In 1941, responding to the need for industrial labor to power the military through wartime,

the federal government built a planned community called Abertsford Homes in northwest Philadelphia.

Having appropriated the land for the wealthy estate, the government cleared 80 gardens

from the site and erected low-rise structures with hundreds of apartment units.

Now over time, the war fueled economy and its needs peedered out and in 1953, Abertsford

Homes were turned over to the Philadelphia Housing Authority to turn them into low-income

housing.

It was one more step towards institutionalized racial segregation in the city and as with

most housing projects, the years brought decay and neglect, resulting in nearly half of the

original structures being demolished and much of the terrorist landscaping that wants to

distinguish the community, swallowed up by disrepair. Today, Abertsford Homes consists of 235 units

and is only one of 691 existing low-income housing apartment projects in the city of Philadelphia.

In 1990, Sean Thomas was a 16-year-old living in Abertsford Homes and like a lot of 16-year-olds,

he was getting into trouble he shouldn't have. On the night of Monday, November 12, 1990, Sean

was up to some mischief.

I was doing a bad people deal because I was in another trouble right there. I didn't remember

that night. I went down town, I'd never go down town so I didn't even bring out any justice

that went down there and I think I must take a bite of something. For me, it came a lot

to work. It's like, you can eat, bring out me up, I'm like, oh, that's Sean Thomas today,

describing that night. He had been admittedly attempting to steal a motorcycle and got caught

while doing it around 11.30 pm that night. He was charged with theft by unlawful taking a

movable property, which is a third degree felony, and spent the next few hours being processed.

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