GEIS-新闻详情

A street shooting shut down a baseball game in a tony part of D.C. That’s everyday life for some residents, though.

2021-07-21 00:00:00.0 华盛顿邮报-华盛顿特区原网页

A rain delay on a baseball game — because it was raining bullets outside — is so very American.

“Before we went in, I was talking to our group about what to do and how to react in case there’s another situation,” LaToya Jackson said at Nationals Park on Sunday night, the day after a game was interrupted by nearby gunfire that could be heard in the park.

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“But I never imagined we’d be talking about this. In here,” said Jackson, 42, a D.C. native who has seen it all as a former Metro Transit Police officer.

It was a scene that nearly all us Americans have rehearsed in our minds — what to do in a mass shooting.

Fans crouched and ducked for cover, jumped into the dugouts, scrambled to leave the stadium at the boom of gunfire, believing they were about to be part of another American tradition.

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Because we’ve all seen and read about mass shootings. And it’s the first thing that comes to mind, rather than the truth of that day.

It wasn’t crazy-guy-with-a-stockpile violence.

It was a gunfight between shooters in cars, driving past the stadium between two poverty-heavy parts of town — the steady, persistent, generational violence that cities and poor communities have been fighting for years.

Did the pandemic stop America’s violent streak? Not when it comes to homicides.

It was the kind of violence that took the life of adorable 6-year-old Nyiah Courtney just one night before. Nyiah was killed by a stray bullet as she crossed an intersection with her family in Southeast D.C. on Friday night.

The dividing line in prosperity, optimism and hope in pandemic-ravaged America is right by the stadium, South Capitol Street.

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On one side of the street, which is a straight line from the Capitol dome to the Anacostia River, are the stadium, bars, restaurants, gorgeous new condos. A guy walking two small dogs, one in a stroller.

As pandemic restrictions lift and the place comes back to life, the mood on that side is giddy.

On the other side is old, historic Southwest D.C. There are the knots of people outside on metal folding chairs, escaping the heat that window units and box fans can’t defeat. Kids are tossing footballs in the alley of some of the few housing projects left in D.C. Pandemic sickness and death has hit this area hard. Gunfire also happens here — regularly — and residents are sick of it.

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Chynna Kimball’s custom black-and-pink muscle car was lifted up on Sunday and men were under the hood in the courtyard of the James Creek Dwellings, the public housing complex where she has lived since 2007. The reopening of the stadium district has done little to improve her situation.

“The only thing it means for me,” she said, nodding her head toward the stadium and the new-money party going on there, “is I can’t find parking. Anywhere. They’re back to taking all our parking.”

She’s a security guard who worked through the pandemic. In her housing complex, kids were cooped up in small apartments in front of even smaller screens. The nearby pool, basketball courts and recreation centers were closed for months. Working parents, if they didn’t lose their jobs, had to quit to stay home with kids when schools closed.

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A level of anxiety — we all felt it whether we were locked down in condos, tucked away in our suburban or country homes or working the front lines — has everyone on edge, said Ronald Collins, one of the ANC commissioners for that sliver of homes, churches and rec centers in the shadow of the stadium.

That, combined with the guns that keep flowing into D.C. from neighboring states, is what’s likely pushing D.C.’s crime rates up again, he believes.

We don’t know why violent crime is up, but we know there’s more than one cause

“I remember in the early ’90s, we used to take Christmas baskets and toys out to kids and we had to zigzag going in, worried about possible shootings,” Collins, 67, said.

Longtime Washingtonians remember those days and shudder. It took years to curb the complex intersection of poverty, unemployment, drug use, housing and violence. And the pandemic has strained every one of those factors.

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“I was just appalled when I heard,” said Collins, who got a call as soon as the gunfire outside the stadium erupted Saturday. “Whoever was responsible must be brought to justice and those guns must be taken off the streets.”

And the King Greenleaf Recreation Center in his district, the one that plenty of folks would like to see demolished, has to stay open. And the child care that lets parents go back to work has to be secured. And the school programs need to stay funded. And the mental health counseling has to resume.

That’s how you prevent the kind of violence that kills most Americans hit with gunfire.

Not hiding in the dugout.

Twitter: @petulad