Richmond 2011: The year in review

rhonda harris richmond

2011 was quite a year, to borrow a favorite phrase from longtime resident Sims Thompson, in “our fair city.” I know that’s vague, but it’s tough to turn a pithy phrase that sums up a year in a vibrant, bustling and changing city. We had tragedy and triumph, tumult and harmony. Alliances and rivalries. Echoes of the past and glimmers from the future.

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Marquis Hamilton: Recollections of a life lost

marquis hamilton, slain north richmond man

Marquis Hamilton was a 20-year-old father of two. On Nov. 25, he became the fifth young adult homicide victim in the tiny neighborhood of North Richmond this year. Before that, a RichmondConfidential.org reporter got to know him a bit, and wants you to know him too.

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North Richmond mourns Marquis Hamilton

marquis hamilton funeral at new hope in north richmond

Mourners and clergy remembered Hamilton, 20, as a fun-loving prankster who snatched the bed covers off his seven brothers and five sisters and borrowed friends’ bicycles without their knowledge – only to return them with a laugh.

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North Richmond man slain, city police on alert

rancho market and deli, where marquis hamilton killed

Marquis Hamilton was smiling when he coaxed a store cashier into giving him a cigarette before wandering back to the street corner a few ticks past 8 p.m. on Friday night. Moments later, after an exchange of rapid gunfire at the corner of Market Avenue and Fifth Street, Hamilton was back.

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Woman found dead in Richmond restaurant

richmond police

A 30-year-old woman was found dead in a local restaurant Tuesday night in what police are investigating as a homicide. Officers responding to a 7:30 p.m. call found Jensy Romero dead inside Angie’s Restaurant and Bakery in the 12000 block of San Pablo Avenue, police said. An employee discovered the body and placed the emergency…

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Advocates call on community to end violence

There were fewer bodies in the audience at Thursday night’s Office of Neighborhood Safety meeting than have been laid out in blood on Richmond’s streets thus far this year. But although organizers said they were discouraged by the turnout at the Dynamics of Peace forum, those who did show up at the Nevin Community Center…

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