If you go just by the numbers, there are reasons to feel hopeful about the direction of the city’s campaign against street violence. According to the latest statistics released by the Boston Police Department, there have been 15 fewer non-fatal shooting incidents in the city so far this year, as compared with the same time frame in 2007 (Jan. 1- July 20). There have also been three fewer homicides (30 in 2007, 27 so far in ’08.)
The numbers, however, don’t account for all of the gun-related incidents popping off in the city’s neighborhoods. The statistics released earlier this week only count incidents in which someone is hit.
As the Reporter noted three weeks ago in these pages, a member of our staff nearly drove through a broad daylight shooting in Uphams Corner on June 9. No one was hit in that incident, but a family driving through the busy intersection of Columbia Road and Dudley Street had at least two bullets fired through their car, shattering the window. A five year-old child was in the backseat of the vehicle that was struck.
Last Thursday, a man driving his family along Columbia Road was not as fortunate. That incident – which happened just after 8 p.m. near the corner of Devon Street, left a 25 year-old man with a gunshot wound to the thigh. Luckily, none of the children in the back of his van was physically hurt.
According to police reports, another vehicle – a Verizon van carrying two workers – was also hit by two bullets in the same incident. Neither worker was injured. The innocent commuters, evidently, drove through what police believe was a shootout between two individuals.
Rev. Bruce Wall, the Codman Square clergyman and activist who has repeatedly called for a citywide “state of emergency” to be declared due to the violence, issued another one this week. Wall argues that even though the stats may have shown some improvement, there is a palpable sense of danger in many neighborhoods.
Interestingly, his own immediate neighborhood around Codman Square has not been one of them. Wall walks the neighborhood regularly with volunteers to enforce his self-declared 10-block “zero tolerance” violence zone. That, he says, plus beefed up police patrols along Washington Street have made a big difference. A review of the locations of the most recent violence seems to back him up.
In Roxbury, a series of summertime block parties organized by the Grove Hall radio station TOUCH 106.1 FM are also helping. The parties – held each Saturday on streets like Intervale, Forest Avenue, and Warren Street (this Saturday) – are embraced by police on district B-2, who are funding paid details for each of them. The concept of bringing the events right to streets hard hit in the past by gun violence is a novel one and seems to be working.
But, just as the police cannot sit watch on every corner, volunteers cannot cover enough ground to keep pace with demand. TOUCH is now fielding calls asking for help along the Mattapan-Hyde Park line, where bubbling feuds have touched off a series of shootings. A 32 year-old Dorchester man shot dead in his car on Saturday is apparently the latest victim.
And, on the slopes of Meetinghouse Hill, C-11 police are scrambling to respond to regular gunplay on and around Homes Avenue. According to Capt. John Greland, there have been nine shooting incidents on Homes this year. Two members of the same family – one 13, another 16 – have been wounded. On Friday, another man’s life was nearly lost. A man – who was apparently dropping someone off on Homes – was fired upon by an unknown gunman. Several bullets whizzed through the car. One struck the man’s ballcap and turned it right around on his head. Miraculously, he drove away unscathed.
