| BY MARK COATNEY
Cape
Girardeau is the last big town on the upper Mississippi.
South of here we leave behind the limestone bluffs and hills
of Missouri and Illinois and enter the 200-mile-wide plain
that leads down to the delta. Starting at Missouri's Bootheel
section, we also enter the area of the old Jim Crow South.
Cape Girardeau residents say their town has never had the
kind of racial troubles of that area ("It has southern
elements," says one, "but Cape Girardeau is not
the South"), but an event last summer has forced this
town of 40,000 to confront some unsettling realities about
race and policing.
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| DIANA WALKER FOR TIME |
| TIME Chicago bureau chief Ron Stodghill moderates the town meeting in Cape Girardeau |
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Last
June, a violent disturbance broke out in the Good Hope area
in the town's predominantly black southeast section. A couple
of black men walking out of a nightclub got into an argument
with police officers. Others coming out of the club joined
in, and when the officers tried to arrest one, a suspected
drug dealer, a fight broke out. Some in the 120-strong crowd
began throwing bricks and bottles at 12 police officers.
Six cops were hurt in what most everyone here carefully
calls a "melee" or "incident."
Black
residents blame the incident on overaggressive policing
in their community, pointing out that the area has been
targeted as a high-crime zone and that the police recently
opened a substation there. The police counter that a) they
were invited in by local residents concerned about crime
and b) they were just trying to enforce the law.
So it
is that TIME is sponsoring a town meeting in which the local
police, politicians and community members talk about some
of these issues. Even 10 months after the "incident,"
there's a good deal of tension in the room, though some
of that can be attributed to a degree of grandstanding in
front of three area television stations and the local newspapers.
And us.
Mayor
Albert Spradling says this really isn't a racial problem;
that the troubles in Good Hope are all caused by just a
few criminals; that most of that crowd outside the nightclub
didn't attack police; and that most of the community there
approves of the police force and the job they're doing.
Which doesn't quite explain why the issue continues to resonate
in the Good Hope neighborhood.
Residents
say it's more than just a question of cops versus the neighborhood.
They say the Good Hope area needs help economically, and
that most people in the community are law-abiding citizens.
The two sides clearly perceive the matter differently. Spradling
cites the area's 2.8 percent unemployment rate and says
there are jobs for anyone who wants to work. Not Good Hope
residents, say community members, who add that there are
few jobs that neighborhood teenagers can get to without
a car. Even more fundamental, some black residents say,
is that there is a segment Cape Girardeau's white population
that believes the police should be using force early and
often to keep the town's black residents in line.
Those
are the harsh sentiments being exchanged; the good news
is that both sides are trying to find common ground. The
incident, says police chief Richard Hetzel, forced the department
to confront some tough realities. They received criticism
from residents that was difficult but necessary to hear,
and think they can now move forward. Still, the fundamental
issue of changing attitudes in the entire Cape Girardeau
community will likely take years.
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