ANOTHER SHOOTING AT ADAMS AND BARNARD

At around 19:20, a 19-year-old woman was shot in the mouth by a 21-year-old Coatesville man, who is now under arrest and will face, at a minimum, aggravated assault charges. The victim was initially transported to Chester County Hospital, however it appears that she was later transported by GFAC and Medic 91 to Crozer-Chester Medical Center as a trauma patient. The incident occured on the 400 block of East Barnard Street, less than a block and a half away from Monday's homicide. Police were in the area for a report that came in a few minutes earlier about a male subject reportedly making threats at another person. Initial reports indicate that those two incident are possibly related, but nothing has been fully confirmed just yet.

Earl Taylor Deveaux, the suspect in the shooting, is no stranger to the Chester County court system. Deveaux was arrested on September 15, 2004 on charges of Indecent Exposure, Open Lewdness, and Disorderly Conduct for an incident in the borough. On June 15, 2005, Deveaux pled guilty to Disorderly Conduct in Common Pleas Court and was sentenced to 1 year probation by Judge Gavin (CP-15-CR-0004439-2004).

On September 24, 2005, Deveaux was charged with Possession With Intent to Deliver, Possession of a Controlled Substance, and Possession of Drug Paraphanalia. Those charges were withdrawn on January 10, 2006, seemingly without explaination (15-1-01, CR-0000237-05).

Most recently, Deveaux was scheduled for trial during Judge Sarcione's upcoming trial term starting Monday on charges of Possession of a Controlled Substance from an arrest made by P/O Aaron Davis on January 10; Deveaux waived his preliminary hearing in front of Judge Bruno six days later and was free on $2,500 unsecured bail (15-1-01, CR-0000013-07; CP-15-CR-0000248-2007).

As of 05:45 this morning, no formal charges have been presented to District Court, however that will likely happen this morning, during 15-1-04's Criminal Day.This is the third major violent crime involving a firearm to be allegedly perpetrated by criminals from Coatesville in the past 14 months.

The Memorial Day 2006 shooting at Adams and Barnard which wounded one ultimately led to the arrest of William Shockley, whose trial is pending in front of Judge Nagle (CP-15-CR-0002127-2007). Shockley's preliminary hearing was covered fairly extensively on this blog less than 6 weeks ago; he was the defendant who was lucky enough be allowed to attend his prom despite the serious nature of the charges pending against him.

Then, there's Monday's homicide in which Trent Larelle Jackson, 19, was arrested and charged with First Degree Murder and related offenses.

Short of erecting "border patrol" stations and running background checks on every single resident who lives in the 19320 zip code, what the hell are we as a community supposed to do? It shouldn't be the fault of residents of West Chester (not that every resident is a model citizen) that criminals are being bred in Coatesville.

How much longer before the plague of violence spreads to other neighborhoods of the borough? And how much longer must it take before people in other neighborhoods who complain about college kids being loud and obnoxious realize that there are other - and much bigger - fish to fry as far as quality of life issues are concerned?