On the 4th Tuesday of every month I attend the general meeting our our neighborhood's community association. It's something we've done since arriving in New Haven and finding out about the group. My ties to West River have grown and deepened, and the neighborhood's initiatives toward community building have done the same. That particular night, my friend, Ellen, Lilli and I were walking home the block and a half from Barnard School and we were overtaken by a swarm of teenagers. They quickly parted around us on foot and on bikes and we could see that they were heading towards my house.
Four houses down we met A, who had been at the meeting, too. He is by temperament both cautious and suspicious. Perhaps for good reason; and perhaps he is this way as only people who have given others reason in the past to be cautious and suspicious can be. He was getting ready to call the police. I told him wait, I saw my neighbor, Eric, in the crowd, talking to kids, keeping an eye on things. We went down the street and a hunch I'd had since the first teenagers overtook us was confirmed. It was a year ago that Marquell Banks was murdered in the house 2 doors down from ours. These kids, some who knew him, some who did not, collected to grieve, and to discharge an inchoate, unspecific anger towards the house's tenants. I'm sure if Eric hadn't been there some kid would have tried to get inside the house. (The tenants coming home saw the crowd forming and left to sleep elsewhere.)
It is that palpable anger that made A want to call the police immediately. Even a wise cop can only ameliorates it briefly. And wise cops are rare. But, it's a year later now and these kids are still angry, still looking for the answer to the problem of one of their own killing another of their own. Marquell's family is traumatized. The tenants, who have young children of their own, are traumatized and stigmatized. (This is not conjecture on my part. This comes from conversation and witness.) The teenagers who came to mourn are traumatized.
We, the adults of this street in particular, and this community in general, need to reclaim the obligation that we've assigned to the police. We've demanded, in the name of public safety, that they also fix what's broken in the social fabric and by doing so wash our hands of responsibility to each other. As a community we've made great strides in that direction when the issues address a material lack, we fall short when it involves matters that are made more difficult by a lack of trust and no belief in agape love. When those events happen we resort to calling the cops and deluding ourselves that the problem's been solved. It hasn't, and I expect to see some of those same kids back again next year.
Four houses down we met A, who had been at the meeting, too. He is by temperament both cautious and suspicious. Perhaps for good reason; and perhaps he is this way as only people who have given others reason in the past to be cautious and suspicious can be. He was getting ready to call the police. I told him wait, I saw my neighbor, Eric, in the crowd, talking to kids, keeping an eye on things. We went down the street and a hunch I'd had since the first teenagers overtook us was confirmed. It was a year ago that Marquell Banks was murdered in the house 2 doors down from ours. These kids, some who knew him, some who did not, collected to grieve, and to discharge an inchoate, unspecific anger towards the house's tenants. I'm sure if Eric hadn't been there some kid would have tried to get inside the house. (The tenants coming home saw the crowd forming and left to sleep elsewhere.)
It is that palpable anger that made A want to call the police immediately. Even a wise cop can only ameliorates it briefly. And wise cops are rare. But, it's a year later now and these kids are still angry, still looking for the answer to the problem of one of their own killing another of their own. Marquell's family is traumatized. The tenants, who have young children of their own, are traumatized and stigmatized. (This is not conjecture on my part. This comes from conversation and witness.) The teenagers who came to mourn are traumatized.
We, the adults of this street in particular, and this community in general, need to reclaim the obligation that we've assigned to the police. We've demanded, in the name of public safety, that they also fix what's broken in the social fabric and by doing so wash our hands of responsibility to each other. As a community we've made great strides in that direction when the issues address a material lack, we fall short when it involves matters that are made more difficult by a lack of trust and no belief in agape love. When those events happen we resort to calling the cops and deluding ourselves that the problem's been solved. It hasn't, and I expect to see some of those same kids back again next year.
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