Homicide: Life on My Street

As Erica's blog has already illustrated, we were present at a homicide last Saturday night outside our building. Sort of. Since no newspaper website in history understands archiving, I reproduce the text of the article here:

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Teen shot and killed outside Flats nightclub

4:43 p.m.

A 16-year-old East Cleveland boy was shot and killed early Sunday morning as hundreds of people spilled out of Kaos Nightclub, at 1220 Old River Rd., on the East bank of the Flats. Anthony Gordon was taken to MetroHealth Medical Center, where he later died from multiple gunshot wounds.

Police responded to an initial call at 12:20 a.m. about several fights that had erupted at the concert and continued into the streets. Police shut down all streets coming into and out of the area.

Police discovered Gordon in the intersection of W. 10th and Main streets. They have not made any arrests and have no suspects in the shooting. A firearm was recovered at the scene, but police do not know if it is related to Gordon's death. Police also took a number of people who were fighting in custody.

The nightclub's telephone number has been temporarily disconnected as of Sunday morning. Scene Magazine listed the event at Kaos as "Top Shelf Saturday" with DJs Joey Fingaz and Eddie Bauer, but police characterized it as a rap concert.

Interesting how these things work: police were called at 12:20 AM because of disturbances steming from 1220 Old River Road. Erica, John, and I were at the W 10TH and Main intersection at 12:26, which is when shots were fired. For those of you who don't live downtown, this is the intersection right outside my apartment that I can see from my living room window.

With a murder this close to my home, it still takes almost a full day for any information about it to hit the papers, and even an hour after, when we were home again checking the online CPD scanner, there was only a rare mention of "the homicide in the Flats". This is a pathetic way to disseminate information to the masses. And newspapers are worrying more about declining readerships than fighting to stay relevant in a world filled with CNN.com's, Google Newses, and diggs/Slashdots. (Some would argue if Slashdot itself is even relevant anymore. The answer is no. If Slashdot is falling behind, how do newspapers even stand a chance? They don't.)