This time, I ask you to compare the reactions to two important developments:
Six people shot in Wilmington in 24 hours:
Wilmington leaders said they are fed up with the increase in crime, saying more must be done to combat its causes in the city.
“We want to do anything necessary to clean this up,” said Richard Smith, president of the state NAACP. “People are scared. You’ve got thousands of dollars in guns on the street with people killing each other.”
“I am angry at myself for sitting on the sidelines,” said New Castle County Councilman Jea Street, speaking during the public comment portion of a Wilmington City Council meeting.
Street said he wants to see more programs implemented and questioned if the federal Violence Reduction Network program announced last year has been put in place and is being effective in Wilmington.
“What has been reduced?” he asked. “Nothing has been reduced. Nothing has changed.”
Council President Theo Gregory said he will look into the implementation and effectiveness of the VRN program, but agreed that the city is lacking in its social service offerings to residents.
Got that? Then there’s this — City safety a piece of Wilmington’s pitch to Chemours:
“A number of department heads have met with senior levels of Chemours management to ensure they have their needs met, and public safety is one of them,” said Wilmington Economic Development Director Jeff Flynn, who has been involved in talks with executives on behalf of the city. […]
[…]“We have not asked that they take specific actions, but we have asked about their plans for enhancing safety in the downtown area,” Smith said in an email, adding that some employees also have been the victim of theft. “It’s likely that other companies with a downtown presence have had similar discussions with local officials.”[…]
[…]Williams said the incident was a shock to the city. It was unusual for the area around Rodney Square, which typically sees more issues like property crime and robberies, city crime data shows. Thirty incidents of minor crimes like theft, assault, larceny, burglary or obscenity were reported within five blocks of the DuPont Building during September.
“It was a blow to us. It felt like somebody sucker punched me after I had been building up this protection and positivity downtown,” Williams said.[…]
Interesting, right? An effort to present a “Safety Package” in one of the safest parts of the City is on offer to keep Chemours here. But — and you can see it in the response to the 6 shootings in 24 hours — that there is NO such “Safety Package” on offer to the residents of this City who are working hard to stay here. I understand from some Riverfront residents that there is a service offered by (either Downtown Visions or the WPD or both) to escort Riverfront residents from the train station back to their homes. Which is completely remarkable to me — I live about the same distance from the train station and am not eligible for any such escort. But once again, we find that the City is still more invested in some parts of the city than they are in other parts.
While no one should have to live with the petty crimes that some folks downtown live with, it is the shootings just a few blocks away (think 7th and Washington) that is the genuinely scary crime. This is the crime that gives the city its bad reputation. This is where some of the petty crime that happens downtown starts from. And yet — in spite of efforts from people like Councilwoman Loretta Walsh — the City has yet to step up to address the issues emanating from that corner in any real or effective way for all of the rest of us. It is not just 7th and Washington, either — there are other hotspots in the city as well, but these aren’t being addressed either. It is pretty clear that they’re not going to implement much of the WPSSC report recommendations, but they will work at making people who work at Dupont feel safer in the kind of safe zone that much of the rest of the city wishes they had. So all of Wilmington gets to watch its leadership do a considerable about of tap dancing to reassure the people at Dupont and continue to watch its leadership fail to grasp the fundamental problem here.
On Thursday, there is a meeting at City Council which will in part provide an update from Chief Bobby Cummings on their implementation of the WPSSC recommendations. This is meant to be an accountability session from Theo Gregory, which I predict will simply be grandstanding from both. No answers, no solutions, no accountability — certainly. Theo Gregory had his chance at accountability when he had a budget to get approved. And now he has no leverage and hasn’t a chance at any of the accountability that EVERYONE in this city deserves.