Committee Hearing, May 25, 2006

COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA JOINT COMMITTEES ON PUBLIC SAFETY AND HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - - - Simon Gratz High School Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Thursday, May 25, 2006 7:10 p.m. - - - PRESENT: COUNCILWOMAN DONNA REED MILLER COUNCILMAN FRANK RIZZO COUNCILMAN MICHAEL NUTTER COUNCILMAN JUAN RAMOS RESOLUTION 051155 - Resolution authorizing the Council Committees on Public Safety and Public Health and Human Services to hold hearings regarding the findings and recommendations of the "Blueprint for a Safer Philadelphia," and further authorizing the Committees to seek advice and recommendations on how Philadelphia can reduce and eliminate crime affecting the City's youth. - - - V A R A L L O Incorporated Litigation Support Services Eleven Penn Center 1835 Market Street, Suite 600 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103 215.561.2220 215.567.2670 2

Good evening, everyone. We're going to get started. Before I forget, we're going to have people speak from this mike, not that. So good evening. (Good evening.)

This is a continuation of the Joint Committees on Public Safety and Public Health and Human Services of the City Council, City of Philadelphia. I am Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller and I chair Public Safety. Councilwoman Marian Tasco will not be in attendance tonight. She chairs Public Health and Human Services. Due to Council business, she's out of town. So we're going to get started. This is our third hearing out in neighborhoods. And we will now have the Clerk read the title of the resolution.

Resolution No. 25 051155, authorizing the Council 3 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 Committees on Public Safety and Public Health and Human Services to hold hearings regarding the findings and recommendations of the "Blueprint for a Safer Philadelphia," and further authorizing the committees to seek advice and recommendations on how Philadelphia can reduce and eliminate crime affecting the City's youth.

I just have a few remarks as an opening statement. And in attendance tonight from Philadelphia City Council, of course, is myself, Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller, and to my left, Councilman Frank Rizzo. Thank you for coming. Every morning we wake up to murder. There's not too many points in a week that we don't hear something about overnight shootings and particularly on Monday, and there's always a report in the paper about what's happened over the weekend. 4 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 Everyone is asking our young people to find other ways to deal with conflict, call for mentoring programs, after-school programs, programs for out-of-school youth, parenting, et cetera. Tonight we will hear from a number of individuals and groups actively involved in an effort to quell violence. With us we have Representative Dwight Evans, and tonight our focus is on the Blueprint for Philadelphia, which is a ten-year plan to end violence, and it's basically called a Blueprint for a Safer Philadelphia, and that's exactly what it is, a plan to deal with the impact of violence here in Philadelphia, to make this a safer place for our citizens to live, work and play and for our children to go to school. It's really nice to see so many young people in the audience tonight. Representative Evans is the architect and the facilitator of this Blueprint, and you will hear from him, 5 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 and he'll tell you a lot more about the Blueprint. I could go on and on and on and talk about the problems of violence in this City. And, actually, it's just not in this City. It's happening across the country. Prior to the meeting, we talked to a few people in the audience. Everybody felt that this issue is just so, so, so important. We must do something with our youth and young people that to me are causing havoc throughout our neighborhoods. With that, we basically designated from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. to have these hearings. This is an official City Council hearing. We have our stenographer on that end. So it's very important when we get to the question and answer or people want to make statements that when you talk -- we're having a little technical difficulty and we need you to go to that podium and we need you to speak directly in the mike, because 6 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 our stenographer is taking minutes of this meeting, because we will have an official transcript, but she won't be able to do it if she can't hear you. So it's important to use the podium and to speak directly into the mike. And with that, I'll end my opening remarks and call on Councilman Frank Rizzo.

Thank you, Councilwoman Miller. First of all, I want to thank all of you for coming out this evening, especially the young people in the room. We want what you want and you want what we want. We want a safer Philadelphia. We want our neighborhoods to be safe. So I'm pleased to be here tonight participating in this program, and I thank Dwight Evans and Donna Miller for also co-chairing this committee meeting this evening. I think we're going to be very pleased and I think we're going to accomplish a lot, and I 7 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 think your community will be a better place because of it. Thanks.

Thank you. Our first panel member is Representative Dwight Evans and Alicia Jackson from MEE Productions. REPRESENTATIVE EVANS: I'd like to say good evening. I want to thank Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller and Councilwoman Marian Tasco and Councilman Frank Rizzo. I'd like to thank them for, one, conducting -- this is the third community hearing, and we started off in City Hall where we started. This is the third one. We did Germantown High School. We did Olney, and now Gratz, and I think we also intend to do South Philadelphia. But this is the third. So I want to sincerely thank the Councilpeople for having this open process and this open discussion, because the only way we will reduce or eliminate the issue of violence is unless we take 8 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 control. In my view, this is an adult problem. This is an adult problem, and it has been conducted for so long. Alicia will get into the details, but let me just share with you how we could -- as the Councilperson said, my name is Dwight Evans. I'm a state legislator. S. Attorney, the District Attorney and the Police Commissioner. We met on Cecil Moore Avenue in February of 2004, and all of us spent -- a lot of elected officials and Councilpeople. Donna Reed Miller was also a part of that, along with Councilman Frank Rizzo, and they put a plan together, what we call the Blueprint for a Safer Philadelphia. It came together as a result of Faheem Thomas-Childs, who was shot and killed around 22nd and Lehigh Avenue, which is in Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller's district and Jewell Williams' district. 9 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 You may recall there was a march of about 12,000 people. So what did we do? We basically came together and we said for the first time is that we need to put collective efforts together between the City and the State. As a result of us coming together, $16 million came up from the state, 4 million the first year, 11 million the second year, invested in what 12 you call the Blueprint for a Safer Philadelphia. We hired the MEE Production company, which they will describe exactly what their role is. And that $16 million, we wanted to change the way we make investments. What we did is, we focused on what you call up-front approaches in terms of trying to get -- if you believe violence is a preventable behavior, and I believe that and we believe we can beat the issue, the reason I point out to you is, in Boston they went 16 months -- 30 months, I should 10 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 say, without a homicide occurring for a person years older. They went 30 4 months without a homicide occurring in 5 the City of Boston. 6 So what we did is, we hired a 7 professor, who is head of the public 8 health out of Harvard University, and she 9 worked with us on putting a strategy 10 together and what you call a public 11 health approach. But because we talked 12 about a public health approach does not 13 mean that that does not mean a criminal 14 justice part. We did it hand in hand. 15 If anybody knows about the 16 smoking issue, in 1964, there was a Surgeon General report that came out that said smoking was bad. From 1964 to here, there was an entire campaign about changing people's behavior around smoking. We are talking about the same type of strategy in terms of changing violence. The reason we use 2016 in a ten-year effort is, we fundamentally said 11 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 that we have to find ways to unlearn this behavior. So this approach is broken up into a number of ways in what you call primary, secondary, tertiary. The other aspect is, we've organized what you call the Gun Court, which basically is targeted towards individuals who did gun crimes. We also made investments in what you call police explore and other kinds of programs that we think to be of help. And then also we made some investments in terms of certain hospitals, and you'll hear about that later.

So we approached it from a public health standpoint. We approached it from a criminal justice standpoint. And then Alicia will describe to you what you call the hotline, the social marketing and the other kinds of efforts. So what we're doing is, we're conducting this as a campaign. Thanks to Donna Reed Miller and Marian Tasco together, we have been traveling around the City basically trying to get people 12 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 to join this campaign to undo what has been going on for so long. What we hope in your testimony is that you will either augment or make suggestions of things we need to do. This is the first year the Blueprint kicked off. We kicked it off, I think it is, in January or November it had started. We're moving from neighborhood to neighborhood to begin to get people. If my hero will stand up. Can you turn around? You see kind of his T-shirt and then you see the hotline BLUE number on the back. It's a full-blown effort that we are leading. We were on WCAU yesterday, on the radio. You may have seen it on SEPTA buses, things of that nature. What I'd like to do is turn it over to Alicia, and Alicia will talk about the details of it. Alicia.

Thank you so much. 13 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 Again, let me applaud, if you will, Representative Evans for his vision and his willingness to take this approach. This is a new approach, an approach that is very different when we look at the issue of violence. Again, we're trying to look at it from a public health standpoint. We also thank the Councilpersons for again holding these hearings in the City, in the community, which is where this effort really needs to mobilize, is in the community. As they talk about, again, we're trying this different strategy, a public health prevention strategy. We're actually interested in changing everyone's behavior, thought process around how we deal with the issue of violence. With that said, we have brought together a team that consists of three major partners. The first would be Public/Private Venture, which is a 14 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 research advocacy group that is actually leading the charge with this effort. You then have MEE Production, which is the organization that I work with, which is a research-based communications company, and I will talk more about the spearhead of the social marketing for this campaign. And then we have an organization called Choice, which is a major hotline dealing with reproductive health and other kinds of issues that affect young people, which is very important to this campaign. As we talk about this public health strategy, one of the first things that we need to do is actually educate the community around this issue and raise the level of awareness. As a result of that, we are starting to push this campaign and move the messages forward with what we call a social marketing campaign. When you hear about marketing, you're talking about doing something 15 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 around a particular product or a particular activity. As we talk about social marketing, we're actually talking about changing one's behavior. With that said, MEE Productions went into the community, actually talked to the community to say, What does violence look like to you in Philadelphia. As a result of that effort, we produced a documentary DVD, along with a research report that is available to the community that you can get via the toll-free number, and I'll talk about the toll-free number later, and we'll be talking about that a lot tonight, because we want you to blow up the toll-free number. In addition to doing the research, which was very important for us because that's our starting point as we talk about developing messages, what came out of that research and what's very critical is that, again, everyone articulated and as a result of this 16 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 research, we talked to young people, community-based organization leaders and parents. So we got a cross-section of folk talking about this issue. One of the primary findings was that everybody agreed that this was an adult problem. Even though we know we're talking about youth violence, we have to understand that it is an adult problem. With that said, it's like we need to mobilize adults. So that is our first target audience. In addition to that finding, the next key finding was that we realized how important education is and that young people are not receiving the kinds of positive messages that they need to receive as it pertains to their education. We're in a school tonight. We've been going to schools to make a point, to say we need to focus on education. That's a critical message for this campaign, and we will be sounding 17 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 that message very hard and very strong. Let's look at education as our alternative to violence.

