What can even be said? What kind of outrage? How can we help? These are questions that come to mind when reporting these events- will the newer developments curb the violence? Understanding the complexity, this is a frustrating and sad state of affairs.
One person was killed Tuesday in an apparent shooting in Richmond.
Richmond Police were called to the 1300 block of Coalter Street, at about 11:22 a.m., for a reported shooting.”.
30 comments
FB_1206119449424292
FB_10202668046299955
FB_10155766609856388
SSDD. The community fears retaliation. Until the community can stand up it won’t get better.
Also low income housing is a TERRIBLE idea. It’s basically just prison but people can come and go. Just one part of our system of institutionalized racism.
Low income housing, which provides affordable housing for people who may otherwise be out on the streets, isn’t the problem. The problem is concentrating all the housing in one location, in this instance, the east end of Richmond. Richmond planning department needs to rethink this and intersperse these developments throughout the City. As it is now, they are making it worse by adding even more low income developments in the SAME area.
@Cynic—I couldn’t agree with you more.
@K How is it racism?
How can we help? A first step might be to break up the concentrated poverty. The city not only doesn’t want to hear that, they want to build more! If the city can’t even recognize something that seems obvious to the rest of us, how do we even have a chance?
Breaking up concentrated poverty will reduce crime, but it won’t totally eradicate it. I’ve been in Richmond over 30 years, and I’ve watched the city tear down Blackwell and Dove court projects. This didn’t eradicate crime in the city, it just displaced the problem into another community.I also have family in Norfolk,and they told me that the same thing happened when that city tore down their projects. It just displaced the problem into another community. Yeah, you can tear down the projects, but where are you going to put the people?There’s low income apts not only in Richmond , but in some parts of Henrico county as well. This is a growing problem
Who would have ever guessed MCP Mosby Court Projects would be awareded the honor of having the first murder of the new year. I guess homicide detectives didn’t learn from those 10 homicides last year. Or the fact Mosby had 33% of the overall city’s violent crime last year (stated on wtkr news 6 video). Gilpin and Mosby are the champions of killings. Non stop shootouts. You couldn’t pay me to drive through neither of the two day or night.
I urge folks to contact, if not flood Rep. Cynthia Newbille’s office about violent crime in the projects, and the redevelopment of Creighton Court. I, among others, have constantly asked her in public meetings, and in side conversations about a number of concerns–namely:
*How the city intends to fully fund the redevelopment of Creighton without taxpayers bearing big cost burdens.
*How the city intends to attract folks who would be willing to pay market prices when (and IF) the houses in the old Armstrong High site are up so the redevelopment of Creighton is not just a facelift of Creighton but an actual mixed-income area.
*The creation of services (e.g. more bus lines, job training center, hiring hall, GED/technical education opportunities, etc.) along the project housing corridors.
*The creation of a drug/alcohol rehabilitation site along Nine Mile so those impacted by addiction don’t have to go far to access help.
Rep. Newbille has not been amenable to directly addressing these issues or engage them in meaningful ways. Perhaps with more pressure, she might do so. Email, call, write letters to her office. Also, attend the 7th District Meetings at every chance, and raise concerns about her (and city officials’) development schemes and violent crime in the East End.
Convey your feelings here:https://m.facebook.com/rvaeastenddistrict/
And to RVAMayor@richmondgov.com
Martha, thanks. You linked the mobile page: here is the desktop version https://www.facebook.com/rvaeastenddistrict/?hc_location=ufi
The Richmond Police Department is asking for the public’s help to locate a suspect in yesterday morning’s homicide in the city’s Mosby neighborhood.
RPD officers are looking for Devrick Raquan Gail, 29 years of age, of Richmond. Gail is wanted in connection with the fatal shooting of Davon R. Daniels early yesterday morning in the 1300 block of Coalter Street.
Gail – also known as “Quan” – is described a black male, 5’ 06” tall, 180 pounds with black hair, brown eyes and a dark complexion. He has a tattooed portrait of Jesus on his left shoulder in addition to multiple tattoos on his arms and face. Gail is known to frequent the area where the fatal shooting took place.
Anyone who spots Gail or knows of his whereabouts should call 911 immediately.
Do not approach him or make your presence known to him. He should be considered armed and dangerous.
If you would like to remain anonymous, please contact Crime Stoppers at 780-1000 or online at http://www.7801000.com.
A reward of up to $1,000 is available to whomever provides a tip that leads to the capture of Devrick Raquan Gail.
The City has provided additional funding to the developer of the Armstrong HS redevelopment (http://richmondfreepress.com/news/2017/dec/08/creighton-court-redevelopment-project-seeks-49m-ci/).
Frankly, am pretty sure that the “mixed use” project will fail — don’t see anyone with half a brain buying into any of the market rate units. The project will just move concentrated poverty down the street into these new units, which will then be trashed.
What a waste of taxpayer funds. The mayor, city council and urban planners should be fired.
you get what you vote for
@13, City council and urban planners should probably be fired, yeah. I think the Armstrong thing was well underway before Stoney was elected.
