BLOOMINGTON - Lynn Kwitkowski has lived in Bloomington's Fairway Knolls neighborhood 21 years.

She and her husband, Rick, chose the site for what she described as its quiet, serene atmosphere.

But gun violence that erupted Tuesday night one block from her Hillside Court home - leaving two adult brothers slain at 333 Riley Drive and a third brother and another man hospitalized - wasn't a rude awakening to her.

"I realized a few years ago that the place was changing. My husband and I talked about putting our house up for sale - but I thought 'Who's going to buy a house here, with these problems?'" said Kwitkowski, who founded the Fairway Knolls Neighborhood Watch group six months ago.

"I'm not someone to sit around, I had to do something," she said.

The Rev. Tim George of nearby Fairway Knolls Church of the Nazarene said the prevailing opinion of watch members is that the area remains a good

community and that people want to stay.

Coincidentally, the watch group was meeting at the church when the shootings occurred Tuesday. Ward 5 Alderman Jim Finnegan, who represents the area, and Bloomington police officials were talking with residents about ways to reduce the risks of burglaries and how to stay alert about suspicious behavior.

As people started to leave that meeting, Bloomington police officer Dave White got a call alerting him to the shootings, and he told everyone to stay.

'Ignorant comments'

Kwitkowski is quick to dismiss "ignorant comments" she commonly hears about Riley Drive tenants. She called them thinly veiled racist language from people talking about an exodus from Chicago or a surge in public housing recipients.

Diversity is not the cause of Riley's problems, she said.

"That street has always been diverse. To say those things is wrong. But we never had problems. It's in the last three to four years something's changed," she said.

What's led to the increase in criminal activity there is unclear, she said.

"I don't know what's changed," she said. "But I formed the group to raise awareness about the drug busts, the fights, the robberies a lot of people in this neighborhood didn't even know about."

The most notorious incident in that block happened on Nov. 11, 2002, when a couple was shot in their apartment in a case of mistaken identity. The true target was believed to be a gang member evicted from a nearby apartment shortly before the shooting.

Less than a month earlier that year, an unrelated case two blocks away on Rowe Drive found a man murdered execution-style in a parked car over what police said was a drug debt.

The owner of the eight-unit building where the shootings occurred Tuesday said he didn't foresee such a violent incident.

"We've had, I thought, a really great bunch of people over there for the last several months," Jack Burcham said. "We've had absolutely no incidents, no loud music, no parties or anything like that. So I was just shocked."

Burcham said that several years ago, there were some people in the building involved in illegal narcotics sales, but he has always called police as soon as those were discovered.

Burcham said he has been trying to sell the apartment building and its neighbor at 335 to reduce his property holdings.

Tom Whitehouse, who has lived on Riley for 35 years, called Tuesday's violence tragic, but not enough to make homeowners desert the area.

"I don't like the things that went on last night. But that's not going to run me off. This is my neighborhood," he said.

Finnegan agreed. The councilman doesn't want people to label the neighborhood negatively, specifically Riley, noting the majority of apartment dwellers there are law-abiding citizens.

"Other than a few people, most people there are good people who don't cause any problems," he said.

Beefed up patrols

As for the troublemakers, Finnegan said police have beefed up patrols in the area and city officials have been working with landlords to screen potential problems.

"We've been fighting that fire for a long time now," he said.

As for police patrols, Finnegan said residents need to start looking out for one another.

"Police can apprehend, but its people knowing their neighbors and keeping their eyes open that makes a difference," he said.

Added Kwitkowski, "We don't need to be best friends and socialize, but we do need to know who our neighbors are, and look out for each other."