Growing up Baltimore-Dangerous Neighborhoods
WYPR 88.1 FM | Nov 04, 2009 | 0 comments
Brenda Tilghman and Robin Brown and her 13-year-old daughter, Morgan, are sitting on the steps behind Garrison Middle School in the Northwest Baltimore neighborhood of Dorchester. Brown works in the cafeteria at Garrison and Tilghman is a teacher there.
It’s a warm, breezy, August morning and Brown is discussing the challenges of raising her daughter in Lakeland, a neighborhood about 15 miles from the school.
“When I first moved in the neighborhood in 1999, Oh, it was beautiful. I figured the first snow – I’m not used to shovelling snow, but I said let me get out here and shovel my walkway. But when I came out there were two men – they were shovelling hte walkway – They went down the block and they went up the block. I was like, “UH!“
“They even shovelled our cars out – and they didn’t charge nobody. Every snow they did this.
But over the past 10 years, those kind neighbors and other long-time residents moved away and the neighborhood changed.
“There’s trash everywhere — the kids doing what they want, say what they want, calling out your name, leaning on your car, sitting on your car, disrespecting you. I don’t like the neighborhood no more, but I gotta do what I gotta do for right now to live there.”
Robin’s daughter, Morgan, is glad her mother is so protective.
“I always wondered how come she always kept us in the house so much.”
“My only daughter? I was really petrified by her being my only daughter and I really didn’t want her out there around those girls in the area – I see how those girls dress I see how they run and I see how they act and talk to the adults and I actually see what they do to people’s properties. And I did not need her around that.”
Brown and Tilghman also worry about the streets that surround Garrison Middle school. Police stats show that about half the crimes in the neighborhood are committed by juveniles. There are also kids in the school who have been in trouble with the law.
“We have a lot of children coming to us from the juvenile justice system. We don’t have any program in the school that helps these children get acclimated back to a regular classroom situation. We need more programs and services.”
While Tilghman is speaking, four young boys come around the corner of the school — two of them with pit bulls, straining on their leashes.
“Um…is he getting ready to let that dog go?”
The four kids bring the dogs closer to the steps and everyone holds their breath.
“Um. Um. Um. This doesn’t look safe. They getting ready to fight them dogs. For real, YO! I ain’t playing.”
No one is sure of the boys intentions – at this desolate parking lot, overlooking ball fields. One boy says, “I ain’t into it.” And the other laughs and then, drops his leash.
“OOOOH!”
The larger pit bull, now freed, runs over and jumps on top of the smaller dog. The dogs snarl and nip at each other and the boys laugh. Robin Brown and Morgan and Brenda Tilghman flee to the safety of Tilghman’s classroom.
“That had me shaking. I’m shaking from it and I’m scared.”
“So, are you okay? I just don’t understand why someone would teach their dog how to fight when they’re there just to be your best friend.”
Brown says the weights are to strengthen the dogs so they can fight better.
“The dog can barely move trying to pull that weight. It’s abuse. It’s rough.”
Afterwards, the adults watch each other walk to their cars. Thirteen-year-old Morgan seems relatively unshaken, though. Wayward teenagers taunting their dogs isn’t anything new to her. It’s just another day in the neighborhood.
I’m Mary Rose Madden, reporting in Northwest Baltimore, for 88.WYPR.
Our series, “Growing Up Baltimore,” is made possible, in part, Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence. The findings and conclusions presented in our series do not necessarily reflect the opinions of these organizations.
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