The East Carolina Housing Authority, which manages the Eastover Terrace apartment complex, will update security to their complexes within the city, a move made following a meeting with Clinton officials, who had expressed safety concerns following last week’s shooting.
Those updates will include improved lighting throughout its complexes, new security cameras in the area and assistance from the Clinton Police Department to allow for more thorough background checks of those applying for residency.
The meeting took place Wednesday afternoon with the city’s mayor pro tem, Marcus Becton, City Manager J.P. Duncan and Police Chief Adrian Mathews in attendance, along with members of the housing authority staff.
According to both Duncan and Mathews, “substantial progress” was made during the meeting.
Upon hearing the concerns of the city officials, housing authority management agreed to beef up existing measures and implement some new ones as well at Eastovr Terrace, as well as other housing complexes they own. In addition, the city currently has a contract with the housing authority to provide supplemental police to the area that will continue to be in place.
“The meeting went really well, and we’re looking forward to the progress that comes out of this,” Duncan said in an interview.
The police chief agreed.
“The meeting went extremely well,” Mathews attested in a phone interview. “We’re going to continue to collaborate together and help with these new initiatives as well. We’re looking forward to not only decreasing crime in the housing areas, but also the fear of crime residents might have as well.”
The meeting between the parties was announced at the start of Tuesday night’s City Council meeting. The first few minutes were used by Mayor Lew Starling to address the shooting that took place at Eastover March 30. That day, police arrived at the complex after reports of shots fired and discovered three men, Desteen Howard, 28, of Clinton, Isaiah Cunningham, 27, of Clinton, and Brandon Bell, 37, of Goldsboro, suffering from gunshot wounds. Two of the victims were airlifted to local hospitals, while the third was treated on-site. All victims have since been reported by Mathews to be in stable condition.
The following day, Ricardo Ramesy, 20, of Wallace, was arrested as a suspect in the shooting and charged with three felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, six counts of discharging a weapon into an occupied dwelling and discharging a firearm within the city limits, all offenses connected to the March 30 shooting. As of press time, Ramesy remained in jail. A motive for the shooting has not yet been discovered and exactly what happened remains under investigation.
“We had three people who were seriously shot and injured last week,” said Starling at the Tuesday meeting. “Since then, our police have worked around the clock and now have the suspect in jail. Those injured are living and improving and we hope that they will continue to do so.
“I will say that the complex is Eastover Terrace, which is managed by East Carolina Housing Authority, who manages several other complexes like Dogwood Circle and Sampson Homes,” the mayor continued. “We’re going to meet with them Wednesday and express our concerns about the way they are operating these facilities. It’s my understanding that the victims and the shooter were not residents there, which is a violation of the lease.”
The mayor also stated that the city has previously maintained a good relationship with the housing authority, citing the contract providing them with additional police. Starling had added during the City Council meeting that if progress was not made in the meeting then that contract would be “voided.” However, good progress was reportedly made during the meeting, with an agreement to implement new security initiatives at their complexes with the help of the police department.
“Some of the new initiatives include different lighting and fencing surrounding the area, as well as new cameras in the area,” said Mathews. “We’re also going to be helping them with some background checks. We’re already currently working on putting this together. We’re also doing surveys, security surveys with management and that should start probably next week.”