And it really is the true message that we have to give to young folk, to say, This will give you the options that you need to have a better life, which is what they articulated, We want a better life, we don't want to be involved in violence, but we need you as adults to tell us how to have a better life. In addition to education, another key finding was that parents need help. We don't want to place blame on anyone with reference to youth violence. So we heard, parents need help. We're going to be sending the message to parents that we want to support your effort in raising your young people. We want to let you know that there are parenting programs, that there are parenting support systems, there are parenting resources. We want you to know all of this, because, again, we know how 18 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 difficult it is to raise young people in this environment today. And then the last key finding was, which is very interesting, in addition to hearing that this is an adult problem, kids actually articulated that, We want adult involvement, we want adults to tell us what to do. We think that is not the case, because they're doing all kinds of things without adult direction, but they really want our support. So we're going to be sending this message via the traditional channels of communication, which are media channels. You may have heard some of the radio ads that are targeting adults initially. Again, as I mentioned, that is our first target audience. You will be hearing radio ads targeting young people this summer. We will be having a peer group leadership network where we will be mobilizing young people to talk to their peers about this issue. In addition to the radio ads, 19 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 you might have seen transit on SEPTA. We're getting this message out via the traditional channels. But what's very important is that we are also coupling the traditional channels with non-traditional strategies, where we are mobilizing the community. We are starting to focus this campaign in nine particular zip codes. Why? Because we want to go to those areas that are hit the hardest. Those zip codes -- and I cannot rattle them off the top of my head because I'm pretty old, but ya'll will forgive me, right? Anyway, they are based in North Philadelphia, Southwest and West Philadelphia. We know that there are other areas that we need to concentrate on. This is a campaign that is going to move in phases. With that said, we will get to those areas, but let us know that your area needs some attention as well. We want to hear that. As I mentioned, what's very 20 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 critical to this campaign, along with the media strategies, is a toll-free number. Blow up this toll-free number. The key is, call it for whatever you need and we will try to get you the resources that you need. The toll-free number is 1-888-570-BLUE. 1-888-570-BLUE. And I do believe there are some materials for the campaign that have been passed around. If you got some of those, great. If you didn't, we will make sure that you get those. So as I started to talk about, along with the media strategies, we're doing an aggressive community campaign, because as we talk about adult involvement, this is also a community issue. We will be mobilizing all of Philadelphia around this issue. When we talk about mobilization, we talk about engaging community-based organizations, we talk about engaging parents, we talk about engaging young people. We will be 21 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 mobilizing hitting the ground, if you will, to go into the community to talk about this issue. And what we say what you can do as a community person in the community, if nothing else, get to know a kid on your block. That sends a message around violence that we care about these young people.

In addition to that, what we ask, which is not very difficult, support this effort by having a dialogue in your community around violence, what can we do to change this issue. If you're interested in the materials, you can call the toll-free number. And when we talk about the materials, we have materials that we are getting into the community that are available free of charge. That would include post cards, pamphlets, all kinds of materials. You can just put those up in your facility, in your house, give them out. Again, we need to saturate this community with this issue of 22 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 violence to say enough is enough. And we believe that looking at this from a prevention public health strategy is the most positive way we can look at changing violence over the next ten years. We want to be able to say to this young group of men, who look to be about eight, nine, ten -- and maybe I'm wrong. Nonetheless, we want to be able to say, Where are you going to be in ten years? Where are you going to be in ten years? And we want to make that investment now and not pay for it later, because we've been given an opportunity to say, Let's make a difference. With that said, I thank you, and if you have any questions, please let us know. We're open to changing this model and being very flexible and answering to the community. REPRESENTATIVE EVANS: One last thing I'd like to say before we go back to the Councilperson so we can put this in perspective would be, I don't know if 23 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. " 2016, the Olympics. 2016. So it is not far-fetched that is the exact same year that we have said ten years from now, zero, eradicate, zero. Just as they are thinking ten years from now about the Olympics -- now think about that. They're saying 2016 they want to bring the Olympics to this region. Why don't we make the same type of declaration among ourselves? That's why I thank Donna Reed Miller and Marian Tasco for bringing this to the neighborhood and for us to stop violence. I see Ann Cohen is in the audience, and Ann, who is a union representative, is that fundamentally what we are talking about is organizing house by house, block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood. What we have never done in the City, in my view, is had sustainability. It will only be 24 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 through sustainability. It can't be something that we start and we stop. So the key to this movement, and that's what it is -- we have been working on this from 2004. We just rolled it out starting in 2005 and 2006. So in 2004, we spent nine months talking to an awful lot of people around the City, organization types. Now what we want to do is go directly to the people, and that's what we are attempting to do today. And this is the third meeting that we have had as we take it to people and begin to look at it as a large City-wide town hall meeting as we have these discussions neighborhood by neighborhood, but what we're asking at the end of the day is, yes, we must have a discussion, but we don't want you to leave thinking you don't have any responsibility, that you're going to shift the responsibility either to us as elected officials or to the Police Department. 25 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 Let me just say this clearly. The Police Department, it is absolutely impossible for the Police Department to solve this problem. It is absolutely impossible. There is no way a police department by itself that have, what, 6,000 police officers, 6,500?

64. REPRESENTATIVE EVANS: It is absolutely impossible. It is absolutely impossible for a police department. But a police department in conjunction with schools, with faith-based organizations, with grassroot organizations, as a collective, we can undo. The Police Department is a part of it. The courts are a part of it. Everybody is a part of it. So the point I'm just trying to make to you, what's different about this -- and I've been in office for 23 years -- never have I seen the City 24 itself suddenly decide -- when I say "the 25 City," I'm not talking about the City 26 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 government. I'm talking about the people. I grew up in Germantown High School. I grew up when there was clang, summersvilles and gangs. And at that time, what I would say to you is that we in a targeted way reduced the problem, in a targeted way. It went away. We thought it was over. The difference today is, the weaponry is far more tougher. Now, fortunately, our medical care has increased, because there should be, unfortunately, more people who die, but the reality of it is, we had 380 homicides last year. Of those homicides, 42 of them occurred in the 25th Police District. So we know where they occur. They can just about tell you what block they occur on. They can just about tell you what neighborhood they occur in. So there's far more information today. So we understand far more today than we did 20-some years ago. So the question is, what we're trying to do is take that 27 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 information, understand it, do an analysis, how do we do intervention, where do we do interventions at. So basically what the Blueprint for a Safer Philadelphia is is being more strategic in how we approach this and target it and be more laser in our thinking in terms of how we approach this, because we know where it occurs, more than likely African-American male upon African-American male. We know the age group. We know that. In closing, when I got elected, we had 8,000 people in prison in Harrisburg, 8,000 -- not in Harrisburg, but in the State. Today we have 43,000 people in the Pennsylvania prison system, 43,000. The fastest growing group is African-American males. The second fastest growing group is African-American females. So we know from those numbers, we know the group. We have more people on death row. We have more people on life. 28 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 What we try to explain to people, particularly the young people, is, once you get caught in the criminal justice system -- there used to be a time, I say the Rizzo days, at my age that you can hide beyond the juvenile. We changed that in 1995. Just because you are a juvenile doesn't mean anything. You will be tried as an adult. Once you are tried as an adult and you go into that system, I don't care what anybody says, you are in that system. And once you are in that system, you become -- the Commissioner of Corrections, when he became Commissioner, he wanted to keep the number at 39,000. It is 43,000. As a country, we have far more people in jail than any other country in the world. We have far more people in the parole and probation than any other country in the world. It is the fastest growing industry. So you now understand why our approach is to go from the front end, 29 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 because the back end hasn't been working. But I don't want you to misunderstand that. I don't want you to think because the back end ain't working that there's not space. I always tell people that. People always tell me, Well, there's not -- I just want you to understand, there will be space there, maybe at the state level, the county level, the federal level. And I always like to tell that to young guys who always think that they are tougher. There is an entire Army, from FBI, to Police Department, that is out there. And I always try to explain to people, Don't test it. So what we're trying to say is, Take our word.

We're trying to say to you, We're intervening at kindergarten, at daycare. We're trying to intervene early. Do not test us on the other side, because there is no joke. Because once you go there, there's nothing we can say, because you are in the system. So the part of the Blueprint is 30 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 to change the mindset. That's what we're attempting to do. We're trying to get people to unlearn the behavior so they don't wind up into that. That's what we're trying to do. I want people to understand that. Thank you, Councilwoman.

Thank you. Thank you, Representative Evans. We'll have questions and answers at the end. Our next speaker, I'm just going to call your name. Let me know whether you're here or not. And please use the podium here. Stephanie Smith from Philadelphia Academies.

I want to say good evening to all my Councilpersons and Representative Evans. My name is Stephanie Smith. I'm the Director of Program Services for the Philadelphia Academies, and I want to thank you for the opportunity for allowing us to bring some of our alumni and our current 31 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 student to talk a little bit about this problem. Our mission with the Philadelphia Academies is to expand life commitment for options for Philadelphia public school students through career-focused programing that prepares young people for employment and post secondary education. Our model, which is relationships between schools, the School District, the regional business community, is to provide curriculum supports, career-focused programming and internships that connect academic materials to real work and career-based experience. Our program presently is in 17 middle and high schools and we have 13 career areas. And we believe that it takes a whole community of caring adults in order to help with this problem. I have the pleasure of introducing one current student and two of our alumni, and they have a story to 32 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 tell. The first student that I would like to introduce is Angelique Velazquez. She's a hotel/restaurant/tourism graduate from Mastbaum High School. (Applause.)

