Late on the 4th of July, there was a big fight in my neighborhood. Thankfully, I wasn't there. A friend who was there described it as around 100 people - some from East Cleveland and some from Cleveland - who just plain wanted to fight. No gang or drug issues - no girl in the middle - just a bunch of people so stressed and freaked out by life that they needed to pound somebody. On that night, those folks settled for pounding each other, and little harm was caused.

But, this wasn't some cutie-boy Hollywood fight club... it was brutal violence and a leading economic indicator for my community and the region... and it means trouble is coming. The recent rape and other violent crimes in University Circle are on the same radar for me, and the 100,000s of other stakeholders around Cleveland.

I knew this was going to be a bad summer - a bad year for impoverished places - and July 4th showed major signs of how bad it has gotten in my part of town.

Yesterday afternoon, as I pulled into my inner-city driveway to notice a window was open, I realized my family was the latest victim of living in an impoverished place, in hopeless times... people will smash out your windows with a baseball bat, in the middle of a beautiful Saturday afternoon, with neighbors out everywhere around you (of course, they don't know anything), and they will crawl into your house and rummage through all your drawers and personal items looking for whatever they think you have worth stealing. And, if you happen to be in the house when they come in, you may rest assured they will beat you to death with that bat, if not shoot you first.

In our case, whoever broke into our house left their bat behind - on our bed, where my wife sleeps. Probably a sign he wanted to kill her - or he was turned on going through her underwear and is sending a sign he is coming back to rape her.

I assume it was a HE because it is no ordinary bat. It is a violent, no-games bat. It is taped up for extra grip. And, it has been used a lot - the tape is very worn - to smash lots of things - the bat is heavily scared. It is perfect for close combat, to smash someone in the face and strike many kinds of blows - a bit bigger than a cop's club but similar idea. It is a special bat of a special villain - hard to imagine a villain leaving behind such a special bat, unless leaving an important message or caught in the act and rushed to leave... I wasn't gone long so I may have cut the villain's fun short.

As I assume the bat belongs to a neighbor, I expect they'll be looking for an opportunity to get it back... and looking, and looking.

I have the bat, and I brought our Cane Corso back to the house, from visiting my parents, and we are locked in and ready for anything. But that certainly doesn't solve our problem, being the poor local economy caused by our poor leadership here.

Our leaders don't seem to understand the seriousness of the desperation and violence in our community, now, and that the only solution to our crime, which is getting worse, is to create real hope and opportunity for all the impoverished people in the region, which is why I proposed the development of REAL COOP INFO FOOD. If we focus on feeding and employing impoverished people in our urban core, through the development of our local foods economy, we will stop those people from smashing in my windows, and yours.

Until we implement real change initiatives of the scope and equity of REAL COOP INFO FOOD, where change is actually needed, nobody is safe in this community.

A few summers ago, my parents had their front door chopped down with an ax, and their house ransacked, in the middle of a Saturday afternoon, and they live in the middle of Shaker Heights. Don't think this insanity will stop in the ghetto.

Batters up!