“These are the types of things that affect the community-police relationship,” he said. “That’s the kind of thing that makes the community feel like they don’t care.”

At a packed tenants’ meeting after Ms. White’s death, people said they were grateful for the additional patrols, but asked why it took a murder to get the police walking through the development.

“Maybe just for that one second that you walk past, you can stop, maybe slow the process or stop someone getting hurt,” one woman called out to a police commander. “Y’all not God, y’all can’t see everything. But your presence walking through here would make a big difference.”

A Family Mourns

After Gola White’s son was killed, she bought a burial plot for two. The second grave was going to be hers. She put a down payment on a tombstone, and gave her children instructions for adding an icon of an open Bible next to her name when she died.

Instead, in June, she told the tombstone maker to add her daughter’s name. She is still $200 short of what she needs to get the black stone placed.

“Never in my imagination did I think I would be burying another one of my kids,” Ms. White said.

She often lies in bed awake past 3 a.m. She is cajoling city workers to help her move into other subsidized housing, among them the same official who had tried to get her a new apartment after her son was killed. One apartment the official offered her then was too small; another was in a neighborhood where she said she had tense relationships. She cries when she wonders if she could have done more to protect her daughter.

Her grandchildren no longer like being outside. A grandson, Tyshon, 5, heard a bang from workers taking down scaffolding after school and asked to go home. Another time, he dove under a play set when someone started lighting firecrackers.