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Marek Warszawski: Fresno shootings way up during stay-at-home order during coronavirus. What can be done?

The Fresno Bee - 4/25/2020

Apr. 25--Gun violence in Fresno doesn't shelter in place during the coronavirus scare.

Rather, it goes looking for trouble.

At a time when Fresno residents are strongly encouraged to stay home, shooting incidents are up 67% from the previous year. No, that's not a typo: 67%.

According to figures provided by the Fresno Police Department, 47 confirmed shootings took place citywide between March 16 to April 19. That's compared to 28 shootings during that same period in 2019.

Those dates are arbitrary, but also significant when you consider Mayor Lee Brand's stay-at-home order was announced March 18.

While police have a few theories, those with their ears closest to the problem are not surprised. (Remember that between 55% and 60% of all shootings in Fresno involve gang members as either the shooter or victim, depending on the year.)

"The streets don't take no days off, not even during COVID-19, so it's business as usual right now," said Aaron Foster, a reformed gang member who works as a community organizer for Faith in the Valley.

"Until we find a strategy, a way for rivals to come together and settle their differences without gunfire, there's nothing else to do."

Such a strategy already exists, one that has shown promise in other California cities and wishes to expand here. But Fresno being Fresno, we're pig-headed. Many of our elected leaders would rather poo poo an innovative idea or score cheap political points than embrace a potential solution to the majority of our gun violence.

Which is why Advance Peace died on the vine during last year's budget cycle with Mayor Lee Brand vetoing the $200,000 in start-up costs approved by the City Council.

Another needless loss of life

If not for Brand's veto, or the lack of council votes to override it, would Jacaree Fisher still be alive?

That's an unanswerable question and perhaps unfair of me to ask. Still, I can't help but wonder if a program like Advanced Peace, which targets notorious gang shooters, could have prevented Fisher, 19, from getting shot and killed April 16 in southwest Fresno.

"He was a brilliant guy -- could've done anything he wanted," said Marcel Woodruff, a Faith in the Valley organizer who mentored Fisher since he was 7. "Tons of people are sad right now. Everybody knew J Fish."

This doesn't imply he was some kind of saint. Fisher was a known gang member who at the time of his death faced two felony counts stemming from a 2018 traffic stop when police found a loaded 9 mm pistol in his glove box.

But painting Fisher a violent gang-banger doesn't tell the whole story, either. That portrayal doesn't mention he played football at Edison High and maintained steady employment. It leaves out the part where Fisher spoke to more than 350 people in west Fresno as a canvasser during the 2018 election, convincing many of them to vote for the first time.

"People thought it was cool, this kid from the neighborhood growing up and talking about politics and getting people to engage," Woodruff said. "The whole community got a different level of respect for him. He did so well at it that we ended up putting him in a paid position."

Many people reading this will reflexively blame Fisher for his "bad choices" and move on.

If only his situation, and the situations of so many young men in his sneakers, were that simple.

Fisher grew up with both parents incarcerated, according to Woodruff, and the aunt who took care of him died of cancer when he was 12. The street gang became his family and support network.

"It's hard for me when I hear people say kids like Jacaree made bad choices," Foster said. "I'm saying, what were the other choices? Even if he had turned his back on a gang, the streets wouldn't have turned their back on him. All of the beefs that he had before he decided to make a change still exist. It's not like you can just walk away and the people that are mad at you forget about it."

Ounce of prevention, ton of cure

During Thursday's City Council meeting, Assistant City Manager Jane Sumpter projected Fresno will face $39 million in lost revenues and a $32 million deficit in the next budget cycle. No department will be spared the paring knife, not even public safety.

With that backdrop it's only natural to ask whether Fresno, in an economic downturn, can afford a program like Advance Peace.

Except the true cost of shootings spin around that question: How can the city afford not to?

A 2019 report by the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform found that each fatal shooting in Stockton cost taxpayers $2.5 million after tabulating costs related to crime scene investigation, hospitalization, court proceedings, incarceration, victim support and lost tax revenues. For non-fatal injury shootings, the cost per suspect is $962,000.

I'm told a similar study for Fresno is underway. Still, those Stockton figures cannot be dismissed. They show if Advanced Peace prevents just one person from pulling the trigger, the city's $300,000 annual investment more than pays for itself.

As Benjamin Franklin once said, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

Franklin coined that expression in 1793 about fire prevention in Philadelphia. It applies equally well in 2020 about gun violence in Fresno.

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