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Community outrage over attack of an East Memphis Woman and her son WREG.com It all started Friday when police say 2 men barged into an East Memphis home, locked her son in one room, and raped his mother by gunpoint, according to police. Tuesday, one of the suspects, Marchello Hurst made his first court appearance. He was ordered held in jail on 200-thousand dollars bail. News Channel 3 has learned Hurst should have never been on the streets in the first place. After pleading guilty to felony aggravated burglary in 2005, a judge suspended his sentence, letting him roam free. This as another suspect in this rape is still on the run. They flooded city council chambers Tuesday morning, aisle after aisle was packed, and this was just during a committee meeting. Robert Covington is a Concerned Citizen who lives in Chickasaw Gardens, "There's a lot of anger anytime someone gets violently rapes and a child has a gun put to their head there's frustration and rightly so." Carol Richardson is an East Memphis resident, she says, "Everybody here you look over your shoulder your scared all the time and it shouldn't be how it should be to live in a city to be scared all the time just to go to the grocery store." They all came together for one reason to stop crime that's seeped into their neighborhoods. Mia Henley is a concerned resident who lives in Central Gardens, "If everyone on every street takes care of their street then pretty soon they're will be no street where there is crime but we have all got to wake up and do something." One after another they walked up to the podium to speak out, noticeably absent from the meeting, Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton, Henley says, "I wish the Mayor would have been at this meeting because I think he needed to hear the public outrage." Richardson says, "I'm already not going to vote for Willie Herenton that's a given. I think he's scared to face a group of people like that because he knows we'll blame it one him because all the city council members did. Time and time again he's been reluctant to face it and face a crowd." Then it was time for Members of the Memphis City Council. Councilman E-C Jones spoke out first, "It does bother me, we need more police officers we need police officers to do their job out here instead of violating the law and then they get arrested. The Mayor can come to me and ask me to spend 29 million dollars for a boat dock at Beale Street. I've been on this council 13 years and not one constituent has called me to say what you need to do is go down there and get a boat dock." Councilman Jones got a standing ovation from the crowd who all came to take back their streets. Richardson says, "it's just too much and every single day we hear about similar crimes and I just wanted to come down here and just be part of the mass of people showing outrage. The Memphis Police Director says despite the recent rape of an East Memphis woman crime has gone down, he credits Blue Crush, more officers on the streets, but admits the most agonizing thing about this crime, officers went down the street just 10 minutes before it happened. Director Godwin says, "This was just a crime of random it's so unfortunate I'm just glad we have enough evidence that we could move quickly and the resources were there that we could have a suspects in custody and charged within 12 hours." He also talks about one of the suspects criminal history, saying if tougher laws were on the books he wouldn't have been out on the streets, "Previous record, would have probably kept him from being there if we had tougher laws, another reason to get these bills passed and lets make Tennessee one of the safest states in America, it's just time to do it, public safety is number one!" Members of the City Council urged everyone at Tuesday's meeting to call their state lawmakers and urge them to pass bills currently on the table. One of those bills, sponsored by State Senator Mark Norris, a Republican over District 32, would increase the penalties for those who commit crimes with a gun. The other bills include stiffer time for 3 offenses of more, and one involves adding more prosecutors so a faster prosecution can happen for individuals committing crimes. |
