TIME MAGAZINE WRITER WEIGHS IN ON GOOD HOPE

EDITOR'S NOTE: The following article concerning Time magazine's community forum at the Show Me center Wednesday night was posted to the magazine's Web site. The forum was held as part of the magazine's two-week riverboat tour "Down the Mississippi: The Pulse of America."

Cape Girardeau is the last big town on the upper Mississippi. South of here we leave behind the limestone bluffs and hills of Missouri and Illinois and enter the 200-mile-wide plain that leads down to the delta.

Starting at Missouri's Bootheel section, we also enter the area of the old Jim Crow South. Cape Girardeau residents say their town has never had the kind of racial troubles of that area ("It has southern elements," says one, "but Cape Girardeau is not the South"), but an event last summer has forced this town of 40,000 to confront some unsettling realities about race and policing.

Last June, a violent disturbance broke out in the Good Hope area in the town's predominantly black southeast section. A couple of black men walking out of a nightclub got into an argument with police officers.

Others coming out of the club joined in, and when the officers tried to arrest one, a suspected drug dealer, a fight broke out. Some in the 120-strong crowd began throwing bricks and bottles at 12 police officers.

Six cops were hurt in what most everyone here carefully calls a "melee" or "incident." Black residents blame the incident on overaggressive policing in their community, pointing out that the area has been targeted as a high-crime zone and that the police recently opened a substation there.

The police counter that a) they were invited in by local residents concerned about crime and b) they were just trying to enforce the law.

So it is that Time is sponsoring a town meeting in which the local police, politicians and community members talk about some of these issues.

Even 10 months after the "incident," there's a good deal of tension in the room, though some of that can be attributed to a degree of grandstanding in front of three area television stations and the local newspapers. And us.

Mayor Albert Spradling says this really isn't a racial problem; that the troubles in Good Hope are all caused by just a few criminals; that most of that crowd outside the nightclub didn't attack police; and that most of the community there approves of the police force and the job they're doing. Which doesn't quite explain why the issue continues to resonate in the Good Hope neighborhood.

Residents say it's more than just a question of cops versus the neighborhood.

They say the Good Hope area needs help economically, and that most people in the community are law-abiding citizens. The two sides clearly perceive the matter differently.

Spradling cites the area's 2.8 percent unemployment rate and says there are jobs for anyone who wants to work. Not Good Hope residents, say community members, who add that there are few jobs that neighborhood teenagers can get to without a car.

Even more fundamental, some black residents say, is that there is a segment Cape Girardeau's white population that believes the police should be using force early and often to keep the town's black residents in line.

Those are the harsh sentiments being exchanged; the good news is that both sides are trying to find common ground. The incident, says police chief Richard Hetzel, forced the department to confront some tough realities.

They received criticism from residents that was difficult but necessary to hear, and think they can now move forward. Still, the fundamental issue of changing attitudes in the entire Cape Girardeau community will likely take years.