Charlotte City Council making plans to tackle crime — especially uptown and among teens

The Charlotte City Council is moving forward on tackling crime in the wake of a New Year’s Eve shooting uptown and an uptick in juvenile violence.

The council’s Housing, Safety and Community Committee is interested in putting together an ad hoc working group of stakeholders to address three key issues, committee chair Victoria Watlington said Tuesday at the council’s annual retreat in Winston-Salem.

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And overall crime, with a focus on juvenile crime.

The committee envisions the group including representatives from the justice system, such as the Mecklenburg County district attorney, as well as Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Mecklenburg County’s Office of Violence Prevention and other community groups, Watlington said.

The group would also look to work with local universities to compile extensive data on public safety, she added, and build on past city efforts, such as SAFE Charlotte.

“The first step is getting aligned as a council, then on how we go about that work,” the District 3 Democrat said.

Days after the New Year’s Eve shooting that left five people injured in Romare Bearden Park, District 6 representative Tariq Bokhari called for the council to put together a “task force” to tackle crime, with a focus on pulling together data and addressing recidivism and rising rates of juvenile crime.

There’s consensus more needs to be done to improve public safety, multiple Charlotte City Council members told The Charlotte Observer in the wake of Bokhari’s push, but the specifics of what could or would be done remained unclear.

On Tuesday, Council member Malcolm Graham said he thinks the council needs to unify behind a “thoughtful response” to crime concerns.

“And we need to bring the community along with us,” he said.

District 3 Council member Tiawana Brown, who was previously incarcerated and now runs a nonprofit that helps women involved with the criminal justice system, acknowledged that the 2023 crime statistics released by CMPD were “alarming” but said she sometimes “cringes” at how public safety is still discussed.

As the council firms up its plan, she believes it will be important to give a voice to young people and their families, too.

“I don’t have all the answers, but I do have some of them,” she said.

It will also be important to not just stick to past approaches “that don’t appear to be working,” Council member Ed Driggs said, and be prepared to take “pretty dramatic action.”

One of the council’s two Republicans, Driggs said he and his fellow members will also need to address at times differing views among them on policing practices.

“If we don’t allow police to do their jobs because we are being overly protective of people, then we are going to get what we got,” he said.

Bokhari, the council’s other Republican, said that while there’s still work to be done, he’s optimistic about a coalition forming.

“The last few days, this conversation was a really big thing,” he said. “... I’m very excited about that.”

Moving forward, Watlington said her committee will keep the council updated on how things progress.

“When we think about next steps, certainly we’re not going to solve all the problems,” she said. “... What we really need to consider is what we can do.”

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