Serious Crimes Up In OKC Neighborhood

Adrianna Iwasinski, News 9

OKLAHOMA CITY – Last night, 45-year-old Jerry Clark, Jr., was shot and killed while sitting in a car in the driveway of a home in the 2100 block of N.E. 28th Street. It is a neighborhood in which many there say crime runs rampant.

Officers from the Springlake Division of the Oklahoma City Police Department patrol that area around N.E. 28th and Martin Luther King. Though the Springlake area has been known for its fair share of crime over the years, some of the people who have lived there say it wasn't always that way and it shouldn't be that way now.

"Basically this is a quiet area," Brenda Hayes said.

Hayes has lived along N.E. 28th Street off and on for the past 30 years. She said neighbors here watch out for each other.

"There's elderly people and we used to sit out front, but we don't too much anymore."

Except for the occasional dog bark, it stays quiet along this street until last night's shooting a few doors down.

"So this is very unusual that this has happened down the street from you," Hayes said. "It is very unusual that it happened right in this particular area because there's usually not a lot of crime. There is, kind of, in the next block. There's not a lot of crime up here."

According to statistics compiled by the Oklahoma City Police for this area, drive-by shootings have doubled in the past year, but gang-related assaults with a deadly weapon have decreased by one. Homicides in the area have more than doubled, but there has been a significant drop in the number of robberies.