After voting comes work

In gray daylight in Dudley Square, a gunman opened fire with a .40 caliber firearm. He shot one victim on the street, outside a sub shop, then wounded four more people, one fatally, inside the nearby MBTA station. The shootings took place across the street from a busy police station. The alleged gunman was eventually wrestled to the ground, still armed, by three police officers.

Boston Police Superintendent in Chief James Hussey said the police were still groping for a motive and had found no connection between the victims or any indication that they had been specifically targeted. The shootings were notable in their brazenness and frightening in their randomness.

The shootings were reminiscent of the terrible days of a decade ago, when violence reached levels of lunacy not approached since. Those were the days before a coalition of law enforcement, clergy, and residents successfully wrought a massive reduction in crime.

This drama unfolded as the much-hyped New Boston was deep in celebration. Just six weeks after an uninspiring fifth-place finish, Councilor Felix D. Arroyo shocked all but his most fervent supporters by coming in second in the City Council election. That finish owed a great deal to a surge in voting in liberal and minority communities, as Arroyo placed first in 11 of the city's 22 wards. For once, the "progressive community" was a reality rather than a mere slogan.

The parallels between the shooting yesterday and the gang violence of the past shouldn't be overstated. Still, it was enough to make you wonder about the fate of the Boston Miracle, the successful anticrime initiative that seems to be invoked these days only when street violence prompts musings about its absence. Though the city's homicide rate remains low, random shootings in crowded bus stations will shatter any sense of calm.

Ironically, fretting about crime had begun to seem passe. City Council races aren't known for their big themes, but crime was strikingly absent as a major issue in this campaign. Housing, economic development, racial tension, even the arcane internal rules of the council all seemed to get more play than street violence.

The New Boston focuses on crime only when it erupts in a major way, when a 3-year-old is killed, for example, or a child is shot on a playground. That focus lasts for a few weeks, through pious declarations of "taking back" communities and a few community meetings, and then it goes away until Old Boston -- not abolitionist Boston or Brahmin Boston, but 1980s Intervale-Castlegate Boston -- rears its head. Then everyone snaps to attention. For a while.

The coalition that elected Arroyo was the healthiest development to grace a city election in years. It crossed ethnic and geographical boundaries and even political boundaries.

Arroyo's coalition wasn't formed in a vacuum. Liberals tend to turn out in bigger numbers in November than in September. More important, the quiet work of a lot of people in registering and motivating voters has resulted in a steady increase in voter turnout in Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan. With more at stake than usual, those numbers swelled beyond any expectations on Tuesday.

It wasn't that different from the coalition that once worked on crime. So maybe there's a way to mobilize a coalition to skip the speeches this time and work on ways to focus attention once again on public safely. Because everyone has taken too much for granted, while the miracle has disappeared.

I know, there are nuts with guns everywhere. But to stand on Dudley Street yesterday watching the aftermath of the latest one, was to feel a sickening sense of deja vu. The New Boston has every right to congratulate itself. The New Boston also has work to do.

Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at walker@globe.com.