The Future of Four

I spent the Memorial Day weekend celebrating my grandson’s 14^th birthday, with five other 14-year-old boys who have been his friends since Kindergarten. These five young men were modeling the importance of maintaining lasting connections, as they shared their future hopes and dreams with me to become professional athletes, lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs and a veterinarian. Four out of the five were African American and so I found myself quietly praying that they all live long enough to fulfill those dreams, as gun and policing violence in our community could put their futures in jeopardy. As a grandparent, I am doing all I can to provide social outlets to keep my grandson away from the threat of community violence. I teach him things like restorative practices, anger management, forgiveness, self -control, and how to make good choices about those he takes into his inner circle. 

I found myself feeling less able to keep him safe from policing violence until this week, when I joined my signature with other faith leaders in signing a letter of support for Senate bill S.5253, introduced by Senator Jeremy Cooney. This legislation will allow five upstate cities, including Rochester, to enact local police residency requirements for new recruits, as a crucial step in ensuring stronger relationships and connections between officers and its citizens. The goal is to impact 50% of the police force in five years. This is very exciting! Living in the community that one polices will only make our neighborhoods safer and better-connected places for all! 

The Irondequoit Police Department figured out the value of community policing and connection a long time ago. On their website they wrote, “community-policing helps the public understand that police are not mere automations — writing tickets, enforcing the law, and preserving order. Police officers are human beings who go home at the end of their shifts and function within the community just like the public they serve.” 

When I was a kid, I grew up with a friend of my brother whom we called Keithy. Eventually he became a police officer, and it was always good to know that we had a friend on the police force that lived in our community if I ever needed an entrée into the system for help. Little did I know that in 2006 that time would come. While backing out of a driveway on Magnolia Street, my godson, my son, my goddaughter and two choir members were randomly shot by three unknown assailants. I remember how devastated our family and community choir was as my godson, Hershel Scrivens, lingered for a week before being declared brain dead and consequently pulled from life support. This group of innocent kids — trying to back out of a driveway on their way to Applebee’s – had their world forever turned upside down as their car was riddled with bullets by a random group intent on violence. 

Hershel and my son were like brothers, and the young girls in the car were like sisters to him. The trauma was so palpable. Given the backgrounds of this pure-hearted group of young people, I was sure this must have been some random gang initiation where three young men were sent out on the streets to prove their worthiness. The police did not see it that way. So, what should have been a process of care used to investigate this shooting and consequent murder, instead turned out to be a further nightmare for these kids.  Simply because they were Black, they were immediately viewed as non-credible and suspicious, a common story. The more they repeated their lack of connection to these unknown assailants, the more the suspicion grew. Each time one of them came back from being questioned, they spoke of the interrogation as being just as traumatizing as the event. Being viewed under a microscope of constant suspicion, with insensitive language from the police implicitly connecting them to a street life of drugs, gangs, or violence was unbearable, especially in the midst of grieving the loss of their friend. At one point they said they no longer felt safe cooperating with questioning by the police if they were only going to be viewed as extensions of the very suspects the police were supposed to be seeking. My goddaughter said, “Mom, why are they treating us like criminals?’

It was at that point, out of exasperation, that I remembered officer Keithy. Keithy knew me and my family from the community. I counted on the fact that he would not have pre-conceived notions about my family and these kids’ culpability. I trusted that he would see them as they were — victims of an egregious crime. I called Keithy and told him of the trauma being inflicted upon these church kids and asked him for help. As it turns out, he had just been called in to help with the investigation, and indeed turned the trajectory around to one of care and credibility for these traumatized youth. Keithy’s connection to his community and living in proximity to us allowed him to truly protect and serve these kids. It allowed him to protect and serve their humanity, and the community they came from, while providing an investigative process that eventually produced the culprits of the crime, clearly delineating who the victims were. 

This is why a bill like Senator Cooney’s, enacting local police residency requirements for new recruits, is critical to communities of color. It shields us from micro-aggressions, bias treatment, and re-traumatization that can be built into a system that hinges on divided communities. It will provide connections, because of the potential relationships that will be formed within the community that officers both live in and are assigned to. Officer Keithy lived in our community — he knew us, and we knew him! It is my hope that this bill passes, so that if at some point in the future of these four black boys they need someone in the policing system to deem them credible, and protect them from unnecessary assumptions of entanglement in the criminal justice system based on race, they too will find it. Now I am not suggesting that our experience is a universal experience for all, but for black boys these connections, or lack thereof, can very easily shape their future of success or failure. In this case, residency requirements can positively impact the future of these four, and humanize everyone in the work of public safety, especially officers and the community they serve. Now that is something to be excited about!