Wife, mother of slain Marine describe night of attack outside Lexington bar

This area has been bad and going downhill for years. The shopping center itself is well lit (at least it used to be), there used to be a pool bar, a couple eating places, and of course Austin City Saloon. Montgomery Gentry (country star duo, sadly missing Troy gentry now) made their start there many years ago. The shopping center just across the street has, for the most part, been torn down and replaced with a very modern and nice looking shopping center. Unfortunately, less than a block away starts one of the shit neighborhoods of "Lextown", Woodhill. I lived in Lexington for 16 years, drove a cab for 10 of it and was a police dispatcher for 3 1/2 years. Woodhill had its share of crime such as assaults, car breaks ins, drug dealers, robberies, etc. It wasn't the worst area of Lexington but was progressively getting worse every year. I used to live in an apartment complex nearby, and people that lived in Woodhill would bring their kids over and use the pool and apartment complex playgrounds, even though they didn't live there; no boundaries or respect. The shopping center where Austin City is had its fair share of car break ins going way back, but obviously the area has gotten even worse. It's a shame and very sad that someone serving their country can't go and enjoy a night out with his lady and not be able to do so safely. It's shame for anyone. Hopefully they get the death penalty.

SSG William Bowen - A UK Alumni from years ago, worked Remodeling those Apartments that backed up to the fence in the parking area of Austin City. At that time, it was primarily Blue Collar and College Students. Just an educated opinion, but some of the current situation is the results of "Gentrification" of a lot of the old bad areas in Lexington. As an example, the area north of Main Street between Newtown Pike and Limestone is now upscale renovated homes as far north as 6th Street and even Limestone as far north as Loudon have spots of Gentrified neighborhoods (the real urban pioneers, I guess). Third is being Gentrified all the way to Winchester Rd. The real Bad Areas now are Centre Pkwy. Winburn area, north of Versailles Rd around Oxford Circle (always been a bad area, just a different Demographic of bad), and the area around Woodhill. Still not good around Northpark Shopping Center or the area north of Main once you get away from Transy.
This is Kentucky and this one hits all the hot buttons, my prediction is that they will pull the maximum penalty.

I agree with that. I think when they refurbish the old crappy neighborhoods and impose certain rules, the low lifes that used to be there migrate to area that have not been updated. Hollow Creek, Winburn, Centre Parkway, and the Bottoms haven't improved much. I was last there last August when my dad died and the area of Winchester and Third, which used to be really bad, is completely changed. Charlotte Court off Georgetown is another area that is completely different. When I was a dispatcher, we had north and south side dispatcher, and hated being north side because you know you were going to have shots fired, someone was going to be shot and/or stabbed, and you would have a foot pursuit or several. Northside had Charlotte Court*, Georgetown Street, Winburn*, Hollow Creek*, Aspendale*, Breckenridge, Withrow Way*, Race Street, Woodhill*, all the N Lime and 3rd-7th Streets were bad. Southside had Centre Pw*, the Bottoms*, Trent Blvd. (not overly bad but parts of it were), and to a lesser extent Laredo Drive, but nothing near having to dispatch Northside. Anything could happen anywhere, but the bad areas always had some crap going on. The * represent where we had special police units that stayed only in those areas. Oxford Circle was getting bad when I was a dispatcher, and is much worse now. Being a dispatcher there and driving a cab gets you pretty educated on what is going on in town and where to stay away from.

SSG William Bowen - I had a lot of clients that contracted in the area, plus I think I supplied the first hundred houses to Habitat in Lexington (they have done about 3 times houses in Fayette County than Habitat in Jefferson County BTW), so I got to see all the bad neighborhoods during business hours. One of the last private Gentrification projects was a Bookstore/Coffee Shop about three blocks south of Loudon. I pretty sure that the house on the other end of the cross street was a brothel, but I guess Hookers need coffee too.