WE ARE COMING AROUND THE CIRCLE

A black community anguished over the murders of young black men throughout
the last decade is now anguished over the deaths of grown-up black women.

The police officers who want to live outside of Peoria, in part, to escape
Peoria crime, are finding city crimes dumped in the county.

White people living and working in rural areas and small towns are as
shocked and worried about finding dead bodies in cornfields as black
people, living and working in the city, are about losing them.

"Scientists tell us that the world of nature is so small and interdependent
that a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon rainforest can generate a
violent storm on the other side the earth," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi
Annan said upon accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001. The distance
between Peoria's urban neighborhoods and the rest of the city, between
Peoria's older neighborhoods and the rest of central Illinois, is much
shorter. Yet, man-made barriers - urban/rural, male/female, rich/poor,
black/white, morality/immorality - block us from recognizing the "butterfly
effect" in our own backyards.

The fear and frustration that washed over Creve Coeur after a little girl
was abducted while waiting for a school bus is like the fear and
frustration that stirred Peoria Heights residents after a young woman was
shot at Grandview Hotel is like the fear and frustration at Monday night's
town forum regarding the deaths of six black women over the past three
years and the recent disappearances of three more.

Why-haven't-you-done-this, why-can't-you-do-that, audience members asked
over and over during the 90-minute meeting at City of Refuge Church.
We-can't-jeopardize-the-investigation, we-need-your-help, Peoria's acting
police chief, joined by Peoria County's state's attorney and sheriffs from
Peoria and Tazewell counties, repeated again and again.

And the deadlock was about the type of women community groups used to urge
police to get off the street and out of their neighborhoods.

Coming full circle means more than finding the one (or ones) responsible
for the deaths. It means a community response to the prostitution and/or
drug addiction that plagued their lives. We can:

- - Give authorities any information that might help the investigation. Call
697-7870.

- - Raise money for the reward fund set up at South Side Bank.

- - Support family members of the victims who, increasingly, are coming
together to share their stories.

- - Get behind efforts to create a shelter or halfway house for women on the
street. The situational homelessness of several of the women adds to
difficulties of the police investigation. A shelter could also be a place
where women feel free to share information, at least with each other.

- - Reconsider the city's ordinance banning needle exchanges on its streets.

- - Open the way for stronger, more coordinated support groups and street
outreach programs that provide condoms, hepatitis vaccines, HIV-testing,
clean needles and health and safety tips for high-risk populations -
without judging them.

"We have to have the gatekeepers that women trust, that they'll talk to
without fear of getting busted or having their kids taken away," says Beth
Wehrman, a registered nurse with Lifeguard Harm Reduction Services, which
operates one of several street outreach programs in the city. "Quite
frankly, there's still a lot of room for outreach in the black community."