South End confronts crime, race and class

Yawu Miller

When Captain Robert Flaherty walked the streets of the South End as a patrolman back in the 1970s, the crime was more violent, drugs and prostitution more visible and buildings were boarded up.

Now when the commander of the Area D station walks down the tree-lined streets past million-dollar condos and their affluent owners, it’s clear that he’s in a different neighborhood.

On avenues where vagrants once drank out of paper bags, well-heeled diners sip fine wines in sidewalk cafes. Despite the changing demographics, however, crime is a constant presence.

“Every once in a while you get an incident that’s so extraordinary that it gets people to come out to a meeting like this,” he said last Thursday, as close to 200 neighborhood residents filled an auditorium at the Blackstone Community Center.

That incident, two weeks back, was four shots fired in broad daylight on West Newton Street, near its corner with Shawmut Avenue. One bullet pierced the air conditioner in Carlos French’s Shawmut Ave. home.

French, who gained press coverage and stirred controversy in his corner of the South End by training video cameras on the streets around his home, stood in front of the mixed gathering of South End residents and facilitated a wide-ranging conversation on crime in his neighborhood.

For much of the meeting, French and other South End residents questioned Flaherty and representatives from the mayor’s office, the Boston Housing Authority and the MBTA Police Department on strategies for dealing with crime in the neighborhood.

“We’re not going to allow any gangs or individuals to ruin the quality of our lives,” said City Councilor James Kelly, who represents part of the South End.

Flaherty said crime in the neighborhood has not increased appreciably. Violent crime is up one percent in the South End and Lower Roxbury portions of Area D. Property crime is up three percent.

French, in an interview with the Banner, said the statistics do not accurately convey the emotional impact of crime.

“Shootings have taken place,” he told the Banner. “A bullet came through my air conditioner. These are serious things. Statistics are just numbers.”

French installed the video cameras in his windows after the headlights to his Accura were twice stolen. Neighbors living in the Boston Housing Authority’s West Newton Street apartments had an angry exchange with French after he confronted them, video camera in hand.

French’s video camera escapades caught the attention of The Boston Globe as well as national newsmedia, earning him invitations from talk shows including The Maury Povich Shown and Montell Williams. French declined invitations to those shows.

French’s confrontation with his neighbors underscores a nagging reality in the South End. Although the neighborhood has a diverse mix of whites, blacks, Latinos and Chinese, the more affluent white residents of the neighborhood have little to do with their less affluent neighbors of color.

The process of gentrification, which began in the ’70s in the South End, has transformed the neighborhood into one with some of the city’s wealthiest and poorest residents. Yuppies with incomes in excess of $100,000 a year live next to public housing developments.

While white audience members at last week’s meeting talked about various approaches to fighting crime, many of them aimed their ire at the mostly black and Latino residents of the many public housing units in the area.

One audience member, complaining about teenagers on mini-bikes, asked police to take action.

“Make an example out of them,” he told the officers at the meeting. Police officials informed the audience that the mini-bikes are not illegal.

Others were critical of teenagers for not sharing information on criminal activity with police. French noted that eyewitnesses have not given information on the West Newton Street shooting two weeks ago.

“People were on the street,” French said. “They saw everything. They were sitting on their front steps.”

At the same time, people of color in the audience said the white audience members showed ignorance of the South End community.

Teenage activist Jewel Cash questioned why the white audience members have not taken the time to get to know their black and Latino neighbors. She recently helped organize an event called Know Your Hood, aimed at bridging the gap between neighbors in the South End.

Cash’s Know Your Hood event featured workshops on ethnicity, race, sexual orientation and age. Cash focused much of her commentary last week on the age gap.

“Our teenagers need support,” Cash said. “They need to know adults are looking out for us, not working against us.”

State Rep. Byron Rushing, who observed the meeting from the rear of the auditorium, said the different groups in the South End will have to work together to overcome the crime problems there.

“I think the most important thing that has to happen is that people have to organize as a community,” he said. “And they have to do that organizing around issues other than crime.

“People come out in large numbers when they’re afraid. If you don’t know who the other people in your neighborhood are, and you’re afraid, you’re not going to get to know your neighbors.”

Friday of last week, Rushing joined French and a group of about 35 South End residents for a walk-through of the area, which included stops in the Villa Victoria and Cathedral public housing developments. Six people of color participated — a positive development, according to French.

“It was a great way to meet our neighbors and get to know them,” French said, noting that residents from the Villa and the West Newton Street units joined the walk. “It was a good mix of people.”