“If you see something say something.” Forgive me, but if I hear that B*** S*** one more time coming from the mouth of someone who does not LIVE in a housing community in the USVI, well …. let’s not go there.
According to Google, that slogan was developed by an advertising agency in 2001 for the New York City transit system. It was after 9/11 when residents were asked to report packages or suspicious behavior or potential security threats in the subway and bus system. It was later trademarked by the Metropolitan Transit Authority.
It is not and never will be applicable in a tiny three-island territory where everybody knows everybody else and retaliatory killings are the number one proven reason for our record-breaking homicide rate.
“A Source study of homicide data in our archives, the V.I. Police Department and other online resources, going back to 1999, the year the Source came online, shows these revenge killings and tit for tat retaliations drive the territory’s troubling murder count.”
So wrote Bill Kossler, who spent months in 2014 to gather the information included in the updated 2020 story.
I have personal knowledge from close friends who do LIVE in a housing community, one of whom lost his 16-year-old son in the crossfire of just such a retaliatory murder.
When I asked him recently, after HE had been shot at, if I could help by getting the police involved, he was humorously horrified. Crossing his arms in front of his face, “Oh no!! They already think I am a snitch.”
Notice, this man still has a sense of humor. This man who I love is a beautiful human being. His son who was killed was not, “just another dead thug,” as one elitist attorney called the “young men dead in the street.” Sadly, this Black person, born to a middle class family, is not alone in his racist attitude.
Moving on.
Nor was 15-year-old Tre’Vante Etienne “rotten,” as a highly placed elected official once referred to all elementary students at Jane E. Tuitt — to my face.
I read to students at Jane E. Tuitt for years. They are precious. I could tell so many stories about their curiosity, altruism and amazing senses of humor.
Tre’Vante, whose name I recognized when I read of his tragic, unnecessary murder, may have been one of those adorable children, raising hands and questions and giggling among themselves as I shared many of my favorite children’s books with them.
I could also list the dozens of efforts — REAL efforts — beginning in 1982 when I tutored students from Charlotte Amalie High School in an after-school program — known as the St. Thomas/St. John Youth Multi service Center — that I have been associated with as an effort to do what each and every one of us was brought here to do according to, well, Jesus for one: Help each other
So, here we go again,
If you SEE something, DO something.
Readers, please join me on Wednesday at a webinar conducted by the National Network of Safe Communities. NNSC has been here on many occasions trying to implement their proven strategy in stopping the violence.
Here is what the meeting, led by NNSC executive director Sasha Cotton joined by practitioners and partners from Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and Pine Bluff — three jurisdictions participating in NNSC’s pilot efforts to adapt GVI (Group Violence Intervention) for youth — is scheduled to address :
“While juveniles account for a relatively small share of those involved in gun violence, communities have a responsibility to respond in ways that recognize the unique developmental needs of young people. Effective intervention requires more than enforcement alone — it demands coordinated support, meaningful opportunities, and services tailored to adolescence.
“Building on the core principles of GVI, this emerging work emphasizes intensive wraparound supports, family engagement, mentorship, behavioral health services, education, workforce pathways, and other youth-focused interventions. By strengthening connections to supportive adults and institutions and creating pathways to long-term success, communities can reduce violence and improve outcomes for young people.”
I have met with Ms. Cotton on prior webinars, before she was made executive director. In fact, I am well acquainted with the founder, David Kennedy. Numerous efforts to apply the Gun Violence Intervention strategy developed by Kennedy in the territory have obviously met with unmitigated failure.
As I write, we are charging fast forward to meet or exceed our average 40 murders for the year.
That is more than double the rate per capita of Louisiana and Mississippi, who come in with 14.3 per 100,000 and 18.6 per 100,000 residents respectively.
At last Census in 2020, our population is 83,400.
There were 45 murders in that year.
The elitists quoted above articulate an enormous reason for this hideous statistic. They don’t give a crap about those who are dying and grieving.
“We pray for them,” is the pat response.
With your permission, allow me to quote another onetime cabinet member in the late 1990s and early 2000s who this year, at a government agency meeting, performed a short skit, seemingly on my behalf, titled “I’m sick of you people who come here and want to tell US how to do it!!!”
Well, the NNSC team finally came here for the two-year strategy implementation that has reduced senseless murders across the globe — by half in many cases within one year. See: Homicide is Calculable and Curable: Part I
So, what happened, I asked founder David Kennedy, when absolutely nothing changed. “Lack of cooperation,” he said. So, it’s about what didn’t happen: cooperation (again).
If you are a reader who has finished this relatively long piece, you probably actually care about the people (so many of them) on the margins in our community, so sign up for the webinar. It’s free.
Let us break out of the “we don’t care how you do it in (fill in the blank)” or the simpler “we don’t care” mentality once and for all in the name of the more than 1,000 who have been shot down in our streets in the years since the Source started saying their names.
Let us show the elitists who are too busy counting their money in our Paradise temple to care about those less fortunate, who we the people ‘dem actually DO care about.
Let us try again and again and again. We truly have nothing BETTER that we could DO.
Matthew 25:40-45: And God said, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
Register here please: https://jjay-cuny.zoom.us/meeting/register/3ZyeTV0wRcKUtDbfDOp5nw#/registration