How do the citizens of the city fare versus the rest of the area in terms of taxation, crime, etc? I have always heard that we pay higher taxes than the surrounding areas. I’ve also heard that we pay more for our water than the surrounding areas. In fact, the city sells water to the surrounding areas and we STILL pay more than the others. Our police are paid less, and we get more crime. So…why is it so great to live in the city? If it’s art, or access to the river, or the restaurants, I’ll gladly drive 15 minutes instead of 5 to get to any of these attractions.
Why does anyone have to help? And who’re you going to help? The shooter or the shootee? What will you do?
In a very simplified scenario that can be extrapolated way beyond the murders in enclaves of poverty, you stride in and disarm the shooters; and then you make the phone calls the shootees are afraid to make.
I bet that most of the guns used in these instances were illegally obtained and so the shooters at the onset are not following the law, wouldn’t take kindly to your interference, and might just end up capping your ass for trying. And what are you going to say if you make the phone call a shootee won’t – like, if the shootee can’t make a confidential call he or she sure will tell you all about it?
Where does this inclination to help come from when these situations occur? It seems to stem from a combination of an “I’m here to save the day’ complex…and the soft bigotry of low expectations…inclinations that stretch way beyond people shooting each other.
#15 – People have already begun to leave Richmond. Not in droves yet, but a trickle.
No Mary, the city population grew 2% in the last year according to this:
http://demographics.coopercenter.org/files/2017/05/VA-Intercensal-Estimates_2010-2016_UVA-CooperCenter.xls
Though this a year out of date. Housing prices are going up in the neighborhood, too. I do agree with your concern though – the city really needs to close the concentrated east end public housing and move these people to section 8 so they can spread across the metro area instead of being concentrated in one small area. @15, people have different reasons, but a lot of the allure of city living is the culture/architecture and getting to live with the type of people who live in cities (more interested in the arts, more liberal, more intellectual, more appreciative of diversity, more interested in the community, etc). It’s been my experience that the suburbs have a sense of fear to them – that you’re trying to isolate yourself away from the world. That can be unappealing to a lot of people.
@ mary – source?
#18 – ASSUMPTIONS:
Justified…that I must mean the population of Richmond is in decline because I stated that people are “already leaving” Richmond.
Not justified…Your agreement with a concern I didn’t state.
@18 there isn’t enough section 8 for everyone in public housing. Do you know how long the waiting list is for someone to get section 8? My step daughter has it, but she waited ten years until she got it.its not that easy to just close down public housing, and move everyone out. If that was the case, Richmond would of done it years ago. I remember when Richmond demolished dove and Blackwell housing projects. They promised everyone who lived there section 8, but that didn’t happen. Those people were placed anywhere that they could be placed. I believe that is why Richmond is taking its time with the public housing issue is simply because they don’t want to make the same mistakes they made with dove and Blackwell housing projects. But in summary, section 8 isn’t easy to obtain, especially with budget cuts coming to this program under the Trump administration very soon
@20, true on the 2nd assumption. You are wrong about the city’s growth trends though. Facts!
#19 – Reference my earlier statement that ‘People have already begun to leave Richmond. Not in droves yet, but a trickle,’ my source is, in part, personal observation.
As in, I personally know 15 who left in 2017, 11 of whom stated their primary reason as the unequal ratio of services to taxes. Most of these 11 had come to Richmond with both excitement and commitment. I don’t know the reasons for the departures of the other 4. All of these people/families are still in the ‘greater metropolitan area.’
If I take into consideration hearsay, the number who left in 2017 is considerably larger.
None of these departures has had any impact on the city’s population. If I thought it had, I would have so stated.
Just caught another body in the courts. This time it’s Hillside Court on the southside. That’s #2 for the year already.
Richmond is rebuilding New housing projects — 9 mile/Armstrong is supposed to offer 100% rehousing of people living at Creighton — not taking their time decentralizing.
More backward still, simple support measures to lower serious crime, like requiring residency stickers on cars, were apparently abandoned in favor of making no changes after the state trooper was shot.
I wish Rrha and the City council and the mayor cared enough to make stronger decisions to protect citizens in low income neighborhoods, esp the Courts. I think this is one of the main reasons why we have as high a murder rate as we do; we seem to specialize in a certain kind of political cowardice. So dear leaders, if you don’t have the stomach to tell someone to go kick rocks elsewhere and back it up, please resign. At a certain point, these bodies are also on you.
#25 – Right on. All of this concentration is “More backward still…”
Better Housing’s project in Union Hill is a prime example: 100% low income, 52 units. All those people hoping for better get new paint and new appliances and the same concentration of poverty.
Keep in mind that what Better Housing is doing in Union Hill – and what some other developers are doing throughout the east end – represents Cynthia Newbille’s vision for her district.
She actually stated in a meeting I attended…that Better Housing’s low income project in Union Hill represents her “…vision for the east end.”
#26 #25 …. Just caught another body. Now #3 for the year and a 4th possible due to life threatening injuries.