As Birmingham grapples with teen violence, Council and Mayor discuss solutions

Walter Umrani with Peace Makers talking about initiatives his organization has in place to help facilitate conflict resolution with Birmingham’s youth

Over the Labor Day weekend, eight teenagers were shot in Birmingham, one fatally while he was inside his home in East Lake. The other incident involved seven people who were shot outside of WorkPlay Theatre on Sunday evening following a dispute that began inside the venue.

The culture of violence among Birmingham’s youth is a multi-headed beast, according to Councilor Steven Hoyt, one of several Councilors who addressed the need to “wrap our arms around” the city’s youth to help curb the senseless violence that has taken too many lives recently.

“I’d agree that the issue of crime is multifaceted,” Hoyt said. “There is no one single answer to solving what we’ve been experiencing. We won’t ever get there without a collective effort but right now we’re moving in silos. There’s been no conversation about fighting crime between the Council and the Mayor collectively. We have our own iterations of crime in our district but we could at least come up with a plan of action. The council gets a lot of calls about crime. I think we need to have a meaningful conversation about crime. Conflict resolution may not be the only solution, but it’s part of it.”

Hoyt continued by saying he shouldn’t have to tell his 23-year-old daughter certain areas in the city that she should avoid.

Mayor Woodfin told the Council on Tuesday that he recently visited a youth detention center and spoke one-on-one with youth being held there (with an adult accompanying them as well) about what circumstances had led them to commit crimes.

“What I realize with our young people, regardless of what’s happening at home, there are not enough adults engaging with them,” Woodfin said. “We get caught up in wanting to place blame. But when you consider the young man who was killed this weekend, William Edwards, and you think about the things that took place, this young man was in his home at 12:30, abiding by his curfew, the person we should be blaming is the one who took his life.”

Mayor Woodfin listening to comments from Councilors regarding youth violence

Beyond adding more police, Woodfin and many of the Councilors agreed that curbing youth crime needs to start at home.

“We as a community cannot allow ourselves to be desensitized to what happened this weekend,” Woodfin continued. “It’s not just conflict resolution. It’s building a relationship with them. Are we checking in on them. Are we checking their cars. I talked to some of the parents Sunday night and when they dropped their child off they had no idea what was going to happen. It doesn’t have to be that way. As a community, we need to stop looking for other people to blame, but ask ourselves individually what we can do to help change these lives of the young people. As adults, we need to ask ourselves if we can be more involved with their lives.”

“I know currently we have career academies in the city schools,” Councilor Hunter Williams said. “I don’t know what metrics are being used to determine their effectiveness, but we do have an at-risk population that are in family court because of the decisions they’ve made. Offering some kind of service beyond classes, but an actual path to a career to try and pull them away from what they’re involved in would be worthwhile. The more opportunity we give our youth, the more I think our youth crime will decrease.”

Councilor Williams addressing Mayor Woodfin regarding the recent shooting incidents involving minors

Williams added that he’d like to see a partnership with the Birmingham City School system to offer more career opportunity training for at-risk youth.

Brother Walker, who leads the nonprofit organization Peace Makers, believes change starts with individual hearts.

“Considering the recent gun violence and loss of life over the weekend, we must realize that we need a unified effort, we have to offer a process that they feel comfortable with…In spite of the efforts of the police chief to bridge the gap between law enforcement and those in the community, unless they can break the street code that says the only way to resolve issues is with violence, nothing will be done. The police cannot do it alone. Our group has been trying to implement a student-lead conflict resolution team to help them resolve their differences.”

While no decisions were made on Tuesday, the message was clear: the Council and the Mayor’s office will be working together to come up with a comprehensive plan to address youth violence through mentorship programs and workforce development opportunities.

Birmingham City Council

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Tweets from The Birmingham City Council in Birmingham, Alabama

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