South Side Incident

When I left the post office on South Salina Street where Miss Dee regularly helps me process the packages of stuff I sell on ebay, I encountered the immediate aftermath of some trouble one block to the north.  Seven Syracuse Police Department vehicles had pulled up to the tiny convenience store called Styles and officers were cordoning off the area with yellow police tape.

The police officer I questioned wasn’t authorized to speak to me and by the time Syracuse Police Sgt. and spokesman Tom Connellan arrived I was standing across the street with the other onlookers.  I was unable to reach him by phone, as I no longer represent the working media in this town, he was under no obligation to take my call and give me details of what happened.

I saw another familiar face in the crowd, Rich Puchulski of Syracuse United Neighbors, an advocacy organization for inner city neighbors and business owners. Rich heard the commotion from his office nearby.  He pretty much blocks out the sound of sirens that race up and down South Salina Street each day but when that sound turns constant he gets out to take a look.

We ran into Addie Hightower, another friendly and commanding presence in this neighborhood.  Standing a whisker under five feet, Addie stood tall in the sunlight and wondered like everyone else what had happened.   She appeared puzzled to hear witnesses say store owner Craig Davis clunked a customer on the head with a hammer, a customer who may have been involved with drugs.  She said Davis and his wife whose name Addie could not recall, host an annual barbecue for neighborhood children in Kirk Park each summer.

Some detectives stood watch outside the store  and others moved about inside before a man identified by onlookers as Davis was lead in handcuffs to a waiting police cruiser.   As it pulled away from the curb the cruiser nearly took a block of yellow police tape with it.  The side view mirror had been used as an anchor for the tape.  Oops.  That’s something I would have done had I been in uniform.

Addie told me she has lived on the South Side since 1962 so you could say it’s the understatement of the year to suggest she has seen changes through the decades.  She flirts with the idea of moving to the suburbs but then she says someone greets her with a friendly hello and she is reminded why she stays.

“These are my neighbors, and if I moved away, I might not find good neighbors somewhere else”.

Indeed, during our 20 minute chat just outside the police tape barrier several people of all description; young, old, male and female recognized Addie and gave her a warm hello.

See the tape tied to the mirror? Moments later the cruiser carrying the man identified as Davis pulled away

It was still an active investigation when I got into my car to drive home near Syracuse University and Manley Field House where pale legs exposed to the elements for the first time in months carried students in a game of Frisbee on the lawn.

Two very different ways spring fever took hold in Syracuse today, each just about two miles apart.

Post script: Sgt. Connellan spoke with the Syracuse Newspapers.  Click here for the story on syracuse.com.

Tagged as: Crime, police, urban