What is With All the Violence in Fitchburg? (Worcester, Lowell: low income, real estate)

[ro7586]

I'm just curious as to why it seems there has been a recent surge of violence in the City of Fitchburg. I was reading the press releases from the Worcester County District Attorney's Office, and it seemed to me a large percentage of recent muders/violent crimes took place there.

Does anyone from the area have any take on this issue?

I've copied pasted the link to the Worcester County DA's press release page below:

Press Releases

[LeavingMA]

There seems to be a recent surge of violence in a lot of places not just Fitchburg. This is not uncommon during rough times in the economy. Another side of this is that many of the drugs that are run into rural areas of MA and also into the southern part of NH are run through Fitchburg.

Fitchburg also has lots of apartments and is one of the cheaper areas of Central MA, so you can get quite a bit of low income people and it also brings in the thugs you don't want.

[Mrtwigg]

I lived in Fitchburg for almost 8 years. The Real Estate agent sang a pretty song about this wonderfull town when I was shopping for my first house in the winter. In the springtime when the snow melted all the garbage became visible, the welfare folks came outside and I was serenaded by rap and salsa music well into the wee hours of the morning. I guess nobody had telephones 'cause they just yelled real loud in spanish to talk to each other.

A few of my neighbors insisted "The neighborhood is turning around, Just wait and see !" So I stayed, got married and began to raise a family.

The other neighbors were friendly though, the streetwalkers and drug dealers would come right up to my car to talk to me and my infant son found this most amusing - so many people know Daddy !

Then I started noticing some peculiar graffitti on some of the three deckers and soon noticed a lot of cars stopping in front of these houses for several minutes on Friday & Saturday nights.

The police noticed this too, we soon saw foot patrols of two or three officers walking by.
My wife said she felt a little safer. I did not.

Then my car was broken into. Like clockwork, every week.

Then we were broken into, got an alarm a week later we had another attempted break in.

Then there was the police chase which ended in our backyard with the officer screaming under our son's bedroom window for someone to "freeze or I'll shoot you in the head ! "

We put the house on the market the next day and it was sold within the week (Thank God !)

BUt now Mayor Wong is taking steps to protect her subjects (citizens) She's hired one of the most anti gun and self defense police chiefs in the state and they will be downdrading or revoking the LTC's of every law abiding citizen to prevent any more crime.

I can't help but wonder how the two of them are going to get all the gagnbangers to turn in their guns though.

No, I'm not cynical, I've experienced it firsthand.
Fitchburg. Better to nuke it from orbit. Just to be sure.

[LeavingMA]

Originally Posted by Mrtwigg

I lived in Fitchburg for almost 8 years. The Real Estate agent sang a pretty song about this wonderfull town when I was shopping for my first house in the winter. In the springtime when the snow melted all the garbage became visible, the welfare folks came outside and I was serenaded by rap and salsa music well into the wee hours of the morning. I guess nobody had telephones 'cause they just yelled real loud in spanish to talk to each other.

A few of my neighbors insisted "The neighborhood is turning around, Just wait and see !" So I stayed, got married and began to raise a family.

The other neighbors were friendly though, the streetwalkers and drug dealers would come right up to my car to talk to me and my infant son found this most amusing - so many people know Daddy !

Then I started noticing some peculiar graffitti on some of the three deckers and soon noticed a lot of cars stopping in front of these houses for several minutes on Friday & Saturday nights.

The police noticed this too, we soon saw foot patrols of two or three officers walking by.
My wife said she felt a little safer. I did not.

Then my car was broken into. Like clockwork, every week.

Then we were broken into, got an alarm a week later we had another attempted break in.

Then there was the police chase which ended in our backyard with the officer screaming under our son's bedroom window for someone to "freeze or I'll shoot you in the head ! "

We put the house on the market the next day and it was sold within the week (Thank God !)

BUt now Mayor Wong is taking steps to protect her subjects (citizens) She's hired one of the most anti gun and self defense police chiefs in the state and they will be downdrading or revoking the LTC's of every law abiding citizen to prevent any more crime.

I can't help but wonder how the two of them are going to get all the gagnbangers to turn in their guns though.

No, I'm not cynical, I've experienced it firsthand.
Fitchburg. Better to nuke it from orbit. Just to be sure.

Sorry to hear that. What street did you live on in Fitchburg?

There are some parts of Fitchburg that are really nice, and others that are not so nice. The bad part is that even in the nice parts you can still live next to drug dealers and not really know it.

[kkXJ]

Recently? It's been a sh*thole for as long as I've been alive. Nasty, dirty, gross.

[PatMax]

Originally Posted by Mrtwigg

But now Mayor Wong is taking steps to protect her subjects (citizens) She's hired one of the most anti gun and self defense police chiefs in the state and they will be downdrading or revoking the LTC's of every law abiding citizen to prevent any more crime.

Plus she's turned out half of the street lights in the city, yeah that will help deter crime as well. I was born in Fitchburg and lived there until getting married when we hopped over the line into Leominster and never looked back. Now we live even further west of the area.

Fitchburg is the new Lowell/Lawrence.

[brightdoglover]

There's some outlying areas that look like nice suburbia. But the town overall is poor, welfare and addiction. (A friend of mine has the postal route, and boy, does he have stories. I think he got that route because he's really a big guy. Unofficially, I think he used to carry, also).
It does seem that towns in Mass. that have a heavy Latino presence are pretty rough, as the immigrant groups seem quite poor and have come to former mill and factory towns where the work has gone away.