Council panel urges more action on teen violence

Apr. 26—Town Council will look at possibly banning juveniles from having brass knuckles, enhancing the town's relationship with school districts and budgeting next fiscal year a police officer to handle community youth engagement in an attempt to address teen violence in Gilbert.

The Subcommittee on Teen Violence, with public input, submitted its recommendations last week to the council. The subcommittee also is handing off the baton to the Community Engagement Task Force that will continue to delve into the issue and provide recommendations to council.

"The most important thing we should consider is working together with the school district," said Vice Mayor Scott Anderson, who chaired the subcommittee. "We though we might even recommend that if we can go to some of the charter schools, we might want to do that also."

Anderson said that in the past, the council liaisons met periodically with the superintendents of Gilbert Public Schools and Chandler and Higley Unified School districts to go over issues that may affect both.

"Those discussions were fairly shallow for the most part," Anderson said. "We'd like to get to be something that is more regular, something that we can involve more people in.

"It would make sense to expand that whether it's involving the administration, the principals of the high schools, parents and the SROs — others that should be involved in meetings on a regular basis with the school district so the town and the school district can address these issues that are coming up. Everything kind of pivots on working together better with the school districts. That seemed to be a recurring theme that we needed to address."

The fatal beating death of 16-year-old Preston Lord at a Queen Creek Halloween party last October by other youths raised awareness with the public and soon other teens stepped forward in Gilbert to report beatings they've received at the hands of their peers.

Community members began showing up at school board and council meetings demanding action, prompting Gilbert council in January to put together the subcommittee, which solicited public input for its recommendations.

Other recommendations accepted by the council last week included looking at a "parental responsibility" ordinance. That and the brass knuckle proposals are expected to be discussed in a May council study session.

Councilwoman Kathy Tilque noted some of the public's recommendations are already underway such as council's approval for all three phases of Gilbert Police's family advocacy center.

The center will provide comprehensive support and services, including a therapy component, to individuals and families who have experienced domestic violence, child abuse, sexual assault, or other forms of interpersonal violence.

Part of the recommendations for council consideration included a 10-point plan submitted by Councilman Chuck Bongiovanni, a subcommittee member.

The plan, provided by a member of the public, included parent counseling and support groups, better coordination with neighboring school districts on programs, policies and procedure to address teen violence and greater involvement of school resource officers and police to communicate anti-teen violence messages and consequences.

"I just again want to reiterate how proud I am of the community, what we've been through the last couple of months and how much everyone came to the plate," Bongiovanni said. "I hope that we can continue with that open communication and expand it even more to other people to get involved in this.

"Now is the opportunity for us to get involved, work with the Community Engagement Task Force and actually set out and do some of these things that took us a while to get input from everyone so we can agree on some things and we think that we can work on."

The nonprofit Project Lily, which formed due to Preston's death, recommended that Gilbert Police have a watch list of repeat offenders or students who are frequently involved in issues whether a crime is committed or not.

The group wants the list to be made available to other agencies and schools.

Project Lily also recommended police enforced curfew and that the town adopt a zero-tolerance policy.

Council also reconfigured the Community Engagement Task Force, opting to have current volunteer citizens finish out their scope of work and be replaced with new members. The task force will comprise 11 members, including no fewer than four high school students. There also will be two adult and one teen alternates.

The town is expected this week to ask for applications from people wishing to serve. The council will appoint the members. The first meeting is anticipated to take place in June and the group is expected to provide a report to council in December.

Councilman Jim Togeson, the third member on the subcommittee, said that out of tragedy, something good has come from it — the community's involvement.

"People are paying attention," Torgeson said. "People are speaking and being involved and hopefully there're more creative ways where people are involved in this solution.

"There's no 100% solution for anything in life but to see that people are engaged and care and spend a lot of their time — people that never met Preston, people that never had a victim that was related to them. And they cared enough to volunteer their time and their expertise and their soul."