The people of Morgan Park are meeting tonight to draft a neighborhood impact statement to let the court know how their community was affected by a shooting last month involving two men who Duluth police said have ties to Chicago gangs.
"This has made people sit up and take notice that crime can happen anywhere," said Debbie Isabell Nelson, Morgan Park Community Club president. "We have a very safe, close-knit community. The number of people that this affects is so far-reaching. ... We had something really awful happen in our neighborhood and what can we do to turn that around. We're taking some positive steps because of what happened with this crime."
Under Minnesota law, a community member affected by a crime may submit an impact statement to the court at the time of sentencing or disposition hearing describing the adverse social or economic effects the offense has had on people and businesses in the community where the offense occurred.
The community member may include a summary of the harm or trauma suffered by the victims as a result of the crime; a summary of the economic loss or damage; and the community's reaction to the proposed sentence or disposition of the case.
"Mostly it's a way that victims in the community can have a voice -- a real voice -- in the criminal justice process," said Ty Schroyer, director of victim-witness services for the St. Louis County attorney's office.
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Schroyer is attending the 6:30 p.m. meeting at the Goodfellowship Center in Morgan Park to help residents draft their neighborhood impact statement and explain their rights. "It will be an education for me so that I can hear from them directly," Schroyer said.
Eugene Bryant Davis, 32, is being held in the St. Louis County Jail in connection with the May 10 shooting of Wallace Lee Peters, 41, in front of a Morgan Park apartment complex. Davis is charged with attempted first-degree murder, first-degree assault and possession of a firearm by a felon. Neither man lived in the Morgan Park neighborhood.
Duluth Police Chief Gordon Ramsay said such a crime makes an entire neighborhood fear for its safety and its children's safety. He said the Morgan Park community is taking a step to show that it won't tolerate such crime.
"So the way to get their message across, now that the suspect has been arrested and charged, is to go to the next step and write victim impact statements to the courts to let them know how this incident affected them out there," Ramsay said. "We're doing this citywide. A lot of people think everything ends after our involvement. We make the arrest. The county attorney does the charging. Then it's really out of the police officer's hands. This is how the community can get involved."
Schroyer said the neighborhood impact statement can be persuasive to the court when it asks the judge to render a sentence with certain conditions such as community service, restitution to the victims and a no-contact or no-trespassing order.
Nelson wants lawbreakers to know they have no place in Morgan Park.
"To me, it's most important that we remember that Morgan Park and our city is a safe place to live," Nelson said. "We want to make sure that everybody in Morgan Park is safe when they live there and visit there. Everybody is welcome as long as they behave."
