The Bobster
Senior News Editor since 2004
16
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/news/012305_nw...olviolence.html
Troubled A.C. School Looking for Answers to Violence
January 23, 2005 --Seven-year-old Nishiyah McKinney can't walk to school, even though it's a short six blocks. Her mother won't let her; she doesn't trust the neighborhood around the New York Avenue School, which some now call "little Fallujah."
Too many shootings. Too many men standing idly on street corners. Too much at stake.
"I'd love to have my kids walk to school, but I can't," said Kemyelle McKinney, 32, sitting in her car outside the school, waiting to drive them home. "There's a lot of violence in this area. It's getting so that children have to duck down" to avoid getting shot, she said.
If acting Gov. Richard Codey wants to make New Jersey's schools more secure, he could start here - at an urban el
ementary school where neighborhood violence and a series of gun-related incidents have school officials considering abandoning the $23 million building after only a year.
Codey vowed to beef up anti-terror efforts at schools and improve safety for school children in his Jan. 11 State of the State address.
The school, which opened last January to 650 children in kindergarten through eighth grade, was built across the street from Stanley Holmes Village, a World War II-era housing project plagued with gun violence and drugs.
But built-in surveillance cameras, locked front doors and the presence of Board of Education security guards have been unable to insulate it from the problems of its surrounding neighborhood.
Within a three-month span recently:
-Someone fired a pistol through a window and into a first-floor art room. The bullet was found
by a teacher.
-Another teacher watched from a third-floor classroom as a car pulled up outside and a lone gunman got out, firing thre
e or four shots down an alley before speeding away.
-A 15-year-old boy was shot to death Sept. 29 at the Village, the latest casualty of what police say is a drug war in the project.
While no students have been hurt, the incidents have spooked parents, children and school officials. For a month, children were banned from playing outside on the new jungle gyms and playground equipment, for fear they'd be caught in a crossfire.
They have taken it in stride, although school Principal Dorothy Bullock-Fernandes suspects that the incidents are distracting them from school work.
"They shouldn't have to deal with these issues," said Bullock-Fernandes. "In the back of their minds, they have to be thinking 'Is anything going to happen to me on the way home from school today?"'
The school, offici
als say, is safe.
It's crime from the neighborhood - some of it from the Village - that threatens the school, they say. The 443-unit project has been plagued by drugs and violence in rec
ent years.
Last March, authorities busted a drug cartel that dealt cocaine, crack and marijuana from the Village, arresting 10 ringleaders to cap a nine-month probe dubbed "Operation Lord Stanley."
"It's well known for illicit drug sales and cycles of violence," said Lt. Michael Tullio, a police spokesman. "We did have some shootings. We had a lot of stuff going on there for a while. All you can do is put more officers in the area, more undercovers in the area."
In response to the recent incidents, police assigned an officer to the school to patrol the area and maintain a visible presence. Mayor Lorenzo Langford volunteered his personal bodyguard to work as a monitor during recess at the school, and parents have made similar offers.
City Council, mea
nwhile, has introduced an ordinance that would ban anyone charged with committing an indictable offense within 1,000 feet of a school or public housing from all such areas in the city.
But the measure, which would be in effect from the day a
person is arrested until he or she finishes probation or is released on parole, still needs the mayor's signature and may face a constitutional challenge even if enacted.
School officials are weighing other options, including the installation of bulletproof glass on first-floor windows.
Cornell Davis, president of the board of education, said he would recommend closing the school entirely if a child is hurt or threatened. But other school officials concede that's an unlikely scenario.
"What we need is a sweep, like the armed forces swept the bad guys out of Fallujah," said Schools Superintendent Fredrick Nickles, alluding to the Iraq city where U.S forces have battled insurgents. "It's a shame we can't
have one to get rid of the criminal activity," he said. He said the board of education would welcome any help from the state, including making the New York Avenue School a pilot project for school safety initiatives.
State Sen. William Gormley brought up the school's problems in a
recent appearance before a legislative committee looking into homeland security funding for New Jersey.
"It's a little like Fallujah, when they can't go on the playground and they're afraid they're going to get shot," said Gormley, R-Atlantic.
Codey, who replaced former Gov. James E. McGreevey after his resignation, has pledged to make New Jersey schools safer.
"The $4 billion deficit, the property tax crisis, they pale in comparison to the safety of our children," he told a joint session of the Legislature. "If we have one priority for the year ahead, it will be the safety of our school children. If there is one thing we must all focus on, it is
the protection of our schools."
The state plans to send security experts to every New Jersey school, and federal homeland security officials will host courses on school security for education leaders around the state, he said.
In the meantime, McKinney will keep driving her children to school.
