By Johnna Pinholster
VALDOSTA — Sidney Bivens’ untimely passing on Sunday evening added to a growing list of violent crimes in Valdosta since May.
Community leaders are now questioning why and discussing what can be done to curb the violence.
Valdosta City Councilman James Wright, District 1, represents the area where the mass shooting occurred.
“When I got word about the shooting, I rode over to Hudson Dockett to see what was going on,” Wright said. “I was told that several people had been shot and one had been killed.”
He said he later checked The Valdosta Daily Times Web site after returning home and learned that the death had been confirmed.
“I was disappointed, frightened, but most of all frustrated by the news,” he said. “Something has to be done to deal with the issues in the community.”
Wright is working on a plan that will incorporate the local government, churches, the community, schools and businesses in combating crime in the area.
“It was shocking and it was a disappointing reflection on the state of our personal respect for each other, and the choices that these people made during a time of conflict,” Mayor John Fretti said.
What disappointed him more, Fretti said, was that children came around to
watch the conflict, whether or not they were allowed by their parents. Because they witnessed the
shootings and became victims of the shootings, he fears they might adopt the same violent behaviors as an answer to conflict in their own lives.
Several outreach services are already available in the community, from neighborhood watches to the Boys and Girls Club, but Fretti feels the community may need to do more.
“I think the city needs to increase our efforts into awareness and education of alternatives to violence and the importance of personal respect, and even if we have to have a character initiative,” Fretti said, “because some of this may be a result of some of our youth not having a high degree of self-respect and we can infuse that using our businesses, our government and our churches.”
Mark Stalvey, executive director of the Valdosta Housing Authority, said a random incident such as the Sunday night shooting casts a bad light on the housing developments.
“With it being such a random event, the shooter and others involved weren’t actual residents, we feel more like a victim of circumstance than anything else,” Stalvey said. “It could have happened at the mall or wherever they found this guy they were looking for from what I understand.”
Ninety percent of the incidents that occur in the VHA developments are people that don’t live there or have no business being there, he said.
“We have a lot of good working folks that live here with us,” Stalvey said. “The Board of Commissioners and staff are really saddened that this has occurred.”
There are bi-monthly neighborhood watch meetings in Hudson Dockett, he said, and most of the feedback reiterates the fact that people from outside the housing project are coming in and causing the trouble.
“It just puts a bad light on the folks working hard and making a living to support their family,” Stalvey said.
Through the Lowndes Drug Action Council Inc. (LODAC), the Valdosta Housing Authority will offer counseling at the Hudson Dockett community center beginning today, he said.
Malynda Fulton contributed to this story.
