Nia Hinson
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Members of Columbia’s youth advisory council said they want to take action to help prevent youth violence in the city, and they hope that starts with the leader of the city’s Office of Violence Prevention.
D’Markus Thomas-Brown met with the council on Tuesday night, explaining some of the work his office has done to help prevent youth violence. Much of that work focuses on addressing the root cause of violence in the community by emphasizing the importance of collaborative efforts.
Thomas-Brown said giving children in the community a voice is crucial.
“If people keep talking at the youth and not allowing the youth to tell us, allowing y’all to tell us what’s going on, we’re bailing water at our own detriment,” Thomas-Brown said during his presentation.
Chair of the Youth Advisory Council and Hickman High School senior Grace Harris said the group came up with three focus areas this year: Sustainability, wellness, and safety and security. They decided to reach out to Thomas-Brown to help get a better understanding of the work that’s being done.
“We want to have this expert who’s really working in this area to come talk to us about what he’s doing to prevent violence in the youth community and how YAC (youth advisory council) can get involved to also partner with him and prevent that violence,” Harris said.
Harris praised the work Thomas-Brown and his office has already done in his roughly nine months in the position, saying she believes he has focused on the holistic aspect of violence, rather than violence itself.
Rockbridge High School Junior Emily Crumbliss also commended his efforts to be willing to give everyone a voice.
“Seeing him come out (to the meeting) means a lot because we are a smaller commission,” Crumbliss said. “Seeing people in our community actually come in to help us and want to listen to what we have to say means a lot because as he was saying, youth aren’t the only ones responsible for violence, so actually talking to the youth, not just blaming it on them really helps.”
While Harris said she believes Thomas-Brown has done plenty to help drive down violence, she also wants to see more of an emphasis on making downtown safer.
“Especially with the youth and going out at night, like you should be able to feel safe and comfortable in your own city,” Harris said. “And then obviously preventing violence within the school is a really big issue.”
School safety was something many students said they wanted to see an emphasis on Tuesday night.
During his presentation, Thomas-Brown took a poll of the room, asking if they feel safe at their schools. Several students said yes, but say they still witness scary moments at time.
“We have a weapons detection system at Hickman that I think is working pretty well this year but because of our location, we often do have incidents of violence outside of the Hickman community. Not necessarily in our school, but in the surrounding areas,” Harris said.
Harris said she believes Thomas-Brown’s continued efforts of meeting with groups within the city, rather than looking at data and statistics to figure out the root cause of violence could help.
Crumbliss said while she feels safe at school, it took her a while to get there, and said she fears for the younger children in the district whose schools don’t have weapons detection systems.
“I went to an elementary school downtown and I did witness a drive-by shooting growing up,” Crumbliss said. “I do fear a little bit for the younger kids because I don’t know how easy it is to break into a school but I would also like to see weapons detection systems not just in the high schools because I think they’re doing good things.”
Crumbliss and Harris said they believe both Rockbridge and Hickman High Schools have done a good job of ramping up efforts within the school to prevent violence that might eventually lead to violence outside of school.
The council also suggested that Thomas-Brown’s office create social media pages that people can view to see some of the work and progress being made in the city. Suggestions also included his office possibly getting involved in Columbia Public School’s safe gun storage awareness.
The council had previously planned to invite Thomas-Brown to one of its meetings, according to an agenda. Thomas-Brown had told ABC 17 News at the time that he would be open to the idea.
Thomas-Brown told ABC 17 News on Monday that his office is hoping to conduct a gun violence problem analysis to examine drivers of youth violence during the past 12-24 months, after several instances of youth violence this year. The plan still needs to be approved by the Columbia City Council.
Thomas-Brown also said his office is working a violence reduction landscape analysis, aimed at focusing on who is connecting with at-risk youth in the community.
Columbia MO Office of Violence Prevention YACDownload
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