Is This Beaumont Or Iraq?

My job sucks, a fact I alluded to earlier. Well lately my job has gone from sucky to more sucky, with an added element of risk.

I'm a retail manager working in a low income area of Beaumont. Last week the store was burglarized. This week's theme was "wild west." Monday evening there was a shooting right across the street, and then Tuesday we had a shooting occur IN our parking lot. The victim came into the store and collapsed near the front. Our photo technician Kevin and I tried to calm him down and get him to keep still while we waited for police and paramedics to arrive. Calming a person who is going into shock with multiple gunshot wounds is not easy. Afterward there wasn't that much blood to clean up, which was a bit surprising, considering that he had been shot four times in the chest and hips.

Beaumont is a small world and it turned out that the victim was a cousin of one of our employees. I've been told he's in stable condition, and according to news reports the shooters in both incidents (unrelated, apparently) are still being sought by police.

Channel 6 News has a report and video that can be viewed here.

In the video Lt. Charles Tyler of the Beaumont Police says "this is usually a quiet area" and "I think this area is still...uh...pretty safe." Really. I see it a bit differently. This part of Beaumont is crawling with thieves and other human dregs. It's the sort of place where you look over your shoulder and hurry to your car after dark. Why so many people choose to shop here after nightfall is a mystery to me. I used to work in a low income neighborhood of Port Arthur that was notorious for its crime problems. I'd have to say it's worse here.

My boss told me that we would soon have a security person to watch the store at night. I'm waiting to see if that really happens. I get told a lot of things that don't really happen. Like I said, my job sucks, but this probably isn't the place to open that whole can of worms.