Urban renewal depopulated downtown Topeka Bottoms district in 1960s cjonline.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from cjonline.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
A 1-year-old boy was critically wounded as numerous gunshots were fired early Tuesday into a house at 804 S.E. Sherman Ave. in East Topeka, police said. No arrests had been made.
The boy s name being made public. He was a patient late Tuesday afternoon at a Topeka hospital, where his condition was considered critical but stable, said Gretchen Spiker, public relations specialist for the Topeka Police Department.
Numerous cones could be seen standing in the house s yard and on S.E. Sherman Avenue after police put them there to mark places where shell casings were found. We cannot allow this to happen in our community, the Topeka Police Department said on its Facebook page.
Shanta Trice could have lived anywhere in Topeka, but she chose the Hi-Crest neighborhood.
“There is just a sense of belonging, being aware of who you are and being accepted,” said Trice, who is also a spokeswoman for Mothers of Murdered Sons.
The diversity of Hi-Crest, coupled with its sense of community, gives the area potential, Trice said, but she believes it is being squandered. She said some central, northern and eastern neighborhoods “definitely get slighted in city infrastructure investment.
Trice said everything from roads to business development is lacking, and that has a negative impact on schools.
“I can t tell you really where it’s broken, other than it is broke,” Trice said. “It’s a cesspool of all kinds of problems.”