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Two weeks ago the City of Detroit reached a Consent Agreement with the State of Michigan to prevent a State takeover. A priority is to get the city into a stable enough budget situation that it, and the State, can accelerate the demolition of abandoned buildings and move residents out of neighborhoods that are now un-patrollable by the police department. This is going to be a long process.
Before reading the story I highly recommend watching the YouTube video of what the neighborhoods around downtown Detroit are really like (10 min), then the video by Denby High's principal that goes with the story.
Detroit Denby High School Principal Kenyetta Wilbourn speaks about the dangerous routes her students must take to get to school -
Video....
Detroit Free Press story....
Before reading the story I highly recommend watching the YouTube video of what the neighborhoods around downtown Detroit are really like (10 min), then the video by Denby High's principal that goes with the story.
Detroit Denby High School Principal Kenyetta Wilbourn speaks about the dangerous routes her students must take to get to school -
Video....
Detroit Free Press story....
For many kids in Detroit, school zones are danger zones
In the dim early morning, Shantinique Skinner slips out the side door of her house and heads to school before the sun rises.
The 18-year-old walks past a stretch of bungalows and colonials on her block, only three vacant homes stand between her house and the corner.
The next block has 11 abandoned houses. The blocks after that even more.
Shantinique walks 1.7 miles to Denby high school on Detroit's east side alone. Often in the dark.
She passes at least 88 vacant homes on her way there. And dozens of abandoned lots. She walks on blocks where the streetlights are busted or don't work. And she does it in a ZIP code that the U.S. Attorney's Office called one of Detroit's most deadly last year.
Shantinique walks briskly, her pink messenger schoolbag bobbing at her side with each step. She wears a baseball cap, shading her brown-skinned baby face and eyes. She constantly scans the sidewalks ahead of her.
She eyes one particular vacant lot behind an abandoned house on Hayes Street near East Outer Drive. The lot reeks of the soggy carpets and trash bags dumped there. The dingy white house with peeling paint has no windows. Someone left liquor bottles in the yard near a darkened opening that used to be a back door.
A scurrying rabbit or squirrel in the rubble behind the house startles her. But she doesn't cross the street to avoid the property.
That's because far more vacant and crumbling houses -- row upon row of them -- litter the other side of Hayes.
"You never know what's inside of these houses," Shantinique says.
Last year, a rapist on the east side was in one just like these -- assaulting a woman in an abandoned house two blocks from Denby. In this area, the rate of assaults and sex crimes against young victims surpassed the city average last year. More than 1,000 people 24 or younger were assaulted in this area in 2011; 71 were victims of sexual assaults; almost 200 were robbed, and at least eight were victims of homicide.
"They," Shantinique says, referring to the city, "need to do something about these abandoned buildings."
The city's crisis is mammoth. More than 3,000 structures in the Denby area alone are considered so dangerous, they need to be torn down. Last year, the city targeted the area around Denby and two other high schools for increased demolitions and patrols: Osborn, adjacent to Denby on the east side, and Cody, on the west side. More than 5,500 homes need to be demolished in the Cody area and more than 2,700 near Osborn.
Last fall, the city stepped up police patrols around the three school zones and brought together volunteer patrols to help. But although the extra patrols have helped reduce some crime, the cash-strapped city's pledge to tear down dangerous structures in school zones remains unfulfilled.
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"After school, you don't feel safe because you don't know what (weapon) they have on them or what they're trying to do," Taylor said.
Taylor, along with Charles Bell and Christian Fleming, all juniors, were among four boys jumped at the bus stop in May by what they say seemed like 40 gang members.
Outnumbered and afraid, the boys fought.
And fought.
Until police arrived.
"After school, I have to decide on a route to avoid the gangs," Charles said. "Seems like I see fights every other day."
DPS Police Chief Roderick Grimes is familiar with the bus stop -- it's a hot spot. The gangs attack the stops blocks away from schools because the campuses are crawling with cops and patrols, especially after school, Grimes said.
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In the dim early morning, Shantinique Skinner slips out the side door of her house and heads to school before the sun rises.
The 18-year-old walks past a stretch of bungalows and colonials on her block, only three vacant homes stand between her house and the corner.
The next block has 11 abandoned houses. The blocks after that even more.
Shantinique walks 1.7 miles to Denby high school on Detroit's east side alone. Often in the dark.
She passes at least 88 vacant homes on her way there. And dozens of abandoned lots. She walks on blocks where the streetlights are busted or don't work. And she does it in a ZIP code that the U.S. Attorney's Office called one of Detroit's most deadly last year.
Shantinique walks briskly, her pink messenger schoolbag bobbing at her side with each step. She wears a baseball cap, shading her brown-skinned baby face and eyes. She constantly scans the sidewalks ahead of her.
She eyes one particular vacant lot behind an abandoned house on Hayes Street near East Outer Drive. The lot reeks of the soggy carpets and trash bags dumped there. The dingy white house with peeling paint has no windows. Someone left liquor bottles in the yard near a darkened opening that used to be a back door.
A scurrying rabbit or squirrel in the rubble behind the house startles her. But she doesn't cross the street to avoid the property.
That's because far more vacant and crumbling houses -- row upon row of them -- litter the other side of Hayes.
"You never know what's inside of these houses," Shantinique says.
Last year, a rapist on the east side was in one just like these -- assaulting a woman in an abandoned house two blocks from Denby. In this area, the rate of assaults and sex crimes against young victims surpassed the city average last year. More than 1,000 people 24 or younger were assaulted in this area in 2011; 71 were victims of sexual assaults; almost 200 were robbed, and at least eight were victims of homicide.
"They," Shantinique says, referring to the city, "need to do something about these abandoned buildings."
The city's crisis is mammoth. More than 3,000 structures in the Denby area alone are considered so dangerous, they need to be torn down. Last year, the city targeted the area around Denby and two other high schools for increased demolitions and patrols: Osborn, adjacent to Denby on the east side, and Cody, on the west side. More than 5,500 homes need to be demolished in the Cody area and more than 2,700 near Osborn.
Last fall, the city stepped up police patrols around the three school zones and brought together volunteer patrols to help. But although the extra patrols have helped reduce some crime, the cash-strapped city's pledge to tear down dangerous structures in school zones remains unfulfilled.
>
"After school, you don't feel safe because you don't know what (weapon) they have on them or what they're trying to do," Taylor said.
Taylor, along with Charles Bell and Christian Fleming, all juniors, were among four boys jumped at the bus stop in May by what they say seemed like 40 gang members.
Outnumbered and afraid, the boys fought.
And fought.
Until police arrived.
"After school, I have to decide on a route to avoid the gangs," Charles said. "Seems like I see fights every other day."
DPS Police Chief Roderick Grimes is familiar with the bus stop -- it's a hot spot. The gangs attack the stops blocks away from schools because the campuses are crawling with cops and patrols, especially after school, Grimes said.
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