The Champaign County Community Coalition had its first in-person meeting since the pandemic interrupted large gathering. The 11/10/2021 meeting video is available here (agenda, meeting notes, and News-Gazette coverage). WCIA had an overview of the November meeting, highlighting the need for stability for people reentering the community from the criminal justice system:
The group of community leaders said helping a formerly incarcerated person successfully re-enter society is the way to close that revolving door and work toward improving the rate of gun violence across the region.
A lack of access to things like housing, jobs, even transportation, health insurance or an ID can hold people back, according to the panelists...
The group shared examples of what’s been changed to improve outcomes. For example, the Housing Authority no longer uses most of the criteria from background screenings to place people in housing. A representative said the data showed it was keeping formerly incarcerated people from having homes after they’ve served their time.
That full article here. Here's an excerpt from the meeting notes with the local police chiefs' reports:
- Champaign Police Department – Interim Chief Henson and Deputy Chief Petrilli
- Current Interim Chief Henson will be retiring Dec 16, Deputy Chief Petrilli will be taking over as Interim at that point; search for permanent Chief continues, applications are still being accepted
- 3 homicides since last met; Oct 20 - ongoing but progress has been made, Oct 30 – ongoing, Oct 31 – ongoing; to date 231 shootings in Champaign and 15 homicides
- Administrative changes – new online reporting system designed for reports where an officer does not need to physically respond
- CPD has returned to a “district” model. Lieutenants are assigned a district so residents can reach out to the same lieutenant regardless of time of day/shift, to interact with, address concerns, etc.
- Urbana Police Department – Chief Seraphin
- Since our last meeting on the 13th, 3 shootings in Urbana for total of 93 this year and 8 homicides
- Had a Lieutenant retire and are in the process of the promotional process
- Crisis co-response team has been up and running since mid-Oct; UPD officer (behavior health detective) and Rosecrance crisiscounselor/social worker that follow up with families after an incident occurs
- Champaign County Sheriff’s Office – Sheriff Heuerman
- Have had 1 shooting incident in the last month
- Hope to be fully staffed by Jan 1st with full budget, so we’re looking forward to implementing community programs/initiatives
- University of Illinois Police Department – Chief Cary
- Don’t have a lot to update, which is a good thing; did have 1 shooting on the Urbana side of campus
- Crisis co-responder teams, calls for mental health have been upas midterms approach, but our teams have responded and worked to get callers connected to resources
- Parkland Police Department – Chief Matthew Kopmann
- One of the Champaign shootings was very close to campus, so Parkland Administration and counseling offices opened for talking groups
- Black Student Success project in Sept with Donna Tanner-Harold
- Coming up, Karen Simms will be meeting with college relations officer to give Trauma informed criminal justice training for officers and telecommunicators
More information on the meeting from the full meeting notes here. There was also a panel discussion on community violence that begins just before the 50 minute mark in the video. The facilitator, Tracy Parsons, stated that panel discussions like these with local experts and organizers would become a regular feature of the Community Coalition meetings.
There was also a community event discussing local gun violence. The Coalition facebook page described it as the "launch of Illinois Public Media's new quarterly series "News, Brews & Beatz!"(video here). Smile Politely described the event in a preview:
“It Takes a Village: What C-U is Doing to Combat Gun Violence”. Illinois Public Media News and Public Affairs Director, Reginald Hardwick, and Facilitator of the Champaign County Community Coalition, Tracy Parsons will be facilitating, and participants include:
- Karen Crawford Simms, Founder of Trauma & Resilience Initiative, Inc.
- Nathan Stephens, Professor in School of Social Work at Illinois State University
- Missy Richland, Spoken Word Artist
- Dj-I.c.Dre’ (Andre' Gray), TableFunk Muzik Group LLC
In other news:
Earlier in November the Champaign County Sheriff expressed hope that the County would receive some State funding towards addressing area gun violence here. From WCCU:
Champaign County is hoping to receive some of the state funding that will be allocated to curb gun violence.
On Monday, Governor JB Pritzker, D-Illinois, declared gun violence a public health crisis. He unveiled a $250 million state investment to implement a public safety plan...
The plan will provide the money over the course of three years and is aimed at focusing on high-risk youth, violence prevention, and youth development programs.
[Champaign County Sheriff Dustin Heuerman] believes some of the money will come to the community.
That full article here. WCCU also highlighted local law enforcement concerns with the increased number of shots fired with extended ammunition magazines being used in local gun violence.
November's City of Champaign updates on the C-U Local Cheat Sheet include a lot of additional information and links on Champaign Police hiring and staffing challenges.
It would be a whole other project to keep up with various gun violence, arrests, and related activities in the area. For just a quick look at a few of the gun violence related stories this month, the Daily Illini had stories involving campus, Champaign and Urbana:
- Three weekends of firearm related arrests by the University of Illinois Police.
- Urbana sees shooting right outside Carle Hospital.
- Champaign gun incidents over Halloween weekend.
Illinois Newsroom had coverage on the two recent threats at local high schools here.
More community coalition and community violence related news article recently:
- The local United Way has grants available for programs addressing community violence. From Smile Politely.
- Smile Politely also reported that the C-U Trauma and Resiliency Initiative is hiring for various community support positions.
No comments:
Post a Comment