On one block, neighbors reckon with violence

Keith Strickland tossed a handful of bullet casings at the feet of one of Denver’s highest-ranking police officers and challenged the division chief.

“How are our kids supposed to trust you guys if you’re never here?” Strickland demanded at a community meeting Wednesday night on the street.

In a 24-hour period this week, bullets sprayed two of the houses on Strickland’s Montbello block. Strickland picked up the bullet casings from the street outside his home after his next-door neighbor’s house was shot at late Monday. The following night, he awoke again to police sirens as officers investigated a gun homicide a few houses down.

Neighbors, community organizers and police gathered Wednesday night on Lackland Place to discuss the recent violence and vent their frustrations. Some residents were angry at the police — for not patrolling the street often, not coming fast enough when called or not coming at all. Other longtime residents said they were looking to move. They didn’t feel safe there anymore.

Around midnight Monday, shooters fired bullets through the front windows of Shermaine Taylor’s home, striking the couch where her 11-year-old daughter lay and peppering the girl’s bedroom. The shooting didn’t physically injure anybody, but Taylor now fears the place she’s lived for 11 years.

The shooting Monday was the second time in six months Taylor’s home had been struck by gunfire, she said. Bullet holes remained in the front windows and in the air conditioning unit on the windowsill from this week’s shooting.

“I’m afraid for my babies,” Taylor said. “I was very close to losing a child.”

The next night, a man was shot and killed in a home down the street.

The conversation in the group Wednesday soon turned to the impact of violence among teens. The number of teens killed in gun homicides in Denver has spiked over the past five years.

“Our babies are dying out here,” said Joel Hodge, founder of Struggle of Love Foundation and who lives nearby. “That’s why we come out today.”

Autumn Lawrence’s 14-year-old son, Aiden, was shot and killed Aug. 9 in Stapleton, one neighborhood west. She urged people to become involved in violence prevention and to protect their children. No other mother should have to pick out funeral clothes and a burial site for a child, she said.

“I am sick to my stomach every day,” she said.

Twenty people have been killed in homicides in Montbello since 2015 — tying with Five Points for the Denver neighborhood with the most killings in that time. Two people were killed in the neighborhood this year, and at least six people were wounded in shootings, police data show.

Denver Police Department Division Chief Ron Thomas listened Wednesday night as residents explained their problems with police.

He listened as the neighbors grieved the loss of their sense of safety. He urged them to call 911 when they hear something.

Toward the end of the gathering, the group of about 100 joined hands in a giant circle. They bowed their heads to pray.

“We trust you, God, to heal us, to move us,” Glenn Garcia, of Safe Haven Denver, prayed. “We are not standing here alone.”