Little Guyana

Continued from page 4 the Indo-Caribbean Alliance, and has run for city council and assembly seats. He said his community has not been allowed a collective voice in government.

“We don’t have elected officials who live here,” said David. “Imagine if they did. It means you might see them at Chase Bank and all that garbage that blows up on the street—they’re going to care a little bit more about. They might actually care more about that school if their kids have to go there.”

In addition to urging community members to be more resolutely visible at public hearings, organizers are considering legal action at the city level. Lawyer Jerry Vattamala, with the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, is preparing to file a lawsuit, as his predecessors have done, to sue City Council for prioritizing other neighborhoods like predominantly white Howard Beach near Rockaway and violating the city charter.

“The city charter says there’s a prioritized

[and] for other kinds of consultation and programs so that children can get to the underlying causes of what it is that [has] them act out and be violent and get on social media and bully other children.”

Anari, a high school sophomore in Staten Island and student activist whose last name is withheld due to privacy concerns, opposes additional YCOs in New York City schools based on personal experience.

“People shouldn’t be shooting people in the first place, so the city should be figuring out how to stop that from happening, not putting more police in our schools,” she said. “YCOs don’t keep students safe or prevent violence. They only come in after violence has already occurred. It’s nerve-racking to see more armed cops coming into our schools. No matter where I go, in my school or neighborhood, cops are always there.

“That’s not the case in other, whiter areas of Staten Island. We know that the safest schools and communities have the most resources, not the most cops. The city should focus on things that actually prevent violence, like more restorative justice in our schools and affordable ing to the NYU Furman Center. Over half of the Times Square neighborhood’s residents identify as white and Times Square saw around 200,000 people on average visit each day last February.

To be clear, the city’s gun-free zones are used to enforce concealed-carry bans in vulnerable areas where crossfire and collateral damage are likely. But the Amsterdam News spoke with public safety experts last month who said registered firearms are used nominally in New York list that the districting commission was supposed to follow and [it] didn’t. The first criterion is equal population. The second is fair and effective representation for racial and language minorities,” Vattamala said. housing in our neighborhoods.”

Under federal voting rights law, Black, Asian, Latino, and Native American communities of interests must be protected.

Vattamala said he aims to file before City Council election petitioning starts at the end of February. “We’ve been fighting for decades and we’ve gotten some success over the years, but this is unacceptable. This is taking us backward, what they did here,” said Vattamala.

More information about attending redistricting hearings is available at https:// nyirc.gov/meetings.

The next Queens County meeting will be held on Thurs., Feb. 16 at 4:00 p.m. at York College (CUNY).

Ariama C. Long is a Report for America corps member and writes about politics for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.

Critics do acknowledge that proponents’ concerns for school safety are valid, especially after the recent shootings.

“It’s totally understandable for people to want to have solutions and we have consistently told people that police equate to public safety, so it’s understandable for people to have that reaction because they want something done,” said Trujillo. “And sometimes it feels like the long-term solutions of more counselors, mediation, restorative justice—things that don’t sound like they have immediate payoff—may seem far-fetched.

“But I would caution against people [risking] increased [profiling] and harassment and cutting off the trust of young people who are, unfortunately, a hard population to reach.”

“You would think that those measures would reduce crime, but they don’t,” said Barron. “When things are counterintuitive, and when they go against what you have held as your belief for lo these many years, it’s very difficult and challenging to have them examined in another light, but that’s certainly what we have to try to do to get them to understand.”

City shootings. The number is probably so small that data isn’t kept and readily available, given the overwhelming prevalence of illegal firearms, including “ghost guns.” It is unknown whether the weapons used in this past week’s fatal shootings were registered.

The Concealed Carry Improvement Act, which includes the gun-free zone designations, was enacted after the Bruen Supreme Court decision, which struck down a century-old state gun control law. This new

A DOE spokesperson emphasized that YCOs are exclusively NYPD employees, but welcomed the news.

“Our schools are safe havens for our students, and the safety and well-being of all of our students is our absolute top priority,” she said. “Safety is the responsibility [of] the entire community and through Project Pivot, we are partnering deeply with the community to engage our students and ensure they are engaged in safe, positive activities in and outside of school. We appreciate the NYPD for taking this step to ensure our young people are safe when traveling to and from schools, and in their communities. We will continue to work alongside our agency partners and, importantly, the members of our communities, to wrap our arms around our schools to ensure our students are safe.” law is also facing similar legal challenges, although the same United States Supreme Court recently upheld New York’s ability to have gun-free zones during litigation.

Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member and writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.

Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member and writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.