On the grassy edge of the parking lot at Terminal and Main, there is shrine by a tree to Chris Poeng, the 13 year old boy who was stabbed in that parking lot a few years ago, and died just hours later in hospital. The teens who knew him haven't forgotten him. They return every May on the anniversary of his death, and again in June when school is out.
They leave flowers and other things around a tree that has a white heart painted on it. Recently they left a basketball.
School has once again gotten out and the teens were there on Monday night. There seemed to be two groups of them. All Asian. There was friction. Some girls started yelling. A police officer pulled up with a dog. He ordered all the teens on the ground. Some started taking off but he told them to stop or he would get the dog after them.
The cop single-handedly managed to bring about 20 teens to their knees.
One witness thought he saw a few of the teens toss things away when the cop arrived. The cop had a flashlight and was searching the ground for something, maybe a weapon.
I don't want to make these teens sound bad. Most of them seem to be regular teenagers who cared about Poeng.
The police know who stabbed Poeng. It was a teenage boy but there wasn't enough evidence to lay charges. A VPD investigator later told the media that the investigation was hindered by social media savy teens who communicated with one another.
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