Community must band together to prevent gang violence from growing out of control

Posted in teenagers
by Lorain County Moms

By Fabiola Santiago, McClatchy Newspapers

It’s impossible to forget the image of the little boy shot at West Little River Park in Miami who lifted his shirt with a mix of tender innocence and aplomb to show the media the wound made by the bullet that grazed his tummy.

The 3-year-old was one of four children shot while playing at the park last July when masked gunmen opened fire with AK-47s.

No child should get his tetanus shot for a bullet wound instead of a scraped knee. No child should have to fear that his life might end at any moment while playing with friends at a neighborhood park. No mother, no father should remain silent while their children grow up amid such violence.

But again, for the second time in three months in this North Miami area, four people including an 11-year-old boy were wounded by the bullets of thugs who drove up to a public park and shot their guns while children played in a youth football league.

This time the violence erupted at Ralph Bunche Park in Miami Gardens, four miles away from West Little River Park, and police only have one clue: The gunmen drove a dark Chevy Impala with fancy rims.

To say that parents, coaches and neighbors are worried about the safety of our parks is one heck of an understatement. Surely, more police protection is needed at parks, and city government should respond by adequately staffing practices and football games. But a lot more than police presence is required to solve the complex problem of rampant and random violence.

It’s time, for one, to stop dancing around the issue.

In the aftermath of the West Little River shooting, Northside Optimist football coach Charles Joseph said it best, his voice ringing with newfound anger as he looked into the television cameras and defiantly sent a message to the thugs who shot up his football field: “We are not going to take this. We are going to snitch. We are not going anywhere. We are going to play football right here.”

Now comes the hard part: the follow-up.

People know who’s shooting at the children playing in parks, but it takes courage to speak up, law enforcement doesn’t always inspire trust, and genuine civic leadership is scarce.

But somebody knows who drives a dark Chevy Impala with fancy rims. Somebody knows all about the turf war going on. Somebody knows why violence is turning Miami Gardens into a war zone.

It’s time to speak up and help police. Although there’s no doubt more police presence will be a deterrent, the solution isn’t going to be as simple as beefing up the number of officers patrolling parks. That might hinder some crime, but not this senseless, retaliatory gang violence willing to take young, innocent lives.

This one is a war on many fronts. This one stretches from the cradle to the grave.

There’s much work to be done on the preventive end to make sure at-risk-kids get help early before the only road they see ahead is a life of crime, before the only family they can relate to is a gang, before they turn into AK-47-carrying thugs.

I recently talked to a woman whose 13-year-old son snatched the purse of an elderly woman walking home from a Metrorail station. He snatched it so hard that the 78-year-old fell and broke her elbow, requiring surgery and painful rehabilitation. His crime was captured on video cameras and police asked for help in finding him.

People at his school recognized him, but no one turned him in — no one but his own mother, who walked into the Miami Police Department and handed her son over.

I tracked down this ordinary woman who did a remarkable thing and I asked her why. At first, she was annoyed and said that she didn’t want police or nosy journalists like me hanging around her house and bothering her. But the more we talked, a larger truth unfolded about her motivation for turning him in.

“Because I love my son,” she said.

That’s what it takes to stop the cycle of violence; some tough love is at least the beginning. This woman might have saved her son’s life with her decision, and in the process, she might have saved another little boy from taking a bullet in the park.