![]() It’s not right that a driver struck and killed a young boy in the middle of the street and kept going. “So if you were one of the ones that saw the young man lying in the street and went around him, you know it’s not right.” “Senseless act and, well, as citizens of this city we have to do better because no one will protect it like us,” Detective Jason Hicks said. Witnesses said his bloody clothes were “drenched” from the rain. ![]() The truth is no one knows how long the boy was in the street. Louis-10 miles from the scene of the accident-where he died from his injuries an hour later. An ambulance took Maurice across the bridge to Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital in St. Kenneth Hall Regional, formerly known as St. It must be said that there is no hospital in East St. But by the time someone stopped, blocked off the roadway, and called 911 for help, it was too late-too late for the woman who covered his body with her own and prayed. All the signals are dark, and some have stop signs fastened to their poles, including the one on the closest corner where Maurice could’ve crossed safely.Ĭompounding the tragedy, Maurice was almost hit by a second car when a good Samaritan stepped in. Wracked with poverty and perpetually on the brink of bankruptcy, the city can’t afford to maintain them. In fact, there are no working traffic lights anywhere in the city. There was no crosswalk, no stoplight to regulate the traffic where Maurice was hit. There’s the strip mall where a police officer was shot in the face and a youth center that was the scene of a triple homicide a few years ago. Of the buildings still standing, most are boarded up, waiting for a savior that wants no part of it. The old downtown shopping district is a ghost town now. Louis Senior High took a 25 percent nosedive. A third of adults have no high school diploma, and over the past five years, enrollment at East St. A mere 1 percent of its residents reported working a full-time job year-round last year. The average per-capita income is less than $13,000. Condemned homes, abandoned commercial structures, and empty, weed-strewn lots tell the story of a place that long ago fell on its knees and never got up. Louis is a city without shoes, let alone any bootstraps. Situated along the easterly edge of the Mississippi River, in the shadow of the Gateway Arch, East St. As he lay bleeding, critically injured on the asphalt in the middle of a four-lane street, motorists simply steered around him-avoiding his body like another open manhole. On Wednesday night, a hit-and-run driver killed the 11-year-old boy as he crossed State Street, the city’s main thoroughfare. There is no way to know now, but Maurice Richards probably thought like that, too.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |