Two shootings too many.

Today at roughly 1:30 a.m. someone was shot and killed 10 yards from my door.

As just as I was getting into bed, I heard several loud gunshots, followed by screaming and screeching tires. On the corner, in front of a local business, lay a young man motionless. And in seconds, the murder count of the City of Philadelphia rose to 36.

I’m not telling you this because I wish to exploit anybody, but in journalism we are prepared to cover the crime beat, to follow up on a homicide or talk to grieving family members. We are lectured about how the community matters, and the importance of our job to be a voice in that community.

But it is something else entirely when an event like a shooting happens in your neighborhood, right across the street. It is different when you see residents come streaming out of their homes yelling the victim’s name, and when you hit the ground fearing a bullet will come and shatter your window.

I haven’t mentioned this before, but earlier this year while I was away, that’s exactly happened. A bullet from a shooting three blocks away missed other homes, trees, and utility poles as it went through my bedroom window, through my wall, and into the ceiling of the next room where it fell into my roommate’s bed.

I thought that it was a one time incident, but then in the past two weeks alone I have heard four shootings as I attempted to sleep. Someone threw a brick into my car window to steal two dollars in change and an adapter that allows a cassette deck to connect to an MP3 player. Now there is a dead body in view of the window from where I type this.

And shamefully I only have one thought: I’m getting the hell out of here.

It is easy for kids like me who largely grew up in the suburbs to feel a disconnect from events like this. But the fact remains, the City of Philadelphia has a crime problem. A bad one. Last year the city averaged five shootings a day, with one of the victims dying on average. Usually these issues would be something I merely followed reading the newspaper everyday. Now they matter to me more than ever. I do not want to have to keep my bed on the wall away from the windows because I fear crossfire. I don’t want to have to move my car every two days because I fear it will be broken into. And I do not want to live afraid. Yet I have a luxury that many residents don’t, in that I know this apartment is temporary. With these realizations, comes guilt for not feeling them before. In a few months time and with some savings, I’ll be able to move to a new place or at the very least back home. Some residents of my neighborhood may not have that luxury, and who will be there to make sure they will not live in fear?

And it is at this moment I realize the importance of things like good journalism, good police work, and good government. Things I always knew, but never knew.

The ironic part of this was that earlier today as I took the Broad Street Line, the train was shutdown one stop from Temple University and we were all told that due to an emergency we would have to leave the subway. As I walked up the steps I asked the SEPTA guard what had happened only to have him whisper to me that there was a shooting. Where? At a subway stop I was at just roughly 18 hours ago the previous night. Then later in the day, as part of my internship, I was assigned to a cover a candle light vigil in honor of the 392 murder victims of 2007. On the list of victims, there were children as young as 1. And that’s just it, until now I could only view these things as someone who follows the news, as close calls, as an inconvenience to my subway route, as a journalist and as an outsider.

But today a little bit of that changed.

While I never met him, the man who had his life taken today may have taught me more than any professor ever could about the need to give voices to those who may not have them. There are several establishments that can do that, and I’m lucky enough to be part of one. And while I know nothing about the circumstances in which this crime was committed, I pray the men who did this are caught, and the streets are that much safer. I pray even more for the victim’s family who will be very much like the mothers I saw at the vigil today. But mostly I hope that this city can recover from this crime wave. As a recent Daily News cover said:

This has got to stop.