Neighbors vs. Crime

Tonight is the second meeting of the Normandie/Brighton/Halldale Neighborhood Association. Yesterday evening Richard and our housemate Nancy went up and down the block distributing fliers and asking our neighbors to attend. In a post from last month we asked you to pray for this association to be inclusive and welcoming for EVERYONE on the block. We were surprised when everyone who attended our first meeting was a fluent English speaker. We conducted the whole meeting without translation, a rare phenomenon in this community. During the organizing process to close the alley between Normandie and Brighton the key participants were most comforable interacting in Spanish, and our translator's role was to help the English speakers follow the discussion. We had expected this initial group to be our "founding members" for the new block club, but in fact a whole new set of people jumped in. We are thrilled by the eagerness of this new group, made up of our African American and second-generation Latino neighbors. But we want to get everyone around the table. Would you pray for our meeting at 6:30 tonight that God will gather a broad group of residents and help us partner together well?

On the agenda tonight is a report of recent criminal activity and discussion with our LAPD Senior Lead Officer about strategies to curb it. We've drawn a perimeter extending 6 blocks in each direction from the 2700 block of Brighton, and we chart reported crimes in this area. Crime is known to increase during the summer months, and the numbers for June demonstrate this trend. Would you pray for God to guide and bless our efforts to make this neighborhood safer?

Here are the June numbers that we'll be looking at:

Homocides-1 (2 since January)
Aggravated Assaults-13 (38 since January)
Violent Robberies-3 (10 since January)
Grand Theft Auto-10 (40 since January)

Most concerning to us are the aggravated assaults, defined as "an attack for the purpose of inflicting severe or bodily injury, usually accompanied by the use of a weapon or means likely to produce death or great bodily injury." Just one of these would be a frightening number, but 38 is overwhelming. Additionally, the 13 incidents in June represent a big spike, more than double what has occurred in any previous month. Please pray that God will protect the families on our blocks from violence, and will reverse the trend we are seeing.