East Nashville was left reeling after two weekend shootings that killed 15-year old Denise Brown and 33-year old Eric Mansfield. There have been 87 homicides so far this year in Nashville, nearly double the 47 murders that occurred in the same period last year.
Last night nearly 150 people attended a memorial service for Denise Brown at the Martha O’Brien Center, not far from where the teenager was shot while visiting friends.
Later, neighbors of Eric Mansfield held a community meeting with several police officers and two Metro councilmen. T-J Larkin runs a recording studio up the street from Mansfield’s house, and says he heard a gunshot that he thinks was the one that killed Mansfield. Larkin says he’s become “desensitized” to gunshot noise.
“I mean it’s going on in our front yards and I’m sure other people did what I did. They shrugged and went back about their business. I don’t feel right about that. I’ll never do that again. If I hear gun shots in my neighborhood I am calling the police, no matter what, from now on.”
Residents complained that police should focus on problem streets in neighborhoods, but police officers say they are doing all they can. Councilman Mike Jameson says it might be time to combat crime from other angles.
“Everybody knows the problem houses but they just seem to perpetuate. And there are mechanisms through the district attorney’s office and through metro legal that council has authorized to get rid of these landlords as nuisances among other charges and make an attack that way, and it hadn’t really been done.”
A teenage suspect in Denise Brown’s shooting will be in court on Thursday. Police say Eric Mansfield was killed in what looked like an attempted robbery.
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