By Brian McGrory, Globe Columnist, 7/9/2002

She was pushing a stroller down a shadeless sidewalk yesterday in search of relief from a life that seemed to be burning along the edge.

''It's too hot to make them stay inside, and too scary to do anything outside,'' Janet Mungo said, nodding at her two young daughters, 7 months and 7 years. ''You're between a rock and a hard place.''

Her daughter Kim asked to cool off in the spray of a city fountain across Humboldt Avenue. ''But I had to say no. We're not going into any park. It's sad to say, but no way. A bullet can fly anywhere.''

Welcome to Roxbury in the summer of 2002, a place stricken by violence and marked by life-altering fear. Ten-year-old Trina Persad died last week from a shotgun blast in an otherwise meaningless war between two pathetic gangs. And yet the question that rings out from every block of this neighborhood isn't how such a thing could happen, but how long before it happens again?

So as suburban kids are preparing for summer camp and Cape Cod vacations, in the dense neighborhoods of Boston children have been ordered inside. Mothers are looking over their shoulders. Fear has become the common bond.

The good times of the last few years are decidedly and decisively over, and by good times I'm not talking about the once roaring economy. For enormous swaths of this city, the good times simply meant being able to walk from the bus stop to the house without fear of being shot in the head, or not being filled with dread when a 10-year-old kid asks to ride his or her bike to the local park.

They called it the Boston Miracle - record low numbers of shootings, wonderfully few deaths, an antigun program that was the talk of law enforcement circles the nation over. There was a stretch when Police Commissioner Paul Evans seemed to advise an appreciative White House every other week.

But by yesterday, as parks in Roxbury stood largely empty and young mothers were filled with terror, Evans sought to explain some things over which he has too little control.

From 1990 to 2000, the Grove Hall neighborhood of Roxbury saw a 38 percent increase in its teenage population - and teenagers are more apt to commit violent crime. Drug use is up, Evans says, and the economy is down.

And then he began paging through a pile of parole notices that landed on his desk yesterday, every form representing a different convict released to the streets of the city.

''One. Two. Three. Four,'' he says, counting them off. He doesn't stop until he hits 23. ''I can't ever recall something like this. It's a stack here that doesn't quit. A normal day used to be three or four.''

So what to do? Officials are reviving their practice of pushing tougher federal statutes against gun users. Boston police are set to unveil a program in which they've identified 160 to 200 families in Grove Hall that need either enforcement, intervention, or prevention help from various agencies. Summer jobs are still being offered to potentially problem kids.

But on the streets, fear rules again. Ballah Barco, 11, walking home from a day program with his sister, says dejectedly, ''It's scary. You can't really go out anymore.''

''It's messed up,'' says Mungo, the 32-year-old mother. ''It's a lot of people getting out of jail. They buy guns and sell drugs and tell kids that they have to get guns of their own and wear certain colors.''

She scowls at a police cruiser that glides down Humboldt, saying, ''He's in the air conditioning while we're in the heat. Get out and walk around.'' [Ed. Emphasis added]

Then she adds, ''It's going to be a sad, hot summer. I just wish it would hurry up and be over.''

Meantime, the fear, the helplessness, and the hopelessness will make this neighborhood a dour and dangerous place indeed.

Brian McGrory is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at mcgrory@globe.com.

This story ran on page B1 of the Boston Globe on 7/9/2002.
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