Parents urged to take responsibility for kids 3.1.11

INDIANAPOLIS STAR

The 10-Point Coalition is organizing a Faith Walk to help curb violence at this year's Indiana Black Expo Summer Celebration.

Parents are the key to stemming a tide of youth violence that has become all too common in Indianapolis in recent years, community leaders said at a meeting Monday aimed at motivating adults to take responsibility for their sons and daughters.
Public safety officials and people who have lost loved ones to violence said parents should provide guidance to their children and prepare them to ward off bad influences outside the home.
"When they step outside your door, they re-raise themselves," said Heather Edwards, who lost a nephew to violence.
About 140 people attended the meeting, held at the Indiana Historical Society and organized by the Ten Point Coalition, a group of ministers seeking to reduce violence in Indianapolis. The meeting, one of a series of discussions in recent months, was aimed at emphasizing parental responsibility.
Mayor Greg Ballard reinforced that point by telling the audience the city will be going after parents when their kids are caught with guns.
"We're getting tired of a few knuckleheads ruining it for everyone else," Ballard said. "We're empowering everybody to stop this nonsense; we deserve better in our city."
Rick Hite, deputy public safety director, struck a similar note in urging people to pay attention to what's going on in their neighborhoods.
"We need to go back to an old value system; we have to be our brother's keeper," he said.
Some of the panelists spoke from personal experience about the harm violence can do to young people's lives. Mona Johnson of Project Safe Neighborhoods served 121/2 years in prison for her role in supplying a gun that was involved in a murder.
Johnson said she is an example of someone who made poor choices when young and didn't understand the consequence. Criminals are quick to teach kids how to "hustle guns, hustle drugs or hustle their bodies," but they don't tell them the consequences, she said.
The meetings were prompted by a rash of violence last summer that started with Downtown shootings that wounded 10 people during Indiana Black Expo's Summer Celebration.
The Rev. Charles Ellis, director of the 10-Point Coalition, urged the audience to help stem the violence by joining the Faith Walk for this year's celebration. The coalition is enlisting 500 volunteers to act as nighttime monitors during this year's Summer Celebration. Volunteers will walk the streets after the celebration events conclude and intervene if the activities appear to be getting out of control.
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