HOW-OF-WHY
Friday, November 24, 2006
CRIME IN THE STREETS
The above title
makes reference to a film directed by the great Don Siegel.
It is a 1956 B film made on a shoestring budget and filmed on the studio lot in Hollywood. It was based on the television play by Reginald Rose. It had a deadbeat juvenile delinquent played by a very young John Cassavetes, who went on to become a famous actor and gifted director. An earnest social worker was played by James Whitmore and the movie is unremarkable except for the to be famous cast and a few well-executed action scenes. A 15-year-old baby gang member is portrayed by Sal Mineo and another psychotic thugs is played by Mark Rydell, long before he became a respected film director. Cassavetes, Mineo and Rydell played the same parts for the original television play. It was Cassavetes' debut as a film actor. But the guilty as well as the innocent are punished in the movie.
However I am writing about actual CRIME IN THE STREETS in 2006 and set in the neighborhood I live in, Bay View in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Right on the main business street of the neighborhood actually, at 4:49 p.m. On a Monday, at Kinnikinnick Avenue and Otjen Street, an 85-year-old Milwaukee man was crossing the street to get to the library when he was hit by a vehicle. He died died of his injuries late that same Monday night. The police said they are still looking for the driver of a midsized, dark pickup that left the scene of the murder. Charles Perry, aged 86, was hit as he walked eastbound across South Kinnickinnic Avenue to return a book to the Bay View Library. Milwaukee police are still looking for the killer as far as I know.
On November 14, 2006, a driver who hit a 5-year-old boy and then sped off, leaving him critically injured in the street. Police said a man driving a light green, mid-1990s pickup truck ran into the boy, Chance Brannon, as he stepped off his school bus Monday afternoon at South Kinnickinnic Avenue and Fulton Street, not very far from where Mr.Perry later was struck down later. The kindergartner was admitted to Children's Hospital in Wauwatosa, in the intensive care unit, with a severe concussion, a fractured ear and a broken pelvic bone. WISN TV12 News was in possession of a video tape of the hit and run, but did not to air it because of its graphic nature. Police are still searching for the driver, after examining videotape of the crime.
No Hollywood ending for or justice for the innocent young Mr. Brannon or the late Mr. Perry.
Not on these mean streets.
© 2006 Michael John Moynihan
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