The Dayton Chant: “Do Something”

Mourners gather for a vigil at the scene of a mass shooting, Sunday, Aug. 4, 2019, in Dayton, Ohio.

Two mass shootings in 13 terrifying hours only days after another mass shooting at a Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California.

Welcome to America 2019, where there have been 251  shootings in 216 days. Think about that. There have been more mass shootings than there have been days in the year.
Dayton and El Paso join the ranks of communities reeling from gun violence. We’ve seen it happen in churches and synagogues, schools, grocery stores, festivals and now at Walmart.
In the immediate aftermath, you see the same script unfold.
Tweets sending thoughts and prayers from our so called leaders.
Devastated police chiefs, first responders and mayors declaring that this will not break the spirit of the community followed by the inevitable political arguments between the left and the right.
But nothing ever seems to change does it?
Within a few days, the national press moves on although I suspect the communities and loved ones never do. 
Then we have another mass atrocity and we repeat the cycle. 
 
What seems to be missing are solutions or even efforts to seriously work together to tackle the issue of gun violence in our country. 
Legislative remedies seem to be harder than splitting the atom—the gun lobby is too strong for our weak kneed Congress to stand up to so they won’t.
Congress has failed on every single issue of importance facing this country whether it’s health care, immigration, infrastructure, climate change etc. 
They fail despite overwhelming support for common sense solutions. They’ve failed when high school kids were slaughtered in Parkland and they failed when kindergarten students were brutally murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School. 
So what do we do?
Because accepting this as the new normal is unacceptable. 
 
According to Axios, a digital news service, international research has found that U.S. mass shootings cannot be explained by a violent culture, racial divisions or mental health.
I’m not sure I fully buy that argument but I’ll listen.
We have all three in our country. And all three afflictions seem to be getting worse by the week fueled by a rotten to the core political system and lousy national “leaders” who divide, lie, preen and posture. 
 
The reason why the researchers don’t blame our violent culture is because they believe the problem is caused by the sheer volume of guns in our country. 
 
The United States has 270 million guns. It’s an astronomical number.
 
No other country has more than 46 million guns, according to Axios.
These stats will prompt the usual b.s. responses.
There’s no need to repeat them.
What is needed is real leadership and a desire to collaborate not divide.
Nothing gets solved when people go to their sides of the ideological divide.
So while I don’t think our violent culture helps and there is certainly rampant mental health issues plaguing our society, I think a main culprit is hatred and anger. Extremism is on the rise and if we have any sense we will pay attention to it and do something about it. Hate crimes are also on the rise, fueled by a divisive political system, the power of social media to sow hate and the immense power of the internet to misinform.
Foreign enemies are sowing division and so are extreme websites and chat rooms where the El Paso shooter posted his hate filled “manifesto.”
All of this is happening at a time when our press’ credibility is under daily attack and we are losing local newspapers by the truckload.
This is a recipe for disaster and violence. An uninformed populace can easily be led astray.
This space usually calls for local solutions to problems because local government is the government closest to the people and frankly because Washington has been feckless for decades.
But I think this particular issue requires national leadership.
What if the best minds from law enforcement, mental health, public health, sociology, government, business and academia rolled up their sleeves and worked together on a bipartisan basis to address gun violence?
What a concept.
It might even remind us that we are Americans before we are Democrats or Republicans. We can use that reminder.
What if they came up with a list of recommendations to stem the violence and we  the people insisted that Congress act immediately. Sounds naïve… I know.
But does anyone else have a better idea? Tens of millions of Americans are all ears.
We can  and must do something, including making a serious effort to stem the violence or we can wring our hands, blame our fellow Americans and meet again on the battlefield in the aftermath of the next tragedy.
There’s always one around the corner.
As for the local scene, the shootings in Gilroy felt personal. The news rattled me.
In 2006, Nancy Stewart-Franczak, founder of the local Garlic Festival, hosted a few of us on a trip to Gilroy to see first hand what she hoped our Garlic Fest could become.
We were moved by the community participation in Gilroy and by the fact that the festival funded local nonprofits for the year.
We got to know the organizers and our hearts went out to them when the recent violence occurred.
While the Garlic Fest is no longer in Delray—a loss no doubt– we do host other events and attract crowds to our downtown several times a week. You can’t help but think: what if this happened here?
We know it can.
Of course, we cannot stop living or the domestic terrorists with their hate filled manifestos will win. But we can do our best to prepare—like they did in Gilroy which had a model plan and response–but sadly they still suffered death and injury.
And we can insist that Congress and the president seize this moment to lead or at least get out of the way if the American people propose common sense solutions.
If you believe in America—as I still do despite its problems and division—you must believe we have the wherewithal to stop this carnage. 
Do something, they chanted at the governor in Ohio. Do something…..
We better.
 

