Whiteville’s school board frustrated with lack of protection at Whiteville park

By FULLER ROYAL
Staff Writer

At least one board member of the Whiteville City Schools is ready for the City of Whiteville to deal with the shootings at the West Whiteville Park.

Greg Merritt wants something done about the unattended and unsupervised park, adjacent to the Central Middle School ball fields, that has been the site of several shootings, including an attempted homicide and a serious beating within the past nine months.

The beating and attempted homicide last spring prompted a community meeting with input from ministers, parents, politicians and law enforcement officials.

Since then, coaches have continued to hear reports of gunfire in the vicinity. Last month, the school went into lockdown with staff and students on campus when two groups of Whiteville High School students began to exchange gunfire.

Superintendent Danny McPherson asked for a discussion about the situation at last Thursday’s meeting of the Whiteville City Schools Board of Education.

“This situation is continuing,” McPherson told his board. “I am concerned that we will end up in a situation that will be fatal. This is not just a school issue. It is a community issue.”

McPherson asked the board what it would like him to do.

Board member Carlton Prince said he had given the situation a lot of thought and would like to see a “dialogue” take place between the school board, the recreation department, which oversees the property, parents and the police department with sensitivity to all of the concerned parties.

“All of us see it from a different perspective,” he said. “We need to be very sensitive to every stakeholder.”

Board chairman LaDeen Powell said that in her conversations with members of the community, people believe that the situation had been resolved because the two boys involved in the most recent shooting had been arrested.

“We need to talk about prevention instead of ‘they got them,’” Powell said. “What are our choices?”

“There’s not but three different solutions to this problem,” replied board member Greg Merritt. “The first is a fulltime police officer at that park.”

Merritt said the city council was asked and the funds are not there for that.

“The second option,” he said, “is close the park permanently for the sake of innocent children. The third option – we build a wall two feet thick around it.”

“We don’t need to just talk right on and on until we go to a funeral and cry our eyes out over a child killed,” Merritt said. “Let’s go to the city council and ask what they can do.”

Powell said a fourth option might be surveillance cameras.

“There might be other op-tions,” board member Carlton Prince said. “I think we need to look at more than just the school day.”

He said that whatever happens in the neighborhood at night will have as great an impact on parents taking their children back to Central the next day.

“All must contribute to the solution,” Prince said.

The board directed McPherson to arrange a joint meeting between the full board and the city council.