In the last two weeks, eight Syracuse teenagers and young adults have been shot.
You can take a minute to absorb that number — but anything other than zero is unacceptable. If one of our children is killed by another, then we have failed as a community.
Generally, The Eagle focuses on Syracuse’s progress and highlights those people and groups putting their efforts into making this community better. But we can’t ignore that the violence in this city is a direct argument against any progress we’ve promoted in recent months. The number of energy-conscious facilities we boast, the arts and culture venues — none of that matters if we continue to be a community that stands a mute witness while its young people are killed. When our kids are injured and die at the hands of others it is just as bad as if we had pulled the trigger. Mary Nelson is right: it’s time to stop talking and start doing.
She challenges all of us: “We need to come together as a community and find some answers.” Nelson will host an open community meeting from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday Nov. 13 at the Mary Nelson Youth Center, 2849 S. Salina St. The meeting is open to all; Nelson asks that you come ready to ask questions, brainstorm solutions and respect other opinions. She has invited representatives from the school district, the city and the police department, and wants to focus especially on what happens when a student is suspended from school. She wonders why they can’t be suspended to a community program, instead of being released onto the street to find trouble? Why does the school wait all day to call a parent when a student doesn’t show up for school in the morning? She wonders. And, like all of us, she wants answers.
She wants to know why we seem to be so content living in a community that doesn’t protect it’s children. And while she knows, and we know, that Saturday’s meeting won’t reveal all of the answers we want, at least it’s a start. See you there.