violence

 By “Jane Doe”

Recently, there has been quite a bit of publicity about the gang activity and increasing violence centered around 60 Providence Street. Newspaper articles claim that police have been responding to complaints for the past two years. While it is true that crime has increased during this time, complaints have actually been made about that building for over ten years.

        I remember attending the opening meeting of the Providence Street Neighborhood Watch in winter of 2001 and hearing neighbors voice concerns about that property and some of the buildings in that area. People noticed that young men were meeting in front of 60 Providence Street selling drugs. Most of these men did not live in the building, but came from neighboring streets. Steve Patton from Worcester Common Ground was invited to one of the meetings to discuss solutions to the problem. One idea was to put up security cameras in hallways and entranceways. Things quieted down a bit but did not disappear entirely.

        A few years later, we noticed that PSP (Providence Street Posse) was being spray painted on some of the buildings, vacant and occupied, around the Harrison Street and Providence Street corner. Neighbors brought this to the Worcester Police gang unit’s attention at the crime watch meeting. We were told that this was not a recognized gang, but a bunch of young kids who were trying to play at being gang members. There was nothing to worry about.

         Over the past few years things have been getting worse. Gunshots are frequent. You can see drug dealers standing on the corners or walking up and down the streets. There have been drive-by shootings, fights and attempted robberies. The Providence Street Posse, gang member wannabes, are now moving into other parts of the city as full- fledged gang members. Now that this violence has moved into downtown Worcester, city officials are sitting up and taking notice.

         Many people feel that their complaints to police were ignored, but I don’t think this is true. Laws protecting the rights of the offenders often limit what police can do. Often police make arrests, just to have these criminals released back into the neighborhoods. Police cannot make arrests solely based on complaints. They usually have to catch drug dealers in the act. It takes time to build up a case to put these people away. In the meantime, this section of the city continues to get worse as gangs get more powerful and rival gangs move into the area. It is disheartening to hear people from other neighborhoods talk about your home as being in a “war zone.”

         Unfortunately, many of us feel like we are caught in a vicious cycle. As decent people get sick of the situation, they move out to safer communities. Those of us who cannot move live in fear of what will happen next. As decent people move out, more of the troublemakers move in. Violence escalates.

          I have no solutions. I wish laws were stricter, making it easier to arrest these criminals, put them away, and keep them away. I wish we could walk and drive through this neighborhood without fear of becoming victims. I especially wish landlords could be more careful about who moves into their buildings and be more aggressive in evicting troublemakers. In the meantime, many of us wish we could just get out. Too bad. This was once a nice middle class neighborhood, where people knew each other and looked out for one another. There was almost no crime. I wish we could go back to the way it was!

By Rosalie Tirella

Hoping there are a ton of Main South and D-4 residents tonight, 6:30 p.m., at the Worcester Housing Authority building at 50 Murray Ave. for the neighborhood meeting, re: The PIP reopening.

The reincarnation of the PIP, unfortunately, is a done deal. Here’s hoping the meeting, called by D-4 Barbara Haller, draws lots of folks to voice their concerns. Maybe they can actually get City Hall and the WPD to show them some respect.

People, agitate for:

A police substation at the PIP would do a lot to disperse the nefarious types who prey on PIP clients. Also, please demand the planting of trees, sidewalk repair, etc.

If you don’t SPEAK OUT, no one will hear you!

By Michael True

Twenty elementary and secondary teachers from Worcester Public Schools recently participated in a Professional Development Institute at Clark University’s Hiatt Center for Urban Education. Instructors for the course on Nonviolent Movements in the Modern World include faculty from Clark, Holy Cross, and Assumption, and local organizers.

Sponsored by the Center for Nonviolent Solutions, with support from the Massachusetts Humanities, the Institute meets weekly, offering instruction as well as resources for units and courses in various academic disciplines. In addition to carrying graduate credit, the program offers a stipend for each teacher to buy materials, books, and films for the classroom.

The Center for Nonviolent Solutions, initiated in 2009, provides education and resources for people in the Worcester Area to increase understanding of nonviolence as a way of life and an effective means of resolving conflict. For two years, it has offered a 10-week course on Peacemaking and Nonviolence for students at the University Park Campus School and Claremont Academy, as well as brief courses in nonviolent communication for junior high school students. The Center maintains an office and resource center at 901 Pleasant Street, Worcester, a website (nonviolentsolution.org), and curricular materials and DVDs for use by teachers, parents, and the general public.

Topics for the class meetings include the Origins of Nonviolence; Mahatma Gandhi; citizens’ resistance to the Nazi occupation of Denmark; the U.S. Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, the ending of apartheid in South Africa; the democratic uprising in China, 1989; the Protestant-Catholic conflict in Northern Ireland; and the history of nonviolence in Central Massachusetts.

