Lansdowne Park residents say neighborhood not defined by gang charges
At the Lansdowne Park public housing complex in Roanoke this summer, gunshots rang out at least twice a week, said one lifelong resident who doesn’t walk to the store alone and fears stray bullets.
“Please don’t let one of them drop and hit me in the head,” said the woman, 21.
She, like others interviewed for this story, declined to give her name when discussing issues raised by recent allegations of gang violence “centered in and around the Lansdowne neighborhood.”
A federal grand jury charged four Roanoke men age 19 to 29 with involvement in murders, assaults and robberies, drug dealing and gun violations during the past year and a half. None of the four men were among the 789 registered residents of the Lansdowne community, but it’s possible the gang “might have some presence here,” said David Bustamante, vice president of housing at the Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority.
The court papers said the gang operated a “stash house” at Lansdowne for gang business, including drug dealing.
Four days after the charges were unsealed, residents recalled periods of peace and quiet between the outbreaks of conflict and gunfire.
“I don’t see no gang or anything,” said a woman on Delta Drive at Lansdowne Park on Friday. “After 12 o’clock at night, you can hear a pin drop through here.”
The housing authority said it hadn’t been contacted by police or prosecutors about the latest case, now pending in U.S. District Court in Roanoke, but expressed gratitude for the work of law enforcement and pledged its cooperation.
“The vast majority of residents who live at Lansdowne or at any of RRHA’s developments are not gang members, bad parents, drug dealers or criminals. They are good, productive citizens who, for various reasons, need financial assistance with housing their families. We believe Lansdowne Park is safe for residents,” the housing authority statement said.
Police statistics over the years have shown that northwest Roanoke, where Lansdowne is located, experiences more violent crime than the city’s other quadrants. Police have confirmed three killings at Lansdowne Park and one killing on a street bordering the 26-acre complex since 2007, as well as numerous non-lethal attacks. Prosecutors filed charges in three of those killings. The unsolved killing occurred in 2015.
The latest charges, unsealed Oct. 1, assigned blame for two of the city’s unsolved killings: The slaying of Markel Girty at an apartment complex near Lansdowne Park in February and the death of Nickalas Lee outside an apartment complex near Interstate 581 last year.
Lansdowne Park opened its one- to four-bedroom apartments in red brick buildings in 1951. The 300-unit complex sits off Salem Turnpike less than 3 miles west of downtown Roanoke.
It is the largest of Roanoke’s eight subsidized housing communities, which are typically 99 percent full. Street violence and its effect on residents has generated an outcry at Landowne through the years. Some food-delivery businesses won’t go there.
About two weeks ago, a Domino’s driver was jumped and beaten to the ground on 29th Street near Lansdowne Park, said Kevin Shaw, a Domino’s franchisee. He suspended daytime delivery to the Lansdowne area. He had suspended night delivery over a similar incident.
“I want as many pizza customers as I can have. I just don’t want my drivers in harm’s way,” Shaw said. “It’s just about driver safety and nothing else.”
A middle-aged woman who lives across the street from Lansdowne commented last week, “there’s a lot of drama over there.”
But an elderly Lansdowne Park resident seated on her porch with a relative expressed no such concern.
“My life is good. I love it. Plant my flowers,” she said, waving one arm toward a tended plot of colorful plants.
Around the corner, home health care worker Robin Hartman said: “As far as a gang, I don’t know anything about a gang. I’ve worked here eight years and nobody ever bothered me.” Hartman has visited her client at most times of the day and night, she said.
“You mind your own business, you can go and come,” she said.
That sentiment fit for a young woman who visits friends at Lansdowne.
“When there’s heavy activity,” she said, “you just take your butt in the house.”