BY TANYA BRICKING
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Maurice Young
|
Blair Avenue in Avondale is not a street immune to crime. But a day after bystanders thwarted the abduction of a 7-year-old girl, neighbors stopped to take notice.
While Maurice Young was in court Saturday morning pleading not guilty to a kidnapping charge, parents in the city neighborhood were deciding to keep their children from trick-or-treating because they no longer feel the area is safe.
"For someone to snatch a child . . . it's scary," said Angela Stone, 24, who kept her children home Saturday. "I'm just looking down the street thinking, "That could have been my child.' "
The man accused of kidnapping the second-grader is the kind of person parents teach their children to look up to -- a city firefighter. (STORY)
Some of those children watched other men become heroes Friday morning when the men tackled the off-duty firefighter and held him until police arrived.
Mr. Young was not in uniform Friday when police say the girl was snatched, and investigators say he did not know the girl.
Freddie Minniefield wishes more people could be like Ricardo Hicks, 40, now regarded as the neighborhood hero. Mr. Hicks was watching his 12-year-old daughter walk to a bus stop when he heard a neighbor's cries and rushed to help.
"To me, if people would get up off their rear ends and walk their kids to school, it would be a lot better," said Mr. Minniefield, 52.
Marilyn Stone, 49, the girl's neighbor, said the incident has made her a better lookout for all of the neighborhood children. "You got babies walking out here in the dark," she said. "But it can be broad daylight when somebody decides to snatch your child."
She would like the school bus stop moved closer to the busier intersection at Reading Road so more people could watch out for the children.
Neighbor William Jenkins, 59, isn't sure that would help.
"I don't know what you could do to prevent something like that," he said. ". . . But I think the parents will be more cautious now." Marilyn Stone was not surprised that a crime happened on her street. But it's violence against children that has neighbors worried, she said.
Avondale is used to high crime statistics. It had more serious crimes reported last year than all but three other of the city's 53 neighborhoods.
Avondale reported 1,304 violent crimes in 1997 -- including one homicide, 19 rapes and 86 aggravated assaults. Only downtown, Over-the-Rhine and Westwood had more reports of serious crimes. It was dark on Blair Avenue when the girl left to walk to her bus stop, which is in sight of her front porch. The bus to her elementary school was due early, about 6:30 a.m.
People were beginning to mill about, going to work and to school. But the child was one of the "early birds with an early bus," Angela Stone said.
Parents were on their front stoops watching other children head for the bus stop, but the girl was snatched so quickly that few people had time to react, she said.
Mr. Young, 40, an 18-year veteran in the fire division, will face up to 10 years in prison if he is convicted on a kidnapping charge. He stood stone-faced Saturday in Hamilton County Municipal Court as his attorney, Kenneth Lawson, entered a not guilty plea. Mr. Young is being held in jail in lieu of a $200,000 cash bond.
Mr. Young, of Silverton, is a fire apparatus operator assigned to the training section.
Police found gloves, tape, blankets and rope in Mr. Young's car and served a search warrant at his home Friday.
