On this block of Tyler Avenue in Annapolis, 17-year-old Kwame Travon Johnson was fatally shot Sunday night. A day later, a bloodstain and a flower marked the spot where his body was found.
On this block, Timothy Hayes Marsh, 48, was fatally shot a month earlier. The family of the Severna Park resident, who was found slumped over the wheel of his 2001 Acura Integra, speculates that he was in the area to purchase drugs.
And on this block is where Frank R. Jones, a 38-year-old electrical contractor, lived before turning up dead last month on a Davidsonville roadside. As recently last February, Jones was convicted of drug possession.
They are the latest casualties in the Robinwood public housing community, whose troubles are as old as its squat, utilitarian townhouses.
"I look at it as the capital of all [Annapolis'] 'hoods," said Curtis A. Spencer, a civic activist and convicted drug dealer.
But Johnson's killing - the fourth this year on the heels of a record eight in 2007 - has shaken the city into action. Just weeks after the launch of a new state-led effort that brings in federal and state resources to help tackle the city's crime problem, Mayor Ellen O. Moyer has floated the idea of a curfew, and the councilwoman who represents the area suggested bringing in the National Guard to keep the peace.
On Thursday, police raided several homes in Robinwood and arrested five teenagers, ages 15 to 17, on charges ranging from ammunition possession to possession of crack.
Residents view the city's commitment with a mix of hope and skepticism. A year ago this month, city officials hoped to make Robinwood a model for other public housing complexes through a $750,000 plan to start an alcohol- and drug-treatment program, community gardens and mural projects. The community center received computers, donated by a private company, but the overall initiative was largely shelved.
"It didn't even get started," said Betty Ann Weekly, a longtime resident who directs the center.
Built in 1970, Robinwood is the second-largest of 10 properties run by the Housing Authority of the City of Annapolis, in a city with one of the highest ratios of public housing per capita in Maryland.
Located just off Forest Drive near Annapolis Middle School, Robinwood consists of about 150 plain townhouses of brick and blue siding - some of them boarded-up - where more than 430 residents pay an average monthly rent of $200.
