Not Even Simone Clark of the Rookie Feds Could Protect this Bus Shelter.
An Eight Grader Begins a Journey to Build His Neighborhood
Thursday, October 14th, 2022 at 3:41 PM
FedEx Office Print & Ship Center
Grosse Pointe Michigan
Wednesday, I arrived at the Seven and Morang bus shelter late for the 2:55 PM bus, entailing a twenty minute wait for the next Sterling Seven Mile 7. Those waits add up. One missed bus might mean spending the afternoon waiting for buses. A student from a nearby school stood at the stop, assessing damage. Let's call our student the Eighth Grader. The Eighth Grader had missed the 2:55 PM too, the next bus after school wraps up at 2:40 PM.
The Eight Grader reported to me. "Someone shot up the bus shelter!" I looked at the fragments of shattered safety glass. "Look at that. All that broken glass and not a single sharp edge! There's a lesson in materials for you."
I compulsively make TikToks, and I have since the fall of 2019. "Hey, you don't mind if I don't get you in the shot, do you?" The Eighth Grader backed up a few feet. I pressed the red record button, and I announced, "We're at the corner of Seven and Morang in Detroit. An angry soul busted up the glass walls of a bus shelter yesterday. A by-stander claims a shooter busted out two glass panels with a rifle. Now the shelter will keep off the rain, but it won't block the wind."
My companion exclaimed, "Hey, you're a reporter!"
"Thanks to TikTok and cellphones, we're all reporters now!" How could one give the eighth grader a cellphone as easily as giving a pencil. I know a natural when I meet one.
We took a second look at the field of shattered glass. The pile of shards looked uniform. A bullet or more might have created smaller shards where the bullets penetrated. A hail of bullets might have taken out more than two panels. Then I saw it. A brick paver rested on a small pile of shattered grass near the shelter. "I bet that's the weapon. Nice and heavy, it shattered the safety glass with a throw. One toss broke the front panel. The second toss broke the back panel. Not as sinister as gunfire, but the brick paver did the truck."
"Who is this mean person making my community look bad?"
Again, I certainly had found a natural. The Eight Grader understood community building from the very start.
"I don't know who did the damage. It must have been an angry person. A bullet would be easier to trace. Now, how quickly will the Detroit Department of Transportation send out a crew to sweep up the glass and replace the glass panels?"
I swept the glass off the bench with my shoe so we could sit down. Our Sterling Seven 7 bus wouldn't arrive for another ten minutes. I showed the Eighth Grader how the Transit App displayed that information. I let the Eighth Grader take it from my hand and toy with the app. Like I said, I had met a natural.
Thursday, I returned today to the stop. The Eighth Grader must have made the 2:55 PM because I waited alone. The panels had yet to be replaced. The glass pile looked lower, but somebody needed to come with a shop vacuum and clean up every shard. Sweeping doesn't get every fleck or sliver. The brick paver had disappeared. It was a fancy brick paver, stolen from a landscape retaining wall. Someone might have wanted it. A crime scene investigator couldn't have taken prints from it.
It's a loss that the Detroit Department of Transportation didn't fix the shelter as quickly as possible. Maybe budget constraints made the repair a low priority. Maybe no one has reported it to the maintenance database used by the department? Maybe parts can't be quickly found? The longer the shelter stands broken, the longer the shelter sends the wrong message. "It's ok to damage public property. We can't catch you. And we cannot quickly fix the mess. So you'll see your masterpiece for a long, long time."
This touches on the broken windows theory of policing. If a neighborhood quickly replaces a broken window, it sends the message that the neighborhood is active. The neighborhood cares. If a neighborhood cannot replace a broken window, the open window broadcasts the vulnerability of the neighborhood. It has the power to embolden people to break more windows
Detroit has far too many broken windows, We are talking about only two more. At least, many broken windows get boarded over with plywood. Plywood looks like blight, but it's better than a good interior filling up with snow.
This Eight Grader will need to catch buses at that stop for the remainder of the new school year. How will this quick study feel if the glass remains for longer than a week, maybe until the snow flies? I might not use the stop after tomorrow. My business in the neighborhood completes tomorrow. I want this quick study to see the City of Detroit set the context by making a quick repair. I want this student to know that the city has got the neighborhood's back.
Not even Simone Clark of the Rookie Feds couldn’t protect this bus shelter.