Months ago I went on a police ride-along around 61st Street and Peoria Avenue. I hadn't met Jennifer Moore yet, the officer featured in this video. We arrived at 61st and Peoria and watched police arrest a man.
An officer looked at me and asked a question: "Do you come out here much?"
"A little bit," I said.
"Don't. There's two kinds of people out here. Predator and prey."
I think that was the moment that 61st and Peoria, specifically the Fairmont Terrace Apartment complex, became a bigger project for me. There had to be more to that neighborhood than a few ride-alongs and pictures from outside the gate.
I know that the area has problems. Four people were killed there in January, which was the reason I was on that ride-along in the first place. Police respond to drug and violence related calls on a regular basis in and around the area.
When I met Officer Jennifer Moore, she arrested a guy for being under the influence outside a gas station at 61st and Peoria. People driving by had called 911 because he was wandering into traffic. She knew him by name, because she once found him bleeding from a stab wound in the parking lot next door.
I also knew there were families there. I know there are "predator" and "prey" stories, but there had to be people who were neither.
Turns out I didn't have to look very hard. All I had to do was ignore that unsolicited advice and start showing up. I went to a few resident meetings at Fairmont Terrace. Those meetings led me to cookouts, movie nights, volunteers, zoo trips and a community garden.
To be fair, I also found people who don't trust the media or the police. People who wouldn't shake hands or have a conversation. I stood in a living room trying to meet a young man who wouldn't come out of his bedroom to say hello. We've still never met.
As with all parts of town, this one is complicated. It's too easy to say "close it" or "they should bulldoze that place." The real answers and real stories are more complicated than that. These pictures are a start, and there will be more.
Maybe they'll be the start of a conversation about people, families, crime, neighborhoods and what to do around 61st and Peoria, or as police and residents alike say "the six one."
Maybe it'll be a conversation that doesn't start with "close it."
Follow Tulsa World Photo on Twitter.
PHOTO & VIDEO: View photography, videos and visual journalism from the Tulsa World staff.
Officer Jennifer Moore arrests a man who is suspected of being under the influence after motorists called police and said he was wandering into traffic at 61st and Peoria on Friday, June 17, 2013. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World
Justin Smith, cooks hotdogs during a community cookout for residents of Fairmont Terrace on May 20, 2013. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World
On a movie night, Kortez Kelly, a resident of Fairmont Terrace, Mike Salerno, of H.A.N.D.S. Changing Legacies ministry, join residents as they watch a movie projected onto the side of building 12 of the Fairmont Terrace complex in Tulsa on Saturday, June 8, 2013. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World
Amiiko Hale, her husband Victor Hale and their son Vincent Hale (from left to right) sign a petition in hopes of keeping apartment manager Angela McGinness Saturday at Fairmont. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World
Police arrest a man who had three warrants near 61st and Peoria on Friday, April 19, 2013. Officer Jennifer Moore uses a "no-tolerance" while patroling neighborhoods in the area. She stops people for everything from jaywalking to traffic infractions. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World
Rochelle Remesar and her son Kortez Kelley, age 8, look at his favorite book, an illustrated Almanac, at their apartment in building 12 at Fairmont Terrace in south Tulsa on Monday, June 24, 2013. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World
Officer Jennifer Moore books a man into the Tulsa County Jail after arresting him at the intersection of 61st and Yale in Tulsa on Friday, April 19, 2013. Drivers in the area called police after the man wandered into traffic. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World
Residents Monti Pender and Jeannette Winston help Adina Redman, a volunteer from H.A.N.D.S. Changing Legacies ministry, (from left to right) serve food to children who live at Fairmont Terrace during a community cookout on May 20, 2013. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World
Izzy Winters, a resident at Fairmont Terrace hugs Mike Salerno's neck before Wednesday night services at World Outreach Church in south Tulsa on Wednesday, March 6, 2013. Salerno and volunteers with H.A.N.D.S. Changing Legacies ministry work almost exclusively with residents of Fairmont Terrace, including bus rides to church on Sundays and Wednesdays. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World
On a movie night, residents watch a movie projected onto the side of building 12 of the Fairmont Terrace complex in Tulsa on Saturday, June 8, 2013. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World
