Murder on 31st Street

I talked to a police officer on the scene, and he said they had found the gun, but they didn’t have the suspect in custody…supposedly it was a 15 yr old male who was shot. so sad.

I saw two suspects in custody. What a tragedy.

What is up with that intersection/area?! That’s the same place where, about two or three years ago, a man was robbed and murdered at a bus stop. As I recall, too, that man played a significant part in the civil rights movement.

I heard from neighbors that they were “friends”. It was very sad to walk up there last night and see people crying and mourning. 🙁

Oh, Magneto, the homocide you are speaking of did not happen at the intersection. The man your refering to was shot in the Fairmont/Mosby area of town.

Although, there was another shooting there several years ago at the house at that intersection. It was a domestic situation and did not result in a fatality.

It was crazy, though. It was during the day and no kids were at the playground. However, if memory serves me, a child was shot in that incident who lived at the house.

Yeah, good luck stopping illegal guns. How exactly would you propose to do that?

PS Holt Smith was a civil rights hero. I’m unfortunately very sure of the location of that crime. The domestic disturbance @9 did not happen on the 400 block of N. 31st, possibly on 32nd.

@11 – The same way they stopped illegal drugs, of course! /s

From my perspective, the positive thing is the neighborhood responded. Imediately after it happened, when danger might still be around, there were several neighbors either on the phone for emergency services or out actually in the scene trying to help however they could. Thanks to everyone that does not pull the shades and hope it goes away.

These guys were both 20 years old. Far too old to be hanging around an elementary school. There was an “unknown” item that they were arguing about, which was probably drugs. Neither were from CH. The victim lived in Jackson Ward and the shooter lived in Fulton Bottom. I live at East Marshall and N 32nd. Loitering is a HUGE problem in our area. In March, a man from Henrico was found dead in his car from a drug overdose in our alley. Now we have a shooting and subsequent death involving 2 people who came from outside of the CH area. I am not talking about a group of people who live in CH standing on the sidewalk and sharing a conversation in front of their property. I am talking about people who come in from other areas to hang out and cause problems in our neighborhood.

Considering the shooting of Thomas Scott, Jr. the other night…has anyone seriously considered the crime statistics for that area (the corner of East Clay and N. 30th (and N.31st)? These stats would blow your mind as much as a gun could. Just awful that there isn’t anything more being done to shut-down that store and those apartments in that area. They are the underlying cause of all this crime. AND, THEY ARE RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET from the CHIMBORAZOO ELEMENTARY SCHOOL!!!!

FYI – the after school program is for children, supervised by adults, until 8PM. NOT THE CASE AT ALL – it is a juvenile hangout of profanity, smoking and gangs. The adult supervision is almost non-existant. The gym stays open until at least 10PM. IT MUST END!!!

I have lived across from this school for three years. I was welcomed to the neighborhood, one month after moving in, with a gun shot salute and the dead body of Mr. Holt Smith lying in front of my house. As I watched the after school program unfold, I thought “what a blessing”. Not so! In the last two years, I and my neighbors have made numerous calls and sent numerous e-mails and letters to the school principal, the school board, the mayor, the chief of police, the local Congressman, and Parks and Rec. I have only had a couple of responses, of course, negative and defensive. They say that things are being handled appropriately, and nothing is wrong. Well, something is wrong now. There is a dead boy and a young man behind bars. Maybe you should have listened to the folks that live directly across the street from this school.

They have shut down the program.

I always thought the gym was a safe haven for my kids and was shocked that they allowed people over the age of 18 there. The “profanity, smoking and gangs” were mainly the result of the 18 and over crowd. The man who was shot was 20 years old.

I am glad that other neighbors shared my outrage. However, I am sad the program is gone. It was out of control and poorly supervised.

I beleive it should follow the model of the Boys and Girls club where participants must become members. The model should be that anyone under the aage of 18 has free and automatic membership. However, older folks should have to pay a fee (I think 25 dollars would be good) to partipate in the gym activities.

If the fee is considered too high, the member could donate mentorship time (highly supervised!) with the children instead.

Additionally, a code of behavior should be created and signed by all members.

And, again, I feel we such allocate more money to Richmond Parks and Recs so we can keep these programs going while being able to hire and pay qualified adults to supervise our children.

Those that are hired should be properly vetted and background check to make sure they are properly qualified to work with our children.

I hate that we’ve taken away this from the kids who love it, but I agree that the gym had become a problem. Let’s do it right this time.

Thank you, Deanna. My previous post was full of typos as I was in a meeting and in a hurry. But, I am very passionate for this cause. Is anyone with me?