The shooting death of a 17-year-old boy a few blocks from my childhood home in Maplewood disturbed me so much that I begged off reporting on it today. Instead, I’m focusing on the weekend’s other homicide, one in a different neighborhood that’s fighting to stay afloat.
I really liked growing up in Maplewood.
Big, old houses. Lots of friends. YMCA swim team. Ray’s Deli. Driving Park Wegmans. 40&1 baseball. Public schools. Private schools. Maplewood Library. Rose garden. River trail. Less than 10 minutes from East Ridge and West Ridge roads, the beach, and downtown.
Anyone who grew up in Maplewood, including Mayor Bob Duffy, has got to be pained by the growing list of violent crimes in the area. My parents still live there. A lot of awesome families call Maplewood home.
The neighborhood looks the same. It’s still quite attractive.
But something has changed. Latasha Shaw was beaten and stabbed to death right outside the grocery store where I got my first job. A kid was shot in front of the library where I spent hours and hours after school. A barber was gunned down inside of his shop. It’s getting to the point where you can’t call each of these incidents isolated.
What’s going on?
Is this a neighborhood on the brink? Or, as Councilman Adam McFadden said, is this a case of “a small group of individuals” wreaking havoc? I have to ask if the closing of the Maplewood police section play a role. Whatever the problem, this city cannot afford to let the boundaries of the Crescent expand.
We should be building up neighborhoods, not losing them.
