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Police and residents came together Thursday night in the wake of two homicides and a brutal robbery. In a town where violence is rare, they hit the streets and knocked on doors to try to turn up leads and to send a message.

Speaking to a crowd of about 50 police and residents in the small training room at police headquarters, High Point Police Chief Jim Fealy said the showing was evidence of something he has long believed.

“Whatever community you live in in High Point — if there’s an act of violence, we all have a problem,” Fealy said. “Every single one of us.”

Fealy said some believe the culture has become desensitized to violence, that people aren’t outraged by it anymore.

“Well, we have our outrage,” Fealy said. “Our citizens, our law enforcement partners — we have our outrage and we use it in a positive fashion, to try to achieve positive goals.”

Americans hear so much about deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, Fealy said, but nearly 18,000 Americans were murdered in their own country last year — 50 a day, one every 28 minutes.

That message was brought home painfully in High Point in the past two weeks.

On Saturday, 16-year-old Travis McConnell was found dead, face-down in a ditch along Hines Street. McConnell had been severely beaten, and his death was ruled a homicide. Two arrests were made in the case Thursday, but police weren’t giving any information about the suspects, citing a court order.

On July 25, Arthur William Mastin Jr., 26, of Pleasant Garden was found in his car on Oberlin Drive, dead of a gunshot wound. Police later arrested Cameron Delaney Bridges, 18, of 816 Rosecrest Drive in High Point. He remains in the Guilford County jail in High Point without bond on a first-degree murder charge.

Two days later, Wang Xing, 39, was robbed and badly beaten after delivering a food order at the Raintree Apartments on Northpoint Avenue. Police found Xing at the back of his restaurant, Dragon City at 374 Eastchester Drive. Xing is still in critical condition, and no one has been arrested in the beating.

After the meeting Thursday, police and residents went to the areas where these crimes occurred, asking neighbors for any new information and handing out fliers with the known facts.

Before the group hit the streets, Fealy asked them to remember the evening’s two missions.

“The first is to garner whatever information we can, that we don’t already have,” Fealy said. “The second, and maybe in some ways more important, is to let people in these communities know: 'You are not alone.’ ”

As they walked the streets, the participants said the event, co-sponsored by High Point Community Against Violence, made them feel empowered instead of fearful.

“You can sit in your house and watch the news and be scared of this violence when it happens,” said Margaret Bannister, 54. “Or you can go out and help to catch the kind of people who do this, and help the police do something about it.”

Bannister said she and her husband Roger had never come to an event like this, but as they knocked on doors Thursday night and talked to neighbors, they said it felt like the right thing to do.

“The people we’ve talked to have all been very glad to get the information,” said Roger Bannister, 56. “This is people helping people in their neighborhoods, like it used to be. This is what it’s all about.”

Neighbors in the affected areas said the canvassing also made them feel more secure.

“When you see cops and neighbors out together like that, you know something is getting done,” said Brian Tuttle, 38, who lives at the Raintree Apartment complex. “It makes you feel good if you’re on the side of the law, and it’ll scare you if you’re not.”

Contact Joe Killian at 883-4422, Ext. 228, or joe.killian@news-record.com