The morning after a fatal stabbing, as the bustle of downtown Detroit started to pick up for the week, workers at nearby eateries said they felt nervous about the death in their shared alleyway − and emotional at the loss.
Beloved mom and sister Jaquoya Wix, 34, was killed Sunday, Sept. 20, in a reportedly unprovoked stabbing while on break from a shift at the Chipotle on Woodward Avenue. A suspect was arrested shortly after leaving the scene, but no charges were immediately announced.
On Monday morning, tears spilled down the cheeks of a manager at the Roasting Plant Detroit coffee shop.
A manager in the nearby Subway noted one of her customers said she wasn’t comfortable down there.
Some workers spoke of concerns with a lack of mental health resources,
along with homelessness. Some said they knew Wix. Some thought they recognized her.
And one, who did not wish to be named out of concern for unwanted attention for him and his family, showed the Free Press video of paramedics tending to the injured worker on the ground at the back entrance to Chipotle in the alleyway where the attack happened.
That individual, the one who showed the video, reported hearing yells as he washed dishes, then coming out the back door and chasing the attacker with the help of at least one other nearby worker.
Workers around that block shared differing opinions on the safety in the area, though the most recently published yearly crime data put the city’shomicide rates at their lowest level since the 1960s, and violent crime down across the board.
Workers offered different views of how frequently traveled the alley is. But multiple businesses do use it to take out the trash and for smoke breaks.
Downtown business managers discuss stabbing
Mercedes Cain, a manager at the Subway nearby, said she has had safety concerns and is now having her team members go two at a time to take out the trash.
Further up Woodward Avenue, Logan Lacks, a design consultant and sales manager at the GW Home store, witnessed the arrest of the suspect, but did not realize it until later.
It’s hardly unusual to see police pull people over at the intersection there at Woodward and State Street, she said.
A lot of the workers walk together anyways, but, either way, she said she won’t stop doing her downtown activities, like yoga at the Spirit of Detroit statue.
Heather Tate, a supervisor at Avalon Bakery & Café on Woodward Avenue, also saw some six officers trying to take the man into custody, she said. It appeared he may have been resisting and other officers were pouring out of their vehicles to aid, she said.
“We definitely know this kind of stuff can happen,” she said, but they don’t normally think of it happening in the downtown area.
“I don’t want people to be scared to come down here,” she said. But people should also be vigilant, she said.
She was among those who called for a larger police presence downtown.
Dennis Archer Jr., son of the former mayor, opened a restaurant downtown near the 600 block of Woodward that's now under a new owner.
Speaking to the safety of downtown in an interview on Monday, Archer pointed to the presence of police cameras, police cars, and how quickly police were able to take a suspect into custody.
Archer said he expected that the general manager at Central Kitchen + Bar, the restaurant he previously started, would take additional steps for the security and comfort of staffers.
Arnece Johnson, a manager at the CAVA along the same stretch as the Chipotle, said workers were indeed nervous in the aftermath.
“But Detroit is pretty resilient,” she said.
Signs were fixed to the doors of the Chipotle when would-be diners started to drift by late morning Monday. The business was temporarily closed, the postings read.
A vigil was set to take place there in Wix's memory that night.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Downtown Detroit service workers face nerves, tears after fatal stabbing
