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http://www.masslive.com/news/index....gory=Crime&category=Springfield&category=Talk
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Increased police presence pledged for Springfield
By PATRICK JOHNSON
[email protected]
SPRINGFIELD - Frances Rauls usually walks from her apartment on State Street to her job at Mason Square.
"Today I took my car," she said. "It's dangerous now."
Rauls works in the State Street office of state Rep. Benjamin Swan, directly across the street from where a 21-year-old man was gunned down in an explosion of gunfire Saturday afternoon.
She said crime has always been a fact of life in the city, but since Saturday it seems closer than ever before.
"It's like in your back yard," she said.
The shooting death of Jerry A. Hughes, the city's 13th homicide of 2009, sent shock waves throughout Mason Square, the area comprised of the meeting of State Street, Wilbraham Road, Eastern Avenue and Catherine Street. City leaders responded.
Police Commissioner William J. Fitchet and Mayor Domenic J. Sarno, in a press conference Monday afternoon at police headquarters, said there will be additional patrols by officers on foot and in cruisers all hours of the day.
The move is necessary "to quell the violence and to assure the public that peace will be restored to this area," Fitchet said.
"These are incidents that cannot be tolerated in the city of Springfield," Sarno said. "There's no quit here."
He promised law enforcement would bring "the full brunt of force" against violent criminals, but to do that would need cooperation from neighborhood residents.
Swan said more may be needed, and suggested police be allowed to operate under what he called "a short period of martial law." The move, over a period of 30 to 60 days, would give police the power to sweep all the illegal guns in the city.
"No one I know has gotten shot with a legal gun," he said.
Swan made the same suggestion in 2003 and was roundly criticized. He said Monday he expects to be criticized again.
"I don't know if there is anything that can be done without some extraordinary actions by law enforcement like martial law," Swan said.
Something needs to be done to restore confidence to people in the area following the shooting.
"We have a lot of people who are nervous," he said. "Little kids are going to be going back to school soon," he said.
He said his grandson, who had spent the summer with him until returning recently to a Chicago suburb, used to go to that McDonald's quite often.
"If it happened a week earlier, he could have been shot," Swan said.
Hughes was gunned down just outside a McDonald's restaurant at about 5 p.m. in a crowded parking lot. He was stuck at least five times in the back, chest and buttocks, said Springfield Police Sgt. John M. Delaney, aide to Fitchet.
Police recovered an estimated two dozen spent shell casings, at least two parked cars were stuck, and a 13-year-old boy a block away at the Rebecca Johnson Magnet School was grazed in the foot by a stray bullet. He remains hospitalized, according to police.
Delaney said the shooting appears to be gang-related, and Hughes was known to police.
Hughes had a brush with death in April 2008 when shot in the back while walking on Northampton Avenue near Wilbraham Road. Police at the time said they suspected the shooting was gang-related. The shooting left Hughes with a bullet lodged near his spine.
Following Hughes' slaying Saturday, a temporary shrine with dozens of candles, photographs and handwritten notes was set up in his memory just outside the restaurant, a few feet from drive-up microphone where people order food.
Anna Saez, of Springfield, who identified herself as Hughes' aunt, was adamant that he was not in a gang.
"They say he was in a gang; he wasn't down with nobody," Saez said.
Using a cigarette lighter to give flame to candles that had been blown out by wind, she said "He was a good boy." She said Hughes worked three jobs to care for his family and his young daughter.
She said she last saw him an hour before he was killed.
Gesturing to the restaurant's front door, she said "He just came out there and they lit him up like he was nothing."
Several people interviewed in the vicinity of the square expressed surprise, shock and outrage at the brazen nature of the shooting.
"I'm surprised it happened in broad daylight in a crowded parking lot," said John Chong, of Merrimaid Laundromat.
Kevin Lee, manager of PSW Beauty Supply, just a few feet away from the scene of the shooting, said this is the worst act of violence in his 12 years at Mid-Town Plaza.
"I have heard in the neighborhood of people involved in crime, but I have never seen it myself," he said.
Lee said he was at work Saturday and heard the shooting but did not realize what it was.
"I heard a little noise - pop pop pop pop - but I didn't think much of it," he said.
About 30 seconds later, an employee called him to the front window, where he could see a bloodied Hughes collapsed on the asphalt.
Zeselie Alicia, a resident of the nearby Indian Motocycle Apartments, said the shooting has her frightened for herself and her two daughters.
They commonly walk to the Mid-Town Plaza for groceries, she said.
"That McDonald's? I go to there," she said.
Reporters Peter Goonan and George Graham contributed to this report.
I need to get out of here
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