Ten Point Coalition deploys first volunteers in Cleveland
They’re walking the streets to bring peace to the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods
CLEVELAND, OH (WOIO) - On Friday, Cleveland put into practice a new method to crack down on violence and rebuild communities, and it’s one that’s worked in more than 30 other communities across the country, from Indianapolis to Boston to Memphis.
“Putting boots on the ground in these high crime neighborhoods and dealing with youth that are most likely to be the victims and the perpetrators of violent crime," said Reverend Charles Harrison, President of the Ten Point Coalition of Indianapolis who came to train the new group of Cleveland volunteers.
Robert Kilo, new co-chairman of the Cleveland Ten Point Coalition of Cleveland, said he met with Harrison several times over the last year, and he believes the strategies of the Ten Point Coalition will work here.
On Friday, the group met for a meeting, before suiting up in brightly colored vests, identifying them as coalition members. Then they set off in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood, speaking to people they met along the way.
“Right behind me, there’s a lot of pain. East 140th and Kinsman, according to law enforcement data, is some of the most violent areas of the city," said Kilo. "We want to go where the need is the greatest.”
Bishop Eugene Ward acknowledged that there was some fear about walking the neighborhood at night, but he said that is also when need is greatest.
“If there is fear, we just have to be afraid because if we don’t live for something, well, if we don’t live for something, and really stand for something, we’ll fall for anything," said Ward. "We have to be willing to die for something sometimes. Maybe that will wake up some people.”
The Ten Point Coalition has had success in cities like Indianapolis, where in one zip code, Reverend Harrison notes they saw a decrease in the murder rate by 85 percent in one year. However, he added that took twenty years of hard work, and he noted that even a ten percent drop in Cleveland should be considered a success, especially in the beginning. He also urged the Cleveland volunteers not to spread themselves too thin, too fast.
"If Cleveland is going to focus on Ten Point, the Mount Pleasant Neighborhood, they need to focus on that neighborhood and put all their energies into that neighborhood and resources that they're going to patrol," he said. "Don't get distracted or when they start having success, allow other people to pull them into other neighborhoods."
On Friday night, the first night for the group to meet with community members, there were about 35 volunteers. Kilo says the group aims to deploy people every Friday night for a few hours in the beginning, hopefully adding more nights as time goes on.
“If we feel like, by God’s grace, we can fix this area, then we can spread across," he said. "There’s a lot of community leaders in the city that have certainly been asking about Ten Point, and we feel like if things can work here, they can work anywhere.”
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