15 days into 2007, Minneapolis has 5 homicides
A man was shot and killed Monday in Minneapolis near 37th and Girard Avenues N. To the area, it was frightening and familiar.
By Josephine Marcotty, Star Tribune
Last update: January 15, 2007 – 9:50 PM
People in the neighborhood around 37th and Girard Avenues N. in Minneapolis were out shoveling their sidewalks in the sparkly afternoon Monday, and a couple of kids dashed across the street with a plastic sled.
If there was blood on the street, it was covered with snow.
Police had already been and gone, taking with them the body of an unidentified man who had been killed that morning in a red car. To the neighbors who hear gunshots every night, the news that a stranger was killed on their street was frightening but unremarkable.
Lee Blessing, 32, shrugged when he was asked about the body found up the block from his house.
"Sometimes it's for more money, sometimes it's for a little money," he said. He was used to it. "I grew up in Minneapolis," he said by way of explanation.
It was the fifth homicide in 15 days in Minneapolis and the fourth in north Minneapolis.
And though North Side residents may not be counting, that is an unusually high number. It's already well ahead of last year, when the first homicide occurred Jan. 22. By the time Dec. 31 rolled around there were 60 homicides, which made 2006 a particularly deadly year for the city.
If the rate of homicides were to continue at this clip, 2007 could rival 1995 for the record number of Minneapolis homicides in one calendar year -- 99.
"One in a year is a lot," said Clarence Hightower, president of the Minneapolis Urban League. "Five in 15 days, that's way, way too many."
Homicide is just one measure of violent crime, however. When the count of this year's rapes, aggravated assaults and robberies is included, violent crime is down compared with the first two weeks of January a year ago. In 2006, there were at least four times in Minneapolis when five or more homicides occurred in spans of 15 days or fewer.
Charges in the first homicide of the year, on New Year's Day, allege that the victim was being harassed by his ex-girlfriend and a Minneapolis man. Two of the five, including the one Monday, were men killed in their cars.
Police Chief Tim Dolan said last week that he's confident that gang activity is not behind the spate of killings, but three of the five deaths don't yet have known motives.
That, however, is of little comfort to Elisa Smith, 28, who lives with her three children on Girard Avenue N., across the street and a few houses down from where the body was found Monday. The street was blocked off, and she had to park a block away. She was walking home with her kids about 11:30 a.m. Monday when a police officer yelled at her to steer clear from the crime scene. He didn't want the kids to have to see the body in the car, she said.
"I hear shots every night," she said. "I'm trying to break my lease so I can move."
When she rented the house a year and a half ago, the neighborhood seemed nice, she said. The houses looked good, and there were kids playing in the street. But now, every time she hears shots, she and her children drop to the floor, terrified of bullets coming through the walls. She always tries to do her grocery shopping in daylight hours because she is afraid to walk from her car to her house in the dark.
"It doesn't make sense to live like that," she said.
Smith and others on the street said they don't know their neighbors, and they are afraid to talk to each other. "I don't talk to nobody," said Monica Chavez, 21, who lives across the street from where the body was found.
While some community leaders have said that more police officers on the street would quell the homicide rate, Hightower said he believes the problems are more complex and difficult to fix.
"I think it's poverty," he said. "Housing is not the greatest, employment opportunities are not the greatest, and there's a bunch of young folk struggling to get through high school. All of those things are centered in that one place, and this is the result."
Mohamed Bibas, 32, who came to the United States from Tunisia seven years ago, said the solution is simple: Outlaw guns. "It's not the cops who make mistakes," he said. "This is the greatest country on Earth, but we need to get rid of the guns. This is not a war zone."
He works as a clerk in a Super USA convenience store two blocks from where the unidentified man was killed. He said he tries not to think about the homicides that have occurred near the store. "About 45 last year between here and Broadway," he said.
But he knows how close to danger he is. In 2004, he was scheduled to work a night shift during the Muslim holy period of Ramadan. He left for a while to pray at his mosque. And while Bibas was gone, a co-worker was shot and killed.
"He was killed right there," he said, pointing to the floor next to his feet behind the counter. "Why do we need guns?"
Josephine Marcotty • 612-673-7394 •
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