DA: ‘It’s getting out of hand’
Community leaders plead for cooperation after 18-year-old shot and killed
An 18-year-old man was shot multiple times and killed in Wilson early Friday morning in the same block where a shooting occurred earlier this month, prompting the district attorney and community leaders to denounce the escalation in violence.
Nikal Jones, 18, was found inside a home in the 1600 block of Spruce Street at 12:25 a.m. and he died at the scene, according to Northampton County District Attorney Terry Houck.
Another man at the home, Shadee Johnson, 30, was shot a single time and taken to an area hospital for treatment. He is expected to survive.
Authorities did not immediately
have an address for either man, so it is unclear whether they live in the area.
Houck, noting how young Jones was, pleaded with neighbors in the area to help police with the investigation, saying he worries the violence will continue to escalate.
“It’s getting out of hand, and we’re not getting cooperation from the public,” he said. “My fear is this won’t stop until people put their foot down. What concerns me is that we’re going to have a completely 100% innocent person, maybe a child, that gets caught up in the crossfire and then it’s just going to be 10 times worse than it is right now. And the clock is just ticking away on that.”
Dean Young, the executive director of the Boys and Girls Club of Easton, agrees the spate of violence is alarming, and said it’s important for the community to take on a sense of responsibility for what’s happening on their streets.
“People need to stand up and make sure the strongest voice is the one saying, ‘We won’t tolerate this unacceptable behavior,’” Young said. “Until we do that, that voice won’t be heard and people will think they can do whatever they want to here.”
On Sept. 12, Gustavo RaulDanino Ferrando was shot four times in the abdomen during an alleged drug deal, also in the 1600 block of Spruce Street. Police are seeking Cartrell D. Flucker, 27, on charges of attempted homicide, aggravated assault and other offenses.
Houck said authorities have not established a connection to the case yet, but “that is a line of investigation.”
“We don’t believe this was a random act,” he said, noting that it’s also too early to say whether the shooting is gang-related.
Shootings in the Easton area over the last several weeks have brought forward little information from the community, Houck said.
That includes a shooting in Easton late Wednesday, in which a 31-year-old man suffered what were described as “very serious injuries.” Police said witnesses to that incident, which happened
just a few blocks east of Thursday’s homicide, were uncooperative.
Houck said he doesn’t know if the lack of cooperation is prompted by fear or a distrust of police, but said he hopes the public considers what he says is at stake.
“There’s been an overall lack of cooperation on shootings we’ve had in the last several weeks and it’s stunting the ability of police to
effectively do their jobs,” he said. “The smallest bit of information can turn a case. It can be something you don’t think is relevant but that actually can really help the police.”
Speaking out as part of the West Ward Community Initiative, Lance Wheeler, who is also president of the Easton branch of the NAACP, said the violence in the area this year has been frustrating and worrisome.
The shooting early Friday in Wilson and the attempted murder on Sept. 12 didn’t happen in Easton, but as Wheeler explains, the West Ward neighborhood borders the eastern side of Wilson and criminal activity does not respect municipal boundaries.
Since the start of the year, the Easton area has had no shortage of shooting reports. In some cases, only property was hit, but there have been several injuries and many uncooperative witnesses, according to police reports.
Easton has had four shootings in the South Side, including an unsolved homicide, two shootings downtown and one on College Hill. But the West Ward has seen the most, six shootings so far and another three, including Friday’s, close by in Wilson.
“Right now the West Ward is a hotbed of violence,” Wheeler, himself a resident, said. “And I really hate saying that.”
Wheeler said he does his best to encourage the public to speak with police investigating shootings and drug dealing in the neighborhood. Some keep quiet out of fear of retaliation, especially by people involved in gangs. Others, Wheeler said, hold on to the notion that helping the police constitutes “snitching.”
Trying to dispel these perceptions has become one of Wheeler’s personal missions in the community.
“The people living in the neighborhood become the victims. You can’t sit on your porch, you can’t go out a night,” Wheeler said. “And I tell them, sooner or later it’s going to end up on your doorstep and someone you love could get hurt. We can’t let these people run us out of our community. If you know something, you have got to say something.”
Solving the problem
Young, of the Boys and Girls
Club, said efforts in Easton to create community pride and ownership could be the key to turning things around in places like the West Ward.
Unfortunately, he said, it can take tragedy, like the death of an 18-year-old, to get residents to see the toll that violence is taking on the community.
“We need get people to feel like they are part of a village. We need to get that village response where you share responsibility and look out for one another,” Young said. “This is not about snitching. It’s about protecting. It’s about making sure, on all cylinders, people are part of the solution.”
Wheeler believes Easton and Wilson police are doing what they can to end the violent feuds between groups and gangs, but they lack some of the information that people in the community have and could share.
Young’s work is part of the outreach to pull kids, teens and young adults away from street life and crime. The program’s offerings, a state-of-the-art tech lab, fitness center and even community garden, often rely on referrals from schools and through the juvenile justice system.
The hope is to expose young people to a world of opportunity they may have thought closed to them. But there must be buy-in from everyone living in the area, Young said, in order to create a community that values safety for the next generation growing up there.
“People must realize we’re all in this together,” he said. “And we’ve got to be all in. In order to win, we’ve got to be all in.”
Anyone with information about Friday’s homicide can reach the Wilson police at 610-258-8542. Tipsters can remain anonymous.