PANAMA CITY — Dorothy Price didn’t want her son to go when he said earlier this year he was leaving New Orleans to stay in Panama City with a girlfriend.
“I’m just puzzled,” Price said in a phone interview. “My child leaves, and he comes back in a box.”
Price’s shaky voice bore witness to how hard it’s been for the 62-year-old disabled widow since she learned one of her six children, 34-year-old Leonard Price, was shot dead at close range in the yard of a home on Roosevelt Drive just after midnight on May 28.
The pain she’s lived with since sending her nephew to Florida to retrieve her son’s body for burial in New Orleans has made the last four months the hardest time in her life.
“My son was a beautiful man,” Price said. “I just ask God to give me the strength to go on.”
Price is not alone in her grief. Six men killed in a surge of gun-related homicides during a nine-week stretch this summer in Panama City left other mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children and friends to mourn.
The trend took a toll on a shocked community and brought underlying social issues to the surface in the aftermath of half a dozen young black males dying in fatal shootings.
‘Epidemic’
Piecing together why Panama City had become a homicidal hotspot hasn’t been easy.
“Looking at the problem, there’s a national epidemic and it’s in Panama City,” said Jonathan Wilson, a former Panama City commissioner of 23 years who operates a barber shop in the heart of one of the areas struck by violence.
Panama City Police Chief Scott Ervin said the worst period for homicide in recent history was seven killings in 2007. He said having nearly as many incidents within the city limits in a three-month timeframe from May to July has caused the community to focus on gun violence — and what can be done to prevent it — this time around.
“It was very taxing for us to have so many homicides going on at once,” he said.
Officers shuffled duties in the wake of the shootings to beef up the street crime unit, increase patrol in high-risk neighborhoods and carry out two ongoing investigations to nab shooting suspects.
As investigations progressed, officers fielded questions from a community desperate to know why the city was experiencing a murderous epidemic and what was being done about it.
Was it all over drugs? Are these young people up to no good out of boredom? Are gangs proliferating?
According to the Florida Gang Reduction report issued by Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, Bay County is on the same scale as the Orlando, Tampa and Miami metro areas for gang presence. Bay County was identified in the report as having more than 80 gangs in the area since at least 2011.
Ervin said while the suspects and victims in some of the cases had gang affiliations, the shootings erupted for other reasons.
“These weren’t random acts,” he said. “They were people who knew one another.”
For instance, 19-year-old Jshun Smith was fatally shot outside of KJ’s lounge on June 9 for trying to buy a drink for the girlfriend of one of his assailants. Tavish Greene, a witness in Smith’s slaying, was discovered in the trunk of his car weeks later on July 24, dead from multiple gunshot wounds.
But police said the motive in Greene’s killing was the result of a robbery gone bad and unrelated to his being a witness in Smith’s homicide.
Another victim, Leonard Price, was shot for stealing a bicycle, according to investigators.
“I’m trying to figure out why they murdered my son,” Price’s mother said. “It’s hurting me each and every day.”
Price is reluctant to accept what she’s heard about her son’s activities the night he was killed. She hopes justice will win and her son’s shooters “get what they deserve.”
Conflicts over theft, a woman, drugs and other causes still unknown were attributed to the shooting deaths. Public opinion seems muddled on the degree of gang influence in the homicides, but citizens collectively agree on one aspect.
“It’s a lot of senseless violence for things that don’t require that type of response,” Ervin said.
‘Culture and mindset’
The quest to understand elusive causes of gun violence in Panama City brought law enforcement, clergy, the school district and grassroots coalitions together.
“Culture has come up that guns are a way to solve problems,” Ervin said. “That’s why we need to get the community involved to change that culture and mindset.”
Gun culture is in some measure created by a destructive mindset.
Wilson feels peer pressure and the glamorization of criminal activity precedes a lot of gun violence.
“We’re vastly losing a young generation of black men,” Wilson said. “They have a different mindset than in the years past.”
The 78-year-old Millville resident has watched the socioeconomic environment change over the decades, since he started cutting hair at Wilson Brothers Barber Shop in 1954.
“It’s really changed. We had a lot of black businesses that time took away,” he said. He recalled when, even during segregation, Panama City was a more cohesive community. He said the economy thrived on mom-and-pop businesses run by families focused on sending their children to college.
To Wilson, the social fabric unraveled with economic conditions as larger corporations forced small businesses to close or move to the beach. He also noted changing family dynamics as a factor in the younger generation growing up with absent fathers.
“Mothers have a hard time teaching young boys to be a man,” he said.
Wilson sees “idolizing psychedelic-colored cars and making fast money with drugs” as a reason more young men pick up guns today.
The victims and those arrested in connection to recent shootings were all black males in their teens, 20s and 30s, except for one female arrested in Greene’s case. The violence occurred in impoverished areas, and drugs were not always a factor.
“The only commonality between these cases is that people made bad decisions and decided to use guns to settle disputes,” Ervin said.
‘It takes a community’
Those who’ve responded to the homicides’ impact on the community describe it as a multifaceted problem that has uncovered social issues and a cultural disconnect between law enforcement and the black community.
“This is the first time I’ve seen a diverse cross-section of our community express a willingness to work across barriers on this particular issue,” said Janice Lucas of the Lead Coalition, one of the grassroots coalitions to form in the urgency to get violence to stop.
The coalition is made up of citizens, nonprofits, pastors, educators, law enforcement and other community leaders that meet to stay in touch on what is happening in the community. Members have hosted discussion panels and rallies and gone door to door in affected neighborhoods to soothe concerned citizens.
Lucas, a lifelong Panama City resident, attributes deterioration of the community to high crime, a depressed economy and a surplus of failing public schools.
“You can’t deny the fact that we don’t have education and jobs,” Wilson said. He feels the lack of opportunity in this realm does little to help young people choose better paths after high school.
Lack of economic stability makes drugs an attractive option for income or an escape when living in poverty. Ervin said the drug trade thrives regardless of race, gender and economic status.
Panama City has its fair share of poverty. Lucas said Panama City Beach is home to an underground drug trade fueled by the party culture and tourist dollars.
“That situation permeates the community,” shesaid. “Employers have a problem finding clean candidates.”
Ervin said the drugs of choice in the county are prescription pills, methamphetamine, crack, cocaine and heroin at times. Police are addressing gun and drug issues by classifying sections of the city as high risk, at risk or stable to know where efforts need to be spent.
In light of what’s transpired, Lucas said people in the community brought new resources to the table, along with a vision for long-term change. Lines of communication are finally wide open among diverse groups about how to intervene with social problems and rejuvenate the economy and infrastructure.
“When we came together this summer, we said we’re not pointing fingers and we’re going to work together,” she said.
The Panama City Community Redevelopment Agency spurred the cleanup along last month by purchasing and shutting down KJ’s night club.
To make sure new protections don’t fade with time, the Lead Coalition meets with law enforcement and local ministers frequently to assess what’s happening in the community.
Police have formed partnerships with managers of threatened housing developments to keep suspicious activity under the spotlight, and free grief counseling had been offered at A.D. Harris Learning Center to those affected by the homicides.
Lucas said those who’ve come forward this summer want to see the synergy continue for the long-haul.
Wilsonhopes the area around his barber shop — a block from where Smith was killed at KJ’s and a few blocks from where Tavish Greene’s body was discovered in a car — will one day be restored to its former glory.
To some, the summer of homicide sparked a realization of potential for progress in Panama City.
“Out of everything that’s happened, I hope it can bring about some good,” Wilson said.