Since then, there's been a remarkable turnaround. The police department's Southeast District saw homicides drop to three last year. So far, there have been three this year.
While authorities say it's too soon to declare victory over violent crime, they credit a crackdown on the worst offenders and an equally intense focus on providing new educational and recreational opportunities to those most at risk of committing crimes.
Back to basics
And the police department has gone back to the most fundamental of policing strategies - getting officers out on the beat, consulting with residents to find new solutions and mentoring youngsters.
"What we are doing is what officers did years ago," said Capt. Andy Lull, commander of the Southeast District.
Lull, 50, and a 25-year veteran of the police force, sees the difference when he drives through those same neighborhoods. Children once afraid to go outside now play safely in newly constructed parks or under the watchful eye of a friendly police presence.
"Do we get more calls about kids playing basketball in the streets? Yes, we do. ... I can't tell you how refreshing that is. The issues are not gang issues or gunshots in the neighborhood."
Charles and Clara Exum own a strip mall in the 1700 block of East Martin Street, near where police set up a mobile command unit after Wright's death. Gangs, violence and drug activity that used to be commonplace along the strip just east of downtown have been in decline.
Clara Exum credits a continuous police presence for the lessening of illegal activity.
"A lot of it is because of the police," said Exum. "That began to bring about change. And then, a lot of people were locked up. Some got out and got locked up again."
Abeni El Amin, a former chairwoman of the city's human relations commission, funded Project Ricochet of North Carolina in 2009, days after Rodriguez D . Burrell was gunned down on Haywood Street while visiting his father's home.
"It's been a collaborative effort by many different people and organizations; law enforcement, community-based organizations, policymakers and families, especially families," El Amin said.
Fighting crime
Even before 2008, the homicide rate had been steadily climbing in Raleigh. There were 25 killings in 2007, up from 19 in 2006.
Southeast Raleigh - an area that begins east of downtown and extends to the city's farthest eastern boundaries - was the hotspot.
The vast majority of the district is populated by hardworking residents living in modest neighborhoods dotted with renovated homes, bustling community centers, red-brick and white-washed churches and parks. But there are also pockets that Lull described as "some of the more challenged neighborhoods."
These are neighborhoods that had been long afflicted by joblessness, chronic poverty and an overall lack of resources whose damage was most visible in decrepit houses that should have been torn down decades ago. Drug dealers and prostitutes took advantage of the chaos on these streets, brazenly plying their trades on the corners.
In 2009, the police department temporarily opened a mobile field office near Haywood and Martin streets. Eighteen community officers began walking or riding bicycles through neighborhoods.
Then the department developed a five-year strategic plan to aggressively target dangerous criminals, working with the federal government to secure maximum prison sentences for violent, repeat criminal offenders as well as identifying gang members who were committing robberies and selling drugs in Southeast Raleigh.
Police also partnered with other city divisions - solid waste, planning and zoning, public works and inspections - to help remove blight, set up more street lights and improve housing that didn't meet code.
The result was a drop in violent crime.
In addition to a steep decrease in homicides, robberies declined in the Southeast District from 363 reported in 2008 to 173 last year and 135 so far this year.
Going to the people
At the heart of the Southeast Raleigh strategy is a community-oriented government initiative. Police and city officials began meeting monthly with residents to identify problems.
The meetings started in late 2008 when more than 70 people showed up at the Tarboro Road Community Center after 16-year-old Adarius Fowler was gunned down in a drive-by shooting. Those who attended were asked to list their three top concerns and any ideas for how to remedy the problems that had bedeviled their neighborhood.
"By involving them, we had a better idea of what we should be working on," Lull said.
It was clear the neighborhood needed more positive outlets for young people to help them resist the lure of gangs and crime. Even with the recent progress, the average age of the nearly 120 men and eight women identified as dangerous criminals and arrested in 2010 was 22.
So, the police department set up a mentoring program at the Tarboro Road center with retired police detective George Passley at the helm. Passley, a respected military veteran, has mentored hundreds of young people at the gang-free zone he helped set up several years ago at the community center.
The city's parks and recreation department was asked to set up similar initiatives at community centers throughout Raleigh.
The partnership has resulted in two basketball leagues, a baseball league that serves more than 60 youngsters, summer camps and a teen center at the old St. Monica's School, which educated African-American children for more than three decades.
The St. Monica Teen Center is quickly becoming one of the most vibrant resources in the city for young people, with its high ceilings, rich wooden floors and pastel-colored rooms that house a dance and art studio, computer lab, game room and lounge. The historic landmark reopened in February next door to the Tarboro Road center. And the Sgt. T. Courtney Johnson Center at Southgate Park partnered with police to create mentoring programs and sports teams.
Others step up
When he arrived in Southeast Raleigh to pastor the Ship of Zion Assembly of God on South Blount Street, Chris Jones recognized the same kinds of problems he saw as a missionary in South Africa: poverty, crime and joblessness. A cynical hopelessness prevailed while young men, some desperate for work, loitered on the street corners, selling drugs. Bullet holes dotted the church's wooden exterior. Prostitution was rampant.
