MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Westwood is still reeling from a deadly shooting that also injured at least two other people at a community center.
We told you about a grandmother who was frustrated and disappointed at the pattern of violence, because her other grandchild was hit by a stray bullet at the same community center years ago.
That prompted us to do some digging.
Don Higgins starts and sometimes ends his day by walking the trail that surrounds the Westwood community center.
He lives so close to the center, that he heard that start of Sunday’s chaos.
“I heard the shots from my apartment. When I got out here, the body was laying on the ground.”
Higgins says his walk leads him right by the basketball courts, where police say Vincent Jones was shot and killed.
Since the deadly shooting, tags have shown up reminding everyone of the violence that happened here.
The walls on the community center’s basketball court used to be painted white. Now, they are covered with goodbyes to Jones and markings in memory of him.
There’s even a growing collection of teddy bears near where Jones took his last breath.
All of the drams is enough to keep some people indoors.
“Lately I haven’t been walking, because of the activity in the park,” a resident, who wants to be anonymous, said.
WREG caught her on her face day back to the community center since Sunday’s shooting.
She says she’s lived next door to the community center for a year, and this is her first shooting she’s seen since then.
“This is not the first shooting I’ve witnessed.”
According to Memphis Police, this years they’ve been called to the community center four times because shots were fired. They were called another time for a shooting, one this mother remembers clearly.
“Watching people run and scatter is terrifying,”
She says that shooting happened in the Spring, and her daughter was playing on the playground at the time. Since then, her daughter isn’t allowed near the community center.
“I had to explain to her, ‘They are shooting. Baby, I don’t want anything to happen to you,” the mother said.
WREG found shooting at the community center dating back to 2013.
An 11-year-old was shot in July of 2014 on the basketball court. More shots were fired there in April 2018, and three people were shot on Sunday.
“Usually you would see this court full. Usually you would see children playing, but this is just the domino effect of what just happened,”
It’s a crime trend that people living close to the community center can’t wait to see come t an end. Especially, while the latest victims are on the mend and their loved ones are hurting.
WREG reached out to MPD to see if they planned on increasing patrol in that area to decrease crime.
