LITTLE ROCK — Standing in a church parking lot at Woodrow and 12th streets in downtown Little Rock, not far from where a man was found shot to death in his vehicle Wednesday night, about 30 men gathered Saturday to call for action.
Black-on-black crime must stop, they said.
Stop the Violence, a nonprofit group founded by the Rev. Benny Johnson, held a news conference to denouncethe recent rash of homicides in the city and to call on city officials to do more to curb violence.
Johnson was joined by Ward 2 City Director Ken Richardson, state Rep. Fred Allen, D-Little Rock, members of the Heavenly Riders motorcycle club, several members of the group Men of Equity and a number of area pastors.
“I founded this organization in 1991, and since then, 700 blacks have been killedby blacks in Little Rock, 200 of them right around this intersection,” Johnson said. “If this type of violence happened in the Hillcrest area or out in Pleasant Valley or Chenal Valley, they would shut the city down.”
Johnson said he has written to Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola, asking him to put greater emphasis on the city’s prevention, intervention and treatment programs, but has received no response.
Contacted on Saturday afternoon, Stodola said he could not recall receiving any correspondence from Johnson, but would be happy to meet with him.
As for Johnson’s assertion that the mayor is soft on crime, Stodola cited a number of statistics.
“This year, there has been an uptick in the homicide rate, which is troubling, but we are down overall,” he said. “Last year, we had 28 homicides. In 2006, when I took office, there were 60, so overall, we’ve seen a 50 percent drop in homicides. There’s been a 30 percent drop in violent crime overall.”
A Friday morning shooting was 2011’s 37th homicide - the sixth in a month - in the capital city.
Stodola said that since 1994, the city has annually spent between $2.5 million and $3.5 million on prevention, intervention and treatment programs. He noted that city directors included another $3 million for such programs in a recently passed sales-tax referendum.
Stodola said “it’s impossible to put a speeding bullet back in a gun,” but that the Police Department has been trying to analyze crime patterns “to determine what areas to saturate with officers.”
He also said the department “is working aggressively” to fill 60 vacancies.
“As we’re able to replenish the ranks next year, I’m hopeful that we’ll see a decrease in these crimes,” Stodola said Saturday. “We’ve had some great, great efforts over the last four years and I hope we can see even more results.”
Johnson and the other menwho spoke during the news conference called for an end to the unspoken “no snitch” rule that many follow in the neighborhoods hardest hit by violent crimes.
“If somebody got killed right over there, there would be a hundred people around who didn’t see a thing,” said Rodney Bolden, a spokesman for the Heavenly Riders. “That has to stop.”
Richardson said he’s heard the frustration in his ward.
“What I heard these gentlemen call on us to do today was to have a deliberate, more focused, proactive approach to address this, rather than [be] reactive, meaning hiring more police and building bigger jails,” Richardson said. “We have to spend the amount of resources necessary to counter this.”
Richardson said he’s been trying for more than a year to craft an ordinance that would allow the city to offer incentives or bid preferences to companies that employ “ disconnected adults and youth.”
“I define that population as those who are unemployed because of felonies and/or lack of education,” he said. “I hope to reintroduce that ordinance in the next month or so,” noting that it failed once before.
Bishop Charles Williams, pastor of Covenant of Zion church, which sits near where the man was shot Wednesday, said he has planned town-hall meetings at the church.
The first meeting is set for 7 p.m. Jan. 17. The church is at 3023 W. 12th St.
Williams said the cause of crime must be addressed, not just the symptoms, but noted that is no easy task. He and others in the group named a number of problems that can lead to crime, including poor parenting, lack of spirituality, drug and alcohol abuse, and lack of employment.
“Whatever the cause, we must find a way to address it as a community,” Williams said. “You can holler about jobs, but do people really want to go to jobs? They’d rather live the thug life that’s been glamorized.
“We must educate and we must stop glamorizing that lifestyle and start exposing these heinous people within our community who mean us no good.”
Arkansas, Pages 15 on 01/01/2012