City officials gathered with community members Monday evening to discuss the rise in gun violence. A common goal included finding ways for the community to rally together to help find a solution.
Nicholas Goetz said that in his time as a former Commonwealth Attorney in Louisville, he found that a common denominator between many of the cases is that the opportunity outweighs the time of day when it comes to committing the crime.
He said that while the violence in Owensboro has risen, he noticed that it differs from other cities, especially in the reasoning.
“These kids are not committing crimes because it’s making them money, they commit crimes because they have opportunities in the community,” Goetz said.
He said that to fix the problem, the community must first address the strategy, and he noted that finding the proper strategy could take an unknown amount of time.
“I can’t give you a timeframe [on how long it’ll take]. The analogy is you’re pulling the rope out of a well and you don’t know how long is it. You don’t know until you get it out and you don’t know whether you solved the problem,” Goetz said.
Owensboro Police Department Chief Art Ealum said that the police department should not be accountable to help better the family. For example, Ealum said that this past week a family called the police to help keep their child in control after the the child pushed them and threatened to run away.
“That is not a police-related action. You can call social services. Because you introduced this negative relationship with a future citizen, what’s he gonna think when the police come there and take him to jail,” Ealum said.
He noted that legislation also can not be relied on to help control families and act as disciplinary factors. He said that the curfew ordinance meant to keep minors off the streets late at night will likely not affect the amount of gun violence.
One audience member noted that most of the gun crimes committed were mostly occurring outside of the city curfew. He also said that with the ordinance, the people have moved the criminal activity indoors as well.
Ealum said that a few of the things can be sourced back to the lack of structure that a lot of the children experience because of the COVID-19 environment.
Children typically find structure in the ability to be at school, ride the bus, and be among teachers that are mentors to them. Yet, he said in an environment when that’s not possible, they often rely on other adults to provide that structure — many of who have the same thought process as the youth.
When asked if it would be possible to do a “Beyond Scared Straight” program that would allow some of the youth in the community to see what the consequences of their crime would be, Ealum said he would look into it.
Other discussion revolved around helping provide families resources on how to parent their children, including creating a focus group geared toward parents who are experiencing similar issues with their children.
