Gunfire rings out at all hours. Gang members hang their colors in a tree just days after last week?s murder of a 25-year-old man whose mother once walked the streets with a bullhorn railing against violence. Old-timers complain that newcomers from Baltimore City have brought violence with them.
Fear runs rampant in Edgewood, where two murders have occurred on the same block in just over a year and five murders since July 2006.
“It?s worse here than in the city,” said Ruth Alexander, 52, who lives on the block where Samuel David Horne was gunned down Saturday. “It?s not even safe during the day.”
Alexander blamed gangs for the violence.
“People are scared to talk about it, but it?s the Crips,” she said. “They hang their colors right in the tree where the boy died. Police take them down and stomp on them; they?re doing the best they can.”
Tina Bellamy, 42, a nurse who lives across the street from where Horne was shot, said the drug trade in the community along the only Interstate 95 drug pipeline was destroying a once-stable community.
“I hear gunshots all the time,” she said. “The people hanging out here aren?t from this neighborhood.”
And while younger Edgewood residents pointed to gangs and drug dealing, others said gangs were not as prevalent as some media accounts suggest.
“Basically, it comes from people moving out of the city,” said a 29-year-old woman who asked to remain anonymous. “It?s more about people bumping heads. It?s territorial.”
Indeed, many Edgewood residents and business owners trace the increase in crime to the influx of new residents that began five years ago when occupants of city housing projects were relocated to the area. Locals also expressed concern about the growing number of people living in subsidized housing.
“In my opinion, it?s the gangs; the youth don?t have much to do and people are moving here from the city,” said Charlena Hemby, 36, owner of Charlena?s Higher Expectation hair salon in the Edgewood shopping center. In the community where she raised her daughter, she said, “It definitely used to be much better.”
But Harford County officials said it?s unfair to suggest violence besets the whole town.
“We are not about to disparage an entire community, saying there is a crime problem when community leaders say there are many positives in Edgewood,” Harford County spokesman Bob Thomas said. “There are many good things going on the community.”
But Thomas Head, 54, another longtime Edgewood resident, thinks only a change in attitude will stop the violence. “The children need to be properly schooled and the community needs to finds its conscience,” he said. “Only then will things change.”
For your information
Police issued a first-degree murder warrant Monday for 28-year-old Sean Nelson Smith, who lived on Brookside Drive, in connection with Samuel David Horne?s death. Smith is described as a 5-foot-6-inch black male who is about 28 years old and weighs about 167 pounds. He had tattoos on his right arm and may be driving a burgundy Cadillac sedan with temporary tags, police said.
Examiner Staff Writer Matt Santoni contributed to the article.
