It has become an all-too familiar scene in Southeast: a triple shooting featuring the usual players in these parts – teenage victims and teenage suspects.
Phil Hines was 14 years old when he was shot the first time – he has been shot two separate times on the same Southeast street.
“You get shot in the chest and it comes out your neck — of course you think you’re gonna die,” he said.
Hines was pronounced dead at the scene and then revived – only to get shot again in April.
“I got hit right here to my leg, and right here to the back side of my leg,” he said.
Southeast has seen a shocking increase in violence in the first four months of this year compared to last year. Murders are up 75-percent, and sexual assaults are up 50-percent; armed robberies have seen an 18-percent spike.
Now, with such a violent winter and spring, community activists are fearing the summer.
Activist Ron Moten thinks unless more is done to help this community soon, we’ll see a return to the summer of 2006:
“…Where we had over 60, 70 gang crew beefs in this city, causing gun shots every day to go off. Made it as though people couldn’t have their children to come out and play.”
