Читать книгу A Knife in the Heart - Michael Benson - Страница 9

Pinellas Park, Florida, was a working-class town, between Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. In 1911, the town started out as one huge housing development when a Philadelphia publisher named F. A. Davis purchased almost thirteen thousand acres of undeveloped land and ordered a city to be built.

In the modern era, it became an industrial city, home to major corporations, such as UPS and FedEx, which utilized Pinellas Park as a hub for their distribution, working out of large warehouses. Most folks had blue-collar jobs.

In addition to industry, Pinellas Park had a large, close-knit residential community made up of people who were born and raised there, and chose to stay.

The major highways into Tampa went through Pinellas Park. At night the population was approximately fifty thousand residents, but hundreds of thousands passed through the city during daytime hours.

It was the third largest city in Pinellas County, behind Clearwater and St. Petersburg, and—perhaps revealingly—the county’s only landlocked town.

There had been a time, a half century before, when the city was predominantly white, and its citizens liked it that way. Back then, prejudice ruled. But over the years, integration came and progressive thought pushed its way in.

Of course, old-fashioned beliefs had not left completely, but groups of young people were far more inclined to be comprised of races mixing together than were those of their elders.

Because there was no waterfront, there wasn’t a lot of money in Pinellas Park. Rich folks, for the most part, chose to live near the shore where ocean breezes provided nature’s air conditioning, where there were marinas for yachts and private boats. Instead, in Pinellas Park there were quite a few trailer parks and God-fearing people who worked hard and had kids.

The springtime was the best season in Pinellas Park. The hard rains of winter were over, and the oppressive heat of summer had yet to come. On the third Saturday of March, after the Florida State Fair and the Florida Strawberry Festival, the city hosted an annual event called “Country in the Park.” There was a free daylong concert in the band shell behind City Hall, amusement park rides, NASCAR displays, and a firefighter chili cook-off.

Like anywhere, there was a segment of the local youth that had antisocial difficulties. These kids lacked upward mobility and hope. Regardless of race, they were apt to be caught up in the prevalent “gangsta” culture.

Pinellas Park High School—whose notable alumni included major-league baseball player Nick Masset, Playboy Playmate Pamela Stein, and former New York Jets quarterback Browning Nagle—was known for tragic and scandalous events. The school, in fact, had an uncomfortable history of violence, a Columbine-like legacy.

On February 11, 1988, the school was thrust into the headlines when two students—Jason Harless and Jason McCoy—brought stolen guns to school with them and shot three members of the faculty and administration, killing one. Harless was sentenced to seventeen years in prison, but he served only eight. McCoy was sentenced to six years in prison, but he only served fourteen months in a juvie facility.

In 2005, the school again earned unwanted publicity when police were called to break up a fight and used a Taser three times on one unruly student. That same year, a teacher was busted after he enticed several female students to e-mail him nude photos of themselves.

In mid-April 2009, a time when the young people of Pinellas Park should have had their minds on upcoming proms, graduation, how many teens could fit into a limo, and other celebrations of youth, teenaged Sarah Ludemann was battling the Joshua blues. Simultaneously, news came to her attention of unspeakable carnage.

On Friday night, April 10, four students had died, and another was seriously injured, when a 2005 Lexus, speeding south on Eighty-sixth Avenue in Seminole, was passing a 1993 Lumina on the left side, when the Lumina made a left turn. The cars came together, sending the Lexus into a large tree, where it caught fire. Three teens were pronounced dead at the scene, and a fourth passed away on his way to the hospital.

A car crash with multiple fatalities!

Knowing their school’s problematic history, students worried.

Who would be next? Who would be the next kid to have something horrible happen?