We received emails from readers asking about the shooting/robbery that happened on Sunday, Aug 18, shortly before 4 p.m. near 46th and Springfield. The victim, a male, was shot in the shoulder during a robbery and was taken to the hospital where he was listed in critical condition, but is doing better now. The suspect fled the scene on foot, according to police reports.
The robbery was not random and the victim and the shooter may know each other, according to police. “There is not a maniacal serial robber out there robbing and shooting random people,” Joe Murray of the Southwest Police Detectives said in an email. No more details are available at this time as the investigation continues.
August 21st, 2013 at 10:48 am
I love this neighborhood but worry each day about the ‘pressure’ that comes when the middle and upper-class are living in such close proximity to the poor and underprivileged. On the one hand, I think it’s a great thing, and on the other, I worry about the different groups growing to resent each other. I will say that, overall, it appears that this great ‘experiment’ is successful. However, I feel that more work needs to be done from all parties to reach out and across the lines that divide us.
August 21st, 2013 at 5:08 pm
I don’t think that the situation is so easily rendered as a a sociological or class experiment gone wrong, or even that the crimes committed come from the poorer area and are visited upon the privileged because of a disparity of wealth. That said, there are too many guns (city wide problem). There are not enough jobs/opportunities (nation-wide problem) to counter the lure of the gangster mentality. Often the shootings, like the one on the 4600 block of Chester a while back, are drug-related. The people often know and are involved with each other. Some of the individuals are not hardened/known criminals, so it’s difficult to forecast a pattern of criminality. (The Green Line Robber did not fit any of the above “sociological” categories).
Drugs are also a serious problem in the homogeneous, affluent suburbs, who do not experience the pressures of class/wealth disparity as a cause. Even the Amish have had their drug problems (1998 drug bust of two Lancaster County Amish youth for selling cocaine), so I think it’s a lot more complex than strongforu presents it. Unfortunately it is a simplistic view that feeds the argument that gentrification – of what was otherwise “a good ole neighborhood” – is the root cause of crime and community instability. Gentification, is a code word for “race”, which however inaccurate – and unhelpful – feeds a lot of people’s agendas.
August 22nd, 2013 at 9:59 am
Joe Clarke well said. It’s easier to think the problems we face day to day are simple to solve when in fact it’s way more complicated and involved than we’d like FI acknowledge.