Peoria Pundit

Links via the Peoria Journal Star:

• Here’s some discussion of traffic along West Main Street in the West Bluff. Hopefully, all these traffic studies will provide details that will replace all the anecdotal evidence that the street needs to be narrowed. I’m 45 years old and I can’t recall a time when West Main wasn’t congested. It’s certainly not as congested on Friday and Saturday nights as it was in my youth, when teens from four different counties converged to “cruise Main.” As someone who lives in the area, I don’t want to see traffic diverted onto the side streets, rather than onto Interstate 74. Frankly, I don’t buy into the contention that folks will naturally start using the interstate to avoid driving on West Main. There are instances in which it’s quicker, but easier? Interstate driving is different than driving on city streets, and I am one of those people who would rather spend 15 minutes on city roads than 7 or ten on an interstate.
• You know all these wonderful old houses that everyone wants to preserve? Well, their wonderful old lead pipes and wonderful old lead paint chips are poisoning Peoria’s children. Scientists are concluding that there is no safe level of lead. But don’t worry. Peoria’s powers-that-be for decades successfully ignored the disease-causing human feces the city was pumping into the Illinois River. No doubt everyone in a position to try to fix this problem will explain this away as a statistical fluke.
• The city has identified who is responsible for the shooting death of former Manual track star Teddy Jackson. Apparently, it was the building. The structure exerted a form of mind control on a yet-unidentified person, forcing him to obtain two handguns and fire them into a crowd. The wise and all-knowing Peoria City Hall bureaucracy, knowing full well the powers this evil structure possesses, denied it a dance hall license. But this evil building would not be denied, and it used it’s powers to find a loophole that allowed it to be rented out for events.

It’s become a habit to dismiss the lives of the victims of gun violence. So many of the victims seem to be on the wrong side of the law. The Journal Star has turned in its second-day story on the murder of Teddy Jackson, there’s no indication that the young man was a negative influence on his community. He was working as a security guard at this Christian club and was apparently trying to break up a fight.

From the Peoria Journal Star:

Teddy C. Jackson, 26, of 2020 W. Howett St., was shot in the head about 1:05 a.m. outside The Rock Christian Entertainment Complex, 815 S.W. Adams St., according to Peoria police. He was pronounced dead in the emergency room at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center at 1:30 a.m., said Peoria County Coroner Johnna Ingersoll.

We will no doubt be inundated with theories, rumors, accusations and denials. The young man was apparently a patron of a Christian dance club that night (Website here), and there will be those who will no doubt complain about that concept as well.

All I’m going to say is that offer my condolences to his family, friends and the Manual High School community.