Certain places in East Aberdeen are very, very dangerous.
So dangerous that they rival similar dangerous places in Baltimore, Gary, Ind., or any other place that is too violent for its size and for the good people who are trying to live a decent life in those communities.
The most recent illustration was the early morning murders of a man and a woman whose bodies were found shortly after 3:15 a.m. Monday after Aberdeen Police received a report of shots fired.
That was almost seven months to the day after a broad daylight shootout one afternoon when people were firing guns at each other as if it were a scene from an old Western movie. But that shooting was real and it was scary, just like real life for those living in or near some of those dangerous pockets.
"I was so scared," a woman from the neighborhood told Aegis reporter David Anderson Monday, a few hours after the murder victims had been discovered. "It wasn't the first time it happened and there was a shooting right here in front of my house a while ago."
The woman, who said she has lived in East Aberdeen for several years, wants out.
"We want out of this area so bad," she said. "There's no sense of community here. Kids have been known to get jumped going from place to place."
"I am just upset for the whole reason that it's violent," said the woman, who didn't want to be identified for fear of being targeted. "People can't have a conversation without bringing out weapons anymore."
Trouble in East Aberdeen is nothing new. What is new is how violence has become so much a part of today's society.
There are still good, hardworking and honest people living in East Aberdeen. But they are becoming ever more surrounded by and subjected to people who don't share their core values of working hard, raising families and being good citizens.
That's too bad too, because right at ground zero for much of the violence - East Bel Air Avenue and Post Road - there's Grove Presbyterian Church, which should be all the rock any community would need, even one as troubled as East Aberdeen.
Not far away, there is a firehouse, a Boys & Girls Club and Halls Cross Roads Elementary School.
Yet, day in and day out, children who live in the community, or go to school or attend the Boys & Girls Clubs there, are exposed to the kind of role models – bad ones – children shouldn't have to see.
But they do, and it will take more than multi-dimensional lip service to make that small community safe again.