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Council Member Williams critiques law enforcement approach and advocates for alternative violence prevention strategies
2:33:40
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173 sec
Council Member Jumaane Williams delivers closing remarks critiquing the current law enforcement approach to addressing violence in certain communities. He advocates for alternative approaches to violence prevention and building community trust.
- Williams expresses frustration with the focus on punishment rather than addressing root causes
- He highlights disparities in how different communities and crimes are perceived and addressed
- Williams emphasizes that current methods have not effectively stopped the cycle of violence
- He calls for a more balanced approach that includes law enforcement but also addresses community trust and underlying issues
- Williams mentions the issue of police overtime and suggests reallocating resources to other agencies that could assist in violence prevention
- He concludes by emphasizing the need to listen to victims and find solutions that address both street violence and over-policing
Jumaane Williams
2:33:40
I understand.
2:33:41
The the only thing I and I I do wanna say it.
2:33:44
Sometimes the context in which I hear the responses of these things is that these communities, what they need mostly more of is punishment.
2:33:55
And and the reason that's frustrating when I heard growing up, I heard about crackheads that were arrested and we have to lock them up.
2:34:02
Now, we talk about substance use disorder and just that difference in naming how we address communities are different depending who the community we think of.
2:34:12
When I think of organized crimes even in different communities, I don't hear them being solved by abuses of stop questioning frisk.
2:34:18
I hear good police work.
2:34:20
When I hear about mass shootings, I hear about people who are otherwise all American children.
2:34:25
Those things are not said about the communities that I've represented and and need the most assistance.
2:34:30
And, when we don't have that view what we what we push forward are things that we are saying cause more harm than they're actually fixing.
2:34:39
And, that's a discussion that I think is important because we all, I hope you believe me chief, want this violence to stop.
2:34:47
We really really do and the things that we're pushing for are not to coddle criminals.
2:34:52
They're because what we have done in the past have not stopped these victims from coming more and more.
2:34:58
And so, I believe that there's a law enforcement component that's very important here but we have to use it wisely because it does not fix the trust that is going on and even more importantly, it's not even addressing the violence the way that we said.
2:35:11
Even some of the examples that were given of shootings that occurred, occurred while this battle base is existing.
2:35:17
I know that community groups that are here also know who these troop crews are and who these members are and collectively I just think there's something better that we can do even with your resources to try to address this that doesn't have concurrent harms that occur.
2:35:32
The only thing I'll end with is I think someone mentioned the cops that are leaving and it is it is definitely a problem, but from my conversations a lot of them are leaving because of overtime being checked, not because of some of the other things that were going on and all I've always said about overtime is if it's so baked in, I don't know why we can't share it with other organizations like the Department of Mental Health and and other agencies that can assist with what it is we're trying to figure out.
2:35:59
So I hope that you will understand what I'm saying, understand the passion because unlike some of the folks, I know people who have been dealing with this and continue to deal with this and have lost count of the funerals and the consolations.
2:36:15
It's just it's really hard because these are really impacted people and you talk to the victims about what they want and they get sandwiched between violence in the street and over policing that doesn't help them with their violence in the street.
2:36:27
And that's all that we're trying to fix and I I don't think the database is doing that.
2:36:32
Thank you.