So Jones' church joined others with a stake in the Southeast Raleigh community to establish Graduate Equivalency Diploma classes, job skills training, mentoring and youth recreation.
"It's been about helping young people get jobs, earn their GEDs and go to college," Jones said.
Those programs received a shot in the arm in 2008. The year before, Wake and Durham counties split a $2.5 million, three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to combat gang activity. Wake County Human Services initiated Project 110 Percent to dole out Wake's share of the money where it could help most.
Job training works
Two years ago, Jones' church began the Transitional Employment Initiative, which - along with the Neighbor 2 Neighbor outreach program - contracts with local businesses that agree to employ the job training graduates through a 50-hour internship. The federal funds pay the participants' wages during their internship.
"It helps us find work for people with (criminal histories) who normally could not find work," said Royce Hathcock, director of Neighbor 2 Neighbor and pastor of the Tapestry Church of the Nazarene, which shares the same building at 1200 S. Blount St.
Ship of Zion also oversees a series of one-story apartments on South Blount Street that were leased in March to provide temporary housing for people returning to the neighborhood from prison. .
Ship of Zion, with the help of other churches, particularly Hope Community Church in Cary and First Assembly of God Church in North Raleigh, purchased an empty lot across the street where a dilapidated house had been torn down and the now boarded-up house next door was a haven for illegal activity. It will house a faith-based community center.
The nonprofit Neighbor 2 Neighbor program, arising in 1994 out of a series of conversations with mothers living in Southeast Raleigh public housing, sponsors an array of mentoring, recreational and jobs programs. In March 2010, Neighbor 2 Neighbor began offering classes to high school dropouts to earn GEDs and improve their employment opportunities.
A short distance away, the Mt. Pleasant Baptist Worship and Outreach Center on Sawyer Road began hosting Strategically Organizing for Action and Results - or S.O.A.R. - twice-weekly job skills training classes for women 18 and older. A similar program for men is hosted by Neighbor 2 Neighbor.
"We are trying to build a community of hope, justice and compassion," Hathcock said. "When you are hopeless, you lack solutions. We are looking for solutions."
Results are telling
Of the 402 people involved in the Project 110 Percent-funded programs since July 2008, 77 percent have completed the programs. Thirty-eight returned to high school to earn their diplomas, nine participants have earned their GED and 42 more are enrolled in GED classes.
Nearly 40 percent are ready for full-time employment after completing the jobs training program.
Meanwhile, gang-related crime is down 40 percent in the Southeast District and gang-related robberies are down by 36 percent since Project 110 Percent started working in the area, according to statistics compiled by the Raleigh Police Department.
The federal grant ended June 30, but there was enough funding left over for another round of S.O.A.R. men and women until the end of the year.
Cas Womack, who directs N2N's GED, men's and women's job programs, said the nonprofit has been sponsoring fundraisers and meeting with local businesses to get help paying for the job internships, which he described as essential.
So far, the agency has had the greatest success with T.J. Maxx.
"T.J. Maxx in Apex called and wanted a couple of our people. They performed so well, the store called back and wanted more people to work in their stores in Garner and Morrisville. So it's that type of partnership I'm looking for that helps build sustainability," Womack said.
Success stories
Charles Battle is on probation after being convicted of felony breaking and entering and misdemeanor possession of marijuana.
Darius Anderson was expelled from two schools and the Job Corps over the past three years for fighting.
After serving five years in an upstate New York prison, Marcel Merritt moved to Raleigh, where he was unemployed, uninspired and hanging out in the streets.
Today, all three are participating in educational programs in Southeast Raleigh.
The tall, wiry, 20-year-old Battle was drumming with the Helping Hand Mission marching band and, in his words, "looking for a way out" when a friend introduced him to Neighbor 2 Neighbor.
"I'm working toward my GED," he said. "Hopefully, I'll get it by next month. It's a whole lotta work I got to do, but that's my goal."
Anderson, 20, earned his GED in April through N2N's program. He plans to enroll at Shaw University to study criminal justice. He wants to be a probation officer.
"I see that the way I was living and the way I was acting wasn't getting me anywhere," Anderson said. "I just wanted to do better for my family."
It was also family - the birth of his son two years ago - that pushed Merritt, 33, to seek a new direction.
"Basically, the streets had me until I had my son in 2009," he said.
Merritt's mother earned her GED through Neighbor 2 Neighbor, and now volunteers as a mentor with the S.O.A.R. program at Mt. Pleasant. Working at the Newsome Roofing Co. on South Blount Street, he began mentoring, too, with N2N. Womack urged him to further his education.
Today, he's an A student at Miller-Motte College and owns a fledging landscaping business.
"What impresses me are the youth (at N2N) are actually making a change in their life. They are listening. They want guidance," Merritt said. "If you are a gangbanger coming in, that's making a big step. This is definitely the best thing in Raleigh. We need more."
Phillip Walker, pastor at the Mt. Pleasant Worship and Outreach Center, agrees.
"Hope is moving through the community," he said.
News researchers Brooke Cain and Peggy Neal contributed to this report.
