Dubuque has faced countless challenges over its 176 years, and it now it faces another -- confronting a spike in crime while trying to assess where and how racial attitudes color various community members' opinions.
This city has always had crime. Scan through old newspapers of days gone by, particularly in Dubuque's formative years, and you find many detailed accounts of bar fights, brutal domestic assaults and street-corner melees. Fortunately, over time, Dubuque enjoyed a good ranking among low-crime communities. But low-crime is not crime-free, as years and years of newspaper clippings detailing homicides and major crimes would attest. The teen who killed his elderly neighbor. The murder-suicide on a downtown street. The young woman, last seen in a Dubuque bar, whose disappearance remains unsolved years later.
However, without question, the escalation of violence and other serious crime in the community has Dubuque residents angry, concerned and worried.
Twice within the past month, fights on the streets have had tragic endings. In the most recent case -- in the broad daylight of a Labor Day morning --
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Meanwhile, the community's focus cannot be limited to homicide. Burglary, violence and drugs also are threats.
Some longtime residents readily blame newcomers to the community, particularly those arriving "from Chicago and Milwaukee" -- essentially, code words for African-American -- for all these problems. There is no denying that non-whites have inserted themselves into the local criminal justice system, but focusing on race would not only be unfair to law-abiding people, it also would get in the way of the job to be done. Should an incident at Comiskey Park be looked upon any differently than a brawl after a softball game at McAleece Park?
Confronting and overcoming this challenge will require focus -- a focus not on race but on crime. Criminal activity. Factors that contribute to crime. Effective punishment for crime.
Whether one has lived here for five generations or five days, or -- as has been the case in some recent cases, just visiting -- people need to know that Dubuque will work hard to protect the community and combat lawlessness.
The Dubuque City Council has authorized re-establishment of a violent-crime task force, involving various entities in the community. In hindsight, this move is overdue, but there is no "rewind" button available. Still, this is a positive action -- but only if it produces positive outcomes.
A start is to ensure that law enforcement has the resources and support to do its job. But curbing crime is not putting a police officer on every street corner. It is not locking up every defendant and throwing away the key. A vital element is community awareness and conversation on crime and its myriad related issues.
By and large, Dubuque remains a safe, low-crime area. However, that status is being put to the test. How the community responds to this challenge will say much about Dubuque.
Editorials reflect the consensus of the Telegraph Herald Editorial Board.
