The silence lasted eight days.
That’s how long the streets of Chester were blissfully quiet after Mayor Wendell Butler instituted a State of Emergency. Butler imposed strict curfews and limits on public gatherings in five crime-riddle areas of the city after Chester suffered four homicides in eight days. Among the victims was a 2-year-old boy killed in an ambush attack on his family as they entered their Chester apartment.
The quiet on Chester’s streets was pierced Sunday night, just hours after 18,500 people took in the debut event at the new PPL Park on the city’s waterfront.
Police say the body of a man was discovered in a car on Boyle Street just before midnight. He had been shot to death.
In my print column today, I wrote of “the two Chesters.”
That was evidenced again yesterday, when all those people had the time of their lives in the shadow of the Commodore Barry Bridge, while much of the rest of the city continues to live in fear for theirs.
That, maybe more than anything else, remains the city’s biggest challenge.
Chester has come a long way. It still has a ways to go.
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