Interrupting violence

"Police are violence responders, not violence interrupters."

Earlier this week, I discussed Rosa Brooks' tale of becoming certified as a D.C. cop. Today let's listen to another Brooks, Cat Brooks from the Anti-Police Terror Project in the East Bay. On Juneteenth, celebrations at Oakland's Lake Merritt were interrupted by a mass shooting that killed one, injured many, and is probably a consequence of a San Francisco gang feud according to law enforcement.

Cat Brooks wants us to understand that more police aren't the answer. And she has a prescription for a better way.

[Police] do not understand our communities nor do they have our trust. 

I am tired of responding to violent crime. I want to live in a world where we prevent it. 

Prevention is not punitive. Prevention is investment. 

... if BIPOC people had stable incomes, secure housing, more opportunities to excel in life and a pathway to heal from the infectious disease of white supremacy, we would not see violence, we would see thriving communities and healthy people. 

If a child can pick up a gun and kill another child that looks just like him — what does that say about how he sees himself? What have we taught him about the value of his life? And if he doesn’t value his life, how can we expect him to value anyone else’s? 

... Investing in the status quo virtually guarantees more violence, more dead Black bodies, more surveillance, more terrorized communities, more incarceration, more trauma, more devastated families. 

We can build the communities, the cities and the country we all want. But we have to invest in people on the front end instead of tombstones and jails on the back end.

If more policing and prisons made America safe, we’d be the safest nation in the world.

 • • •

 

Today I received an email from San Francisco District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton. District 10 includes Visitacion Valley, Sunnydale, Potrero Hill, Bayview, Hunters Point -- and nearly all the city's public housing. It's the places that tourists never see and "essential" low wage workers can sometimes still rent, living next to old people holding on to dilapidated family houses.

The District has seen several shootings recently. 

Supervisor Walton writes: 

The violence has to stop. I know that we have seen some recent incredibly disheartening tragedies and violence in our communities (particularly in the Bayview). Addressing violence is one of the major focuses of our office and every loss in community takes a piece of me with it. I cannot be clear enough about how it destroys me inside when we lose someone from our neighborhoods due to violence. ...

... Violence prevention strategies have not worked in the district and for decades District 10 has been neglected. District 10 has the highest number of homicides and an overrepresentation in the criminal justice system. We need comprehensive justice reform to address this systemic racist system that continues to fall short from being able to address the root causes of violence. With all the resources that the City invests into District 10, it is clear that we need a comprehensive plan that is community driven, community led, and community implement in order to be effective. 

Walton's Public Safety Plan aims to bring all the considerable city resources together to be coordinated by a new Violence Prevention Convener. It's hard to tell whether this is just words or whether some wizard worker can actually do the job. It does seem that Walton is trying to do the job for his community.