A nice gesture, but reminiscent of so many other gripe sessions public officials are forced to hold in the wake of the rare not so rare crimes that are so violent they still somehow manage to shock us.
It was right around this time last year that this administration held a similar meeting where they introduced a new “Safety Plan”, yet oddly enough, I haven’t noticed any uptick in safety levels since then. I have no reason to believe that this administrations new plan will yield different results than their previous one. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to hear the people out, but it becomes an insult when you make them believe that their voices matter when they really don’t.
And I say this from experience; I was contacted by City Hall following a shooting on the block over the summer, while the children were playing. I was promised a meeting to discuss my ideas for keeping my children on the block and potentially all over the city safe from drive-by shootings.
That meeting has yet to happen. But, maybe if it had, PERHAPS, SOME of the shootings that have occurred in the past four months could've been prevented?
Maybe not Monday's mass shooting, but maybe the one where a teenager was shot in his head in broad daylight on 75th while the Democratic Convention happened just a few miles away, or the one where the 7-year-old was murdered on the West Side in front of his house. Perhaps over 100 people wouldn’t have been shot over the 4th of July weekend, and maybe one of the 19 who died might still be here.
Most people in this city don't have their own private security detail. And not everyone can live in well-to-do areas with less crime. The mayor and other elected officials are far less likely to become victims of violent crime in this city than the people who voted for them.
I keep asking whose job it is to come up with the plans that will actually make us safer. Is it the mayor's office or the police, or is it anti-violence organizations?
If not, why do we even exist? Are we included in our cities safety planning strategies, or are we just here to manage the discomfort of people in the community living in dangerous conditions?
Is it the job of the people who walk around with security details, or is it left to us, the people that the security is there to protect them from?
Who knows better what's going on in our neighborhoods than the people who live in them. There's never an answer to that question. And more people die because we're either not educated enough, not connected enough, or not contrite enough to advise the mayor and his advisors on how to keep us safe. It’s a shame that summer is coming again in a few short months, and there will be more shootings and more meetings about violence prevention after some particularly violent weekend.
But no one will be listening because it’s not time to ask for our votes yet.
Tamar
