaneous than that.

Pretty much all the people on my block are professionals of one sort or another, or local Grapevine business owners. Incomes (with the exception of mine, lately) are all probably well above average. There is no reason to believe that having a front yard culture is restricted to only certain socio-economic strata. It has more to do with whether or not the neighbors are nice, friendly people who take an interest in one another's lives.

Unlike the events in this story apparently, our neighborhood is somewhat off the beaten track, so we're not likely to have vagrants appearing out of nowhere demanding to be fed. That said, if someone is truly hungry and in need, I will feed them. That doesn't mean I'm a push over for serial felons or the terminally lazy and shiftless, but if the need is real and I can help, I don't see why I shouldn't.

I'm not going to eat with someone who is hungry watching me (Matthew 25:40).

We've had some people wander by block parties who obviously could use a meal and got it. Most of the neighbors bring more food than could reasonably be consumed.

But the photo of the "suspect" in the newspaper seemed to show that she wasn't hurting for groceries, and the initial behavior that was described in the newspaper story would have had alarm bells going off in my head.

Living in a place where the financial net worth of families varies from zero to over a billion is "interesting."

- Jim

seamusTX wrote:Living in a place where the financial net worth of families varies from zero to over a billion is "interesting."

- Jim

That would have described my part of Pasadena when I still lived in California. We were a 10-15 minute walk from the Rose Bowl. The homes right along the Arroyo, were the stadium is located, are multi-million dollar homes. But just a block or two back from the edge on the east side, where I lived, the homes were much more modest. And then another 4 or 5 blocks east is pretty depressing.

But where I am blessed to live now, it is a relatively affluent area, and far enough off of any main thoroughfares to not tend to draw in people who don't really belong there. And also, while Grapevine is a reasonably large town, about 50,000 people, it is not yet a "big city" with "big city problems."

Galveston has a "straight flush" that attracts the dregs of humanity:

• As a resort town, the presence of tourists attracts those who prey on tourists.
• Prisoners who are discharged from the county jail have nowhere to go.
• Ditto the chronic psych cases who are discharged from the state hospital.
• The cops are easy-going.
• The weather is tolerable most of the time for someone who lives in a cardboard box.

I don't know if Grapevine is considered a bedroom community, but that kind of town tends to have nothing to attract vagrants. Said vagrants stand out like the proverbial sore thumb, and the cops have nothing more important to keep them busy.

- Jim

seamusTX wrote:Galveston has a "straight flush" that attracts the dregs of humanity:

• As a resort town, the presence of tourists attracts those who prey on tourists.
• Prisoners who are discharged from the county jail have nowhere to go.
• Ditto the chronic psych cases who are discharged from the state hospital.
• The cops are easy-going.
• The weather is tolerable most of the time for someone who lives in a cardboard box.

I don't know if Grapevine is considered a bedroom community, but that kind of town tends to have nothing to attract vagrants. Said vagrants stand out like the proverbial sore thumb, and the cops have nothing more important to keep them busy.

- Jim

Grapevine has its own thriving business community, but I would also describe it as a bedroom community for those who work elsewhere in the DFW metroplex. It's also a lake town, and it has a lot of tourist events.