First I would like to say good evening, Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller and distinguished guests. My name is Angelique Velazquez. I'm a 2005 graduate of the Hotel/Restaurant/Travel/Tourism Academy at Jules E. Mastbaum High School. Throughout my high school years, I had my ups and downs. I worked on the HRTC Academy, and without great coordinators and teachers I had, I don't know where I would be today. The commitment and dedication put forth toward me made the difference. I felt like a person who meant something, not just a number on a roster sheet. In the Academy at Mastbaum High School, we have a restaurant which is ran by the students called the Academy Cafe. 33 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 This restaurant has the state-of-the-art kitchen where I had the experience of working with top chefs like Joseph Poolin at La Bec-Fin. The unconditional sacrifices the coordinators made and all the extra help made it worthwhile, and the feeling of belonging made the difference as well. And to this date, it still does. It's unfortunate that not many students can say that, and that's where the problem lies. For example, one day I stayed after school to help my coordinator, which happened often. That same day there was a big fight after school between students from my school and neighborhood drug dealers. Innocent people were hurt during this melee, which could have been prevented in many ways. The police seen there was blood in the area. It seemed unreal for this to be happening in front of our high school, my high school at that. I just happened to be one of the lucky ones who 34 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 had an after-school activity and I was not caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's why I want to thank the Academies, because I could have been one of those innocent people. We need to put forth the effort to get teachers and programs in all schools like I had. Leave no school untouched and no child left behind. Just being involved in the HRTC Academy gave me the opportunity to stay out of trouble and, more importantly, the chance of really reaching my goals. Thank you. (Applause.)

Thank you, Angelique. Next we will have Sandra Gillot. She's a current student at Lincoln High School. She's in the Law and Public Justice -- Law, Criminal Justice and Public Administration Academy. (Applause.) 35 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155

Good evening, Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller and distinguished guests. My name is Sandra Gillot and I am a senior of the Law Academy at Abraham Lincoln High School. When I turn on the television or as I'm listening to the radio, I hear much news involving violence, a shooting, a stabbing, a robbery. But there is something similar in all of these acts of violence. It is being caused and done by the youth of Philadelphia. I'm very sad as I experience firsthand the increase of students dropping out. There is a noticeable increase in drop-out rates, especially in African-American males, and teen pregnancy and most of all an increase in teen violence. What is it that is causing teens to do these things? More importantly, what can we do to turn these trends around? There is no one solution to these problems. All we can do is target what needs to be worked on and use our 36 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 energies towards that end. As a student in an all-Academies high school, I find that opportunity to get a firsthand experience in the field of my issue. As a student in the Law Academy, I took many classes that were of interest to me. I learned many things through my mediation and courtroom procedures classes. What's so important about this point? I found something that interested me in school, something that kept me in the classroom and not in the halls or the streets. I think that so many kids leave school because there's really nothing there for them. I know how important education is. It is the key to my future. If a tobacco company or a fast-food restaurant can find cheap and fast ways to catch the interest of so many young people, no matter how detrimental their product is, why is it that schools can't do the same? It doesn't take much to succumb to peer 37 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 pressure, and neither does it take a lot to interest a teen. Giving students an opportunity to experience firsthand what they think they might want to do in the future is definitely a way to keep them interested in coming to school. I'm an advocate for the Law Academy because I am passionate about law, but other programs, such as nursing, information technology, dentistry, chemistry, culinary arts, engineering and other fields of interest, need to be available so students can be exposed to subjects that can strike interest. I am also a part of Philadelphia Futures. Futures not only keeps students motivated in school, it also exposes students to life after high school, including college and trade schools. Their main focus is to encourage students to attend college. Futures help expose students to college and many possibilities college offers. They also provide mentors, SAT practice 38 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 and extracurricular activities that are important. Organizations such as Philadelphia Academies and Philadelphia Futures need to be expanded to help the many more kids in the system as they have helped me. Every student should have a chance to be a part of a positive program like these. How will this solution be able to decrease violence? It gives teens another alternative. If they find school interesting and a chance for a better future doing something they will like, then trust me, going to the streets will be of less interest. Education helps give someone a whole new attitude in life, which makes it less likely that person will resort to picking up a gun or knife. Priority number one for the City is to ensure its future, and that future is in the youth. They need to be surrounded by a community of nurturing adults and surrounded by peers who are 39 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 starving for good. Both Philadelphia Academies and Philadelphia Futures have helped to provide me with that kind of community. As a teen, I think we need more of that help to build the interest and powers of my generation. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak, and have a good evening. (Applause.)

Thank you, Sandra. What she didn't tell you is that she's going to Gettysburg College. (Applause.)

And Angelique will be starting Community College in September. (Applause.)

Next we have our 1995 graduate from right here, Simon Gratz High School. He's with the Automotive Academy. His name is Michael Lum.

Good evening, 40 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 everybody, Councilpersons and all of our guests, all the people that came and showed up. As she said, my name is Michael Lum. I graduated here 1995, Simon Gratz High School. I started in the Academies program because I always liked to fix cars, and in the 11th grade they came to me with a great opportunity to work with the City of Philadelphia to fix cars, and since 1994, I have been a proud member of the City of Philadelphia, Office of Fleet Management. Throughout the years -- (Applause.)

Throughout the years, I grew up in North Philadelphia, 20th and Ridge. I lived also on 2nd and Allegheny. So I know a lot of pain and a lot that you guys feel. I was wrapped up in a lot of that stuff. But while I graced these halls here, I graduated on the honor roll, perfect attendance, and my mom kept me straight. 41 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 (Applause.)

Basically what I'm here to tell people is that I'm living proof that the streets don't get everybody, as if you let the streets get you. And a lot of people don't understand, the streets have no love for nobody. All they care about is what's going on in the street. And if you get caught up in the street, a lot of hard, a lot of "I ain't scared" people are in jail and dead. I know for a fact. I know a lot of friends -- I have a lot of friends that are dead and gone and in jail. The good thing is, like I said, I'm here to show you that a kid from North Philadelphia can make it. Right now I'm a proud father of two kids. I'm married. I own a nice house by the airport. I have a brand new vehicle, and it's all legit. Nobody is coming to kick my doors in. (Applause.) 42 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155

And in closing, I'd just like to say to a lot of the young people, a lot of people that's here, that violence takes no effort, none at all, none whatsoever. If you're going to achieve something, that's a challenge. Let's challenge ourself and achieve something. Because violence is very easy and anybody can make it. Anybody can commit crimes, but how many people can go out there and achieve things and be somebody? Thank you. (Applause.)

Good evening, Representative Evans, Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller and all of the rest of our distinguished guests. My name is Ann Cohen, and I am President of AFSCME Local 1637 and DC 33, and I've been involved with Philadelphia Academies since 1993 when District Council 33 and the City of Philadelphia, Philadelphia's Office of Fleet Management, established their joint 43 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 internship and apprenticeship program in automotive technology. I currently serve as the Chairperson of the Board of Governors of the Academy for Automotive and Mechanical Engineering at West Philadelphia High School, the program that produced that hybrid super car that's been gracing the pages of our newspapers. (Applause.)

And my statements are very brief. Since 1993, more than 100 students have participated in the Academy's programs and in the City's joint internship and apprenticeship program. Close to 50 students transitioned to full-time City employment. Yesterday the School Reform Commissioner, James Nevels, announced plans to grow a new middle class through the newly created School District Apprenticeship Program to be run in conjunction with the City's building and 44 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 trades unions. We are delighted to hear about this program. But we've been moving students into solid middle-class jobs for the past years. 6 (Applause.) 7

And I am here to 8 ask you to work to provide more 9 internship opportunities, more 10 apprenticeship opportunities for students 11 in Philadelphia public schools. That is 12 our plan to combat youth violence. We 13 can think of no stronger partnership and greater model for success than those that the Philadelphia Academies brings to the table on behalf of the youth of our City. Thank you very much. (Applause.)

We're just going to deviate somewhat from the agenda, and I do want to announce that we've been joined by, to my left, State Representative Rosita Youngblood. (Applause.)

And to my 45 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 right, my far right, Councilman Michael Nutter. (Applause.)

And Councilman Juan Ramos. (Applause.)

We have young people here, and we know you have to go to school tomorrow, so we want to deviate from the agenda so we can get our other young people on. Elisha Morris, do you want to announce them or do you want me to? Are you with them?

Yes, ma'am, but you can go right ahead.

So we have five young people that want to testify. Edwin Bove. And speak in the mike. (Applause.)

Today there was a shooting, a student got shot up, but the 46 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 right one is arrested. And I also want more police presence in our community. Thank you. (Applause.)

I'll call everybody else up next. Kelvin Bain, Trabon Mastenberg, Sergio Vasquez, John Thomas, Hunting Park Stakeholders. (Applause.)

These young people were asked to come and participate from the Philadelphia Anti-Violence/Anti-Drug Network, and they actually marched here. They marched here and we heard them chanting. (Applause.)

And they marched all the way here from 6th and Hunting Park. (Applause.)

In whatever order you want to go will be fine.

Hi. My name is 47 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 Kelvin Bain and I'm here to talk about what's going on in our community and stuff. So far what I have seen was on my way walking home from school and stuff like that is (unintelligible) from my school and so many people just keep on fighting and fighting and nobody (unintelligible) the officers around the community just keeping on hitting, hitting the cops and stuff like that. So many people running around killing innocent kids like us, and it's crazy right now. Right now I'm sick and tired of hearing the cops' alarm and stuff like that going to places where people getting shot and killed and stuff. Thank you. (Applause.)

Hi. My name is Sergio Vasquez and I want to talk about how I want to stop drugs and all that stuff, because -- I want to stop it because it's not good and you can get locked up for it. And I want more cops 48 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 in the communities for the peace in our neighborhood, and that's it. Thank you. (Applause.) JARRON: Hi. My name is Jarron. I don't got nothing prepared, but all the violence that's going on around our community, one of my brothers got caught up in it and now there's no 11 way to get -- there's no way to get him out. And all I want is more policemen around, in back of movies and like that. That's it. Thank you. (Applause.)

Hello, everyone. My name is (unintelligible) Velazquez and I live in North Philadelphia. And, well, I would like to talk about the young people, young kids, young adults in our community, which is I. We try hard to go to school and to educate ourself so that we can educate our parents, because as you know, much of 49 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 our parents, they come to this country. Because I'm Puerto Rican. So my parents came to this country and they don't have enough knowledge of how to educate theirself, and they try to educate me as much as possible. But I thank them a lot because now I'm in Northeast High School, I'm doing well, I'm a senior now, so I'm trying to get up there, try to go to college, because, unfortunately, none of my sisters made it to college. So I'll be the first one in my family to go off to college. (Applause.)

