ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. – The Uptown Market and Liquor store in north St. Louis County has been the scene of two deaths in the last week, both due to gun violence.
“This is kind of like the meeting spot,” Teaira Whitfield said, referring to the corner store. “You can find everything here, good and bad.”
The corner store on Shepley Drive and Spring Garden Drive is a one-stop shop for many in the area.
“I be trying to come up here every day for real,” Mosty Wayne said. “I be getting drinks, whatever I can get.”
The store promotes groceries, hot food, and cold beer, but it’s now gaining notoriety for what’s happening in its parking lot. Two people lost their lives in two different shootings. A vigil now greets customers as they walk in.N
“I had just seen him five hours prior to him lying on the sidewalk, lifeless,” said Whitfield, a friend of one of the victims.
On Thursday night, Chico Young, who worked at the store, was gunned down, losing his life near the vigil for his friend Cassandra Cole, who was shot and killed on Monday.
“Me and my friend came up here and parked over there, and that’s when I found out it was Chico lying on the ground,” Whitfield said. “I saw his truck, and he was no more than five feet away from his truck.”
Three other people were wounded in the shootings. There’s a nearby bus stop, and just a block away is Highland Elementary School.
“My son goes there,” Whitfield said. “I didn’t let my son go to school today because the violence is so bad; you never know when a stray bullet is going to happen.”
The St. Louis County Police Department did install temporary cameras in the store’s parking lot and had a police officer on standby in the lot.
“It makes me feel safer temporarily because I know it’s not going to be a forever,” Wayne said.
Whitfield said several people hang out in and around the store with guns, but Young was not one of those people.
“I’m not saying that people deserve to die, but if you live by the sword, you’re going to die by the sword,” she said. “But he wasn’t one of those individuals; he cared.”