Harrisburg needs to save its children

Harrisburg doesn’t have a police brutality problem. Our kids are killing each other.

Police and residents must work together in mutual respect. Anything less will only lead to more gunfire.

That’s how one mother put it following a spate of shootings in the city that has involved teenagers in what some fear is tit-for-tat gunfire among youth.

Timothy Cox was only 17 years old when he was killed last week in the parking lot of a former church that is the new home of the Nativity School for boys. Only days later, police closed an area around Swatara and Hummel streets on reports of gunfire. On Sunday, another person was killed in the 300 block of S. 13th St. And on Wednesday, the Nativity School had to close early when shots rang out again outside the school.

Let’s remember it was only about a year ago that two young people were injured in a shooting near the school when it was located in the Camp Curtin YMCA building.

The shootings galvanized the community to come together to escort the boys into their classrooms and reassure them they would be safe to continue their education. Now, even after the school has moved into a nearby building that once was a church, the threat continues.

A pandemic is preventing the community from gathering outside the Nativity School now, but that doesn’t mean we can’t find a way to reassure the Nativity School students they are safe. It begins by having city residents cooperate with police.

A year ago, Nativity School Headmaster Lavelle Muhammad was encouraged that so many people in the community felt compelled to come out to help protect his students. But it also was alarming.

“It says that there’s a problem,” Muhammad said, “it says that people want a solution, people understand that our community is in a bad condition.”

One year later, the Middle School boys at the Nativity School still have to worry about gunfire outside their classrooms. And the community is still in a bad situation.

PennLive’s Matt Miller went to a press conference at City Hall where Police Commissioner Thomas Carter pleaded with city residents to help him save their children. It wasn’t the first time.

“Since Oct. 16, Harrisburg police officers have responded to 67 shots fired calls,” he said. “In 24 of those cases, victims were stuck by bullets. Four of them died.”

Carter rightly noted police can’t stop the shootings without cooperation from the community. Police can’t stop the violence without officials and residents addressing the myriad of issues that lead to children killing children. And police can’t stop the violence without the full community coming together to support struggling parents who now have to cope with a pandemic, loss of jobs and the threat of homelessness.

But until all of these problems can be solved, there is an important role for police to play now, and it’s important for the community to cooperate with their efforts to protect youth, especially in the midst of so much gun violence.

If police have not increased patrols around the area Fifth and Maclay streets and other known hotspots, we urge them to do so, now. If community policing officers have not met with teachers and parents of students at the Nativity School to come up with a safety plan, we urge them to do so, now.

And, if city residents are not offering their full cooperation with Commissioner Carter and his officers; if they are not providing information police need to stop the violence, and if they are not respecting police efforts to serve and protect, we urge them to do so, now.

Police and residents must work together in mutual respect. Anything less will only lead to more gunfire, and to more children killing children in front of schools in Harrisburg.