"We Have To Come Together For The Good Of Us All" (Ben Marcy Addresses Safety Concerns In The West Bank Area)

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My fellow Humphrey Institute grad student Ben Marcy is a neighborhood rep in the West Bank area, and he recently addressed the growing safety concerns in that Minneapolis neighborhood due to, well...UNSOLVED MURDER.

Here are some remarks recently made by Marcy, and forwarded through one of the (infamous) Humphrey Institute listservs...

Hello Members of the Cedar Riverside Safety Committee,

As most of you are aware there was a terrible tragic murder earlier this week that took away a promising young man with deep impacts on the Somali community and the Augsburg community directly.

Tonight, I was informed that another shooting occurred near the Dar al Quba Mosque. In the recent community meeting held at the Brian Coyle, I was told by several young men that nothing would come of this meeting and someone else would be shot within the next two weeks. It has apparently taken less than that.

The Safety Committee will likely see a mass influx of interest from residents, business owners, and students after these terrible incidents. I have already begun to communicate the date of our next meeting October 7th to many interested parties and know Hani is working very hard doing outreach to bring others in as well.

I think for this next meeting we need to focus on some action items to get residents involved:

1) Reinforcement of the safety walks. This will be a key way for people to participate and build relationships between different members of our community. We have maintained good numbers over the past few months but along with recruiting new members we should also be more strategic in:

•Providing more graffiti removal products to businesses on our walks so they can be more vigilant in removing tags that could signal a safe space for criminals to come into our neighborhood.

•Walking through the Riverside Plaza property to meet residents and encourage them to join us (A remarkable piece of information that I learned this week is that there are residents who want to be active but are afraid of leaving the Plaza on their own after daylight hours. If we meet them as a group and bring them back as a group they would feel more secure) As well we can begin forming relationships with Plaza security.

2) Ride alongs. At our last meeting David Alderson suggested that we find ways to do ride alongs with members of the police. I think that is more necessary now than before. We should compile a list of interested people at our next meeting and if possible ride along in pairs. This could be effective if it were a veteran of the safety committee along with a new member that way in can be a learning process for two unfamiliar members as well between members and the police.

3) Improve communication. At the last Safety Committee meeting, I mentioned that I was working with e-democracy.org on an online neighborhood forum. In this forum, community members can communicate with each other on a message board about pertinent issues in their
neighborhood. Many of the safety committee members believed this would be a good idea to communicate beyond a format of email on a consistent basis to keep people informed about the safety concerns in our community. If you have questions about e-democracy and the possibility
of a forum please email me and I will send you materials.

4) Participating in Police programs. Amie at our last meeting talked about one such program called geoCanvas alerts. Below is more information about the program and how you can get involved through Luther Krueger. (Editor's note: this apparently refers to "hard copy" materials Marcy had with him)

I think these are good starting points. If there are any others please bring them to the next committee meeting. Let's not let our fear and disgust of what has happened hamper us from being active. We know the majority of people who live, work and study in our neighborhood are
good people. We have to come together for the good of us all.

Ben Marcy