King’s Row or ‘death row’?
Tot’s shooting in Sunnyside hikes fear, anger
When gunfire erupted at the King’s Row apartments Tuesday night, the Milam family hit the floor.
A fight down in the courtyard had just erupted into a shootout, and Loriann Milam told her 3-year-old grandson to get down and away from the windows.
It was too late. As the boy ran across the livingroom floor, a stray bullet pierced the window and flew right through his tiny abdomen. He fell to his knees.
As Sir Romeo Milam was “clinging to life” at Texas Children’s Hospital on Wednesday afternoon, Mayor Sylvester Turner, Police Chief Art Acevedo and a phalanx of local officials arrived at the Sunnyside apartment complex to talk about the neighborhood’s crime problem.
It is not the first time city officials decried the death of innocent children on Houston streets, most of them caught in the crossfire of gang violence.
In March, angered by the gun deaths of 11 children in the preceding 16 months, Acevedo vowed to crack down on city
members and team up with prosecutors to aggressively pursue gun violators. Many of the cases remain unsolved, prompting Acevedo to plead that the Houston community find the “collective courage to stand up” and put an end to the violence.
And on Wednesday, neighbors reported that gun violence and other crimes are commonplace at this complex in the 4100 block of Barberry Drive. The fact that a small child caught a bullet, they said, is the only thing that made Tuesday night’s shootout noteworthy.
“They named it King’s Row,” said a resident who identified herself only as Felicia. “Sometimes I think they should change it to Death Row.”
Turner, Acevedo and the other officials met privately with Sir Romeo’s family Wednesday afternoon. They then asked the public for help identifying the shooter.
“There was a lot of shooting that took place yesterday,” Turner said. “If you know anything, you have to help us out.”
Turner arranged the visit to King’s Row after the boy’s grandmother spoke out Tuesday night, pleading for Turner to “do something before another child ends up shot.”
“How many more little kids are going to be shot?” Loriann Milam said Tuesday, after Sir Romeo had been rushed to the hospital.
“Kids should be able to be in their own home and be comfortable and not worry about jumping on the ground like they’re in Beirut.”
Turner vowed to put pressure on the complex management to fix its access gates and put in better lighting and security cameras. He also said the city will “utilize whatever resources we need” to prevent crime in Sunnyside and bring the shooters — who are still at large — to justice.
“When you start hurting our children, all bets are off,” Turner said, as neighbors nearby murmured “That’s right” and “Amen!”
“Leave the babies alone,” he said.
‘We want out’
In Wednesday’s afternoon sunlight, bullet holes could be seen in more than one window of the long, two-story apartment buildings that surrounded a flat, grassy courtyard. Neighbors milled around to catch a glimpse of the mayor, but many of them didn’t hold much faith that things will change.
Felicia, who lives in the same building, said a bullet flew through her window Tuesday night, too. She has lived at the complex since 2008 and is afraid for her life since it was not the first time a bullet came through her window.
“I’ve seen enough to write a book,” Felicia said. “I’ve seen people get killed, shot, maced, stabbed, jumped.”
Natasha, who lives a few doors down from the Milams, said she doesn’t believe increased security or more police will make her complex any safer. Gang-related violence won’t be deterred by more patrol officers and better security gates, she said.
“They’ll kill the police — it does not matter,” she said. “These apartments are bad, and we want out.”
But getting out of an unsafe apartment isn’t easy, Natasha said. King’s Row is classified as affordable housing, and its 180 units are all subsidized with housing funds.
“Finding low-income apartments is very hard,” she said. “We’re on a two- to three-year waiting list.”
Joseph Rogers, who lives at the complex with his partner and 2-year-old daughter, said he heard the shot ring out Tuesday night laid on the ground until they stopped.
“(There’s) nothing secure about this community,” Rogers said. “You go in before dark and you put your kids somewhere low before dark. This is a constant thing.”
Roger’s daughter plays “all the time” with other children in the complex’s center courtyard, including with the boy who was shot, he said. But letting her have fun with friends is hard because of the unceasing safety concerns at the apartments.
“It’s just hard, living day by day and not knowing if you can allow your kids to play outside,” Rogers said. “If we had the option or the choice, we wouldn’t be here. It’s nowhere for a child to live.”
Renee, a neighbor who lives in the complex and declined to give her full name for her own safety, said she’s looking to move as soon as she can.
“I don’t even allow my grand kids to play in the park over there,” Renee said. “It’s very unsafe.”
The King’s Row complex is managed by Tennessee-based Interstate Realty. Spokeswoman Laura Zaner said the company has recently improved the lighting around the complex and hired off-duty law enforcement officers to provide security.
The company will consider installing controlled access gates that work, Zaner said, which Turner demanded Wednesday.
“We’re willing to look at whatever the mayor recommends,” she said. But Zaner stressed that the large complex, which sprawls across fiveacres, is not the source of Sunnyside’s crime problem.
“This is a community issue,” she said. “The crime is not isolated to our (apartment) community.”
‘They will come back’
Turner said the budget for police overtime increased in 2018 from $4.5 million to $9.5 million, and that he’d recently approved $1 million extra specifically to pay for more patrol officers in this neighborhood.
Because of that increase, Acevedo said, officers already were on the property when the shooting started Tuesday night. In fact, one of them found the bleeding 3-year-old and, before an ambulance could arrive, put the boy in his own car and drove him to the hospital.
Felicia, whose window was pierced by a bullet Tuesday night, said she is glad the police and the mayor’s office are tuned into the crime problem in Sunnyside, but she still believes she is in danger as long as she stays at King’s Row.
“The bottom line is, they will come back,” she said. “As soon as everybody leaves, they will come back.”