Tackle violence with solutions, not sound bites

The old saying goes, all is fair in love and politics — but blaming the police and mayor for crime and violence in a big city like Boston is a little unfair.

Unless, of course, they didn’t provide the necessary resources, like extra police officers or programs aimed at keeping young gang members from traditionally poorer neighborhoods from hanging out with nothing to do all day and night — but that’s not the case in Boston today.

I remember trying to deal with a violent gang problem when I was mayor and guns were popping up everywhere in Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan. In response to the crisis, I called for community meetings at a few churches in Roxbury and Mattapan that were hosted by some of the community’s black clergy members.

When a couple of black candidates for public office showed up and began blasting police officials and the mayor’s office, the community members in attendance rose up in defense of both the police department and City Hall.

Drop-A-Dime activist Georgette Watson and other anti-crime champions told the black elected officials, “we’re searching for solutions here, not TV sound bites,” drawing a long standing ovation from those gathered. In the end it was the community that came together and provided the leadership.

The city of Boston has a dedicated police department led by Commissioner William B. Evans, Superintendent-in-Chief William Gross and a concerned mayor in Martin J. Walsh. But most of all, it has scores of caring citizens who are fighting hard every day to make their neighborhoods safer places to live.

The people of Boston have proven time and time again that we work best when we work together.

We need to turn gangs into teams, rivals into brothers and our police officers into people we all look up to and admire.

This is not a pie-in-the-sky dream. To the kids out there who want to go someplace and be somebody — join our team.

We’d love to have more standup neighborhood heroes. Let it begin with you today. Raymond L. Flynn is a former mayor of Boston and a former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.