And also I want to reach the parents, because it's important that you educate your kids, because everything they see -- they're like sponges. Everything they see, they do, especially the television. The media is what gets through to them. That's what just influences them in a way that -- that's everything to them, the media. So whatever they see, they do. 50 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 So I want to tell your parents that try to get your kids to get into ASPIRA, because I'm in ASPIRA. (Applause.)

ASPIRA does a lot of good. They work with the community. They try to get us young adults out of the streets to do things for our community, community service, whatever. Thank you. (Applause.)

Good evening, Councilwoman, Councilpersons, Representative Evans, Councilman Nutter. I appreciate the opportunity to share with you this evening. My name is John Thomas and I wear many hats, but the hat I'm most proud of is being a part of the Hunting Park and Kensington Stakeholders, who brought the kids here. (Applause.)

Anyone who knows me knows that if there's an opportunity 51 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 for me to speak about what can be done in our community, I'm going to take that opportunity. I promise to be brief and to the point. I've been involved in a lot of initiatives. I worked for the Mayor's office at one point, the one who is now Governor. I've been involved in the Empowerment Zone initiative and bringing millions of dollars to the City. I work to improve the neighborhood that I live in down the street from my man, who is graduating this year. As an example, I stand for those who come after me and I'm a proud example of those who came before me. We've done a lot of talking from the leadership effort about what can be done to stop violence, but what I want to share with you is that efforts cannot be topped down. There's been a lot of conversation about the Blueprint for a Safer Philadelphia, and what I want to share with you is that I'm all for all 52 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 the initiatives, any tag lines we can put that's going to help to take at least one or more guns off the street, but if you're talking to me about putting a media plan together and a strategic plan and we got research from this one and that one, what I will tell you is that little Jose Flores doesn't understand that. What Jose Flores understands -- (Applause.)

(Unintelligible) and that little John and the City stars in the ASPIRA program that he can get involved in, and they're the people who work hard for low pay to keep them on the straight and narrow, because they believe in what he can do and who he can be. There's a lot of people who work from the grassroots level, and that grassroots effort is really what's going to make the difference in changing violence in our community. When we talk about the ads reaching the targeted community, what I 53 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 want to share with you is that just as surely as you talk to me about what happened when my parents were on the streets, I've heard enough stories from my parents, from the neighbors and others that are older than me about how it used to be. When we talk now, we can't talk about how it used to be and think that we're going to take it to the floor. We need to build off of our history, not live by it. Again, I would ask that we try to use some new approaches that would reach the young people in ways that they are willing to listen, which is through the media that they listen to. And if our conversation is on WDAS and we're talking about how grandma needs to be more involved, I will tell you right now, my grandmother is not going to be out on those streets. I wouldn't put my grandmother out on the streets of Philadelphia. (Applause.) 54 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155

What I will ask is that young folks like myself and others who were able to get an opportunity to get educated, that it's time for us to take our role, our rightful place as leaders of our own communities. We also need to facilitate the neighborhood base back into addressing issues of violence of guns. This is not a health issue. I would applaud the efforts of getting a strategic approach of making it a health concern because there's funding there, but this is an economic issue that creates health problems. (Applause.)

There are new causes to the violence that are on our streets, and we all know the statistics. Everybody in here can tell me a friend or a relative or a sister or a brother, a cousin or Joe from down the street who might have or could have been caught in the violence, because there's some 55 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 serious root causes. Number one is a gap in the generation via the drugs that have infiltrated our communities. There's a lack of education of young people and others and adults. Again, him having to explain that his mom may not be educated, there should be no cause for that. Education should not stop at 12th grade or college. Education is a life-long process, and we need to have resources that can support life-long learning. There's a lack of structured alternatives. Again, one of the challenges that we're faced as a community-based organization is that our funding, although we stretch it to fit as much as we can, I'm finding for kids who are between the ages of 6 and 13 -- because at some point in somebody else's blueprint they said that that was the group that we wanted to serve. Well, a lot of the 13-year-olds that we serve, we could not continue with them because that program wasn't funded, so now they're out 56 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 on the streets. They're the guy in that poster who at got pregnant or got 4 shot. 5 So we need to make sure that 6 when we talk about funding from a 7 State-wide level, from a federal level 8 and from a City perspective, that we are 9 looking at it as a continuum of care from 10 the time the child is born to the time 11 that they die. 12 (Applause.) 13

Another suggestion 14 is, again, you've heard it also spoken in 15 your party here from one of the speakers of how the media reacts to violence and utilizes it to boost ratings of their own promotion. Well, we need to have our own ability to promote programs like ASPIRA, like Futures, like the Academies, like all the things that we do in our neighborhoods on a daily basis that won't make 3, 6, 10 and Fox. We need to have the opportunity for organizations like Comcast who have a media monopoly on the 57 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 City of Philadelphia that allows the community residents to speak and have a voice on there so we can have an open channel which is not open now. So as I talk about what changes the neighborhoods that we're in, what I want to ask is that this panel, when they talk about funding and making strategic approaches, there are vehicles in place right now. There are intermediaries in place right now that are reaching kids like Jose, reaching kids like the ladies who we talked about, and they need to be supported. We can't just come in and talk about ending violence by creating some new strategic approach. It does a disservice to all the people who are working every single day to think that we got to figure out some new way to solve the violence problem. No. What we need to do is -- we know what doesn't work. Our communities know what does work. We need to figure out how that funding can support the work that is going on right 58 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 now. We need to allow community organizations to have the support financially and otherwise to build their capacity, to hire people like Jose who -- (Applause.)

(Unintelligible) and work and in schools that we can bring them inside our organizations and help them become a community leader. I grew up on 8th and Lycoming. I was born at 25th and Hollywood. I don't even remember that. I was two years old when I moved into Hunting Park. I was 38 when I moved out of Hunting Park, and I still work in the community that I lived in. What I want to share with everyone and all the folks who are here, we have an opportunity right now through the Blueprint, through Safe and Sound and other initiatives working with children -- again, lip service is fine, but we need new money. (Applause.) 59 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155

And so, again, I want to ask folks again, as I wrap up, we're all here right now showing you our support. Some of these people probably just heard about this meeting today and they're here to show their support. Our kids, they had ten other things they could be doing right now, homework and other things, because I know it's not done. But, ladies and gentlemen, as I end on our conversation -- and I hope that you hear the passion that's in my voice -- where there is a concentrated will to solve and end the violence in our community, the community can find a way. If you believe in the community, the community can find a way. Thank you. (Applause.)

You couldn't have asked me to explain what I do after all the young people. My name is Elisha Morris, and I 60 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 want to thank Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller, State Representative Evans, Councilman Rizzo, State Representative Youngblood, Councilman Ramos and Councilman Nutter and my good friend Alicia. I work for Philadelphia Anti-Drug/Anti-Violence Network, and a number of us are here, including my Supervisor, Rudy Johnson. Would all the PAAN folks stand up? (Applause.)

It was through PAAN that I was invited by a co-worker, Danny Ramos, to the stakeholders meeting and talk to them about what took place at the first two hearings that you held, and they immediately said, Well, we need to bring our kids to have them say something so that they can be heard. So I thank the stakeholders group for coming. Why don't all of you guys stand up who marched over here so the state 61 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 reps can see who you are? (Applause.)

I am the Supervisor of a program called PIRIS, Pennsylvania Injury Reporting and Intervention System, P-I-R-I-S, and essentially it's a part of the Blueprint for a Safer Philadelphia. And it's a great program, but it's a program that kind of sends you home every night just a little bit more weary sometimes than you ought to be, and the reason for that is, we deal with young people between the ages of 15 and 24 for who are gunshot victims. And they come to us from right now three hospitals, HUP, the University of Pennsylvania, Temple and Einstein. Yesterday we had ten, and I've only been on the job, yesterday made 30 days. This morning Rudy came in and said, We have two more. And ladies and gentlemen, these are only 12 young people whose family members have agreed to be a part of the program. This doesn't begin 62 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 to cover the number of gunshot victims in the last 30 days or 31 days now who have gone to those three hospitals and have not chosen to be a part of this program. And what the program does in conjunction with Philadelphia Health Management Corporation is, we act as their local arms. PHMC does the case management work, and what PAAN does and the PIRIS program, we link these people who have been gunshot victims, as well as their families if they request it, to services in the community. Last night Chiana Bing and I hosted a meeting in South Philadelphia where there were close to 100 people from all walks of life, all faiths, who came together, and we brought them together for one purpose and one purpose only. That was to show one another that there's a lot of help in this community for young people, there are a lot of organizations for young people, so that they don't get into the same predicament they got into 63 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 that caused them to receive a gunshot. We're hoping that we can put ourselves out of a job, essentially. It would be nice if Rudy came to me and said, Nobody is getting shot in the last two years and we can't keep you guys, we got to either find another place for you or let you go. Now, I want to keep my job, but it would be nice not to have to do it for that reason, that our young people have turned a corner. I just want to thank State Representative Dwight Evans, because this is a part of a plan that you all put together, the Blueprint for a Safer Philadelphia. And PIRIS is out there every day, along with the other PAAN workers, trying to reach our young people. We have many, many services. We have flyers I think that we passed out. But just to really put a face on a part of the Blueprint. We deal with young people between the ages of 15 and 24 who have been shot, and most of them were 64 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 innocent bystanders, in the wrong place at the wrong time, and what we're hearing from parents last night, because they have no place else to be, they're on the streets. Thank you. (Applause.)

We have a couple more panel members that we'll call on in a few minutes. We have Archye Leacock from Don't Fall Down in the Hood, but prior to Mr. Leacock, we're going to have just a couple -- well, actually, all three of our elected officials here just want to say a few words. Councilman Nutter.

Thank you, Councilwoman Miller. I appreciate the opportunity to be here and recognize the importance of this work of the Blueprint for a Safer Philadelphia, the work of the City Council and our fellow elected officials from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. 65 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 But I really just want to recognize all of you for being out. We know you care. It's helpful to know in a community that people do care and want to get involved. So I commend you for your participation. Thank you. (Applause.)

Councilman Juan Ramos.

