By Nate Leskovic
Times Staff
7/31/08

(previous)
Georgia Lee, a Randolph Avenue resident says she was unaware of the incident and thought it was just backfire from a car. Nonetheless, she is not worried.
“In general I feel extremely safe because we have the governor (living here) and Milton Academy (police patrols) nearby,” she says.
When asked if the violence changed her attitude, she replied, “A one-off shooting? Not really.”
Both Lee and neighbor Elizabeth Rogerson say with the amount of traffic on Randolph Avenue, the incident is not surprising.
“I call it ‘transportational violence,’” says Rogerson. “It’s a main route from Randolph to Boston. Milton just happens to be in between…This is not my neighborhood, this is people from point A to point B.”
Deputy Police Chief Paul Nolan says the victims and those in the other car were known to have been at the Vault nightclub in Randolph, formerly known as the Copa Grande, before the shooting. He says the incident was not random.
One of the victims, Almond, lived on Kahler Avenue. Nolan says the ongoing investigation is looking into possible connections with the January shooting on that street that had no victims.
Rogerson says traffic has increased in the past few years, and with an increase comes an increase in crime. She often notices erratic drivers and police traffic stops on the road. But it does not bother her because she does not feel targeted.
“I think Milton is a wonderful town and I will still walk my dog at night,” she says.
(See letter to the community on page 6 from Police Chief Richard Wells about the shooting.)