The Institute emphasizes the history of successful nonviolent movements that demonstrate how crises and conflicts provide opportunities to build a civic culture of inclusion. It reslies upon informed discourse, including recent research and scholarship, that fosters community solidarity among people of different races, classes, and political ideologies

Teachers for the course include Co-directors, Paul Ropp, Research Professor of History, and Tom Del Prete, Director, Hiatt Center for Urban education, Clark University, as well as Predrag Cicovacki, Professor of Philosophy, Holy Cross College; Sam Diener, Education Director, Center for Nonviolent Solution; Michael Langa, Specialist in Cross-cultural Conflict Resolution; Janette Greenwood, Professor of History, Clark University; Claire Schaeffer-Duffy, St. Francis and Therese Catholic Worker; and Michael True, Emeritus Professor, Assumption College.

By Rosalie Tirella

Last night’s conference at Clark University on gang violence and at-risk youth is something we hold to make ourselves feel better. No one wants to get to the real crux of the youth violence/gang problem: sky-high rents in Worcester. The good factory jobs are gone. Many adults in the innercity have McJobs. No one can pay Worcester’s exorbitant inner-city apartment rents. Our elected officials do not work to solve the real problem. So everyone throws out other little fixes, like Bandaids over blown off limbs: youth mentors, part-time jobs for kids.

Jobs for kids – we love the idea! Mentors can sometimes turn lives around! But really, how are you going to change a kid’s world, if his mom and he and his siblings are living in an apartment in Piedmont and struggling to pay $850 a month rent? How can a family keep paying the bills and have a little money left over for a few fun extras, if they are behind the eight-ball every month?

And the idiots who diss Worcester’s CDCs are just that – idiots. They whine about the city’s “no-lo housing,” about the govt subsidizing the CDC apts when if fact the govt is also subsididzing their crumby inner-city apartments every time they take a tenant who receives “subsidized rent.” Could these greedy landlords charge what their apartments are really worth a month – around $600/$650? Certainly. But they will take the $1,200/grand the federal govt gives them per crumby apartment and perpetuate the system, a system in which Worcester apartments rent for too much money. Inflated rents! Then all the other landlords jump aboard, charging $800 or so for their digs. And guess what?

The youths politicians like Mike Moore, District Att. Joe Early Jr. and pals say Click to continue »

By Ron O’Clair

I salute all those who have served, past present, and future, to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution against all enemies, FORIEGN and DOMESTIC.

Let us not forget the sacrifices made in the line of duty for our stateside militia, the local and state police forces throughout our country as well. They are involved in the ongoing war on drugs here in the U.S., and it does not look to be over any time soon.

All former veterans should remind themselves that they took the oath to protect and defend the United States Constitution while serving in uniform, but once taken, we never renounced that oath.

I urge all former military to help in the battle that seems unwinnable to restore America to its rightful place as the last great beacon of hope for mankind. Click to continue »

By Sue Moynagh

Recently, there has been increased gun violence in the Oak Hill neighborhood of Worcester, especially this past summer. Two shots were fired at a car on Harrison Street early in July. Soon after this, shots were fired at the Coral and Waverly Street intersection. There was a shooting on Mendon Street on August 24, and within a week, approximately six shots were fired at a house near the corner of Providence and Harrison Streets.

A woman was shot and killed on Fairfax Road.

I have also heard two gun shots on Saturday, October 9, at 10:40 p.m., and four shots the following Friday at approximately the same time. A small local market had the door window smashed and was robbed at gun point soon afterwards. Most or all of these incidents are tied in with drug activity in the area. Two long-time residents have had bullets shot through their windows.

Recently a man was attacked and hit over the head with a hammer on Mott Street. Click to continue »

By Ron O’Clair

I attended the “Prostitution” meeting held at the board room of the Community Development Corporation Headquarters located at 875 Main Street, which was quite well attended by community activists like me, and just plain old ordinary citizens who are fed up with the everyday bullshit that comes along with the associated crimes that prostitution helps support.

Since that time, returning to what I refer to as: “ground zero”, the property that I manage located right next door to the venerable P.I.P. Shelter, and armed with a new resolve not to let the insanity continue unabated, I had the good fortune to be renovating a vacancy that sits smack dab on top of the action outside the window, and due to my penchant to work unorthodox hours continuing throughout the night, I was able to see and hear what my tenants have to endure every single night without fail.

The tenant that we finally got shed of was involved in lots of the goings on outside the windows, and sad to say had contributed to my building being perceived as a place to go to use and abuse drugs. Even though I have a “No visitor policy” in effect to prevent just such a thing. I found several cut baggie corners and a whole lot of cut knots, that indicate that lots of crack cocaine was smoked in that room. The tenant always professed to be in recovery, and not doing that anymore, but the evidence tells the tale better than anything else. Not to mention the two used glass crack pipes that I found while cleaning out the room Click to continue »