aolson, Wed, January 14th, 2009
I expected there to be tears by candlelight, prayers and embracing, a melancholy gathering of a wounded neighborhood attempting to heal together. I parked my car 15 minutes before the designated 5 p.m. start time and thought, while watching two news vans leapfrog one another to win the closest parking spots, that for residents of Lilac Street, the novelty of seeing news media so close to home had no doubt worn off by now.
The crowd was so thin at one point, just past 5 o'clock, I wondered if I had gotten the time or date wrong - but no, there were other reporters. I waited for doors to open and neighbors to pour out, ready to address the senseless streak of violence plaguing the North Side and beyond. But in reality, the vigil was a collection of 10 people, total, (none of whom were Lilac Street residents, I believe). The vigil group was nearly outnumbered by the media present, the seven or eight people videotaping, recording and photographing them as they spoke to each other against this and other killings and prayed for peace.
Life on Lilac Street, it seemed, could not be interrupted for this.
A man left the adjoining apartment and brushed past us, taking a path across the lawn to avoid walking between news cameras on his sidewalk. We watched him brush the snow off his truck, enjoy a cigarette and move his vehicle to the other side of the road in accordance to the odd-even parking restrictions on the street. Then he walked back inside the house. The vigil went on.
A pair of women walked together down the middle of the street to the corner store, and back again, passing the group twice and speaking loudly to one another on both occasions. A neighbor directly south of the house took the opportunity to drag his trash to the side of the road, just before the group recited the Our Father prayer.
Across the street, a car pulled into a driveway and from there the passengers engaged in a conversation with someone inside that house, who was courteous enough to open the front door and lean outside so as to be heard. On the sidewalk, candles were lit.
It was reported in another newspaper that neighbors had known Snyder for his concern for them and for the recent surge in violence. How quickly those neighbors had forgotten once the police tape was removed.
I spoke with a participant of the vigil after the group placed a candle on the steps leading to the house and slowly disbanded. He had no personal connection to Snyder or the family, but thought it was important to hold and attend vigils such as this, whether the victim was familiar or a stranger.
I asked him how he felt as neighbors shouted nonchalantly to one another or carried on as usual with no regard for the vigil.
It didn't matter - he didn't notice, he said. It was a cold night, and maybe people just did not know about the vigil, he pointed out - there were many reasons people may not have participated.
"I don't judge them," he said. He was not there for that.
Well, neither was I there to judge how the community reacted - merely to observe it. And what I observed was disheartening, unimpressive and shameful.
The participants of the vigil that night spoke about how it was the community's problem that homicides and violence were on the rise, how it was the community's responsibility to come together and find a solution. All the while, Casimir Snyder's community could not even be bothered to glance across the street and recognize that just days ago, a man had been shot dead on that plot of land.
What happened on Lilac Street - or, didn't happen - Sunday night was far from an isolated incident. We Syracuse residents see what is happening to our city and cry out briefly for someone to save us, then denounce officials and the police when another killing scars another neighborhood, because "they" aren't working hard enough to keep us safe. Well, Syracuse - why should they, when we can't even take the time to remember last week's victim?
