Paul "Earthquake" Moore began his cleanup campaign today in Eastwick at 84th Street and Linberg Boulevard. It is the corner where a terrible automobile crash
killed four young people five years ago. The activist, who spends endless hours trying to keep peace in some of Philadelphia's toughest streets, says after a time the makeshift memorials of stuffed animals, balloons, cards, and candles become eyesores and grim reminders and need to be removed.
"Every time somebody gets shot, the neighborhood erects a makeshift memorial and put it up and it stays there for months and years at a time…we want to bring closure to these families," Moore said.
"It doesn't curtail the murder; you just see another shrine pop up on another corner, so, no, it doesn't do anything good for families or for the community or for murders," Officer Lisa McDowell of the Philadelphia Police said.
These makeshift memorials to urban violence and tragedy now pockmark many neighborhoods.
Moore says he has the deepest respect for mourning families, but there should be a limit.
"School kids don't need to see this type of stuff going to school and have to ask their parents or their peers, 'what happened here,'" Moore said.
In this community, there are many supporters of Moore's plan, but there are dissenters, as well.
"If it's where somebody died at, it should stay up," a young resident told Action News.
"Somebody got shot here, I think it's been up long enough, it's been up over a month now and kids don't need to be reminded of this," Arthur Twyman of Southwest Philadelphia said.
At 62nd and Elmwood, the family of one shooting death victim was resisting the teardown of the shrine that's been up for two months. Police and Paul Moore are trying to reach a compromise.
Moore says he wants to take his campaign citywide this summer.
