Glory Reitz
A week after a 24-year-old man was killed in a shooting, officials pulled together a community gathering for prayer, themed “Faith Over Fear: Together We Stand.” The gathering, though well attended by representatives from Alachua County Sherriff’s Office (ACSO), Gainesville Police Department (GPD) and Alachua County government, did not draw any residents of the Eastwood Meadows community.
“When you’re constantly just working with the kid, that’s the wrong entry,” Byron Lewis, who does media relations, crime prevention and community Engagement for GPD, said. “It’s the family structure, right? And when I look here today, as everyone has seen, the people who need it the most are not here. It’s almost like they don’t want the help. I don’t know what it is. It’s frustrating.”
Lewis said the officials at the gathering needed to find a way to “become grassroots” with their efforts to get involved with the community, and several attendees could be seen drifting to a nearby bus stop toward the end of the event, handing out informational pamphlets and talking to Eastwood residents.
Representatives from the Alachua County Crisis Center were present at the event, advertising the free crisis line for anyone who needs to talk to a phone counselor about a mental or emotional health crisis. The direct line to the 24/7 Crisis Line is 352-264-6789, or anyone with a 352 area code can just dial 988.
Brittany Coleman, the new gun violence intervention program manager for the city of Gainesville, said Monday was her first day.
“This isn’t something we’re going to be able to do on our own,” Coleman said. “I’m going to be calling on our stakeholders, our partners and our community.”
Alachua County Sheriff Emery Gainey also said the community needs to be involved in keeping children safe.
“As I’ve said today, and have said all my years in law enforcement, by the time we’re involved it’s way too late,” Gainey said. “Something tragic has occurred. Something tragic has happened. And we’ll come, we’ll play our role in those types of instances, but we’d rather work with the community ahead of time.”
Gainey said ACSO works with the community through job training and community programs like the Explorer program and school resource officers. He said the sheriff’s office does what it can, but cannot solve the problem alone, needing the support of families and churches willing to get involved with children.
Filling its role as law enforcement, ACSO has already arrested a suspect in the Eastwood Meadows shooting, 18-year-old Terrell Weeks, who was charged with the murder of 24-year-old Tyren Certain.
“We want to help offer alternative programs. Everybody talks about that,” Gainey said. “But the message to those who decide they want to violate the law, we’re gonna be real clear. We will find you. We will put you into jail… If you’re going to shoot people and kill individuals, rest assured, I’ll use every resource we have available to take you out of our communities.”
Vanessa Henry, one of the speakers at the event, lost her nephew to gun violence in southwest Gainesville in December. She said residents need to take advantage of the resources available to them and get involved with their children’s lives, making sure they are spending time with good people.
“We have too many people that have taken their time out today to show concern for our entire community, not just Eastwood,” Henry said. “Let me be clear. This is not, the shooting is not… a public housing issue. I want to make that clear. What happened can happen anywhere in our city, in our county, so we all have to be aware of it.”
There is a proverbial ” elephant in this room” so let me stick my neck out first….prior to the mid-60s when Pres. Johnson with the help of congress revamped American society with new and more “enlightening” social programs the majority of families were INTACT. Crime was occuring in the black and white communities (granted) but not at the levels we see in 2024.The absence of a father in the home is the missing link as homes with a father tend to be more structured, disciplined and cohesive as a general rule. Perhaps the absentee baby mommas and baby daddies of all colors know this instictively but cannot face that fact (they certainly were not willing to get out of their house for the community gathering in this article). Going forward why not push to get the churches involved to encourage more marriages (and the stability that comes from a united union)? I NEVER hear my priests mention this-do yours’?. I am going on a limb and saying that most preachers, ministers, rabbis and priests avoid this directly as it is “too sensitive…too judgemental…to volatile”. After all – we don’t want to “offend” anyone, right? The police are merely a REACTIVE force; parents are the PROACTIVE force. Stop being your kids’ friends and start being parents.
Watch your kids then you won’t see them dead.
Sadly, poor parenting is the cause of most of the world’s problems.
If you want your kid to behave, it all depends on what you taught them at age five, when their brain’s hard-wire programming is happening. Miss that window, and you might have a monster for life. Even WW2 Guy said, “Give me a child until age five, and I’ll give you an Nzi for life.” He was not kidding. If you love your kids, read every parenting book you can get a hold of. The punishment for bad parenting is called, “prison visitation days”.