RESIDENTS, POLICE MUST BUILD TRUST TO STOP VIOLENCE

The community of Brownsville may finally be getting some long-deserved
attention from Miami-Dade County leaders. The sad part is that it took
another senseless death of a young child to get it. This time a stray
bullet of suspected drug dealers took the life of 10-year-old Jarobe
Brooks. A family mourns its loss, and a community is reminded just how
unsafe their neighborhoods are.

Two weeks after the shooting, suspects have been arrested. However,
Brownsville residents have been blamed for a lack of willingness to
speak out as witnesses to the crime. Why do residents not feel a need
to speak up? Are they not outraged by this type of violence? Do they
not understand that they are sending a signal that crime will be tolerated?

Of course they are outraged and fed up with all the crime and drugs in
their community. But the fear and distrust of the police along with a
prejudice against a justice system that has failed them repeatedly may
be the underlining reason for the closed lips of witnesses.

Residents will not come forward in this or similar cases until they
feel assured that they will not be the next victim of violence.
Payback for snitching is real and alive. It does not help that one of
the shooters in the 1997 killing of Rickia Issac, a case that mirrors
the Brooks case, is already back living somewhere in Miami. Is that
the kind of justice that the Brooks family and this community can expect?

It is going to take genuine and persistent hard work by police,
politicians, pastors, agencies and institutions -- along with
Brownsville residents -- to build an atmosphere where this type of
violence is not permitted.

The purpose is clear. The "how" will have to come out of open and
honest communication.

Dorothy Bendross-Mindingall,

State Representative,

Miami