Murder On The Hill City’S First Homicide Of Year Is A Grim Wakeup For South Hill

FROM SOUTH SIDE VOICE page S3 (Thursday, February 4, 1999): Correction The new COPS Southwest substation will be at 1608 W. Sixth. A story in last week’s South Side Voice included an incorrect addresss.

When Shirley Wilson moved into her lower South Hill home in 1970, her children had free rein over the neighborhood.

“They ran all over the place,” said Wilson. “They built forts on the bluff. They had good times.”

But when Wilson’s grandchildren come to visit, they’re confined to the yard, away from the growing crime Wilson sees near her home on Ninth Avenue.

“It seems to go street by street by street,” she said. “Here, it’s fine. Then two blocks away, you’ve got gangs, prostitutes and drug deals going on.”

Residents of the Cliff/Cannon neighborhood got a grim reminder of the changes threatening their neighborhood this month when the city’s first homicide of the year occurred at 10th and Maple.

Detectives are still investigating the shooting death of Albert D. Edwards, 25, a resident of Long Beach, Calif. Police have offered a $2,000 cash reward for information that solves the murder.

For neighbors, the shooting generated unease.

“Devastation and concern, too,” said Marty Davis, acting chair of the Cliff/Cannon Neighborhood Council. “It’s just so contrary to the Spokane we all know.”

But residents say the homicide has had another effect: spurring a renewed effort to attack crime.

“We think that the problem is creeping up the hill,” said Melanie Reckord, a 16th Avenue resident working with others to form a network of Block Watch groups all over the lower South Hill.

“We need to keep people accountable, to ensure our entire neighborhood - the entire South Hill - is safe.”

Neighbors are talking, said David O’Connor, manager of the Zip Trip store just a block away from where the shooting occurred.

“People are definitely up in arms about it,” he said.

In his eight years at the store, O’Connor has watched the crime just outside his neon-covered windows.

Because of drug transactions in the store’s parking lot, O’Connor had to alter the pay phones so no one could call into them.

“It’s a real transient area,” he said. “In our neighborhood here, a lot of these California drug kids we don’t see for more than two to three months at a time.”

In addition to strengthened Block Watch efforts, other projects are in the works to clean up the area.

The COPS Southwest substation, which has been closed since October while volunteers searched for a new location, will reopen in March at 1608 W. Maple.

Neighborhood resource officer Max Hewitt has been reassigned to patrol the lower South Hill. Hewitt previously worked the Corbin Park area.

Some think the absence of an active COPS substation may have signaled to the drug traders it was OK to move in.

“I know that a lot has happened while we were closed,” said Wilson, COPS Southwest president. “It’s kind of gone back to the way it was before we were there.”

But with a new location and a new resource officer, things are looking up.

“We’ve got a whole lot of new plans,” Wilson said. “This shooting has really opened up a lot of eyes.”

Wilson said the substation will make a push for more volunteers, and will focus on the growing graffiti, break-ins and gang activity slipping into the area along Maple.

It isn’t the image neighbors want in their area, a working-class mix of single-family homes and houses converted into apartments.

South Siders have long held the perception that living above 14th is desirable, and anything below that line is questionable.

Neighbors blame that notion on one thing.

“Rentals,” said Reckord. “There is a high proportion of noncaring landlords.”

But, said Reckord, those same rentals have also brought a good blend of neighbors.

“There’s just a fabulous mix of people in our neighborhood,” said Reckord. “Young, old, professional couples, working students. It’s diversified so much since we moved here.”

Because of its high concentration of low-income residents, Historic Cannon’s Addition qualifies for federal community development money.

Some of those dollars - and hundreds of volunteer hours - went toward the park built two years ago at the west end of 14th Avenue along the bluff.

Already, vandals have marred the park with graffiti, which appeared to be gang-related.

Still, the park is the kind of project the neighborhood should focus on, said Davis. The council is now working on several projects, including organizing a community emergency response team. Residents train in basic disaster-preparedness skills so they can assist their neighbors in an emergency.

It’s all part of trying to unite the community, Davis said.

“It’s a grass-roots, all-inclusive organization,” he said. “The more people who get involved, the better.”

Some neighbors remain terrified of the changes they’re seeing.

“It makes me afraid to take my dog for a walk,” said one woman who lives near the scene of the homicide. She asked for anonymity.

On the night of the shooting, the woman heard yelling in the alley and then gunshots.

She hid in her bedroom and called police.

“I was panicking because here I am hearing gunshots and I thought this was a safe neighborhood,” she said.

All the more reason to keep working against the crime, say neighbors.

“There’s a whole lot of people here trying to keep it good,” said Wilson. “Just a whole lot of fighters.”

This sidebar appeared with the story: REWARD OFFERED Anyone with information that solves the Jan. 8 shooting at 10th and Maple is asked to call Secret Witness at 327-5111. Callers do not have to give their names to be eligible for the $2,000 reward.