WAVE OF FEAR : Voicing Their Crime Fears

“As long as you see it’s another community . . . we could find an excuse for it: ‘It’s somewhere else, the kid was in a gang.’ We could dismiss it. Now, we can’t. There are no boundaries anymore.”

--Lin Squires of Chatsworth, co-founder of Mad About Rising Crime

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“How do they determine that this town is number one on the murder list? I mean, Washington, D.C.’s, crime was worse than here. You can walk down any street there and get shot any time. Here, you know what neighborhoods to avoid.”

--Marvin Allen of Gary, Ind. waiter

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“People have kind of got back to their normal routines. The talkers are chattering away again. The sleepers are sleeping, the crossword people are scribbling. It’s like it almost never happened. It’s our defense mechanism, I suppose.”

--Neil Wilensky, who who just missed Long Island commuter train the night a gunman killed six passengers

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“You reach a critical mass when people say: ‘I’ve had it.’ We have an opportunity to do something real.”

--Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.)

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“Name me a person in L.A. who has a fender-bender and doesn’t fear an imminent carjacking. Yes, it’s still remote, but you’re in the statistical pool now. It’s like AIDS. Everyone’s in the pool now.”

--Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.)

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“Sure, I have a little bit of fear. Because every time I turn on the television news there seems to be something. It’s all bad news.”

--Ross Settle of Atlanta sporting goods salesman

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“I have two Doberman dogs because they keep out unwanted guests. I’m also licensed to carry a gun and I carry a gun 24 hours a day. Yet I am against citizens carrying guns. I just hope I never to have to use it.”

--Brian Geenty of Miami Shorecrest Homeowners’ Assn. president

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“No one feels safe anymore. Parents are just petrified. My God! What a society.”

--Bob Haisman, president of Illinois Education Assn.

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“It’ll go away. It’s called a moral panic. Moral panic is almost completely unrelated to underlying reality. I’ve seen them come and go. There was carjacking. Hate crime. Gold chain snatching. Remember gold chains?”

--Dan Lewis, criminologist Northwestern University

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“It is the moment when people’s cup of endurance runs over.”

--The Rev. Otis Moss of Cleveland