By Dianne Anderson

Dozens mobilized outside Long Beach City Hall last week rallying the cry for action, more community meetings with city leaders and more support from city General Funds to address the violence in the wake of the killing of 12-year-old Eric Gregory Brown III.

At the last city council meeting, education advocate Paula Wood, executive director of Success in Challenges, said that Eric Brown was a student in her nonprofit after-school program.

She stressed that historic data show crime increases in the summer when school is out and parents are working, leaving the children vulnerable. She called on the city council to protect youth during the summer.

“Our families need to feel safe walking in their neighborhoods and spending time outdoors. Every year we have the same conversation yet the age in which our children are becoming victims is younger and younger. Eric was 12 years old, and he’s the youngest so far in this city. Summer shouldn’t be a season to fight for survival,” she said.

Brown was shot and killed late evening, May 9 at the 2200 block of Lewis Avenue. A 14-year-old girl was also shot, but survived.

Jessica Quintana, executive director of Centro CHA spoke of the need for a robust violence prevention and youth development initiative, and funding to be internal within the city budget and ready to use year-round.

She wants to see something like the comprehensive gang reduction youth development initiative in Los Angeles to address youth development and safe passages.

“It sits in their Mayor’s office because right now what we need to understand is that we are at a crisis and emergency for violence,” she said “This is the first time we’ve gone to so many funerals, we have buried so many young people. This is the first time we see a 12-year-old and it’s unacceptable.”

Mayor Rex Richardson thanked everyone who organized the rally, and community demonstrations. He said council members have been engaged, talking with family and community, and that he connects almost daily with the police chief, with plans to call for a reward for anyone with information.

“Unfortunately, I remember when my little brother was shot, and when he was 17, airlifted to Long Beach Memorial and the trauma it creates for years. We understand,” he said.

Richardson said over $10 million has been dedicated in the city over the past two years from Measure US passed by voters in 2020 as a funding source for youth. He said a $1 million youth fund was established, and the city now has an office of youth development.

“We’ll continue to engage, you’ll hear more from the police department, from the city with respect to the reward and our plans to bear for the summer,” he said.

Centro CHA was funded last October on a three year $1.5 million grant from the Department of Justice.

Francisco Martinez, who represents Centro CHA, and also assists One Long Beach Alliance, said the goal is to create a strategic plan to address violence. He said they are forming partners with the community, community based organizations around safety, police, public health and elected offices, and engaged with probation and the local District Attorney’s office.

Next up, he said a criminologist will evaluate data to determine what is triggering some of the violence, which happens more in Black and Brown communities than other parts of the city. At this point, he feels the city doesn’t have a funded and sustained strategy to address the violence.

“We rely heavily on suppression. We have four major gang injunctions that really blanket our communities of color, that target our young people to be racially profiled and lead them to incarceration,” he said.

Getting resources to victims and survivors of violence is the priority, but also effectively dealing with perpetrators.

“What are their needs to make the choice to not pick up the gun, be community citizens? The only way we can do that is by making sure there are support systems for young people, quality jobs, livable jobs, housing, positive role models to demonstrate leadership,” he said.

He said Centro CHA wants to bring the city’s cultural centers, African American, Latino and Cambodian, together with leaders who are invested in the community and gang intervention and for cross-cultural exchange and mentoring. They also received funding from CalVIP and the California Board of State and Community Corrections to implement some of their programs.

Educating police on building relationships in the Black and Brown community is a priority.

“We know we need to bring all forces together, including police,” he said. “A lot of folks don’t want to hear that, but we’re not going to move into a system where there is ever a time when there’s not going to be police in our community.”

Autrilla “Sheba” Gillis said last week’s rally was her first opportunity to collaborate with One Long Beach Alliance for better communities and schools, and her first time working with Centro CHA.

Gillis’s nonprofit, The SIX Long Beach, is pushing community improvement through collaboration with businesses, organizations, churches, schools and the community in the 6th District.

She said The SIX is powerful as a collaboration.

“Last week in the aftermath of the shooting, we assembled nearly 70 concerned community members within two hours to stand guard and provide safe passage for students walking home from Signal Hill Elementary School and Nelson Academy,” Gillis said in an email.

As a former teacher and principal, district-level administrator, and leader in school based enrichment programming for the past decade, she also focuses on addressing and impacting quality programming for youth in underserved areas of Long Beach.

The nonprofit also advocates for youth and senior resources in the community. She said her strength of outreach is in long term local connections and being able to mobilize quickly.

“As a lifelong resident of the sixth District and a resident on the block that the shooting occurred, I strongly believe that actions will outweigh words,” she said. “We must maintain the momentum and work together to create enrichment opportunities within our communities. Our youth deserve access to quality programming and abundant resources to help curb the appeal of unstructured and potentially harmful behaviors.”

To support the burial of Eric Brown,

see https://www.gofundme.com/f/in-support-of-the-burial-of-eric-brown