The tragic events that took place in Kirkwood, Missouri last night have shaken many of us, both residents of Kirkwood like myself, and non-residents. Nobody expects such a massacre taking place, nobody expects dedicated community spirits to "snap" and turn violent.
Nobody expects this to happen, but that doesn't mean we can become so ignorant of the chance.
Over and over, I watched the towns folk being interveiwed last night, "we didn't think it could happen in Kirkwood, Kirkwood is just so wholesome."
This is the third major event to hit Kirkwood, the first being Srgt. MacAntee's death by Keven Johnson (just sentanced to death) and the second was Michael Devlin's capture and the discovery of a boy believed to have been kidnapped/dead for three years.
Bad things happen to Kirkwood, bad things happen everywhere--we need to drop the bunker mentality.
The more things that happen in Kirkwood, as the trend shows now, the more people will begin to dig in their heels and deny the fact that we are becoming anything but "America's town."
Its been relatively easy for Kirkwoodians to blame most of the violence on the towns smaller, and only recent annexed slab of town--Meacham Park. It's a historically black neighborhood, and its name is surrounded by a stigma of fear and danger...
That's understandable, it would be unfair to forget that most of the Kirkwood elite are upper crust, white, (conservative) citizens. When you look at the map, they are on the north side of the train tracks, and the south side contains a splintered, impovershed Meacham Park. This matches every stereotype of the "other side of town," the nice excuse for communities to divide themselves by racial/ethnic backgrounds.
Only a decade or so ago, most of Mecham was wiped out when the city of Kirkwood decided to build a huge Walmart/Lowes, Target/White Castle development that ended up displacing a thousand or so residents, and enslaving an entire segment of the towns population in low paying, grueling jobs...thanks wal-mart!
I hope this event is the watershed moment, the moment that will cue most Kirkwoodians into the reality that bad things happen, and by god if you say that fucking line again about "couldn't happen here," I swear I will blow my own brains out.
Update: Ignore the Poll...stupid IE7...
Update II: Somebody get me a gun! The STL-PD has a story on Kirkwood being "a small town," with that stupid, stupid mentality:
http://www.stltoday.com/...