Shattered peace: Franklinton's Southpark Apartments continue to reel from shootings, crime

The first thing you notice about Southpark Apartments is the broken glass.

It's everywhere: parking lots, sidewalks, front stoops, grassy play areas. There are pebble-sized pieces from car windows, blue specks from beer bottles, large shards from liquor bottles.

The glass is so pervasive that it hardly fazed a young girl, no more than 5 years old, walking over and around it barefoot down the sidewalk one recent afternoon, holding hands with her older sister.

It also didn't faze a group of teenagers who were sitting outside one of the buildings in the complex, on Greenfield Drive and Canonby Place on the city's West Side, that same day.

"You got to get used to it," a 16-year-old said as he sat on the front stoop of the building, inches from glass shards.

Above the teen's head, the front window of the apartment building was shattered by a bullet fired several weeks earlier, the teens said, leaving a gaping hole, and yes, glass, covering the entryway. The bullet holes, in buildings and under their own skin, is another thing those living in the complex are used to from living at Southpark their whole lives.

The 356-unit complex has faced increased scrutiny in the last several years as violence has increased.

More: Woman killed in Southpark Apartments shooting identified by coroner's office

In August, City Attorney Zach Klein sued the owners of the complex with hopes of improving the conditions there, citing more than 200 code violations and more than 800 calls to Columbus police between Aug. 1, 2021, and July 21, 2022.

Those 800 calls amounted to an average of 70 calls a month and included 22 reports of shots fired, seven accidental overdoses, six stabbings, two sexual assaults and 179 calls for a variety of types of complaints police labeled disturbances.

All but one of the teens who spoke to The Dispatch outside an apartment building June 21 said they had been shot. The Dispatch is not naming the teens because they are minors.

The 16-year-old said he was shot in his buttocks, while a 17-year-old said he was shot in the back. The bullet is still inside him, he said, and sometimes moves so much he can feel it. A 15-year-old said he was grazed in the leg, but the wound didn't even leave a scar.

As the teens talked that afternoon, a makeshift memorial of lilies inside vases marked "Leo" and "Choo," along with candles and a lily inside an orange traffic cone, sat feet away in a parking spot as a piece of red police tape wrapped around an air conditioning unit fluttered in the breeze.

The memorials were for 21-year-old Zeinab Bilal and her 16-year-old brother Abdihakim Bilal, who Columbus police said fatally shot his sister June 18 and then shot himself. Abdihakim died June 21 at Nationwide Children's Hospital.

The teens all said they knew them. A 15-year-old girl who was playing with her young son said with little emotion they were her aunt and uncle.

"That's a boy with so much pain," she said matter-of-factly of Abdihakim, adding she's scared to raise her son in the apartments but has no choice.

Columbus police are at Southpark Apartments nearly every day

As of June 27, Columbus police had been called to the complex 452 times, including 33 reports of a person with a firearm and 31 reports of a person being shot or gunshots being fired without anyone being hit.

Online reports show Columbus police took at least 55 reports at the complex this year, and police have sent at least five news releases about non-fatal shootings there.

Assistant Police Chief Greg Bodker said the complex is one of the areas where officers respond often. There's been at least one call to Columbus police from the complex for all but 21 of the year's first 179 days.

"They've made some progress," Bodker said of the complex, "but there's a lot more progress to make. From our end, we've done things like security assessments and made suggestions based on the environmentals to make it a safer place."

The owner of the apartment complex, Southpark Preservation Limited Partnership of Torrance, California, bought the complex in 2018 for $15.4 million.

Managers were not on-site the two times The Dispatch visited the apartment complex during the past two weeks, and a voicemail could not be left when a reporter tried calling the local office. A voicemail left Wednesday for the property's California-based management company was not returned.

Bodker also said the location, near Greenlawn Cemetery and the Van Buren Shelter, as well as being near Interstate 71 and the Scioto River, makes it a unique area. The street design, with the main drive through the complex shaped like a "U," also makes it possible for everyone to see every vehicle that comes through.

Columbus police continue to work with management and the complex-hired private security to work towards a safer overall environment.

"Unfortunately, there can't be an officer every place at every minute," Bodker said. "Those cameras are invaluable. We do use those to prosecute people. The violence that has occurred there this year, we've utilized evidence from those cameras, and it has benefited our detectives."

Police also have discussed other options, like adding gunshot-detection software to the neighborhood, as was done at Wedgewood Village Apartments.

More: 'There's no heroes out here': Sinzae Reed's death adds to toll at Hilltop apartments

"One benefit with ShotSpotter and Wedgewood was that it was immediately adjacent to another ShotSpotter area," Bodker said, adding there are budget considerations as well.

Despite the challenges and frequent calls for police, Bodker said officers in the area, who also are tasked with responding to Wedgewood, said they realize most of the people in those communities are doing the best they can.

"The overwhelming majority of people who live in that community are good people who are trying to get by and make it day-by-day," he said. "There are those very few, very violent people. It's the officers' job to step between the very violent people and the very good people."

More than just safety issues present at Southpark

Klein's lawsuit also noted missing smoke detectors in units, roach and rodent infestations, water leaks, damaged doorways, appliances from stoves to furnaces that were inoperable and exterior damage to stairways and rotted balcony decking.