Good evening, everyone. Buenos Noches. This is a very important meeting, because we have a problem in this City. As you can tell, we have people here from all different parts of the City coming together, caring so much to be a part of this solution. It's affecting everyone. The other day a few weekends ago, as part of a neighborhood clean-up, I knocked on this door, see if people would go out and -- there's always people in neighborhoods that knock on the door and tell them to come on out and clean 66 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 up. The person came out. When she came out, she says to me, I'm coming out, but I want to thank you because you showed up at a hospital the night that my son was shot, and he's doing better now. And then there was a vigil and you were there. It's all over town. I didn't expect that. I was just knocking on that lady's door, and it's in a neighborhood that's making a comeback, not an affluent neighborhood. It's really not far away from where I live at. So this is an issue that's affecting everyone in this City, some areas more so than others, but the group of problems are all there and we all have to come together and fight it in whatever way we can do so, through our churches, the way we're doing here tonight. So I'm very proud to be counted among you as someone that cares just like you do. Thank you. (Applause.) 67 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155

State Representative Youngblood. REPRESENTATIVE YOUNGBLOOD: Good evening, everyone. I'm glad to see that we have a lot of parents in the house tonight as well as children. This is an issue that I think has been ongoing for some time, and I'm glad that the Pennsylvania General Assembly, as well as City Council, that we're working together to send and end the flow of violence. When we say children are our future, we all have to work together to show folks that it is important that we prepare our children, not for the grade but for a productive future as a productive adult, as a father, as a mother or an aunt or a nephew or even a cousin, giving back to the community. Because when I grew up -- and I still believe it is important that we all work together and do our best to help our children, because they are our future, 68 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 and end this rave of violence in the City of Philadelphia. (Applause.)

Our next panel is Archye Leacock, Don't Fall Down in the Hood; Bill Johnson. And is Robert Nix here yet from Police Advisory? (No response.)

Bill 11 Johnson I know was here earlier. You will go after Mr. Leacock. And Officer Brown, you'll go after Mr. Johnson. Mr. Leacock.

Thanks for having me talk to the group again. Sorry that I was late. Today was quite a busy day for us. I had a 5 o'clock event, a 6 o'clock event. Then we were speeding to get here for a 7 o'clock event. As all of you probably noticed when I came in, I'm blind, but I think I'm ready to apply for a driver's license, because I just take SEPTA, and the Yellow Cab is a bit too slow for the 69 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 kind of work we must do to turn this issue around. I, like John Thomas, whom I've known for many, many years do really believe this problem is just not a matter of health but it's a matter of economic, and I want to really honestly thank all of our elected officials, spearheaded by Dwight Evans, for tackling this problem. It's a major one, but it is one that we can solve. Make no mistake about that, folks in the audience. We can solve this problem. It is in the neighborhood. We have bright people, people with ideas, people who know how to do this. We have to be able to listen to each other. Last night I was listening to the program on Channel 10, Murder in Philadelphia, and I heard the Mayor burning up gas going to Baltimore and New York City looking for ideas. And my idea is, what is he doing up there? I haven't spoken to the Mayor. I can't even talk 70 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 to the Mayor. I call up his office to schedule an appointment. I'm still waiting for an appointment. We have ideas, but yet he's going up I-95 or the New Jersey Expressway in order to find someone to tell him what to do. We know what the problems are in Philadelphia. We know how to solve it. And I have been going around talking to elected officials and talking to them about this situation. (Applause.)

The problem is, it's not up north. The problem is not down south. The problem is in all neighborhoods, in our homes and in our terrible schools. We know what we need to do. (Applause.)

If we really want to talk about a safer Philadelphia and we really want to put folks together to evaluate those programs, like 71 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 Private/Public Venture, which I'm still waiting to talk to and I've come to all these meetings and I still can't talk to them yet about what they're evaluating, I have to truly tell you, if we really want to talk about this kind of stuff, you come talk to us. As John Thomas was saying and other folks were saying, we know where this is. As I just came from a meeting, we're talking about 212,000 Philadelphia public school kids and only opportunities for 30 percent of them. Those who are doing your math class, if you can tell me what 30 percent of 200,000, let me tell you, it is a very few young people who are going to be in summer programs. (Applause.)

Where are the rest of us? Where are the rest of our young people? Watching Jerry Springer or on the Internet doing inappropriate things? We really need to get our young people to work, get opportunities to 72 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 work. There are 25,000 young people can work. We need to make that 50,000 young people who are going to be working, because if we have young people learning, working and earning, those young people are not going to be in the way for this new hundred police officers who are ready to arrest us. (Applause.)

We need to remove the barriers, people, the barriers that make our young people unable to grow up to years old, to years old and as 15 old as I am, well close to 100. 16 I'm truly telling you, our 17 young people can do this. I work with 18 young people all the time. We work with 19 a program, the only kind in the State of 20 Pennsylvania, where they're arrested for 21 gun violence. We know 80 percent of 22 those young people on the TV. We know 23 them in one way, shape or another. 24 Either they're coming to us, they were 25 with us or we read about them and we saw 73 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 the indicators before. And the program over ten years has demonstrated that while in the program, only of them 5 have committed a new crime. And when 6 they have left the program, only 58 of 7 them have committed crime. Now I'm 8 learning from a new piece that just came 9 out that half of that, those charges have 10 been dropped. 11 Who is talking to us to 12 replicate this program all over the State of Pennsylvania or all over the City of Philadelphia? We talk about this murder or homicide. We're not serious about this. We're not serious about the suicides going on in our neighborhoods. We're not serious about our public schools not producing what it needs to produce. We should be talking about persistently excellent schools and not persistently dangerous schools. No one should be afraid to go to school. Your schools shouldn't be places that you're afraid to go to. You should be happy to 74 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 go to these schools. There are solutions to these problems, and instead of us all sitting at these meetings, I want to encourage you like PAAN did tonight, as PAAN did tonight, that short walk, I want to extend that walk every night to however many of you people walked here tonight, to walk and add another and the next 11 night another 20. We need to get back on 12 the street like we were doing in the '50s 13 and '60s to demonstrate that this problem 14 can be solved. 15 (Applause.) 16

America has a 17 promise for young people, and we need to 18 make sure as elected officials, as 19 leaders of our community and educated 20 ones that we make sure all young people can indeed fulfill the dream of that promise. And we are sadly not helping them achieve them. I am truly telling you, I'm appreciative of what our public officials 75 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 are doing, but we need much more. And the only way I know public officials are aware, because let me tell you, I know, is by all of us calling their offices, walking up and down the street and getting these mothers, these mothers who know the pain and suffering and the disappointments of their dreams when they made those babies in our hospitals, when those mothers and all of us demonstrate. Folks, we need to get on the road and get out of this school. Let's begin tonight. Thank you. (Applause.)

Is Bill 17 Johnson here? And also I forgot to call Mee Lin York. Is Mee Lin here? Mee Lin, you go after Police Officer Brown.

Let me start by saying good evening to everyone here, members of Council, elected officials and distinguished guests. I am William Johnson. I'm the Executive Director of the Police Advisory Commission, and what 76 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 I want to talk to you about tonight is a little bit about the Commission, the background of the Commission, but I also want to talk about some of the programs that the Commission has instituted that assists in this Blueprint for a Safer Philadelphia. Finally, I want to talk about the responsibility that each of one you have in making a Blueprint for a Safer Philadelphia a successful program. But begin with, let me tell you that the Police Advisory Commission is the official oversight agency for the City of Philadelphia's Police Department. You may be interested to know that civilian oversight has existed here in Philadelphia since 1957. The current legislation which gave rise to our Commission was enacted back in 1994 by then Mayor Ed Rendell. And we actually function as a branch of the Managing Director's office. But as I mentioned, the 77 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 Commission contributes significantly to this Blueprint for a Safer Philadelphia in several aspects. First, through its various educational programs, the Commission is helping to educate the community about policing and how to effectively partner with police in order to create safer communities. Through a series of community meetings, scheduled throughout the various areas of the City, the Commission is joining with the local communities and encouraging participation in your local PDACs, which are your Police District Advisory Councils. Also by volunteering for your Operation Town Watch Integrated Services. By doing so, you will empower your community to fight local crime by reporting collectively and working collectively with the Police Department. The Commission is also committed to assisting in this effort. We are offering space on our website for local announcements about community 78 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 meetings, about local PDAC meetings, but along with this, we are also going to support these efforts by working closely with the Police Department in making sure that these groups have the most current crime data that is available to these communities. Additionally, in our support of these efforts, this will allow each of these communities to understand where the hot spots are, where they can concentrate their efforts along with the Police Department in fighting crime. This will better facilitate a system in police districts in their efforts to fight crime in your local communities. Another concern that our community is faced with, and we talked about it this evening, is the ongoing violence that you see in our communities. Well, through a series of youth educational programs, the Commission is educating the young people in our community by means of workshops and we're 79 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 going out to schools and recreation centers to tell young people about how they should conduct themselves during police encounters, what are the right ways to conduct themselves in those activities, what are the wrong things to do when you're engaged with a Philadelphia police officer. These workshops are presented actually to the community by a series of skits which present real-life police stops to the young people. After the skits, the youth are encouraged to analyze each of the situations and they are taught what the appropriate conduct should be during a police encounter. We also teach them about their rights and their responsibilities when stopped by police officers. So through these methods, we are endeavoring to make a change to help the communities to understand more about policing and how they can assist in fighting crime in their communities. 80 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES.

051155 Finally, I want to talk a little bit about the creation of distribution of our citizens informational bulletins, and these are plain language bulletins which are designed to inform community members about the Police Department. It talks to them about what police procedures are, what type of conduct they might expect from a police officer when they meet one. So these are just some of the ways in which the Police Advisory Commission works along with the Police Department and the community to improve that relationship between the two. Concerning the work of the Department, the Commission has assisted in helping to produce a new language access directory, which is helping people who are limited-English proficient to get the proper services they need. Along with that we're also working with the Department to develop a crisis intervention team that deals directly 81 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 with people with mental illnesses. So in these ways, the Commission has these programs enacted to assist in making the streets of Philadelphia a safer place. In closing, I'd like to add that we need your continued support in this important work, and we encourage you to participate in these various groups to empower your communities to fight against crime and to help our young people to continue to grow. Thank you. ) UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Can we get a phone number and a website?

