Sunday, September 27, 2009

Images, One Dead Near Hawthorn Crossings Strip Mall...

Photos By John Hoff, Megan Goodmundson, or Alex Hoff

I figured it would be an education in "crime does not pay" for my 12-year-old son to see a crime scene during today's every-other-weekend visitation. How often does my kid witness something like this in his suburb?

Besides, Alex noticed some interesting details and took a couple good pictures. This next photo...

...shows the police talking to a woman who was apparently a relative of the murder victim, Haywood Eaton. The photographer made a deliberate effort to obscure the woman's face with the tree branches. The next photo, which I took, shows the woman in the back of a squad car.




The last photo shows police conferring about the crime scene. Several hours later, there was nothing to mark the short, tragic life of Haywood Eaton except some flowers and two Mylar balloons at the spot where he laid dead on the sidewalk, and a trash can full to overflowing with crime scene tape.




Don't be surprised if there is soon a JNS editorial about how problems at Hawthorn Crossings strip mall have gone on for too long, in plain sight, despite being repeatedly brought to the attention of public officials and how, clearly, this is a wake up call to finally clean up this blighted high-crime area of open air drug dealing.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

STrib already has an article up. They must read your blog for tips.

Anonymous said...

It is sad how long these problems go on. I know there has some improvement, but the numbers of youth hanging around north Minneapolis doing nothing is staggering. I don't know the man who got shot, and whether he was involved in the prolific drug problem in NoMi. I do know that the police really need to crackdown on the numbers of these "kids" on the street.

There was two shootings on Saturday near 22nd and 6th. What I have heard a group of youth were targets. This is another area where way too many youth are just hanging around doing nothing, but causing trouble.

This has to end.

Johnny Northside said...

Some of my former journalism students work for the STrib. But I'm sure they have other ways of finding out about a murder besides my blog.

Anonymous said...

Everyone needs to reach out and help these young people. They have no where to no but the streets. Help these young people.