The complex was built in the mid-1960s and has changed hands four times, according to Franklin County Auditor's office records. The current owners, California-based Southpark Preservation Limited Partnership, purchased the complex for $15.3 million in November 2018. All but four units at the complex are for Section 8 subsidies.

In January, the city attorney's office reached an agreement with the property owners on repairs and improvements that needed to be made to the apartment complex. Those improvements, which were supposed to be implemented within 90 days, included 12 additional security cameras being maintained with real-time footage available and repairs to nine of the existing 52 cameras and maintaining workable lighting.

The complex also agreed to identify a vendor for the installation of three license plate reader cameras at the property within six months.

So far, Klein's office said, the property owners have continued to meet their obligations, including the ability in the near future for Columbus police to have real-time access to security cameras on the site. The complex also has on-site security guards.

"The moment an owner is unable or unwilling to work with us, we will not hesitate to go back to the court and file a contempt motion," a spokesperson for Klein's office said.

Brian Cosby, 27, who has lived at the apartment complex for most of his life, said management changes "every few months," and it seems like the city doesn't care about what happens to the people who live there.

"It's horrible. Death after death after death," he said. "They need to knock it all down. Management's trash out here."

Cosby said some of the residents have seemed to realize that violence isn't the way to make the complex better, but that doesn't stop the gunshots, which irritate his dogs Nyla and Sai.

"They hear gunshots, and they get aggressive," he said. "They're my protectors."

Attorneys for the city's Zone Initiative and Southpark's legal counsel met Friday as part of ongoing communication between the two sides, according to a city attorney's spokesperson. The meeting focused on evictions, lighting, cameras and speed bumps, particularly in light of the uptick in violence at the complex in June.

Mayor Andrew J. Ginther's office said the city is not providing funding for the property but has been monitoring the complex's progress since 2021, when it first became a topic of discussion within the city attorney's office Apartment Nuisance Abatement Group. That group, which brings city departments together to discuss trash and safety concerns, has been working with the complex as part of the lawsuit.

Ginther's office said the city's Department of Development has made the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Ohio Housing Finance Agency aware of concerns so they can find potential solutions as well.

"The city would not consider funding this property until a safety plan and other city-identified remedies are implemented," Ginther's office said.

Southpark teens say 'it wasn't always like this'

Back beneath the broken window, the teens had their ideas for how to fix up the apartment complex. Make only one entry and exit point and have security stationed there at all times, the 15-year-old girl suggested. Another recommended making the exterior windows of the complex buildings bulletproof or shatter resistant.

One suggested having a community group of young people like himself who would get paid to go around and clean up trash, sweep up the broken glass and help make the neighborhood better.

Several of the teens suggested shutting down the only place they've ever called home, but the 16-year-old was practical.

"If you're going to shut it down, you should at least help us find another house," he said. "It wasn't always like this. It was all peace and joy."

The teens described neighborhood cookouts and get-togethers that occurred earlier in their childhoods. They remembered neighborhood parties that had a DJ and people being unafraid to be outside after dark.

Now, the teens are wary and stop midsentence when vehicles drive by with darkly tinted windows. One points out a bullet hole in a window frame and a corresponding hole on the exterior of the building's entryway. Both, he says, came from a drive-by shooting with the shooter in a car on the street, angling to hit the building.

Each building has a metal sign on the exterior that read "Zero Tolerance for alcohol, drugs, smoking and weapons on this property." The teens also pointed out paper signs that had been affixed to the entryways.

"Any criminal activity will result in the eviction process and termination of housing," they read. "This area is under focus especially in evening and on weekends."

Solar-powered lights were visible in the complex, as were cameras and a man driving a security vehicle, although the teens were less than impressed with him.

"He runs away when there's gunshots and then comes back after the police come," the girl said. "How's he supposed to be protecting us?"

Others said they had seen the man sleeping in his vehicle. But when they waved him over, he came and asked them what they needed.

The apartment complex has a playground and a soccer field. Neither are heavily used despite most of the teens, many of whom are from Somali families, loving to play soccer.

A 15-year-old boy showed The Dispatch messages from his soccer coach in which the coach called Southpark "hot," meaning lots of criminal activity, and expressing fear for his players being out after dark, even if they were being dropped off after practice.

"I don't feel safe here," the 16-year-old added. "We've got to be our own protectors."

The teens all said they knew other teens, and some pre-teens, who live in the complex who carry firearms for protection. The teens The Dispatch spoke with all said they don't carry firearms and showed their waistbands, with no firearms visible, as proof.

The teens all said their parents were at work, which is why they were sitting on the stoop, hanging out with each other and outside because the air conditioning in their apartments wasn't working properly.

As The Dispatch wrapped up the conversation, the 17-year-old pointed at one of the young people on the front stoop, saying he had driven him to the hospital personally after the young boy had been shot.

"He's 12 and he's got to worry about not getting shot … again," he said.

Dispatch reporter Mark Ferenchik contributed to this report.

bbruner@dispatch.com

@bethany_bruner

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: South Franklinton apartment complex working to improve after shootings