Three weeks. Three home invasions in Peoria. Well, actually there have been three home invasions in North Peoria.

I’m trying to not chortle, because it really isn’t funny. Whether you live on the South Side or the East Bluff, or out in Weaver Ridge, it’s no joke when knuckleheads break into your home, tie you up, ransack your property and then drive off in your stolen car.

What bothers me is the reaction of the media and the police. Big bold headlines, dripping with menace greeted the North Peoria home invasions. I’ve covered cases of home invasions before, but those happened in Peoria’s older neighborhoods. While the media didn’t exactly ignore these crimes, they certainly didn’t treat these older neighborhood crimes with the same alarm and concern that greeted these more upscale crimes.

And the Peoria Police Department … as of right now, they’ve held two press conferences. I don’t recall any press conferences for any south Peoria home invasion … and some of them have been just as violent, if not more so.

I don’t think the police care more about the North Peoria victims that they do about the South Peoria vics. But I do think that the powers that be demand that the police demonstrate more active work solving the North Peoria crimes than they do the South Peoria invasions.

Now, I don’t believe you can solve Peoria’s crime problems by putting a police officer on ever corner. But certainly MORE officers make it less likely knuckleheads will try to get away with stuff.

And I know how Peoria movers and shakers think: Three unsolved home invasions in North Peoria will put more pressure on civic leaders to actually hire more cops than a several dozen drive-by shootings with actual dead bodies.

And it goes to show that there is no place to run that’s free from crime. People will victimize their neighbors, for no other reason that safety and convenience. But it looks like at least one group of ne’er do wells have branched out to the greener pastures of North Peoria. What is the solution for these people? To move even further away from Peoria’s older neighborhoods?

No, the solution is to stand pat and work to make ALL of Peoria safer. Sacrifice by paying few dollars extra to hire some more cops. Stop abandoning older neighborhoods. Pay attention to what going on in your neighborhoods. Pay attention to your neighbors.

White flight doesn’t work.