Unattended
GRIEF INSIGHT NEWS July 19 - July 25, 2010 • MN Metro Vol. 36 No. 32 • The Journal For Community News, Business & The Arts • www.insightnews.com
Mourning Anthony Titus: Minneapolis homicide #26 By S. Himie Contributing Writer Last Saturday July 10, a standing room only crowd of mostly young people packed into the 1,500 seat capacity auditorium of Shiloh Temple on West Broadway-many wearing T-shirts with a photo image -paying homage to their dead friend Anthony Lanell Titus. Titus became Minneapolis’ 26th homicide victim on July 4th after being gunned down just 14 days after his 16th birthday on the 2900 block of Freemont Avenue North. According to his family, friends, coaches and mentors, Anthony Titus was a good kid who liked to hang out with friends, babysat for his mother, excelled at hockey and was preparing to start as a linebacker for the Roosevelt High School football team. Anthony Titus Senior said that he is “devastated” by his son’s murder because his son
was one of the good kids you always hear about. “It is real sad that something like this always happens to the good,” he said. Many who hung out with Anthony affectionately called him by his nick-names “Phat Phat” as well as “Prince Charming.” His funeral service was one fit for a prince as the city’s top officials including Mayor R.T. Rybak, 5th ward City Councilman Don Samuels, and State Rep. Bobby Joe Champion and Shiloh Temple’s Bishop Richard D. Howell Jr. offered eulogies. Minneapolis Mayor R. T. Rybak, who attended the funeral with his mother, said everyone in the Minneapolis community should look upon Anthony as their own son. “Until we see that, this will not be the humanity that we need to have.” First accounts of the shooting said Anthony had been shot “inadvertently” and that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. On Tuesday July 6, 2010
there was a drive–by shooting at the Titus home on Thomas Avenue North as friends gathered to support the family. Reportedly last Thursday police arrested an 18-year old New Hope woman in connection with the drive-by shooting based on witnesses accounts, which included the vehicle description and license plate number. Police are still trying to make a connection between Anthony’s murder and the drive by shooting. The arrest has prompted police to treat both shootings as “gangrelated”. “He was never in a gang or anything like that,” Titus Senior said of his son. “He was out in the streets only to go have fun with his friends. He was never out there being down and dirty and I feel he got the worse end of the stick.” “Whoever the young man is that shot my son killed his brother,” Princess Titus said about her son’s murderer outside
of her home last Friday. “He doesn’t know that he killed his brother because he doesn’t know himself.” Anthony was shot on the block adjacent to St. Olaf Lutheran Church at the 2900 block of Emerson Avenue North-a place that offered Titus and many in the community opportunities to steer clear of bad elements within the troubled neighborhood. “He was a good kid with a bright future,” according to Pastor Dale Hulme of the St. Olaf Lutheran Church. Hulme coached Anthony and his brother Jessie in the New Direction hockey program sponsored by the church. He is a long-time friend of the Titus family and his children grew up and played with the Titus children on the Northside. “He was a friendly kid who may have known gang members. Any teen in this area may know gang members.
TITUS TURN TO 4
Photos: Suluki Fardan
Princess Titus, Mother of Anthony Titus mourns
Hybrid gangs, no organization, no control By Al McFarlane Editor-in-Chief The June monthly meeting of Willard Homewood Organization focused on the escalation of violence in North Minneapolis, specifically the Homewood Apartments murder at 1240 Thomas Avenue North, and the wounding of a motorist caught at a Golden Valley Road & Penn Avenue stop light during a shootout between rival groups. Mike Martin, 4th Precinct Commander, told neighborhood residents and block club leaders that the victim of the Thomas Avenue shooting, unfortunately, had been hanging out with a
group of young men, some of whom had figured in violent incidents in the city over the past several months. “One of the young men was pretty involved in a string of violent incidents,” Martin said. This young man may have been in a fight in Brooklyn Center that could have been a factor in the Northside shooting, he said. “That young man was the intended victim. As happens all too often, he wasn’t struck by the gunfire; but another young man, Matthew Johnson, was struck and killed.” Martin said there had been some complaints about youths congregating at the Homewood Apartments, twin buildings on the south side of Plymouth Avenue, one facing Thomas Avenue and one
Plan Your Career:
The most persistent and urgent get-ahead question
PAGE 3
Suluki Fardan
Spike Moss
facing Sheridan Avenue. The buildings share a courtyard between them. Martin said there had been one incident of a youth confronting a neighborhood resident and that police
Judge Tanya Bransford:
A Minnesota she-ro
responded and addressed the issue. Neighbors also complained that the apartments either housed or provided cover for people dealing drugs on the streets in front of the buildings. Martin said the Golden Valley Road at Penn Avenue area has become “problematic. The kids are running into each other there. It is a crossroads between where they live and where they hang out. Changes on West Broadway make it more difficult for them to hang out on West Broadway. That has forced them south to Golden Valley Road because they can’t hang out on West Broadway,” he said, referring to environmental design changes that make it less easy for crime to occur. “With the tools we have, we
cannot solve the problems. We are reactionary. And sometimes we make the problem worse,” Martin said. The Golden Valley Road store, where many kids congregate, is cooperating with police by installing cameras to monitor the premises and by hiring off-duty officers for security, Martin said. “We are working with other property owners in the area so kids don’t just sit around on vacant lots.” Martin said this year Minneapolis is “paying for the luck we had last year with the low homicide rate.” Homicide last year was at an unprecedented low at 19. The Thomas Avenue murder in June was this year’s 22nd. Murder of Anthony Titus (see story above) pushed the number to
First Lady Michelle Obama:
26 as of last week. “This year, the hybrid gangs, and shifts in narcotics sales and use, are catching up to us.” Martin said. “Younger kids are more violent, less organized, and less controlled. It’s unbelievable to see the number of guns we are recovering. We have stopped people leaving the scene of a shooting and recovered 14 guns at one time. We have removed over 116 weapons year to date.” Tim Hammiet, Police Community Liaison and managers of the Homewood Apartments attributed part of the problem to people who visit residents of the apartments, or, in some cases, would just hang
WHO TURN TO 6
Sports Report: Perspective on the LeBron James fallout
Tells NAACP not to rest
PAGE 4
PAGE 7
PAGE 9