Sure. Absolutely. The number for the Commission is 215-686-3991. That's 215-686-3991. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Thank you. OFFICER BROWN: Councilperson Miller and distinguished colleagues, Representative Evans, distinguished 82 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 guests, friends, parents, students, good evening. ) OFFICER BROWN: I am Officer VanBuren Brown and I'm a Community Relations Officer. I'm an officer who has taken the path less traveled. I heard the young man says that his neighborhood is so violent that they wanted extra police officers on the street. I also heard Mr. Leacock say that if there is more officers on the street, there are going to be more arrests, and he's correct. That's going to boost the arrest totals. But I haven't heard anybody say they need more proactive officers. That's what I do. I teach two proactive programs. One is called DARE, Drug Abuse Resistance Education. I go into the elementary, the middle and high schools. The other program is called GREAT, Gang Resistance Education and Training, and I give that to the middle schools. 83 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 I'd like to do a little survey. Angelique, Sandra and Michael, did any of you have the DARE program? ) OFFICER BROWN: Who had the DARE program? ) OFFICER BROWN: That's what we do. These distinguished students are part of a community, a DARE community, where an officer has gone in for 10, 13 weeks and given them a program on how to stay away from drugs, violence, how to solve conflicts. There are not enough officers to do that. We don't get the medals. You don't see us on Cops. We're behind the scenes. My reward is when I see students like those tonight stand before you and give a testimony of what they're going to do in their future and how they used that 84 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 education as a springboard to become a professional in our society. That's my reward. ) OFFICER BROWN: So if you will, look at also putting more DARE officers in the school. Police work, for the most part, have been reactive. Somebody commits a crime, you go in and we react to it. I heard the gentleman from PAAN says he works with kids who are shot. Isn't that after the fact? Oftentimes I ask the kids, If we took all the guns off the street, would there be crime? They say yes. So it's not the guns. Understand that. It's the people with the guns. ) OFFICER BROWN: -- violence is going to happen. I often get tired of hearing, 85 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 Get the guns off the street, get the drugs off the street, there is so much violence. But nobody is saying, Let's work with them ahead of time. Let's get them in pre-K, kindergarten. Start working with the kids, teaching them non-violent skills, how to resolve conflicts. ) OFFICER BROWN: So that when they get to their teenage years, they're not picking up a gun or a knife or a rock or whatever to hurt someone, and that's what we need to look at. So as a DARE officer, as a GREAT officer, the officers that come out of the Community Relations Unit who go into the schools every day, for 17 years I have been doing this job. For 17 years I've been saving some lives. For 17 years, I've gone into schools and I have met some of my students who are now teachers. I met some of my students who are now doctors. I've met some of my 86 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 students who are now police officers. And they say, Because of you, Officer, by me listening to you in class, I learned to do the right things. We have to learn to be proactive. We're on the reactive end too much. Therefore, we need programs that will help, as the gentleman was stating. We need to finance programs that want to do something with the kids ahead of time so we don't look at the death totals, but we're looking at the charts in terms of success rates. One of my colleagues, Darlene Chapman Cummings, if she was here tonight, she will tell you on her own. She is the Fencil Award winner. Thank you, Mr.

Johnson, for recognizing her. But she has a program called People Achieving Positive Attitudes. And what she wanted to do, she wanted to provide transportation free for kids to move about the City. As was stated, the 87 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 kid said, I got shot because I was on the street because I had nothing to do. Well, there's a program across town they can't get to. As Mr. Leacock said, catching SEPTA, it's a problem in itself. So what Officer Cummings wanted to do is provide transportation to get kids from A to Z to those locations where programs are. She wanted to create a kid bus. So when she comes for funding, please look at it, because I think it's a worthwhile venture to get kids mobile to get them to programs, PALs, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts. There are programs out there, but transportation is limited. So that's what she's looking at, and I'm sure she's going to approach somebody in Council to make sure if she can get funding for this program. So if I can put that plug in for her today, so be it. So when Darlene Chapman Cummings comes to you in need of money for this kids bus, please give her a ear, look at 88 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 it. So having said that, my whole thing -- you know, I was sitting here thinking about -- I'm dating myself. It was a song written by that dynamic duo back in the '70s. Come on, help me out. From Philadelphia, the Philadelphia sound. Gamble and Huff. Come on. Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes wrote a song sung by Teddy Pendergrass, one of my favorite songs. It was called Wake Up Everybody. And if you listen to that song today, it has meaning today. Wake up everybody, no more sleeping in bed, no 16 more backless thinking, time for thinking ahead. The world is changing very much from what it used to be. There's so much war. There is poverty. And it goes so far to say, Teachers, start to teach a new way. Maybe then they'll listen to what we have to say. Good evening. )

Good evening. I 89 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 just wanted to thank you for the opportunity of being able to speak. I am here on behalf of myself and also on behalf of a woman in my neighborhood named Angela Riley. I did not know Angela Riley before I actually met her. I met her through the spirit of her son. One summer night I was sitting out on a crisp summer night and the kids were playing. It was a crisp summer night, and I happened to -- I was eating ice cream and I was thinking how perfect the night was. And I went in the house and I heard my dog bark. I came back out, and next thing you know, I was standing over her son who was shot in the head, and he was laying there in a fetus position. My friend, who was from Vermont, who has never seen a dead body in her life, it was the first dead body she actually saw. And I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed and I was hurt for the young man. Because I didn't know the 90 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 young man, but his spirit spoke to me, and his spirit -- I didn't know his mother. I lived on the 2500 block of South Dewey Street. She lives on the 2600 block of South Dewey Street. And she wanted to come here tonight, but she couldn't make it, so I am here to speak for her and myself. I met her son. She's upset because the killer, the guy who killed her son, might get off of the case because they didn't find a gun, but he turned himself in. He turned himself in, and he's trying to claim it was an accident. But the neighbors heard three shots. There's no accident with three shots. So she's really upset, and I had to talk to her on the way here. I saw her go to the site, and what was so deep -- I'm a very spiritual person. There was a hurricane that came through my neighborhood and it knocked down a tree, and the tree roots were as 91 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 big as this table practically. And it was an omen, because in June, I wrote Senator Williams' office to tell him about the fact that we needed surveillance in our neighborhood. In August, her son was shot down in the very spot that the tree fell. And I believe that God uses situations to allow people's paths to cross. It's not by coincidence that we're here together, each and every one of us. We're here because we are from the same culture. We're looking for a resolution. We're looking for solutions. We care about the human family. That's why we're here. I am a spoken word artist. In my neighborhood, I come to these meetings and I'm going to talk heartfelt. I don't have any elaborate speech for you. I come to these meetings looking for a solution. And every time I come to these meetings, I get information. I get good information from the audience and I get 92 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 respectful information from the panel, but a lot of the information, like the young man said about the young kids, is going way over their head. We're not reaching them. We keep going here and they're here. We need to pull them up with our information. (Applause.)

And as a spoken word artist, as a community person, I'm not looking for money. I'm not looking to establish an organization. I'm doing what my spirit and what God has willed my spirit to do. (Applause.)

And the problem with these kids is that we have allowed them to be cut off from the root. We have allowed them to be cut off from the root so they don't -- they're not connected to us. They see us as enemies. They see us as a culture of adults who they cannot trust. They have their groups where they have a code of silence, and that code of 93 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 silence starts young. I had a young person tell me in the community, Older people cuss at us, but they don't want us to cuss back at them. I had a young kid tell me -- I says, Listen, we're going to have an anti-violence rally on the block on June 2nd and I hope that you guys can come out and show your faces to give the woman support. And I said, Can you write a poem about violence? He says, I'll write it, but I ain't going to read it out loud. And I said, Why? He says, Because if I read it out loud, I'm going to lose my status in the hood. Because being vulnerable -- we have taught these kids to be so muted that being vulnerable is looked at as being wimpy. You're looked at as being a sissy, looked at as -- and we have to teach them to see their voices. So as a community person, I saw 94 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 some kids in my neighborhood who were breaking windows. I walked up to the oldest kid, because you always walk -- when you're in a fight, you always go to the baddest one and you arrest him. You grip him up and you talk to him. And I went to the biggest kid in the neighborhood and I said, Listen, you can't be breaking these windows. You can't be throwing -- and I used love, and I talked to him with respect and I told him, I said, I can't stop you from doing this, but I want to just talk to you about not doing it. Turn around and look at that woman's window. What if that was -- I put him in that seat. I said, What if that was your mother and you were sitting on the couch and a rock came through your house? How would you feel? So he understood. So then the other kids came up and they wanted to know what I was talking to him about. So then I started talking to them. And I didn't know any of those names, and by 95 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 the end of the conversation -- and the neighbors was watching, because the neighbors are watching when adults talk to children, because in this day, there are so many predators that kids don't feel safe and you don't feel safe talking to them. So the neighbors was watching and the neighbors saw me reach to each one of them kids and say, What's your name? I don't know you. My name is Mee Lin. What's your name? They gave me their names. And I said to them in that crowd, I says, Think of the best thing you ever did in your little life. One kid came off and said, I helped my aunt when my mom wasn't there, because she was having a baby. Another kid said, Well, I helped my grandmom when she was -- I says, Now take that, all the good stuff that they told me, I said, Now take that and carry it for the rest of your life. (Applause.) 96 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155

We have to teach these kids to use their voices. We have to teach them and show them the morality in themselves. Not our morality, but the morality in themselves. We can't give them nothing. We can only show them what's in there, what's in their reservoir. So what I did was, I said, Listen, can you stop breaking the windows? I said, I'm going to try to figure out something. Because you can't take something from someone and not give them something. And I said to them, I said, Listen, I'm going to find out if I can find a way to do something for you this summer. So I got together with a friend of mine, who is an artist. I'm a spoken word artist. She's a photographer. We went to the thrift shops and we solicited the thrift shops to give us cameras. We got all these used cameras, and at times when I reached in my pocket and said, 97 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 Miss, can you just give me this camera for $2? It's a community cause. And I got people to donate cameras. So we took these cameras and we gave them their cameras and we let them go throughout the neighborhood and take pictures of anything they wanted to see, because it's their voice. Anything they wanted to take, we gave them that. I had little black books that a friend of mine happened to give me. I gave them those books and I gave them a pen, and I said, Write about anything you want to write about, but I want it by Wednesday. Take a picture of anything you want to take a picture of. I want it by Wednesday. By the end of the program, these kids -- I wish I could have took a picture of that particular thing. They were dropping -- I said, When you're done with this camera -- and I gave them the responsibility. I said, When you're done with this camera, I want you to put it in my mailbox. Well, when I came to my home 98 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 every day, there were cameras lined up in my doorway. When they came back to me, they brought their poetry back to me, and I said, Okay, this is what we're going to do. You give me pictures and poetry; I'll give you activity. So what I did was, last summer I took them to see the March of the Penguin, which teaches family values. I showed them how the father participates in their lives. (Applause.)

