Black lives don't matter when their community doesn't care

It’s time to care enough to call

By Joe Brown 

Last Saturday, Sharon Darns Watkins became Tampa’s 21st homicide victim of the year. Her crime: being inside her home, in her bedroom, when bullets pierced a window and tore through her body. Police don’t believe she was the intended target, which shows the shooter’s marksmanship is as poor as his character.
No one can say Watkins was in the wrong place at the wrong time. If she was, then the street she lived on — North Delaware Avenue — truly is a war zone.
Ironically, while Watkins was being murdered, the Tampa Police Department was conducting a gun buyback 6 miles away at River Tower Park in Sulphur Springs. A total of 521 guns were purchased, but apparently some folks in the community didn’t get the news. Either that, or it reinforces my belief that street criminals just laugh at these laudable efforts, which really don’t “get guns off the street.”
At a news conference Tuesday at TPD headquarters, Watkins’ daughter tearfully pleaded for the community to help find her mother’s killer. Afterward, Capt. Ronald McMullen asked a simple question: “Do you care yet?” He then told all who would listen, “When you care enough, give us a call.”
McMullen also announced plans for the TPD to use federal grant money to increase police presence in West Tampa and East Tampa, where an increasing number of homicides have taken place this year. This is good news, but I fear some community activists will be of two minds about it. On one hand, they want the police to do something about these senseless killings. On the other hand, when officers get too aggressive, complaints about a police state increase. A good example is New York City, where the NYPD’s “stop and frisk” tactics brought lawsuits.
But any shortcomings by law enforcement are nothing compared with neighborhood residents who offer limited help in catching criminals. Unfair as it might sound, they are the key. Yes, it’s the job of the police to locate and arrest suspects, but cops generally know less about the chronic troublemakers than the people these criminals terrorize. When so many people are dying, they don’t deserve to get such a free pass to spread fear into a community.
Maybe a more effective means of connecting fearful witnesses with detectives is the answer. Perhaps community leaders can help bridge the fear and distrust that keeps some law-abiding citizens from coming forth. Whatever the solution, something must be done now, and a plan of action has to be developed.
I’ve heard from many who say the answer is more jobs, and that if these young men were employed, they wouldn’t be out creating murder and mayhem in their communities. That’s dubious, to say the least. But what if those jobs never come?
The same goes for tougher gun laws, drug rehabilitation, job training and other proposed societal solutions I’ve heard through the years. Waiting for these factors to fully right themselves amounts to waiting for Godot. The murder victims to come can’t wait for any of that.
In the meantime, something is terribly wrong when someone can’t be in their bedroom, as private a place as there is, without being in danger. That her daughter has to tearfully, publicly plead for witnesses to come forward is just as appalling, especially when it happened in broad daylight on a Saturday afternoon.

Capt. McMullen told those who were listening to give the police a call “when you care enough.” I’ve been wondering for years when that will be.