'Murder Town' show a 'nightmare' for locals
Tilaki Barksdale, whose son was killed in a Wilmington shooting last month, said the ABC television pilot "Murder Town" is insensitive to those mourning loved ones and dealing every day with the effects of gun violence in Delaware's largest city.
“I felt angry and upset,” Barksdale said. “I felt enraged because my experience that I’m living through is still very real to me. My son lost his life a little over two weeks ago, so I don’t appreciate the city or ABC, for that matter, capitalizing on these parents, not just me, but all parents who have lost their children to the city and to the streets in the last couple of years."
Barksdale said she was angered by Mayor Dennis P. Williams' comment Tuesday that if the show wanted to film in Wilmington, he would welcome the production company to come and spend its money in the city.
“Why capitalize off of this 'Murder Town' series with what people are going through now?” she asked, adding that Williams should be more focused on addressing the drugs and guns on the streets.
Barksdale said she reached out to Williams' office to ask him to petition the production company to halt the show. She said she plans to reach out to the production company herself.
The yet-to-be-filmed pilot, to star Jada Pinkett Smith, drew strong reaction across the state. Its title echoes the headline of a December 2014 Newsweek article "Murder Town USA," which detailed Wilmington violence.
"It is embarrassing, and it will have a devastating impact on the ability of the city to recover," said New Castle County Councilman Jea Street, whose district includes parts of Wilmington. "It is going to affect economic development and recovery and tourism in this state. It is a nightmare. ABC is going to profit off death of innocent people."
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Twenty-five homicides have occurred in the city so far this year, nearing the 2010 record of 29. There have been 133 shooting victims.
Kelly Bachmann, a spokesman for Gov. Jack Markell, said the state has not been contacted by ABC about any tax incentives to shoot in the state. Markell on Wednesday declined to comment on whether he would reach out to ABC.
“I think that kind of outreach should be done, if it is going to be done, privately and not through the press, so I’d rather not comment on it,” he said.
Since he was elected, Markell said, he has visited countless families affected by shootings.
“These are very personal tragedies, and I certainly hope that the show does not gloss over how hard it must be for these families,” Markell said.
According to the trade magazine Variety, Pinkett Smith's character "finds herself confronted by old loyalties and loves, a shocking revelation about her murdered husband and a polarizing, racially-charged case that threatens to burn her and her city to the ground." There is no timetable for the show's debut and no indication that crews will come to Wilmington to shoot footage.
On Wednesday, Alexandra Coppadge, spokeswoman for Williams, said it was unfortunate that the city may be unfairly characterized by the few challenging areas where violent crime occurs. She said the show could affect business recruitment and attracting visitors to the city. She said other cities have overcome on-screen portrayals of their problems.
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“Should the TV show actually air, we would look to a city like Baltimore, which was recently recognized as a top city for entrepreneurs to launch a small business and post graduates to relocate; despite being the setting for the long-standing HBO series ‘The Wire,’ which portrayed the illegal drug trade and violent crime,” Coppadge said in an email.
U.S. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said Wednesday morning that he’s upset by the proposed show.
“I’m trying to think of what I could do to reach out to ABC and say to them that this is an unfair characterization,” Coons said. “I, frankly, would far prefer they pick a fictional city, but the reality is that we need to address our problem and our public safety challenges.”
Coons, who lives in Wilmington, said it concerns him greatly that the national reputation of Wilmington will continue to be negatively reinforced by this show.
News of the pilot comes as several candidates are gearing up for a mayoral election in 2016. In the election, Williams will be challenged by six challengers, most of whom said Wednesday they fault him for not doing enough to impact the city's public safety problem.
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Kevin F. Kelley Sr. said he thinks the negative reputation the city has received is a reflection of Williams’ poor leadership.
“The reason we are called ‘Murder Town’ is because we have a failed policing policy under the current mayor,” Kelley said.
Kelley said the city should not get caught up in letting a television show define the perception of Wilmington, but rather focus on improving the perception among residents.
“Forget the message to the outside world. What is the message to the people who live and work in the city? That is what matters,” Kelley said.
In order to address violence, Kelley said the city needs to put real community policing officers on the streets to get to know specific neighborhoods, work to strengthen neighborhood associations and improve resources for youth and teens to give them an alternative to violence.
Another challenger, state Sen. Bobby Marshall, D-Wilmington West, offered an idea repeated from his campaign trail – to hire a police commissioner or public safety director to oversee the police department and chief. Marshall said this person should have a proven track record in another city.
“I think it is up to every responsible candidate for mayor to address this issue,” he said.
Marshall, who also serves as chairman of the Senate Public Safety Committee, said the state should step in to help.
“I strongly believe that now is the time, that due to the nature of this planned ABC pilot about Wilmington and its crime problem, that the governor get immediately involved, summon all law enforcement and step in and take aggressive and appropriate action to begin, now, to fix this problem,” Marshall said.
Council President Theo Gregory, who is also running, said if elected he would address the issue by collaborating with law enforcement agencies to maximize the number of “boots on the ground” in Wilmington.
“I fault [Williams] because we have to stay on message, have to collaborate and show we are doing something about it,” Gregory said.
Gregory said he thinks it is unfortunate that Wilmington was ever given the label of "Murder Town" and even worse that they are doing a television show.
“We are going to have to dig ourselves out of it,” Gregory said. “It is problematic that we find ourselves with this reputation at this time, and we will fix it.”
