Miami Little Haiti: There is no culture of doing the right thing
This weekly column is supplied by Citizens' Crime Watch of Miami-Dade and is intended to provide information that will help readers in their efforts to be safe.
Recently there have been several marches and forums to bring awareness to the community regarding the violence that we are experiencing.
For instance, the Sant La Haitian Neighborhood Center held a community forum in hope that residents would take charge of their neighborhoods. These forums are not easy to organize and I applaud Gepsie Metellus, the executive director, for her efforts.
The violence in the Haitian-American community is escalating; therefore, educating the community is extremely important. According to Police Commander David Magnusson of the Little Haiti/Upper Eastside area, overall crime is down but homicides have increased. And they will continue if we do not educate our residents on the importance of reporting actions that may lead to another homicide.
The police cannot be everywhere; they need the residents to be their ''eyes and ears.'' I know there are issues -- cultural issues -- but when do the ''cultural issues'' stop and the activism of the community start? How do we get the message across that gangs and violence do not supersede quality-of-life issues?
The week following the Sant La Haitian forum, a march was held in Liberty City, declaring, ''Enough is Enough,'' to gun violence. It was a march for peace. Here, also, we have ''cultural issues,'' such as no one wants to be known as a snitch, so the violence continues because people do not want to give information to the police.
You can chant all you want, but the bottom line is that if no one comes forward, the violence will continue.
I applaud the organizers of this Unity March Against Violence and those who marched, all 100 of them -- but shouldn't there have been a 1,000?
So we have all these marches and these forums and yet another 15-year-old was shot on the street corner of Northwest 15th Avenue and 62nd street the day after the Liberty City march. The residents sitting along Northwest 18th Avenue in lawn chairs or standing outside a market there had little to say about the incident, according to the media reports. Little to say will not stop the killings.
Recently, Miami-Dade Public Safety Director Robert Parker unveiled a program called ''Operation Community Guardian,'' an effort to help stop some of the violence. This initiative will be aided by a ''community awareness and education'' campaign. The director can put 120 police officers in the street but, without your help, they cannot accomplish their mission.
Although I have addressed the issues in the north end of our county, this problem also plagues us in other areas. I spoke to one of the crime prevention coordinators from the city of Miami who works in the Little Havana area and she, too, has great difficulties getting people to come forth in reporting crimes. Yes, there, too, lies a ''cultural'' issue, because the majority come from countries from which they bring the police-are-not-my-friend mentality.
So where do we begin? How do we begin changing these ''cultural'' obstacles? We begin with our children, by teaching them something that 17-year-old Samantha Macias said recently: ''The street is not the role model.'' She is absolutely correct. We the parents are supposed to be the role model. So let's stop these criminals by calling Crime Stoppers (305-471-TIPS).
Carmen Caldwell is the executive director of the Citizens' Crime Watch of Miami-Dade.