Fourteen Years Gone

Jerrod Miller

Fourteen years ago yesterday, Jerrod Miller, 16, was shot and killed outside of the Delray Full Service Center by a rookie Delray Beach police officer.

Jerrod was shot exactly 7 years before Trayvon Martin, 17, was killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Florida sparking a national conversation that still boils.

In the ensuing years, we’ve experienced countless stories that are eerily similar.

I’m not sure how many people are thinking of Jerrod Miller these days in Delray, but I am. I think about him all the time.

I know a few police officers are thinking about him too because I got a text from one of them. I used to get a lot more—time passes I suppose.

When the shooting happened, we heard over and over again how Delray would never be the same and I suppose in some ways that is true. If you were there, if you were his brother, father, grandmother, relative, friend or teacher you most certainly were changed by what happened.

But time marches on, relentlessly. And so does life. It’s a cliché sure, but reality too.

Today, most people probably don’t know what happened in a breeze way at a school that now serves as an adult education center. Back in those days, it was an alternative school.

But I remember and I will never forget. That’s why I am writing this today…a very small way to keep a memory alive.

We’ve lost a lot of young men and women to gunfire in the 14 years since we lost Jerrod.

That’s a real national emergency if you ask me.

But I’m afraid we are becoming immune. I fear that our hearts are hardening.

I heard about a fatal shooting in Delray a few weeks back, but I don’t remember seeing much on the news and nobody I knew really talked about it. Maybe we’ve become numb to violence. I sure hope not.

Because the day we become numb to violence is the day we become untethered from our humanity.

 

 

 

 

 

Safety Is Always Priority #1

Everything flows from a sense of safety.

 

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I were walking the dogs in our neighborhood.

It was a nice evening and we thought an after work walk would be a good time to get some exercise and catch up.

On our way back, we heard what sounded like firecrackers from across Lake Ida Road.

My wife lamented that it was late in the year for fireworks and I told her it sounded more like gunshots to me.

A day or two later, I read in the paper that what we had heard was indeed gunfire—the latest skirmish in what police are calling a feud between two local families.

In this particular incident, nobody was shot. But a bullet did strike S.D. Spady Elementary School.

Earlier this week, Spady was put on lockdown when more gunfire erupted in the neighborhood.

I’ve been told by some friends in the know that this issue is not as simple as two families going after each other. The feud has escalated to friends and associates making it hard for the police to deal with the situation. As someone recently told me: “you can’t put on a net on this thing.”

As a believer in the Second Amendment, but someone who also believes in reasonable gun control, it’s tempting to write an anti-gun screed and I wouldn’t be totally out of line if I did so. To be clear, I believe in the right to bear arms, but I don’t think you should be able to carry a bazooka, I think bump stocks should be banned and if you are an upright citizen you shouldn’t be troubled by a background check.

Will the crooks and the crazies still find loopholes and ways to get weapons?

Yep.

Do we have to make it easy for them?

No.

Still, while I think America has a gun violence problem—we are also suffering acutely from a people problem too.

There as some people in our society who do not value our lives or theirs and heaven forbid you end up in the wrong place at the wrong time.

So yes, you could be out walking your dog and be struck down by a stray bullet or you can be a child walking around your elementary school and catch a round.

That these outcomes are even remotely possible is a stark reminder that we have some serious issues to contend with.

The first order of business in any community is public safety.

It is without a doubt the most important responsibility of a local government.

So when I see these headlines, my heart goes out to the men and women in our Police and Fire Departments.

Our first responders have a huge responsibility and a very, very difficult job.

For many years, I had the privilege of “riding along” with our public safety personnel. I’ve always felt that we had a great Police Department and a very capable Fire Rescue operation. When you ride along with officers and firefighters, even for the briefest amount of time, you gain a deep appreciation for the challenges they face and the complexity that they deal with call after call, day after day, year after year.

I’ve long felt and have always contended that our Police Department were the unsung heroes of Delray because their hard work and effectiveness made it safe for people to invest here—to live, work and play in our community.

Our Fire Department which has always been so busy and so professional also gives us peace of mind that if something should happen they will be there within minutes to protect our lives and our property.

But headlines like we’ve seen lately are disturbing….deeply disturbing. If we don’t feel safe, we don’t have much.

When you love your city you take these things personally. These headlines leave you with a visceral reaction. This is where we live and if we are unlucky it’s where we can also die or be injured.

What’s happening is more than a wake up call: it’s an existential threat.

We can however, take comfort in the skills of the men and women of our Police Department. This may not be easy to throw a net over, but I have faith that we will find a way to end this nonsense.