Queen Village residents demand change on South Street in meeting with Outlaw and Krasner
"I want to know what you're doing about these people committing complete lawlessness every other day," said one resident.
PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Members of a shaken Philadelphia community met with the police commissioner and district attorney Wednesday night to share their fears and to demand action in the wake of Saturday night's mass shooting.
Business owners in the city's Queen Village neighborhood are used to a lot of traffic, but residents say something needs to be done to handle the increasing crowds at night along South Street.
Quality of life concerns came up the most at Wednesday's meeting inside the Nebinger School auditorium. People are concerned about smaller situations escalating to bigger problems. Community members think their points were made clear. Now they hope to see them get resolved.
"These people came out because they really want to hear you be as honest and as genuine as you can be," said Eleanor Ingersoll, president of Queen Village Neighbors Association.
"I want to know what you're doing about these people committing complete lawlessness every other day," said one audience member.
Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw says patrols are not staffed like they were back in the day, with multiple events happening in the city in one weekend.
"Officers saying their hands are tied and they can't do this or do that, we are making it very clear my direction has been: your job is to not only be present, enforce the laws and to get ahead of something before it happens," explained Outlaw.
Officials were questioned about the department's response to the growing crowd in the neighborhood.
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The department says it is reassessing everything that happened over the weekend, and any mistakes made will be corrected.
While people argue that nothing was done to disperse the crowds prior to the shooting, Deputy Commissioner Joel Dales said commanders have to make decisions on how to carry out finding the suspect who had the gun.
"We had a police officer run to the gunfire, engage with the suspect --an active shooter -- and shot the individual in the hand. If that officer didn't do that, who knows how many more dead bodies we would have saw," Dales said.
Queen Village residents left the meeting feeling their points were made, but say they weren't given direct answers.
"What will we do differently? That was somewhat answered, not always or directly," explained one Queen Village resident.
When it comes down to it, the community wants to make the streets safer for everyone.
"I think everybody being here from this neighborhood from Queen Village spoke to the commissioner and the DA and hopefully to the mayor, wherever he is...we're all people who live in the city and we all just want to get along," said another resident who's lived in Queen Village for more than 30 years.
The commissioner is asking for the community's support as they work together to combat the issues on South Street and gun violence as a whole.
This weekend, there will be an increase in police presence in the neighborhood. Residents also questioned the possibility of implementing a curfew for South Street, though a decision on that has not been made.
