(UNEDITED) I have never been ashamed of Ogden. Even when her southern cousin cities blossomed and she dilapidated and tarnished. I have always believed and held fast to the thought that while this was no utopia, we yearned and toiled and strived together to build the most culturally diverse community along the Wasatch. I believed Ogden was a place where we held our liberty above our prosperity; it was a place I was proud to call home. Today however; I am ashamed.
When our once proud city can isolate a group, however notorious or despised and outlaw their existence, we are all less. Forget even that these are families with their own innocents that will suffer.
Think not of the children that have been born into that life without opportunities that most take for granted. When we are willing to allow the profiling of the unpopular, how far can we be from outlawing Bikers, Catholics or Red Heads?
But what is worse, what I cannot bear without tears, is that we are willing to let it happen. We, the law abiding, tax paying, voting, upstanding citizens. As if hopes of a future mall or Gondola to heaven would heal the wound that we open with this atrocity of a precedent.
If all went as planned; and all gang activity ceased, would it be worth it to be known as the city where liberty died? Where we traded our freedom for security. For have no doubt, this is unfair. For those that break the law, jail them. Use the law, that's what it's there for.
But if we stand by and let them run over Ogden Trece, we are complicit in stampeding almost 500 peoples rights. Today I am ashamed of us all.
Roan Poulter
Ogden
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