May 25, 2001 – After two murders in less than a month and amid near-nightly reports of gunfire and other violent crime, residents of historic Garden Street are determined to reclaim their neighborhood.
The Garden Street/Long Path Association's officers have called on residents, business owners and landlords to have loiterers removed from their property.
Longtime educator Sara Connell, public information officer for the association, said the senseless killings are a result of "illegal actions on the part of persons outside the community."
Young children, Connell said, are being traumatized by the actions of a few, and the causes must be halted. "The strip clubs, the whorehouses and drug trafficking must go," she said.
The association has called on Gov. Charles W. Turnbull and Police Commissioner Franz Christian to take immediate action to bring an end to the chronic incidence of crime in the area.
The latest killing occurred Tuesday afternoon, when Hakeem Salem was gunned down as he sat in his parked car a short distance away from All Saints Cathedral School. On April 30, Craig Bess was found shot to death in the back of a pick up truck on the same stretch of narrow street. No arrests have been made in either case.
Christian said on Friday that the violent crime plaguing the community appears to be confined mainly to members of the criminal subculture who operate by a different set of standards than law-abiding citizens. Their crimes are most often against each other, he said, and occur without warning.
The incidents of violence, "as far we can see, are persons targeting each other," he said. "They usually have a gripe of some sort to settle."
He encouraged anyone with information on criminal activity to contact police at the confidential crime line, 777-8711.
