By Reginald Johnson
BRIDGEPORT --- Recent murders in
this city are a reminder that Bridgeport
can still be a violent place, and it’s going to take a lot more than
beefed-up law enforcement and a few jobs provided by new retail development to
change that fact.
People were shocked
when a popular storeowner in the city’s Hollow section was shot for no apparent
reason after he turned over cash to two gunmen who entered his store in the middle
of the afternoon on Saturday, April 11.
Jose Salgado, 57,
who ran the store “Sapiao’s Grocery” on Lexington
Avenue with his wife Maria for 24 years, was shot after
complying with the demands of the robbers. The assailants ran out of the store,
jumped into a waiting car and fled.
Days later, police
caught up with one man in New Haven
and charged him with felony murder. The other suspect was recently caught and is
expected to be charged with felony murder as well.
The shooting at
Sapiao’s follows by weeks another killing of a store worker in the city’s North
End. Hakeem Joseph, 32, a clerk at the T Market on Reservoir
Avenue, was shot around 8 a.m. by a gunman dressed in camouflage and wearing a hood.
Police have not yet apprehended the man.
The murders jolted
local officials who had been feeling good about the city’s progress in slowing violent
crime. It is true that the homicide rate for Bridgeport in recent years is
sharply lower than what it was 20 and 25 years ago, when drug gangs often
turned the city into a daily shooting gallery.
In the late 1980s
and into the 1990s, the city frequently experienced 4-5 homicides a month; the
fatal shooting of Jose Salgado represented the city’s fifth homicide this year.
Nonetheless, the
recent killings demonstrate that Bridgeport
is still a dangerous place sometimes, and is likely to remain that way, even if
the overall rate of crime is reduced. That’s because Bridgeport
--- though having some success in redeveloping --- is still largely a poor
city, and poverty often breeds crime.