Michael Purzycki, who announced for the race last week, said in order to get through this, the city needs the right people around the table with the right strategies and good leadership.
"I am as concerned as anyone about the bad press for our city but on the whole remain optimistic about Wilmington's possibilities,” he said in a statement. “We are challenged but I think we are equal to the challenge."
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Candidate Norman Griffiths said any financial benefit the city may see if the show were to film in Wilmington would not offset the long-term damage.
“Why in the world would we want the city of Wilmington to be portrayed like that?” Griffiths said.
He said he does not put the blame on Williams, saying while he is the face of the city, one person cannot be to blame for all crime.
“Looking at the things that Mayor Williams has done or tried to do, I’m not sure that any of the seven of us in this race would be doing anything differently,” Griffiths said. “This problem is so big and so embedded in the community, it goes back to a lot of social things that are in our community. You can’t blame any one person, even if they are the mayor.”
In order to combat the bad publicity, Griffiths said the mayor should try to find positives to keep up morale among city residents, employees and businesses.
“The mayor has to be someone that keeps everybody’s head up,” he said.
Said Eugene Young: "I see this as an opportunity to go on a more unified path to move our city forward."
Young said when he is out in Wilmington, he sees people working in a grassroots effort to hold their communities together.
"Our responsibility is to prove everyone wrong," Young said. "At this point, we have to let everyone know that this is not who we are."
Longtime lawmakers in the city said the show will be a detrimental distraction from real solutions to the city's crime problem.
With Wilmington as its hub, Delaware is the corporate home to 64 percent of Fortune 500 companies. Corporations are attracted to Delaware because of low taxes and its world-class business, of chancery, court. Delaware set a record for business formation in 2014, with 169,000 new entities forming under the Delaware General Corporation Law.
But recruiting companies to file paperwork in Delaware and locating workers in the state's largest city are different challenges. New Castle County Councilman Penrose Hollins said the show can't help as city officials seek to recruit new businesses to the city. As an example, Hollins noted a joint city, state and county effort to keep the Chemours Co. in downtown Wilmington.
"I think the concerns Chemours has are legitimate concerns. It is up to us to fix it and be sure we are working toward a solution," Hollins said.
The show will likely serve to reinforce an incorrect perception that the entire city is dangerous, he said. That perception drives people away from the city's bars, restaurants and cultural attractions.
"There are very, very safe neighborhoods in the city of Wilmington. There are troubled neighborhoods, but that is not inclusive of the whole city."
Hollins said it is time for politicians to stop pointing fingers.
"At this point, it is a matter of people not knowing exactly what to do because there is not one thing to do," Hollins said.
Hollins said solutions to Wilmington's crime problems have been top heavy toward policing and incarceration. Economic development has received only "lip service" and a "blind eye" has been cast upon those released from prison back into society.
Hollins said there will not be adequate cooperation toward solutions to those underlying problems if people can't work together and acknowledge the root causes of the problem, which can be difficult politically.
"From my point of view, there is a degree of denial in some of the city's leadership where people won't be honest about the drug problem or the shootings because they get defensive when you talk about it," Hollins said.
Street, who is also director of the Hilltop Lutheran Neighborhood Center in Wilmington, said solutions to the city's crime problem are slowed by an unwillingness to admit failures. In a letter to the state's congressional delegation last month, Street blasted current efforts to solve the city's crime problem as inadequate.
"In my opinion, there is no excuse for allowing this many guns on the street. Nobody is going to tell me, in a town of 70,000, that between city, county and state police that we can't take 500 or 600 little drug dealers off the street and stop them from terrorizing the city."
Street said the city's crime problem is 20 years in the making and that Williams can't be blamed. But politics, he said, doesn't help the situation.
"All of his opponents are sitting around hoping people get shot every day, hoping they can benefit from it," Street said. "He is the mayor. Part of it is his responsibility. It is not fair to say it is all his fault. It predates him. Everybody who is in office has responsibility. We all need to be held accountable."
Attorney General Matt Denn reacted to the show's announcement by pushing his proposal to use $36 million in settlement money from litigation tied to the national mortgage financial crisis to invest in policing and other social programs like drug treatment, staffing at high-poverty schools and re-entry programs for those released from prison.
Denn's plan for the money was rejected by the General Assembly's Joint Finance Committee earlier this year.
"[Thirty million dollars] of the money still sits in a bank account. ... We will be back with our proposal again this year. It is not the entire solution, but it would be an important step forward," Denn wrote on his Facebook page Wednesday morning.
One city resident saw the television show in a different light.
"My reaction was: 'Thank God. Thank God for Jada Pinkett Smith and thank ABC,' " said Dwight Davis, president of the West Center City Neighborhood Association.
Davis said he thinks the television show will spark a greater conversation about the city's problems. He said the chief problem is not enough oversight of all the money coming in for social and policing programs to judge whether efforts are actually effective.
"Millions have been poured into nonprofits without any oversight, follow-up or evaluation to assess what in fact these dollars are doing, what they are proposed to do," Davis said.
Contact Xerxes Wilson at (302) 324-2787 or xwilson@delawareonline.com. Follow @Ber_Xerxes on Twitter.Contact Jon Offredo at (302) 324-2226, on Twitter @jonoffredo or at joffredo@delawareonline.com. Contact Jenna Pizzi at jpizzi@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2837. Follow her on Twitter @JennaPizzi.