...volumes about what they want others to do but the only common sense idea is the one about "a community watch program" but that is shutdown because THE COMMUNITY refuses to standup as a group to the gangstas and their families. TIME TO BRING BACK THE GUARDIAN ANGELS!
Reimagining life where the bullets sometimes fly: Fiorito
The people who live in Lawrence Heights want to put an end to violence.
RENE JOHNSTON / TORONTO STAR
The scene of a shooting in Lawrence Heights. In a recent meeting, residents said what they needed in order to take back their community.
The kids call it the jungle. The kids watch too much TV. Lawrence Heights is not a jungle. And yet bullets sometimes fly.
A young man was shot in the back recently and there have been other shootings, so many that the police have them charted on a map.
The boy? He is 15 years old. He’ll be OK.
Oh, hell, who knows how OK a boy is after he has been shot. He is staying elsewhere while he heals. His family does not want to come back to the neighbourhood.
You hope that boy will be the last kid shot. You fear that your hope is strained. You wish the shooting had never happened.
But something has changed now and I do not mean the anticipated redevelopment of Lawrence Heights.
I mean that the people who live there, the ones who are raising their families and trying to get along, have had enough.
They called a meeting a while ago. It was held in a small community room. To get in, you had to pass a phalanx of police, city housing staff and security guards standing near the door.
They were standing, I guess, because they wanted the people to have seats; even so, it felt a little like running a gauntlet.
Or maybe it felt safe.
I took a seat up front, near a woman; it’s always the women, when a community comes together and begins to take a stand.
She held her son in her lap. I asked her if she was worried for his sake. “Concerned, you could say that.”
There had been some solid preliminary work done by people in the community prior to the meeting. The people know — the people always know — how to make their neighbourhood safe.
Zack Hersi led the discussion. He is active in the neighbourhood. He began like this: “It looks like we have no protection. We are losing our freedom of mobility. We can’t go place to place. Our children can’t go to basketball.”
The people nodded their heads.
“It looks like offenders know we have no protection. They are shooting our children. That’s ridiculous. That’s unacceptable.”
The people nodded.
“The media come for short stories. The police measure for bullets. We meet, but there is no solidarity.”
Perhaps there will be now.
“Shall we sit and wait for bullets to hit us?” No, said the people. “Should we move?” No, said the people. “Should we fight for our rights?” Yes, said the people.
And so, to the heart of the matter:
The people think that, if the cops stop somebody who has a gun in his car, that person should lose his driver’s license and his car.
The people want speed bumps.
The people want the police to set up a sub-station in the neighbourhood; it does not have to be fully staffed, nor does it need to be in a new building; it could be nothing more than some cops in an office in the community centre.
The people want security cameras, but not just any cameras: they want ones that work. They also want the cameras set up to capture images of the cars coming into the neighbourhood from outside. The police know where these cameras should go.
The people want more security guards in their community housing buildings; they want those guards on bikes, on foot and cruising.
The people also want a neighbourhood watch program set up. There is nothing stopping them from doing this, but a woman stood up and said the trouble is, nobody wants to say what they saw.
The final thing people want? It may be the most important thing of all. They want jobs for their kids.
No comments:
Post a Comment