Knife Pulled at Enslen Park

As my son walked across Enslen Park yesterday on his way to the corner market, he called me saying there is a fight developing at Enslen Park.  What he witnessed were two homeless men verbally harassing a group of young adults (who were at the park all morning, doing what, I am not sure) when the gals of the group started going after the homeless dudes.  Then the young men started going after the homeless guys, and that is when one of the homeless men pulled a knife and the group backed off.  This all took place behind the backstop of the baseball field.  I witnessed the screaming and folks running.

One of the homeless guys, is a guy that rides around on a unicycle. Maybe he is not homeless, but just a vagrant.  It also "may" be the guy that verbally assaulted me last week when I confronted him for smoking marijuana during the "Zumba" event (not "Red). Not for sure, but just an instinct of mine.

This is exactly why I do not walk across Enslen Park when I go to the "Green Store", or Millennium Market at Morris/Sycamore.  I just gets me more infuriated so I choose to drive.  My son is much more brave than me.

Now I want some answers from those whom this blog gets emailed to.  I want some accountability! I keep this blog basically private as it goes to city council members, the Chief of Police (interim), the Mayor and a few others.  I try not to open this up to public consumption too much.  I want to work with city administrators and do not want to turn this into a bitch session.  However, I am getting ever so closer to opening this up and getting park residents across the city to join in a mass effort to hold the city accountable to keeping our parks safer.

The Blue Ribbon Committee findings have been set aside.  I have heard of nothing about park patrols and what WAS on tap initially in experimenting with camera's etc.

When this incident happened yesterday, I did not call the police.  I used to in the past, and I normally received a good response with an officer at some time or another driving by the park.  Lately, that is not happening, so I do not bother.  I know, budget cuts, etc, but last year we were in the same boat, and at the very least, a patrol would come by.