I think the line Doodler quoted was a bit out of context.* Later there is a line that the more vulnerable are the women and children, but it's still poor wording in the article because that does come across to me as saying that "only black men can serve as protection". The article also stated that Blacks make up about 44% of the population in the area and that most of the homicides are handguns related and involve young, black males, so I can see where something like this might actually work if it all goes according to plan.

That plan could fall apart in a big way if one of the patrol groups has an altercation with a member of the remaining 56%.

That other thing I can see that might be a problem is that the patrol group should represent the entire neighborhood, and patrols would be mixed race as evenly as possible. My city is close to 90% white and if we tried to do an all white patrol, it would be subject to all sorts of law suits and protests. With 100% of the Philly patrol culled from 44% of the population, it does seem a bit on the racist side to me.

Edit: *To be clear, I mean the line as it appeared in the original article was out of context, not Doodler's use of it.

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I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.