By Marsha Kuykendall
Note: This is the last in a series of articles covering last Wednesday’s Southeast Seattle Candidates Forum. To see all of the RVP’s coverage of this important event, go here.
While increased police headcount is vital, Joe Mallahan also favors organized, neighborhood-based policing, but warns this will not be effective unless neighborhood leaders have critical information. “It’s been very hard for you all to get crime stats from the City Hall,” Mallahan told the nearly 300 Candidate Forum attendees. “I’m committed to rapid and free flow of information. He also promised to speed up the City-planned gradual increase in the number of police assigned to Southeast Seattle. “We have about 500 patrol headcounts. The strategic plan calls for 605. I will move to get there much quicker.”
Key to curbing gang violence is building “positive community institutions that bring our youth off the streets and increase livability in our neighborhoods,” said Kwame WyKing Garrett, adding, “Police don’t stop crime, they respond to crime.” Garrett proposed strengthening the City’s Department of Neighborhoods, investing in green jobs, and supporting proven infrastructural projects that hire local residents and solicit youth input. “Let’s pay youth to stop problems, not a bunch of administrators and bureaucrats.”
In addition to working more closely with neighborhoods and increasing police presence, Jan Drago supports more job training and restoring the City’s now-defunct Gang Unit. “I support the Mayor and City Council’s Youth Violence Prevention program, which works with sixth and seventh graders to help them stay out of trouble. But I also support a new program called CeaseFire, which involves people who are actively involved in gangs.” Formed in Chicago in 1995, and replicated in 17 other U.S. cities, CeaseFire is an evidence-based public health approach to reducing gang-related shootings and killings.
“Our kids need mentors,” stressed James Donaldson. “One of the ways we can give back to our communities is by involving [youth] in more positive activities.” He also supports “having our police become a friend to our community again, as it was when we were all children.” Police officers should serve as mentors and role models, working closely with children and youth in schools, on playgrounds, at parks and on the street. “Police should be perceived as heroes and someone children can strive to be like when they grow up.”
“We need more resources in the community,” said Norm Sigler. “Not police resources necessarily, but resources where people who live in the community feel they can enjoy their own community in a safe environment… It’s not about attacking the 800 or so youth who may be the problem, it’s not their fault necessarily. We need to understand the community environment from which they come, so we can create programs where they can earn a living without having to resort to violence.”
Creating opportunity and hope are key elements to tackling youth violence, according to Mike McGinn, “and that’s why it’s so important to put resources toward helping our schools succeed.” Investing in green jobs, making sure businesses hire locally, creating intervention programs to help guide youth in more positive directions, and neighborhood policing are equally important, he added.
Photo/David Mullarkey Images
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The Southeast Seattle Candidates’ Forum and Mock Election – moderated by Channel 21′s C.R. Douglas – is coming up in just three weeks and organizers are soliciting your questions right here at the RVP.
Who to know, where to eat & what to do in one of America’s most diverse zip codes!