I reached in my pocket for the kids who didn't have enough money to do it. We took them to Wissahickon Creek in the dirty creek, and I swam with them in the dirty creek and then begged them to take a bath when they got home. I have friends. One of the friend's father is a doctor at the University of Penn. He was a rock climber. He had the rock climbing equipment. We took them to the 99 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 Wissahickon and we taught them how to climb a 35-foot cliff, and on the top of the cliff is a plaque. So I would be up at the top and the other people would repel him and they would be climbing. And the one kid did it with no problems, and he was about this small. And the other kid said, I want to do it the next time. And then when it was his turn to do it -- because some of these kids moved away because they didn't have water, they then had to move, they were evicted, right? And when he did it, he said, I want to do it. So we got him up there. I have to share you the stories. And when we got him up there, he was tired and we said, Okay, we're going to let you down. Please don't let me down. Don't let me down. I have to do this. And he never got to see his friend who did it before him, but guess what? He's going to hold that story until he becomes a man and runs into that guy, and he's 100 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 going to tell that guy, I did it. (Applause.)

And what I showed them was that they could do it. And when they did it, I was enthusiastic for them, because I couldn't do it. And I said, What was it like? I asked them. I want to hear their voices. I asked them, What was it like? He says, It was hard. I says, What did your mom say when she saw the pictures? She says, That's my baby. I says, What did it feel like when you went to sleep that night? He says, I dreamt about it. I started this program, this little project last summer, and I don't know if we're going to do it this summer because it's a day-to-day thing for me, and it's called Seeing Our Voices. And I reached in my pocket and I got a few T-shirts, and then when I couldn't afford it, I went to a church in my neighborhood 101 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 and asked them to donate some money so we can get more T-shirts. And on the back of it, it says "Team Work, Respect, Community and Unity." And this is what we have to teach these children. We have to respect these children. Okay? Angela Riley, her son spoke to me. And I've been walking her through this process. I am a victim of violence on both sides. My father had a Chinese restaurant in the '70s early on and he's been robbed, shot and stabbed. And my nephew was wrongly accused of the Lex Street massacre. He happened to get out of that situation and I fought for his life. And I just fight, because I grew up in a time when people fought. We have to teach these kids to fight for their rights. We have to teach these kids to fight to use their voices. (Applause.)

We got to stop telling these kids to shut up. We got to stop cussing at these kids. 102 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 The kid that lives next door to me, every day I hear his mother calling him a P-U-S-S-Y or a this, a that, a this, a that. We got to stop cussing at these kids and start talking to them respectfully. Respect gets respect. (Applause.)

But I want to end this thing right here with a poem that I wrote while sitting here. It goes, A symbol of greatness starts with a child and ends in the wild streets. People ignore the fallen seed as it bleeds, blood running in streams that once ran through waters of the Euphrates. Weeping willows hides the faces of those once hung in history, once singing in hymns of well in infancy. The foot stomp of pterodactyls of open-air spirited dances, they rejoiced in life jubilation. Now raped by evilness, much like today by familiar faces possessed, like zombies, blank stares who lost their way, spiritless shells, diseased cells of 103 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 matter embodied in physical. A perception of who is and what is all gone in a flash from a gun. A mother, a sister, a father, a brother, a friend. Who wins living in a possessed body of hypocrites loving and saying nothing and living and doing nothing. (Applause.)

We have one more speaker. We are in a school. We can't be here much longer. Edward Philips, Block Captain. And while he's coming up, I just want to make some other announcements. We have some local committee people here tonight. Stand. We have Sam Fetterdon, Darryl Holland here, Sandra Parker, Joe Rockland. (Applause.)

And any other Block Captains, please stand, or members of community organizations, please stand. 104 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 (Applause.)

We have Reverend Williams from Nazarene Baptist Church. (Applause.)

We also have an announcement from PAAN, Philadelphia Anti-Drug/Anti-Violence Network. They're launching a "Love is Enough" campaign, calling all people concerned about children being shot, neighbors being robbed and crime in the community. You're invited to be a part of the meeting in an attempt to prevent and stop violence, and that meeting is next week, Tuesday, May 30th, and it's called "Let's Take Back Our Community," at Olney High School and that's at 100 West Duncannon Avenue. You can just call the PAAN number. Do they still have that easy number? Do you know, Elisha?

940-0550. That's easy. 105 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155

They have an easier number. I know you passed flyers around, so hopefully you did get one. We have two up here. Please take it if you want to. Again, we want to thank everybody for coming out. Okay.

My name is Edward Philips. I'm a Co-Block Captain of Sylvania Street, the 100 block. I have a short little story. I didn't plan any of this, but I need to tell how I feel about Philadelphia. I'm 52 years old. I was blessed to work at the Uptown with Mr. Fencil and the other guys that worked at the Uptown. The problems we have is, we need the men to step it up a little bit. The professional men in our neighborhoods are not coming back and helping these boys out. That is the problem. We can sit here after -- 106 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 (Applause.)

And it starts with your own family. You have a little cousin or something that's bad, get him on the weekend and have him cut your grass or something. We have to spend time with these boys and girls, too. I want to commend my neighbor, Jeff. He has like four sons and he's there with them working hard doing the best he can. This is my neighbor. (Applause.)

Thank you, Jeff. My story is, I'm a mentor. I have a friend named Ben Hassan. He got out of college, and I used to work in Delaware, so I said, Come on to Delaware and work with me and I'll give you half of my salary. He said, This is crazy. I said, No, it's not. One day it will work out. So we drove down. For ten years we used to make the bean pies. And 107 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 he didn't drive, so during that time, he went back to college. I said, You go to school, do what you have to do and one day it will all work out. Now he's Vice-President for Dell Computers. My 50th birthday he gave me a Lexus. (Applause.)

It goes to show that if you help a child when they're young, you never know what you're going to get. Just like with his sons, I have a junk metal -- I'm unemployed right now, so I am junking metal in the evening. When his sons are there, I'll get all the little guys in the neighborhood and give them $5, $10, $15 dollars to help me unload my truck. That's going to go a long way. So all these organizations, everybody clapping and trying to get grant money, it starts in our own community first. It starts in our community first. Another thing, if you wonder 108 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 why these children are so crazy, you got BET coming on at o'clock while you're 4 at work. By the time you get home at 6:00, the kids is crazy as hell. They got all these videos with Jay Z and all these guys. These guys don't really live like that. Their children go to nice schools. Our schools need to be upgraded with younger people in it. We have a problem with Philadelphia where when people retire, they get other jobs. They need to let some other people work and let the younger people get to schools and straighten the schools out. With these older guys -- I don't mean no harm. I don't mean no harm. I'm going to tell you the truth. The older guys that you have, they don't even know what's going on. Now, you got young boys out here, 10, 11 years old, on the corner selling drugs, making $500 a week, how are you going to tell them to get a job 109 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 at McDonald's? Come on, talk to me. You can't. (Applause.)

That's the problem. Gangs. Why are gangs so popular? They're popular because the gang brings the family image in. The time that you don't spend with your child, the gang do. I worked in Jersey. We had a problem with the Crips and the Bloods. It's all about family. If you don't provide family love, somebody else will. So we need to hire younger people to work in the schools and help out. These old guys, let them retire and let them come back and do some volunteer work. Younger people need jobs. That's all I got to say. (Applause.)

Is there anybody else that wants to make any comments? This is the official public 110 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 hearing of City Council. You have a stenographer here who is recording this testimony.

My name is Elizabeth Wiesable and I'm here tonight because I heard about this from my boss and she gave me the flyer and I was working and I came in later, but I had to make it. Last Monday, my nephew was sitting on the porch and three young men came up to him about his age, tried to play with him, and he didn't want to play. And he ended up losing two of his teeth because he asked them to stop. He's 13. I ended up being in the hospital with him, like I get off in the evening Monday. I was at the ER all night and I had to be at the hospital the next day. And he is very, very hurt. Now, I told him, Don't hurt people, don't fight, don't go and find trouble, and in the end, he lost two of his teeth. 111 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 There are a lot of schools around my neighborhood that I just moved into that have a lot of fighting, a lot of fighting after school. I know a few schools around pick at this one. I know a few schools around there that kids 8 can come and jump one guy. And I think 9 what the man in the orange said about the 10 male role models is very important, 11 because without a man teaching a boy how 12 to deal with fighting -- boys must fight, 13 I learned that. I learned that in a 14 short while this last week. Boys must 15 fight, they told me, but they cannot kill 16 each other. And without a male role 17 model and people going into the schools 18 to talk about jumping, snitching, all 19 these words that I hear coming to me 20 whenever I'm talking to the child directly and all the children, I'm hearing snitching, jumping, I'm no punk and all sorts of things, a whole slew of words and what kind of retaliation the person is going to give back and how 112 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 angry are they at the end of the day. This is probably the build-up of retaliation, anger build-up, no daddy in the house or moms. Moms can do some work to a certain point. Then they stop doing any work, because the boys have to grow up in the society. I'm planning to see if I can get my nephew out of this country, really. That's where I'm going. I'm not interested in him dying before the age that he's supposed to be working like everybody else where he can defend himself. But I'm interested in having him live as the next generation for my father's sake. I cannot have him grow up in a violent environment. We have a very, very violent environment. Today I heard one of his friends got jumped and because he was being told don't jump back, go to the police about it or go to the school about it, he was upset with that and he fought with some people because of that. He got 113 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 jumped today. Now, all this jumping and all this fighting ends up with the gun thing. Because at this age, 13, they're jumping, they're fighting, they have knives, they have different things, but sooner or later, then the guns come in. So now it might be hitting be someone in the mouth, breaking their teeth. The next time it might be stabbing someone. And then the retaliation they're talking about, very angry young boys who want to get back because nobody seems to be on their side. That's what they're feeling. So they take on themselves retaliation. And though sometimes people don't like to hear cops, the other day when he got hit, I was coming from work, I called the cops. The ambulance was there. They took him to the hospital and they helped me. They supported me. That was my first support. My first line of support was the police 9-1-1 and the ambulance. So I think it's not clear cut, but I'm getting -- there's so many 114 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 messages. I will say if the schools can be monitored maybe directly each school that has this jumping thing where the kids go out and jump each other after school, I don't know how they can be monitored. I don't know what -- after they leave the schools, they walk down certain roads and the weak ones get hit. The strong ones have gangs.

