Any police officer or military commander will tell you the engagements in which you least want to become involved and are least likely to be successful are domestic disputes and civil wars. I would suggest the same analogy holds true for the crime problem on Main Street v. North Main.

The crime problem on North Main and certain other areas of our city can be likened to a cancer that has metastasized throughout the body. Its treatment is difficult at best and near hopeless at worst because those affected refuse to acknowledge the problem or cooperate with the treatment. Comparatively speaking, the crime on Main Street can be likened to a malignant tumor that has been recently located and with aggressive treatment and cooperation from the patient stands a good chance of being cured.

As with any disease early detection and proper diagnosis is the key. Social stigma prevents a proper diagnosis of the North Main problem because it is politically incorrect. Only when we can openly confront and discuss that African- Americans, who are the predominate demographic group along North Main, kill members of their own race at a rate seven time higher than that of whites killing other whites; and that further they, perpetrator and victim alike, represent nearly 80% of the violent crime in Columbia, will we be able to take effective measures in battling the problem.

Until we become mature enough as a community to deal with this most pressing of problems the near pandemic along North Main and "other areas beset by crime" will continue apace. In the mean time, we should certainly attempt to educate, inoculate, vaccinate, isolate, or use any other remedy available to prevent the infectious disease from spreading. Gene Sansbury Columbia, SC