With six juveniles slain in just the first month of 2009, a sense of urgency permeated the bitter cold winter air at the Voices Against Violence rally in downtown Baltimore on Saturday afternoon.
Standing on the same perch in front of the War Memorial Plaza where then President-elect Barack Obama addressed the city two weeks ago offering hope, Mayor Sheila Dixon, Police Commissioner Frederick Bealefeld and City Councilman Jack Young spoke out passionately about the rising teen death toll, urging residents to get involved.
“Parents need to stop being friends with their kids and start being parents,” said Young, D-12. “They’re afraid to discipline their children.”
Marvin “Doc” Cheatham, president of the Baltimore chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, agreed.
“This is not a youth problem, it’s an adult problem,” Cheatham told the crowd of about 100, yelling to be heard over a malfunctioning public address system provided by the city.
“Ninety-five percent of the families who have lost a person to a homicide have never attended a rally,” he said. “We need to change the way we think.”
Cheatham called for a citywide symposium on youth to be held in 60 days to discuss education, health care and mentoring.
Bealefeld said efforts to reduce homicides would not be accomplished solely through enforcement efforts.
“We’ve demonstrated it’s possible,” said Bealefeld, speaking of the 18 percent reduction in homicides in 2008 from the previous year.
“But we need to keep working in the communities to end this cycle.”
Frustration over the mounting death toll prompted Dixon to give a wide-ranging speech on the intractable drug war, hinting of her irritation with an illicit trade that brings millions of dollars to desolate neighborhoods with few jobs — and little hope.
“People come all the way from Kentucky to buy our heroin because they know it’s so strong,” the mayor said. “Last week I was at [a] Comstat [meeting], and they were talking about drug dealing on Pennsylvania Avenue, so I asked, ‘How much does that bring in this area?’
“I was told $10 million.”
The mayor also shared a story of her efforts to stop teens from skipping school, a phenomenon she said was at the heart of the epidemic of youth violence.
“I saw a group of young guys on the street when they should have been in school,” she said. “So I jumped out the truck and asked them, ‘What school do you go to? Do you know we have a curfew?’ ”
The mayor said the young teens, stunned by her appearance, were speechless.
“They just mumbled,” she said.
Dixon used the incident as an example of why adults need to get involved in the lives of the city’s youth.
“We’ve got to stop this; we know what we need to do.”
