Arrests are a first step toward justice and restoring safety

You can run but you can’t hide.

That’s a bit of folk wisdom that should now resonate with Aubrey Toney, the 29-year-old Youngstown man facing charges in the shooting death of Thomas Repchic, 74, and wounding of Repchic’s wife, Jacqueline, 74.

The U.S. Marshall Service and federal agencies cooperated with Youngstown police in tracking Toney to suburban Atlanta, Ga., after he disappeared following the Sept. 25 shooting on Youngstown’s South Side.

We’re sure the Marshals Service conducts itself in a professional manner whenever called upon to help bring into custody a suspect who is considered armed and dangerous. But it has to be especially gratifying when the target of the search is a coward involved in spraying with bullets the automobile of an elderly couple driving home from church.

It should come as no surprise that when confronted with the superior force of the Marshals Service, Toney gave himself up peacefully.

There is a lesson there that the Youngstown community seems to be taking to heart. These thugs who cruise the city’s streets are confident only so long as they think they have the upper hand. Take away their fire power and the element of surprise and they become as impotent as any bully who has met his match.

The intimidation factor

Those who live by intimidation must be made to feel intimidated. The community is theoretically capable of intimidating hoodlums through moral superiority, but only when a well equipped police force is on duty to enforce the law and courts are ready and willing to administer justice.

The killing of Thomas Repchic and the wounding of Jacqueline Repchic, which required the amputation of a leg, has been a wake-up call to the city and the South Side, especially since both this shooting and that of Angeline Fimognari, 80, in January were connected to a neighborhood anchor, St. Dominic Church.

Fittingly, the church is the scene this morning of a summit meeting between elected officials and law enforcement that was inspired, in part, by the activism of the Rev. Gregory Maturi, pastor of St. Dominic. He has provided a calm, thoughtful and yet resolute voice in demanding that parishioners, neighborhood residents, city and state officials and police respond to the obvious needs of a community that has fallen prey to a lawless element.

The violence of recent months has been a painful wake-up call. The immediate response has been encouraging, but it will take on-going commitments from those at today’s meeting — and those still on the sidelines — to restore safety to an endangered neighborhood.