Y'town residents voice views on reducing violence

By WILLIAM K. ALCORN

alcorn@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

A community meeting billed “Youngstown United” gave people a chance to voice their views on how to reduce violence in the city.

A recent spate of murders, capped with a triple murder Nov. 7 in which a young woman and her baby were killed in a hail of bullets from an assault weapon and a handgun, seemed to focus the group of about 45 gathered Thursday evening at St. Dominic Church.

A relative of the mother and baby who were murdered thanked the community for its support.

“This family needs our support,” said Guy Burney, who led the meeting and is head of the Community Initiative to Reduce Violence, a group that works with Youngstown Police Department to reduce gang activities and violence in the city.

“We have to stand together and properly fight crime and violence. We can’t become callous to murder and violence,” Burney said.

CIRV’s three main thrusts are prevention, intervention and intensive intervention, when “we activate law enforcement and deal with things legally,” he said.

CIRV tries to keep young people from getting into the lifestyle that puts them in harm’s way, and helps the ones who make bad decisions.

“We can’t give up on them,” Burney said.

As a group, he said, CIRV immediately contacts victims of crime to comfort them and ask them to let law enforcement do its job.

“I don’t believe there is as much retaliation as there used to be,” he said.

Among community leaders at the meeting were Youngstown Mayor Jamael Tito Brown and police Chief Robin Lees.

Brown said he came to the meeting, not just as mayor, but to support those dealing with the death of a family member from violence.

“It should not happen. We’re going to care about them and love them and wrap our arms around them and make sure that as a community we get better,” the mayor said.

Lees asked for the community’s help in solving crimes.

Police have some leads and evidence that may help solve the triple murders, he noted.

“We are working diligently,” he said. But he asked community members to provide police with “any information that comes to your attention. We need the community to help us. We won’t solve this on our own. If you don’t tell us what’s happening, we don’t know about it. If we know, we can apply resources to it.”

“Violence the last few weeks has been particularly bad. We must jump in and help,” said Burney.

In an electronic survey of the audience, a majority of people said they felt safe in their communities, but nearly 90 percent said they have purchased a gun and have a dog to protect themselves.

Suggestions from the group on how to reduce crime included better street lighting, something for young people to do, jobs, and more parental involvement.

One person recommended changing the name of block watch organizations to neighborhood associations so people won’t feel they are “ratting” on their neighbors.