Following the Pasadena Way
Predictions of summer bloodshed proven wrong by police working closely with the community to drive down violence
By Bernard Melekian 09/24/2009
Earlier this year in the aftermath of a series of shootings in both Pasadena and Altadena, a number of people predicted a long, bloody summer. One person purporting to speak for the community said that “blood would flow on the streets of Pasadena.”
I’m happy to report that the doomsayers were wrong. There has been only one gang-related homicide this year and that was in late May. The experts and pundits were wrong for several reasons, all of which can be traced to the practices of community policing and the department’s adherence to the Pasadena Way.
For 13 years this department and the residents of Northwest Pasadena have been committed to the idea that there should be no more dead children on the streets of Pasadena. The level of violent crime declined every year from 1996 until 2007.
In 2007 there were 11 gang-related homicides, the worst level of violence in a decade. The city’s response was Operation Safe City, which focused on the core violence-reduction concepts of prevention, intervention and enforcement. In 2008 there were three deaths and this year there has been one. The predicted violence failed to materialize because the Police Department, the community and the resources of city government have worked in partnership to ensure the safety of our residents, and especially our children.
Everyone involved has recognized that violence reduction occurs when the three core concepts are applied in equal measure. We all embrace the belief that 98 percent of our young people, regardless of their economic circumstance, want to do the right thing. Our primary mission as a community must be to give them the opportunity to act on that desire.
Our prevention programs include the Police Activities League, the Junior Public Safety Academy (a partnership between the Police and Fire departments) and the unceasing efforts of the Human Services and Recreation Department to provide meaningful recreation and after-school programs.
The Safe Schools Team within the PUSD focuses on building relationships with students and in heading off violence within the schools that often leads to further violence in the neighborhoods. Fights on campus have been addressed by mediation and counseling rather than by arrests. I believe the relationships formed from these efforts to be a significant factor contributing to the absence of violence this summer.
Intervention efforts include such programs as the Youth Accountability Boards — which divert first offenders away from the juvenile justice system — and the Neighborhood Outreach Worker program, which utilizes former gang members to help prevent young people from becoming involved in the gang lifestyle. Councilmember Jacque Robinson has quietly worked with a number of individuals and organizations to develop a comprehensive, strategic approach to violence reduction that involves the entire community.
All these programs are based on an absolute commitment to the belief that a mistake by a young person should not result in them being placed into the criminal justice system. To do otherwise often sets off a chain of events that becomes a self-fulfilling negative prophecy. The concept of no more dead children also includes no more thrown-away children.
Enforcement efforts have focused on relentless follow-up in solving crimes of violence. It is no coincidence that of the 23 homicides since January 2007, we have made arrests in 21 of those cases. That is a 91 percent clearance rate — among the highest in the nation. That clearance rate demonstrates the effectiveness of our community policing efforts. Without relationships built on trust, our detectives could not develop the critical information that leads to these arrests. Our commitment to relentless follow-up also sends the message that we take very seriously our commitment to every family who has lost a loved one to violence.
Our street enforcement efforts do not involve the traditional saturation patrols that often characterize police response to violence. Rather, we focus on individuals known to have gang ties and particularly those whose past behavior indicates a propensity for violence. Relationships individual officers have formed with even hardened gang members have led in several cases to them requesting officers to intervene with their children or siblings.
Gang violence is a disease and it must be treated as such. In 2007 this disease claimed the lives of two innocent young people, Shaun Baptiste and Ebony Huell. Their deaths were devastating to their families. Such events tear at the fabric of the city and help to destroy our young people’s belief in the possibilities of the future.
If any disease had claimed the number of lives in American society that gang violence has, the full weight of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta would have been brought to bear on the problem. This summer’s lack of predicted violence is a testimony to everyone in this community who is committed to the welfare of our young people.
The police are not the problem, nor are we the solution. None of us on the front lines of this struggle are so naïve as to believe that a successful summer or even a successful decade means the problem has been solved. The issues of education, jobs and race all contribute heavily to this problem. This is a societal problem and it calls for a societal commitment to the elimination of gang violence. Our children deserve no less.
Bernard K. Melekian is chief of the Pasadena Police Department and president of the California Police Chiefs’ Association.
DIGG | del.icio.us | REDDIT