by Jon Baliles

If this were an election year and the crime we are currently experiencing was occurring the way it is, then you would have outrage and brimstone from politicians, and promises to combat and reduce crime and find the perpetrators. In the last three weeks, three teenagers have been shot.  One was killed walking to the store in Gilpin Court, one was shot waiting for his school bus on Southside, and two days later another was shot riding his bike, also in Southside. So far in 2022, five Richmond Public Schools students have been shot, and three have died. There have been 22 juveniles shot with three months to go in the year (there were 32 nonfatal shootings and five deadly shootings involving juveniles in 2021).

But it’s not an election year, so, while there is real concern, there has not been much fire or brimstone, just a plethora of statements and pledges. It’s easy to make a statement and feel some sense of accomplishment. We’ve heard lots of statements about doing something about affordable housing. Or fixing the permitting office. Or providing more jobs and opportunities. Or using audits to make City Hall more efficient, etc.

Statements aren’t solutions. Most are just rhetoric to make it sound like you care without actually putting forth any solutions — or attempts at solutions. Or suggestions to try and hope they work, and if they don’t, adjust and try something else. Just try something.

Councilman Mike Jones has been on the scene in his 9th District, where two of the shootings took place, and he uttered the best of the bunch when he said (in part) to Tyler Lane at CBS6:

“From the mayor, to the Commonwealth’s Attorney, Chief of Police, residents, everyone involved, we’ve got to find a way to ensure that young people can grow up in peace,” Jones said. “We have the gun violence initiative right now, but that’s a long-range plan. You have the gun buyback. You know, the efficacy of that is still questionable, but we have to do something with people that choose to come shoot up neighborhoods.”

“A lot of it is if someone commits a crime with a gun, that they’re going to have a seat somewhere, that they’re not out on bail, that they don’t beat the law enforcement home, and that’s a General Assembly issue as well — the time they have to review something.”

He added, “Second thing, we’ve got to give these young folks something else to do, where they’re not involved in anything that would jeopardize themselves or their neighborhoods. We’ve got to give them jobs, make sure that they’re doing well in school.”

That almost sounds like a man who is running for the House of Delegates (which Jones is, in 2023) or perhaps, mayor?

Jones also wondered about the hiring of the much-touted “violence interrupters” announced by the Mayor and Police Chief back in February who supposedly have recently been hired but still not yet deployed. Jones said after meeting with the  Mayor he was told that “other solutions were ‘in the works,’ but they would ‘take some time’ to actually deal with the violence.” That’s politician speak for “we got nothing.”

Lane did a follow-up report and noted, “19 children under the age of 18 have been shot so far this year with three months still remaining. Three of those teenagers have died and all were RPS students.”

Councilwoman Reva Trammel said, “Things are changing for the worse. Why aren’t they getting better? Where’s the police chief? Where is he? He said he’s going to be more visible, he’s going to be more out in the community.” She pointed out that the police ranks are way down, and they are about 150 officers short of their normal, budgeted contingent. Attracting new recruits has been an uphill challenge, to say the least.

Trammell also pointed out that Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor, Winsome Earle-Sears, showed up at a shooting downtown a few weeks ago. Sears went on to talk about it in an interview on WRVA. In what could be a preview of the 2025 gubernatorial race, Sears went after Mayor Stoney hard and blamed him for his lack of leadership to do something about the violence and the shootings.

Police Chief Gerald Smith also issued a statement concerning the violence, which is below, in part (click here for full statement):

Parents and children should not have to worry about being impacted by violence in our city. No one should have to worry about violence. Gun violence in our community, and particularly against our youth, has to stop.

We are not neglecting the city at all or any part of the city, but we need to stop the bleeding, we need to stop the shooting, and that’s where we go.

We need you to partner with us in this fight. We also need you to know that we won’t stop until the violence stops. We will keep trying new approaches. We will keep engaging the community. We will keep mentoring and working directly with our youth. Our officers, my officers, your officers will keep giving tirelessly and selflessly to make a difference, as will I.

Can we count on you to join us in this fight? If you see something, please say something.

Then the School Board got in on the action, as Jonathan Young and Councilman Jones got into a tete-a-tete about who deserved more blame. “What is the school board doing? The administration and the school board — they’ve got to come together and fix this,” Jones said. Young weighed in and “pointed the finger at city leaders, council members, the district’s superintendent, and his board colleagues for promoting policies that he believed made communities less safe for young people.”

In response, RPS Board Chair Dr. Shonda Harris-Muhammed said, “The Richmond City School Board and [Superintendent Jason Kamras] cannot directly control the external factors that occur outside of our institutions of learning. What the City of Richmond is facing cannot be addressed by one entity.” It goes on.

School Board Member Nicole Jones (9th District) also made her voice heard on Twitter, which you can read here because Twitter and all this finger-pointing really aren’t worth wasting the dexterity in my fingers to edit and type and cut and paste.

Young also went after Kamras specifically “for pushing to have police removed from school buildings,” and said students were under threat within their own buildings (for confirmation, see last week’s report about RPS ignoring fire code violations in 35 of their buildings for over a year).

Then, Mayor Stoney weighed in with his statement:

Our children deserve to live in safe communities which allow them to simply be kids, and the recent trail of gun violence in and around our city impacting our youth, as well as our adult residents, is flat out unacceptable. To whomever did this: we will find you and you will be held accountable. We will not waver in our efforts to use all available resources to reduce gun violence, remaining tough on crime and tough on the root causes of crime.

The Mayor has consistently funded after-school and other programs for youth for most of his tenure, but we either don’t see enough of the data to show it is bearing fruit (and we hope it is) or see any results, because it is overshadowed by what is happening on the streets.

So, the point is — if you have read this far and haven’t yet hit the delete button — statements are easy; solutions are hard. From where I sit, Councilman Jones at least sounds the most determined to work toward some solutions and is willing to risk doing something, which is better than doing nothing. This level of violence can’t continue and all the statements in the world won’t stem it or stop it.

Jones said, “We have to get serious about ensuring the safety of our young people. We have to move beyond rhetoric.”

Unfortunately, for now, that’s all we’re getting.

Jon Baliles is a former Richmond city councilman. This column has been republished with permission from his blog RVA 5X5.