Incident at Amber and Cambria Streets, in Present Tense

By the time I got the phone call, two young men had been rushed to the hospital. One was dead. The other was fighting for this life. Both had been shot.

It was just before 6 o’clock. The cell phone in our news truck rang. My assignment editor was on the other end.

“There was another homicide tonight at Amber and Cambria. Police say a 16 year old boy is dead, and an 18 year old male is in critical condition.”

“What else do we know?”

“Nothing, that’s it.”

“Okay”.

We drive the news vehicle to Amber and Cambria Streets in the Kensington section of Philadelphia. It’s a part of the city that never makes it into the tourism brochures.

The neighborhood is dark and uninviting. Its row houses are a patchwork of dilapidation. Even the people seem strange. I look at them with a measure of curiosity.

In neighborhoods like this, you always pay attention.

Knots of young black men emerge from the darkness. Their gait is slow and they move without purpose. They look at us but say nothing.

A dark colored car with shiny wheel covers and tinted windows pulls up and stops. I brace myself; and the car eases away.

The flashing red and blue lights of three police cars explode against the darkness like rubies and cobalt. The only other bright light comes from the Ming River Chinese Restaurant. It spills easily from the waiting area onto the sidewalk.

Ming River is a typical inner-city Chinese restaurant. It is closed during the day and opens late at night. And, until the owner arrives and thrusts open the overhead metal door covering the plate glass window, the restaurant looks like a rusted bolt screwed deeply into the street corner. Inside, thick plexiglass separates the man from beast. At least that is the inference.

A slender, black woman walks into the restaurant. Her skin is medium brown and she appears to be wearing hair extensions. Her jeans are blue and there is writing on her black t-shirt.

She orders rice and a few minutes later, the Chinese man slides a stout plastic container of food from an overlapped vertical opening in the plexiglass.

“Put it in a bag! she demands.” He looks at her, says something I cannot make out and then offers up a half smile as he puts her rice into a white plastic bag.

“I give you my money you put my stuff in a bag!”

Meantime, the police remain outside investigating this double shooting.

We look around trying to figure out who will talk to us on camera. I turn to the police.

Philadelphia beat cops are not supposed to talk to the media, but often they will, never on camera. I don’t need a lot, just enough to put a story together.

I see a white policeman. He is tall and has a pleasant face. We say hello to each other and he smiles.

“So…a 16 year old is shot?”

“Yeah”

“He’s dead”?

“Yeah”

“The other person is…18?”

“Umm, Yeah.”

“What sparked the incident?”

“Not sure…trying to figure that out ourselves.”

“Thanks”

I have enough.

A little while later, the cops pull off and we are left to fend for ourselves should anything snap.

We have some video but no sound. I need to get someone on camera. This is often the hard part. People tend to shy from the cameras after blood is spilled. They are held captive by fear. It is a deep seated fear stirred fresh by young men who ramble through the streets.

There is a woman fumbling to get into her house. She appears to be in her 40’s. The shooting happened on the steps right next to hers. “I’m starting to panic”, she says, as she pounds the door. BAM, BAM, BAM. The sound ricochets down the street and fades into the darkness. It is obvious she does not have her key. She pounds harder and harder in desperation. “Let me in” she groans.

There is a gaping bullet hole in her front window. It is round with small cracks that make it look like a child’s attempt to draw the sun. Police have already determined that no one was inside when the bullet whizzed through the house. A small white dog looks out excitedly, just inches below the bullet hole.

The evening air is raw. It carries the smell of blood. Gobs of it are caked on the sidewalk.

Finally, someone talks with us on camera. “I just came in the house from work, and I heard the shots.” She refused to give us her name.

Her skin is coffee colored. And her shirt is bright yellow. Against the dark backdrop of the street and harsh camera light, she appears to radiate with color. “My son was just over there with em’ and as soon as he came in the house, that’s when they shot…the car backed up and shot at them.”

She tried to get her son to speak with us, but he didn’t want to. He was a teenager and I wasn’t interested in putting him in the spotlight.

As we work the story, more cars pull up. The pattern is always the same; dark car, tinted windows. The driver’s side window rolls down about a quarter of the way, just enough to expose a set of eyes. No words. Then, the car slowly pulls off.

Time moves on and closer to our deadline.

A little later, a large woman arrives. She goes over to the area were the two were shot. She squats down and begins wailing. Her haunting cries linger in the night air and echo like the call of a strange animal.

I do not approach her.

Other cars pull up. People walk over to the spot. Already, a lit candle and a teddy bear signify the moment. It is another memorial to cut-down life. Other cars pull up, and people get out. More candles are lit. Flowers and stuffed animals are dropped off.

A few people etch the letters R-I-P on a large section of poster board. Then, they stand around as if unsure of their next move. Some exchange words. Others cry. A few smoke cigarettes. Then, they leave and the candles burn quietly. It seems appropriate.
Then as now, no one is ever sure what it all means. Sadly, people speak of it as part of the natural order of things; of life, but mostly death.

An occasional bus roars through the block, kicking up dust and the curiosity of its passengers.

We get a few more pictures of the scene and hope someone else will speak with us on camera. It doesn’t happen, so we settle for what we have. It was more than I expected and it is enough to work with. We opt not to go “live” here, but at Police Headquarters downtown. This neighborhood is uneasy and the vapor of revenge is discernible in the night air.

These were the final two of twelve shootings I covered this day. In all, four people had been shot to death; the other eight were wounded. Of those eight, four of them were shot at the same time in the same bar. Just across the street from the bar, a 60 year old man was beaten to death by a 29 year old woman. Elsewhere in the city, two others were stabbed but survived.

As we leave Amber and Cambria I gaze at the Chinese man nestled behind the thick glass in Ming River. He appears oblivious as he leans on the counter watching a small TV set, waiting for his next customer.

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© Byron Scott
May 2008