VIOLENCE IN FAIRFIELD WEST IS A TRI-STATE PROBLEM

The crime problem in Huntington's Fairfield West neighborhood isn't
just a problem in that one small area. As Sunday morning's events
showed, it affects the entire Tri-State region.

Four teenagers lost their lives in the worst crime in Huntington in
recent memory, if not the worst ever in this city: Donte Ward, 19, of
Huntington; Michael Dillon, 17, a Huntington High School junior; Megan
Poston, 16, a Cabell Midland High School junior; and Eddrick Clark,
18, of South Point, Ohio, a senior at South Point High School.

All four were shot at 1410 Charleston Ave., just off Hal Greer
Boulevard and close to the open-air drug market in the Artisan Avenue
area. Three died there. One died later at Cabell Huntington Hospital.

Their deaths came about 13 months after Karen Stultz, 39, of
Catlettsburg, Ky., was shot and killed near Charleston Avenue. Last
month, 15-year-old DeAaron Fields of Huntington was convicted of
first-degree murder in that shooting. Witnesses said Fields shot
Stultz over a $40 debt for crack cocaine.

No one yet has linked Sunday's murders to drugs. It's too early to say
if the infamous Detroit drug connection had anything to do with the
deaths of the four youths.

Hundreds of people gathered at a candle-light vigil Monday night at
1410 Charleston Ave. to remember the victims, to pray for their
families and to vow that the violence will end. People there were a
mix of young and old, black and white, Huntingtonian and
non-Huntingtonian.

The vigil was threatened by dark clouds, thunder, lighting and rain.
But at the end, people took heart in the sight of a bright rainbow
over Fairfield West, and a fainter second rainbow near it.

Another vigil in Poston's memory was scheduled for Tuesday
evening.

Many people who work in Huntington but live elsewhere say they don't
want to pay one more cent to help city government provide safety
services. "Taxation without representation," they say. Or, echoing the
unofficial workers' motto in New York City, "Not my job, man."

Actually, it is their job.

As of Sunday, any Tri-State resident who would say the violence in
Fairfield West or anywhere in Huntington is not his or her problem is
in total denial. Just look at where the victims of the past 13 months
have lived -- Catlettsburg, South Point, Barboursville -- and say this
isn't a problem the entire region will have to solve.

If Sunday's murders were linked to the crack trade -- and police so
far refuse to say they are -- the violence of Fairfield West is truly
a regional problem. After all, who buys the crack sold on Artisan
Avenue and elsewhere? People from all over the region do.

And if the murders are not related to the crack trade, we must deal
with the fact that the neighborhood is getting more violent overall,
and outsiders are dying there.

It's one thing if local people from the three states can't get
together to market the region to tourists, or if they can't agree
where a bridge should be built. It's another thing entirely if they
can't see that a growing problem with violence in one Huntington
neighborhood is spilling over into their communities.

The Tri-State always has functioned as one community with little
regard for state lines. It's time to remember that as the search
intensifies for solutions to the violence that affects the entire region.