Action - Local level

There's a plan from CAPS to form a Community Watch group for West Rogers Park.
The coverage area would be Peterson-Ridge-Howard-Kedzie, which is pretty large. Most of it is in the 50th ward, with just the south end in the 40th (or 48?).

On Jan 25, there was a community meeting (200+ people showed up) to discuss the increased property crimes in WRP, and the fact that the police aren't responding to property crimes. They are prioritizing violence, active crime scenes, etc. The suggestion from CAPS is to have more community involvement, and try to get people to me more careful and aware. (And to lock their doors.)
The take-away from that meeting was to look into forming a community watch group.

On Feb 6, there was another meeting, to look at actually forming the group. There were about 130 people attending.  The first 40 minutes was spent with the people in the front going over what the plan was, why it would be good for the community, how it needed to be staffed by volunteers in the community and that we would own it, wasn't supposed to be vigilante, etc.
Several times during the presentation, there were comments from the assembly. The CAPS guy asked for those to wait until later.

At 7:40, he opened the floor for questions. There were a couple of "logistical" type questions.
Then someone (neighbor of Rich C) asked a question in a very confrontational way, about metrics for success, and vision and mission statements. I thought she was expecting a lot from something just getting started, and all volunteer driven. A couple more people shouted requests for data and incident counts.

Then a woman shouted that she wouldn't be silenced, and the entire program was too racist to be tolerated. There was a (20-30?) contingent with her, who snapped fingers in support. (nb: showing support without interrupting the speaker as much as clapping would) She went on for a bit, and was very disruptive and angry.

The CAPS guy tried to get back to the program but the remaining time wasn't very productive. At 8, the meeting ended. I hung around for a bit, mainly because I had a question to ask.

While I was waiting, I saw one of the younger attendees standing alone. I did the "eye contact & smile" thing, and she came over and we said hi. I made the comment that everyone was welcome, and asked why she didn't seem to agree.  We ended up talking for 10 or 15 minutes. She's with a Quaker group (American Friends Service Committee, afsc.org) that works with marginalized youth. She would never work with CAPS since any cooperation with the police is wrong (in her opinion). She also objected to the "Community Watch" idea since it's surveillance, and chasing "the others" out.

I tried to explain what I thought the intent of the group was (safety, belonging, involvement) and we talked briefly about the difference between what's intended and what's perceived.

There was so much anger, finger pointing and blame during the meeting. It was really weird.
I need to think about this more.