Urban Warrior | A block held hostage: Can neighbors get upper hand?
Second of two parts THE BONES of Gratz Street are still strong even as the flesh around them fails. Scores of children live in the well-built, three-story rowhouses with strong architectural details from another age and cages over the first-floor windows to keep out the times we live in now.
Second of two parts
THE BONES of Gratz Street are still strong even as the flesh around them fails.
Scores of children live in the well-built, three-story rowhouses with strong architectural details from another age and cages over the first-floor windows to keep out the times we live in now.
One of those kids left this life at age 16 on July 6 - the 211th killing this year, out of 235 as of yesterday afternoon. He was slain in a drive-by shooting on the North Philly block between Jefferson and Oxford streets.
Damon Huguly was on the cusp in his young life after a brush with the law and then the promise of a summer job. He died on the same day the city announced its latest slogan to stop the killing.
It was the second time in six months that the teen had been shot.
I was standing at the shrine for Huguly piled on the steps of a rowhouse last week when a teenage boy walked up and asked what I was doing there. He turned to find Huguly's mother.
Marcella Williams tells me the trouble on Gratz Street visits from other places, mixing in with the many children there. Amid the stuffed animals and basketball trophies of her son's shrine are black marker tags for "GSM" - Gratz Street Mafia.
"He got in trouble one time," Williams said of her son. "He was a passenger in a stolen car. That was a lesson for him."
Williams said she believes that her son, who was doing well in school and had just been offered a job at a nearby movie theater, was the victim of mistaken identity in a dispute he had no role in. She first heard about the shooting on her block from her 9-year-old son.
"He just said, 'Someone's out there shooting again,' " she said.
Sandy Mitchell, who lives across the street from Williams, sent an SOS letter and petition pleading for help last month to the mayor, the governor, the police commissioner, the NAACP and just about every politician and media outlet in the city.
As I wrote in yesterday's paper, I didn't know how to respond because my own South Philly neighborhood has suffered the same curse of drugs and shootings and official inaction from those sworn to serve and protect us. Then Damon Huguly was killed, and I started thinking about why I had put Mitchell's letter aside.
Mitchell is physically disabled and spends her days writing poems about her violent neighborhood and calling people to see if they're willing to help. Her persistence was rewarded last week with a community meeting at the nearby AME Union Church.
The Rev. Kenneth Mitchem started the meeting by summing up the problem: "We're in a hostile situation here where we're being held up by the streets. We want to be able to walk the streets without looking over our shoulders."
Neighbors and church members spoke about their frustrations and fears - packs of kids wandering the streets late at night, drug customers parked on the block waiting for dealers, intimidating thugs everywhere.
Philadelphia Police Capt. Branville Bard urged the residents to stand up for themselves.
"If I'm a drug dealer, I can scare you," Bard explained. "But I can't scare you all. Can't nobody take over the 1500 block of Gratz Street if you all have got it. But right now, they've got it."
Councilman Darrell Clarke told the neighbors that changes in police deployment will hopefully bring some relief soon. A patrol car is posted there now with officers enforcing curfew hours.
Clarke said he understood the strong fear the neighbors have of being known on the block for cooperating with the police.
"Trust me, I understand," Clarke said. "I live in North Philadelphia. I don't have a police car parked outside my home."
And right there in the meeting, Clarke had an idea. Thinking aloud, he wondered if the city-owned Philadelphia Water Department could include in monthly bills a stamped, pre-addressed form to allow people to anonymously report crime in their neighborhoods. Clarke also considered whether the Philadelphia Gas Works and Peco Energy would cooperate in such a program.
"Let me work on that," he said.
It's a great idea. And it came out because Mitchell called for help. And that got me thinking:
There must be neighborhoods that have discovered ways to fight crime. If you know one - or if you live on a block that needs help - let me know about it. I'll print your ideas in a later column.
Bard, the police captain, was right: No block can be held hostage if we work together. *
E-mail urbanwarrior@phillynews.com or call the Urban Warrior tip line at 215-854-4810. For past columns: