Upper Darby comes together to make stand vs. violence
Davidson forum hears from those involved
UPPER DARBY >> Movita Johnson-Harrell knows all about the violence that seems to lurk around every corner these days. It cost her a son. On Saturday, she was in Upper Darby to issue a warning - it can happen anywhere.
Even as the mother shared her grief about losing her son, community members came together Saturday at a public forum to discuss how to become proactive in community building and preventing crime.
For the fourth consecutive year, state Rep. Margo Davidson, D-164, held the Public Safety Forum: Community Violence and Building Trust with the Criminal Justice System at the Fresh Anointing Christian Center. The session delved into many issues surround the criminal justice system, as well as ways community members can be empowered.
Davidson said her hope for attendants was for them to get involved and not sit on the sidelines, to get involved in organizations like Neighborhood Watch or Moms Demand Action and to recognize that they have the power to create the community that they want to live in.
“There were two murders in Upper Darby,” she said. “The murder rate in Upper Darby is low (per capita) but we don’t want to see an escalation. For us to have two murders within the space of three months is a huge escalation so we don’t want that to continue. We don’t want it to go up so we need to involve all the citizens in making sure we have safe communities.”
Johnson-Harrell is familiar with losing a loved one due to the trauma of violence.
In addition to being the head of Victim Services for the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, Johnson-Harrell is founder of the The Charles (Creating Healthy Alternatives Results in Less Emotional Suffering) in honor of her 18-year-old son, Charles Andre Johnson, who was shot Jan. 13, 2011, as he was waiting in a car for his sister.
“I’ve been exposed to violence for most of my life,” she said, adding that when she was 8 years old, her father was shot on Easter Sunday 1975 in front of her family. He died in her mother’s arms. “My mother still has never recovered from that trauma.”
On July 1, 1991, her brother was murdered over a girl. When she got older, Johnson-Harrell named her two children after him.
“It was important for me to protect my children from the violence in our communities,” she said. So, after her home being a center of safety and love for her Southwest Philadelphia neighborhood, she moved away to keep her children safe when they were adolescents.
“My sons will not become statistics on the streets of Philadelphia,” she said. She moved her family to Lansdowne.
On the night of Jan. 12, 2011, her son, Charles, went to pick up his sister in Philadelphia and two young men walked up to the car and shot him dead in a case of mistaken identity.
“And my life has never been the same,” Johnson Harrell said.
Over time, she learned about the two men who killed her son.
“And something happened during that period, I heard how these boys were raised,” she said. “I heard their circumstances. More importantly, I heard how we failed them as a society. I heard how they were victims of society.”
Davidson said Johnson Harrell’s story is a prime example of how everyone can be a part of the criminal justice system and have an impact on it positively.
Both Pennsylvania Superior Court Judge Carolyn Nichols and Anthony Murphy, a national Neighborhood Watch trainer, gave examples of how that can be done.
“It’s important for people to understand that you are us and we are you, the court system,” Nichols said, saying that if people think the system is against them, they will remove themselves from public life and that then spills over to other aspects, such as not voting or serving on juries.
However, she referred to a conversation the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had with Lyndon B. Johnson.
“The most important thing right now is the diversity of juries because jurors are judges of the facts,” Nichols said. “In jury trials, jurors decide who’s guilty and who’s not guilty. And if black folk are excluded from serving on these juries, justice won’t happen.”
Murphy encouraged everyone to get out to know their neighbors and get involved in their communities.
He asked how many people knew their next-door neighbors, their neighbors across the street and those behind their homes.
“Developing a Neighborhood Watch means it gets citizens involved and there is a connection between them and their police department,” he said. “But the first connection is between you and your neighbor. We have a tendency not to really talk to our neighbor. It’s like we’re so busy, we don’t talk to you, we don’t communicate to you.”
He stressed the importance of developing relationships with neighbors, in the community and with police and he said a town watch program like his helps all of these aspects interact on a regular basis to help build trust in each other.
“So Neighborhood Watch is a way for us to come together,” he said. “It’s a way for us to interface and be a part of the criminal justice system. We make a difference people, we really do.”