"The state definitely should step in and
help the school out," she said.
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/news/012305_nw...olviolence.html
Troubled A.C. School Looking for Answers to Violence
January 23, 2005 --Seven-year-old Nishiyah McKinney can't walk to school, even though it's a short six blocks. Her mother won't let her; she doesn't trust the neighborhood around the New York Avenue School, which some now call "little Fallujah."
Too many shootings. Too many men standing idly on street corners. Too much at stake.
"I'd love to have my kids walk to school, but I can't," said Kemyelle McKinney, 32, sitting in her car outside the school, waiting to drive them home. "There's a lot of violence in this area. It's getting so that children have to duck down" to avoid getting shot, she said.
If acting Gov. Richard Codey wants to make New Jersey's schools more secure, he could start here - at an urban el
ementary school where neighborhood violence and a series of gun-related incidents have school officials considering abandoning the $23 million building after only a year.
Codey vowed to beef up anti-terror efforts at schools and improve safety for school children in his Jan. 11 State of the State address.
The school, which opened last January to 650 children in kindergarten through eighth grade, was built across the street from Stanley Holmes Village, a World War II-era housing project plagued with gun violence and drugs.
But built-in surveillance cameras, locked front doors and the presence of Board of Education security guards have been unable to insulate it from the problems of its surrounding neighborhood.
Within a three-month span recently:
-Someone fired a pistol through a window and into a first-floor art room. The bullet was found
by a teacher.
-Another teacher watched from a third-floor classroom as a car pulled up outside and a lone gunman got out, firing thre
e or four shots down an alley before speeding away.
-A 15-year-old boy was shot to death Sept. 29 at the Village, the latest casualty of what police say is a drug war in the project.
While no students have been hurt, the incidents have spooked parents, children and school officials. For a month, children were banned from playing outside on the new jungle gyms and playground equipment, for fear they'd be caught in a crossfire.
They have taken it in stride, although school Principal Dorothy Bullock-Fernandes suspects that the incidents are distracting them from school work.
"They shouldn't have to deal with these issues," said Bullock-Fernandes. "In the back of their minds, they have to be thinking 'Is anything going to happen to me on the way home from school today?"'
The school, offici
als say, is safe.
It's crime from the neighborhood - some of it from the Village - that threatens the school, they say. The 443-unit project has been plagued by drugs and violence in rec
ent years.
Last March, authorities busted a drug cartel that dealt cocaine, crack and marijuana from the Village, arresting 10 ringleaders to cap a nine-month probe dubbed "Operation Lord Stanley."
"It's well known for illicit drug sales and cycles of violence," said Lt. Michael Tullio, a police spokesman. "We did have some shootings. We had a lot of stuff going on there for a while. All you can do is put more officers in the area, more undercovers in the area."
In response to the recent incidents, police assigned an officer to the school to patrol the area and maintain a visible presence. Mayor Lorenzo Langford volunteered his personal bodyguard to work as a monitor during recess at the school, and parents have made similar offers.
City Council, mea
nwhile, has introduced an ordinance that would ban anyone charged with committing an indictable offense within 1,000 feet of a school or public housing from all such areas in the city.
But the measure, which would be in effect from the day a
person is arrested until he or she finishes probation or is released on parole, still needs the mayor's signature and may face a constitutional challenge even if enacted.
School officials are weighing other options, including the installation of bulletproof glass on first-floor windows.
Cornell Davis, president of the board of education, said he would recommend closing the school entirely if a child is hurt or threatened. But other school officials concede that's an unlikely scenario.
"What we need is a sweep, like the armed forces swept the bad guys out of Fallujah," said Schools Superintendent Fredrick Nickles, alluding to the Iraq city where U.S forces have battled insurgents. "It's a shame we can't
have one to get rid of the criminal activity," he said. He said the board of education would welcome any help from the state, including making the New York Avenue School a pilot project for school safety initiatives.
State Sen. William Gormley brought up the school's problems in a
recent appearance before a legislative committee looking into homeland security funding for New Jersey.
"It's a little like Fallujah, when they can't go on the playground and they're afraid they're going to get shot," said Gormley, R-Atlantic.
Codey, who replaced former Gov. James E. McGreevey after his resignation, has pledged to make New Jersey schools safer.
"The $4 billion deficit, the property tax crisis, they pale in comparison to the safety of our children," he told a joint session of the Legislature. "If we have one priority for the year ahead, it will be the safety of our school children. If there is one thing we must all focus on, it is
the protection of our schools."
The state plans to send security experts to every New Jersey school, and federal homeland security officials will host courses on school security for education leaders around the state, he said.
In the meantime, McKinney will keep driving her children to school.
"The state definitely should step in and
help the school out," she said.