And it's just we have 13-year-olds dying on our streets and 14-year-olds dying now. That's the major age group that we have today that's dying. So I just wanted to mention that it is real. I just learned it's very real. And I would like you to put some -- there's got to be a solution in the schools themselves. There's got to be a solution. I know we have some weapon machines that you can check the weapons as they come into school, but there's got to be some other solutions. I like the solutions that the male role models talked about here, because the man 115 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 in the orange and a few other male role models spoke about certain programs and how he himself took some people. I like the solution the lady talked about, taking a group of boys and girls out to places where they can focus on something else. So I'm just saying, please, there's much more we can do. And I work with drugs and alcohol, so I know when they come to me, they're older and I hear other stories that they went through. So I'm here to help. If I can, I'm going to join an organization. I'm going to find ways, but we definitely need to target the schools. We definitely need to target our schools and our neighborhoods, the environment. Queen Lane Apartments is near my house. I heard that there are about 500 children there who have no -- they're in that one building, about 500. I didn't know that until last week. So that's my neighborhood. That's where I 116 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 have to live. And if they decide to come down and shoot and stab and bucks people, then the retaliation is going to come eventually when the kids get the gun. Thank you. )

Good evening. How is everyone? I want to thank the elected officials and concerned community members. My name is Jeffrey Perry. As my neighbor said, I live on the 100 block of Sylvania Street. Listening to everything said tonight, it makes me -- it feels good to hear all these things, but I think that we need to just start with practical applications of everything that's being said. I think that right now maybe with the help of some of the elected officials and other people who is fighting these types of initiatives, that they can partner up with the 100 block of Sylvania Street and maybe form some sort of a model that can go throughout the City. 117 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 We want to use the Play Street program to create safe streets. Like a lot of people said tonight, a lot of the young people, they don't have anything to do. There's a lot of programs out there. They don't know about it, can't get to it, but in the community is where the problem is at. Right on my block, in my neighborhood, and if we can just come out on our blocks, each member of the City or each block, come out, get organized where the crime begins, because it starts right in the street before the children can go up the street. Someone is dying on our block around the corner, and it really takes the children knowing that people care about them in the home, outside the home. I feel like there's a lot of programs and it's just like shuffling money, but there's not really the result of the money that's being shuffled. But if we can take that money -- (Applause.) 118 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155

-- and apply it right there to where the people live at, where they have to come outside and they have to live in these neighborhoods, I think we can really see a change. There's a lot of people, a lot of programs, but a lot of neighborhoods don't know about these programs. You understand? It's like money is just being thrown at the wall. Money is just -- I don't understand how there's so much money into the schools and into this and into that, but we have no real results. (Applause.)

These things are not really new. I'm a parent. I'm striving to be a successful parent, but it's hard when you're dealing with economical situations where you have to struggle to bring the money in to raise your family. That really breaks the family down right there, because you don't have the time to 119 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 spend with your family because you're trying to make a dollar so your family has a place to live, so you can pay your gas bill, you understand, which is outrageous, and your oil bill. So these are the things that you don't really address. Me myself, I like to consider myself an entrepreneur, but there's no 10 real funding for me to start my business. So when you're looking at things like that, it just makes the situation even worse. I'm willing to donate my time, because my children are the future. There's a lot of other children out there that they need a chance. These children don't really have a chance. They go to school. The schools are so outrageous and crazy, they're not really able to learn because most of the teachers are frustrated because you have a bunch of disruptive students. The school is overcrowded. So they take most of the time up in trying to calm the class down 120 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 than teach them. But what if we take these efforts right to our own neighborhoods, to our streets, educate the children on our block, give them the opportunity to be exposed to things that instead of the jail system and the bullets, other things, music, art? These are the type of things that I think if people really want to see change, that they would partner up to concerned neighbors, concerned blocks, such as like I'm saying 100 block of Sylvania Street, because I think that it could be a model to go throughout the City. A lot of the neighbors on my block just talking to them, some don't want to be involved. Some are just frustrated and aggravated. Some feel like, Well, these children should be locked up. But they're children. You see, they have problems themselves. A lot of them are from single homes. Nobody cares. So if you have a child coming from a home that don't care, 121 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 they're going to come out the street with that same attitude. But if you have a neighborhood that cares, that child can become something. And I really hope that -- like I met with State Representative Youngblood. I plan on meeting with Donna Reed Miller's office. I really hope that they would really participate in what we're trying to do and that we won't just have meetings and talk about things, but it be a solution, a result where they can say, This block has really made a difference and we can model this. So I'm hoping that we can get that started. (Applause.) UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Will you thank these young people right here for being patient and not being resistant to come out. Can we thank them. (Applause.)

We want to thank everyone for coming out. I do want to remind you if you didn't get a 122 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 card, this is the Blueprint Philadelphia card. It basically says the Blueprint means you, and it does. There's a phone number on the front. Does anyone not have this?

I think we gave them all out.

We gave them all out, but we can have -- somebody can have mine, actually. But the number is 1-888-570-BLUE, and I believe there may be some pamphlets around with that phone number on it. 1-888-570-BLUE, B-L-U-E. That's actually 2583. If we can stop the violence, take control, take a role. So, again, I want to thank everyone for coming out. Before we end this public hearing, Representative Evans will have a few comments. The next session of this public hearing will be Thursday, June 15, 2006 at Southern High School, and that's at 2101 South Broad Street and I think that's at Broad and 123 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 Snyder. Thank you all for coming. Representative Evans. REPRESENTATIVE EVANS: Yes. I'd like to first thank Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller and Councilwoman Marian Tasco, Councilman Frank Rizzo and State Representative Youngblood and Councilman Juan Ramos, as well as Councilman Michael Nutter. What I'm basically saying, from my perspective, is, I heard you. When we have a hearing, the purpose of the hearing is to listen, and we heard you. The question for us now is in the challenge of our ability to take what we have heard and begin to try to find a way to implement it. I heard what the police officer said, and what he said very clearly was something that I myself did not necessarily think of in terms of police officers being abused from a perspective as protracted, and I think that I heard 124 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 that. I heard what Ann Cohen said when she indicated about the apprenticeship program, and I do have tell you, Ann, the program you described, we did the same thing with the Tasty Bakery Company. We gave Tasty Baking Company 450,000 and we developed -- Tasty Bakery has these groups, and the first group was three young men and a young lady who have their groups, and now four more are going to be having their groups. Unfortunately, one young man you may have read about was shot out of at 61st and Pine. So if you can see the cross aspects of violence even though we did what you talked about, Ann, we did that. I share with you. I heard what the young ladies said about school being more attractive. There is no debate. We need to do more. We can't deny it. We need to do more. And we understand the frustration, the alienation and how you 125 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 are disturbed about why we haven't resolved this. We understand that. So in spite of what people may think, we collectively have to work in conjunction with you. In spite of what -- we are not talking down. We recognize by being here. We were at Olney. We were at Germantown. We'll be at South Philadelphia. We recognize it has to be, but we also recognize this: We're not going to solve this in an election cycle and we're not going to solve this today. This is deep-seeded. This is in what you call the DNA of people. So to address this is going to first take what we're doing today, trying to have some common ground, and then take the common ground and then begin to see how we can reverse the things that are deep-seeded. There is nobody up here telling you that they are going to solve this by passing a bill in Harrisburg, in Washington or City Hall. This is not 126 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 going to be solved by passing a bill. This is going to be solved about rebuilding families, changing the environment and changing the behavior. And also must change among us is elected officials, because we also must be more civil towards each other. We must communicate to each other in a way that we can have debates and we can disagree, but we also know we got to work on that mission. And we all got to be civil towards each other. Even if you disagree with us, even if you disagree with us, how we conduct ourselves, how we talk to each other will send a message to young people that are watching our behavior. So I just want you to be clear, it's not a simple answer.

I feel pain when I hear that young lady who was talking about seeking our voices describe what she said. I feel pain when the woman just was talking about her nephew that she's going to send her nephew out of this country. I feel that pain. I 127 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 don't have an instant answer. None of us have an instant answer, but we are going to do our best to do everything that is humanly possible to make this a safer city, but it only happens unless we collectively -- don't put any of us as elected officials on pedestals. We're human like you. We live in these neighborhoods. We represent these neighborhoods. We understand the same things you understand. There's no 13 bullet-proof vest on any of us. We walk these streets. We go in these stores. We can have these same incidents happen to us. So we don't want you to think that we're exempt from this. So the purpose of this tonight was to say this is a beginning. Are we prepared collectively to be in this for the long haul? That's what it's going to take. It's not a job. This is a mission. Make that distinction. This ain't no job. What we're doing here tonight, we're trying to figure out a way 128 5/25/06 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 051155 to do something that nobody has figured out in America. If somebody had figured it out in America, we wouldn't be here. I close with one Elisha Morris said. He's correct. We need to put all ourselves out of a job in doing this, but it's going to take a struggle. Thank you very much. )

This hearing is recessed until Thursday, June 15th at 7:00 at Southern High School. Thank you. (Joint Committees on Public Safety and Public Health and Human Services adjourned at 9:20 p.m.) - - - 129 CERTIFICATE I HEREBY CERTIFY that the proceedings, evidence and objections are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me upon the foregoing matter on May 25, 2006, and that this is a true and correct transcript of same. ______________________________ MICHELE L. MURPHY RPR-Notary Public (The foregoing certification of this transcript does not apply to any reproduction of the same by any means, unless under the direct control and/or supervision of the certifying reporter.)