Blood on the Driveway

This police shooting has left a stain on Fort Lauderdale

A A A Comments By Bob Norman Thursday, Dec 14 2006

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Jones didn't follow up on the complaint, a failure Ellison, who spoke personally with Jones, says is common. "People are afraid to follow through," she says. "Police have been terrorizing them with threats and scaring them off."

You see, nothing in this case is (pardon the phrase) black and white. And, despite media reports of widespread public outrage, one senses that most people are just waiting for the findings. As Mayor Jim Naugle, a staunch defender of the police, puts it, "The response in the community has been mild and not very deep."

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Indeed, opinions about the shooting run the gamut on NW 17th Avenue. Blade, for instance, thinks the shooting was unjustified, that Eddines and Jackson were simply trying to run away. "I think the officers probably panicked and were scared, I don't know," he says. "I think they panicked and they're trying to cover it up. They shot too many times for one thing."

Blade's neighbor across the street, Henry Walker, says he believes Norvis and Hill did exactly what they had to do under the circumstances. He saw the immediate aftermath of the stop and shooting and says a cousin of his saw almost all of it.

"I think they tried to run over the police, in my opinion, so they could get away," says Walker, who has lived in a bungalow on the same spot of ground his entire 46 years. "What else were they doing? People make it a racial thing, but it isn't. The police were protecting themselves."

Roberts, the retired schoolteacher, says that she's "puzzled" by the shooting but that she is withholding judgment while she tries to recover from the emotional and physical jarring she received from the shooting.

"This is a quiet neighborhood, we've been here for years and years and years, and we look out for each other," Roberts says. "I don't really know what to think, but I know nobody wants anybody killed around here."

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