The recent killings of 4-year-old Samir Grubbs and 18-year-old Daviyon Shelmonson-Bey near a playground on Detroit’s eastside is a terrible reminder of how much gun violence is a reality in Detroit. That even a playground isn’t safe from deadly bullets in the daytime is an indictment of the failure to seriously tackle violent crime in the city.
To further drive this calamity home and show how much it’s become an inescapable reality, another person was also shot inside a D-DOT bus on July 2. The 26-year-old victim is recovering in a hospital. That means even Detroit buses are no longer safe for riders looking to travel either to work or home.
There needs to be a plan for how to confront the problem beyond the official standard response the Detroit Police Department usually offers when incidents like violent crime become rampant in the city.
Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison needs to roll out a mechanism for keeping the city safe before it becomes the summer of nightmare. Promising tough punishment for the culprits is not enough.
There is a community-wide failure in confronting violent crime, and because of that failure, too many have become desensitized to gun violence and that is unacceptable.
While this cycle of violent crime continues to eat at the heart of our community and take the precious lives of young people away, we have accepted another damaging rule: Don’t tell on individuals who are engaging in slaughter because snitching is “wrong.”
Some of us have concluded that snitching is only wrong until we find that someone we love has become the latest victim in the ongoing, senseless violence that is stealing the future of Detroit’s children. We can’t have two standards for snitching.
When crime of this sort happens, the community ought to speak out — loudly and clearly. Yes, I understand the long and sometimes contentious relationship between law enforcement and the Black community. But looking for child killers or culprits of other heinous crimes should trump every other concern.
In the absence of that, we are only hurting the future of Detroit. Samir and Daviyon’s killer should face the letter of the law before another young person’s name is written in the soil in letters of blood.
It is time to make some drastic changes in how policing is being conducted in the city. This is all the more reason why the upcoming mayoral race is important because the candidates have to have clearly defined plans for how to protect the most vulnerable in our community who don’t feel protected. The fact is that there is no grand vision for the future economic prosperity of the city that can be implemented if the streets of Detroit have become a dangerous playground for gun violence.
An effective partnership between law enforcement and the community built on mutually trust and transparency can prevent Detroit neighborhoods from becoming war zones. But that also takes bold and strong leadership from Detroit police to bring that kind of meaningful partnership to reality and it should go beyond sporadic press conferences.
X (formerly Twitter): @BankoleDetNews
bankole@bankolethompson.com
Bankole Thompson’s columns appear on Mondays and Thursdays in The Detroit News.
