A candlelight vigil was held last night at the spot where Reginald Demarcus Wrenn was brutally gunned down just two doors down from my home just one year ago. What I didn't tell you before was that his murderer shot him, then stood over him as he lay bleeding on the ground and emptied his gun into Demarcus's chest while a crowd of people, most of them teenagers, stood by and watched, unable to do anything to stop it.
Me, I watched from my window while on the phone with the 911 operator already calling in a noise disturbance seconds before the gunshots began to ring out. Minutes later I watched as Greensboro Police officers tried in vain to administer CPR to what had been the only sober man in the crowd now lying in a pool of his own blood.
That wasn't the first time I've seen a young man murdered in East Greensboro and something tells me it won't be the last. For you see, today being election day, I find it ironic that neither of the 2 candidates running for Mayor of Greensboro have made getting rid of crime a priority of their campaigns. Hell, have they even mentioned it?
It's like 2007 all over again when Yvonne Johnson and Milton Kern ran their faux campaigns against one another all over again with Milton jokingly saying, "If I weren't running I'd vote for Yvonne."
And Johnson sheepishly replying, "If I weren't running I'd vote for Milton."
You see, Yvonne was never proud of the fact that the 2007 campaign was staged and it even scared her when I came along to run a 2 week write-in campaign driving around downtown Greensboro on what looked like a World War I airplane towing a banner behind advertising my website. It scared her so much so that she revamped her entire campaign to address a gang problem she and Milton had both previously denied and pushed the Greensboro City Council to create Greensboro's first and only gang unit.
You see, Greensboro's elites so badly wanted to paint a picture of Greensboro being healed from all the racial problems of the past that they staged a campaign to make sure Yvonne Johnson would become Greensboro's first African-American mayor and they weren't going to let anything including what might be percieved as an African-American gang issue get in their way.
Nope, like Yvonne and Milton, Nancy and Robbie aren't talking about Greensboro's growing crime issues. And it's not just East Greensboro anymore. According to the Greensboro Police Department, Downtown has one of the highest rates of violent crime of any Greensboro neighborhood.
Jobs would help. And jobs need to be where people live so that people who aren't working see other people working. Crime always goes up in times of poverty and people tend to emulate what they see other people doing to get ahead. Especially young people. The place where Reginald Demarcus Wrenn died one year ago was a liquor house located within walking distance of the housing projects on Phillips Avenue. Since we got the housing projects in the 1960s we've had constant liquor houses come and go always in rental houses throughout the neighborhood. Where they are today I don't know but somewhere within walking distance of the projects is a liquor house, sometimes several.
Robbie Perkins talks about infrastructure and jobs and how the focus must be placed where the infrastructure is already located. Translation: Let's put the focus where Robbie's customers have their properties located. And when the time comes when infrastructure is needed, the City of Greensboro owns plenty of unused land and properties in east Greensboro. The White Street Landfill alone has a completely unsued 500 acre tract lying only 1300' from the end of East Cone Blvd. And the rough grading for the road has already been done. Reality is: there is plenty of usable, empty infrastructure in east Greensboro. As a matter of fact, the few places where Robbie has signs in east Greensboro just happen to right next to where he is proposing to build new roads. An e-mail to RecycleBill@gmail.com will get you a personal tour.
Nancy Vaughn talks about jobs for east Greensboro but reality is she is clueless as to where to start. She has made no proposals as to how she might put people to work. Fact is, the woman has never had an original thought in her life. Even her campaign slogan, "In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." was borrowed from Thomas Jefferson. Will she be elected? Probably. Will she improve Greensboro? For the last 2 years she has accomplished everything Robbie Perkins wanted done.
And young men like Reginald Demarcus Wrenn die without ever getting the chance to show us what they could have done.
Fact is, it's really a shame in a way that Jamal Fox is only running for District 2 and not the entire City of Greensboro. Jamal's C-E-P Plan shows vision, leadership and talent far beyond the minds of Perkins or Vaughan. As a matter of fact: were it not for Jamal I wouldn't even bother to walk a block to cast my ballot and vote today. We can only hope the winner of today's mayoral election recognizes true vision and steps aside when Jamal takes his seat on the Greensboro City Council.
