By Mariam Ibrahim, edmontonjournal
Saturday, June 25, 2011
EDMONTON - As Edmonton’s homicide rate continues to climb, inner-city community groups and downtown police officers met for an all-day workshop Saturday aimed at building trust and preventing crime.
The workshop, organized by the Edmonton Multicultural Coalition, brought together about 30 members of diverse ethno-cultural groups that are concentrated in the Boyle McCauley neighbourhood and about 10 downtown division police officers.
“With crime and concerns about youth specifically, we wanted to take the opportunity to start building that relationship,” said Kim Manalili, an organizer of the daylong event. “People are sick of seeing youth dying and kids getting into trouble.”
Several different communities, including Somali, Sudanese, Ethiopian, Eritrean and Oromo, an ethic group from East Africa, were represented at the workshop, held at Boyle McCauley school on 107th Avenue and 95th Street.
The area is plagued by a disproportional amount of crime, which both police and community members hope to change in the future.
Of the city’s 28 homicides in 2011, eight happened in central Edmonton.
The most recent victim — a man in his late 50s who has not been identified — was found dead Thursday night at a home in the area of 109th Avenue and 97th Street.
“We’re trying to develop partnerships and relationships with all our ethno-cultural communities,” said Supt. David Veitch with EPS downtown division. “If it’s to reduce crime and victimization, you know the old phrase, we can’t do it alone. We realize we have to mobilize our community.”
Over the past several months, the Multicultural Coalition identified leaders who are able to act as a bridge between police and their communities in an effort to build trust, Manalili said.
“They’re identified by people from that community. They know the political landscape of their community,” Manalili said.
Saturday’s workshop had police officers demystifying their job for community leaders by explaining what a day in the life of an officer might look like — everything from how police respond to calls to why a motorist might be pulled over for a checkstop. At a previous workshop in April, participants gave police officers a look inside their communities by explaining cultural norms, social taboos and concerns people have about crime in the neighbourhood.
“You really get to see the perspectives from the community and you’d never gain that insight without this training,” said Const. Chapman Lee, a community liaison officer who mainly works in Chinatown.
Veitch said he hopes the imitative will break down barriers for people who might otherwise be hesitant to contact police with information or concerns.
“It’s about them taking more involvement in creating that safety and sharing information with us,” Veitch said. “And how do we share that information in a manner that’s respectful and in a way that isn’t going to put them at risk at all, from the standpoint of the community.”
Veitch said that although crime in the downtown division is down 35 per cent for June and violence is down 12 per cent for the year, people feel unsafe when they hear about a killing in the area.
“As soon as you have one homicide of course, that causes people to get more anxious, and rightly so,” he said.
This has been a grim year for homicides as the city looks poised to break the 2005 record of 39 in a year.
While the workshop is just a pilot project for now, the intention is to create a permanent model that community groups and police divisions across the city can use, Manalili said.
“There’s been such a willingness on the part of the police and the community to start a dialogue,” she said. “We have a lot of passionate people who are invested in their community and want change.”
Members of Edmonton’s Somali community also met Saturday evening to discuss problems of violence and crime among its youth.
Three men Somali men have been the victims of homicide this year. The most recent victim was Abdi Ali Mohamud, 43, who was shot near 86th Street and 106A Avenue on June 3. Police believe his death was a case of mistaken identity.
At the meeting, community leaders introduced several new initiatives to engage youth, including a support line for Somali youth and a poster campaign that urges community members to report crime to the police, said Mohamed Accord, president of Edmonton’s Alberta Somali Community Centre.
“It’s an indigenous initiative,” Accord said.
With files from Julianna Cummins
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