Protecting Detroit’s kids

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 15:56:00 +0000

As Detroit police officials prepared last month to face media questions about yet another fatal shooting of a teenager on the city’s northeast side, Officer Monica Evans faced a different type of crowd: high school students.

Surrounded by about 25 students from around the city, Evans asked the question that she anticipated her boss, Police Chief Ralph Godbee Jr., would get from reporters: “What could law enforcement have done to prevent this?”

“They said, ‘Nothing,’” Evans recalled. “They said, ‘Our parents have to be better’ ... I was amazed. That’s from the mouths of babes.”

“Nothing” isn’t an option, of course, in a city that has only recently dipped below an average of a murder a day— a drop that coincides with a population hemorrhage of more than 200,000 people in the past 10 years.

In a May 6 speech to the Detroit branch of the NAACP, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder commended the agency and the city for the fight they’ve waged so far, but he said there’s much more to do.

Salon.com > Amber Hunt

Protecting Detroit’s kids