Residents of the Springfield Garden Apartments in the town of DeWitt are at odds over violent incidents that have occurred at the complex in recent months.

Xiaopeng “Pippen” Yuan, a Syracuse University international student from China, was murdered behind one apartment building in late September. In January, an undercover police detective working for the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office was shot at while waiting in an unmarked car in one of the complex’s parking lots. The detective was helping coordinate a drug buy operation.

Police and county officials met recently to brainstorm security upgrades for the complex in response to the violence.

Springfield Garden Apartments is an income-based apartment complex adjacent to Le Moyne College, a small private Jesuit school a few miles east of downtown Syracuse. The apartments are located along Caton Drive and have 300 units and are spread across nearly 30 acres of land, according to town of DeWitt officials.

In the past, the complex has also over the years been the site of multiple other homicides and several assaults.

With the recent violence, some residents are looking to quickly leave the apartments, fearing for their children’s safety. Others say they still believe Springfield Garden Apartments is a safe and comfortable place.

Dennis Gibbs, an SU alumnus, has lived at the apartment complex for about two years with his wife and kids, but now wants out. Gibbs said his family is trying to find a new home.

Gibbs recalled his wife called him one night and told him about the shooting that had just happened outside their apartment while he was at work.

“It’s a little too much,” Gibbs said.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, resident Sam Brown described the complex as peaceful, despite living through the 2010 investigation into the murder of Lashonda Graves, who was found dead in a car in the apartment’s parking garage. Brown has lived at Springfield Garden Apartments for 17 years.

Sam Ogozalek | Asst. News Editor

Debbie White, who has lived at the apartments since 1978, said the complex is stereotyped because of its proximity to Le Moyne and agreed with Brown, adding the apartments aren’t a bad place. White was also the complex’s assistant site manager for 25 years.

White retired in 2012 and now runs DeWitt Food Pantry, Inc., which is located in one of the complex’s buildings.

“We have people from all around DeWitt that come here,” she said, referring to the food pantry. “I’m sure if it was ‘so scary’ people from all over DeWitt wouldn’t be coming here.”

One older resident is caught in the middle of the divide.

Pauline King, who has lived at the complex for 37 years, isn’t looking to leave her home, but she also no longer feels comfortable or safe at Springfield Garden Apartments.

“It used to be a really good place to live (but) it’s not anymore,” she said.

Residents like King fear things have taken a turn for the worse at the apartments. There is an increasing amount of drug activity at the complex, she said, and she along with many others speculate that the apartment complex’s management has been loose with their background checks for new tenants.

“I don’t like being outside after dark anymore,” King said.

Law enforcement officials have said that Yuan was murdered in a drug deal gone wrong at the complex.

Springfield Garden Apartments’ current property manager Anthony Mariani and Longley Jones Management Corp. representatives did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this article. Longley Jones owns Springfield Garden Apartments and several other apartment complexes in the Syracuse area.    

Town of DeWitt Police Chief James Hildmann has had a lot of experience with the Springfield Garden Apartments over the years, and is both concerned by the “alarming” violent crimes that have occurred over the past six months and is trying to put it into perspective.

Hildmann has been with the DeWitt police force since 1998 and early in his career was on a beat that included the Springfield Garden Apartments area.

In the late ‘90s and early 2000s, he said there was a high number of police calls at the property. After that however, for several years there was a lull in the number of calls made from the apartments.

In 2016 the Dewitt police responded to about 500 calls at the complex and Hildmann stressed that that was a low number of calls for a complex the size of Springfield Garden Apartments.

However, compared to the last few years, which he described as relatively calm, the number of calls “seems to be picking up,” he said.

Hildmann said he had a meeting last week with county and DeWitt officials, Le Moyne representatives and county and state police officials to create a list of recommendations for Longley Jones on what security upgrades the company could make at Springfield Garden Apartments to improve safety.

The police department recommended that Longley Jones install lights in the parking lots and cameras around the property, Hildmann said.

“It really is just these outsiders coming in and causing these problems (at the Springfield Garden Apartments) or a few individuals that may live there … but it’s not the whole complex,” he said. “There’s a lot of hard-working people that really love living there and they will continue to and this is kind of shocking for them, to have that many violent incidents in six months.”

Published on February 8, 2017 at 10:49 pm

Contact Sam: sfogozal@syr.edu | @SamOgozalek