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Event focuses on black-on-black crime

By Casey Cora, Times Staff Writer
In print: Saturday, June 21, 2008

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TAMPA — Despite grim statistics that will be discussed throughout the weekend, there was a current of hope Friday running through a ballroom full of conventioneers in a conference about crime.

Hope for black youth. Hope for the incarcerated. Hope for families and the communities they live in.

"Our culture is not our crime," said Adeola Fayemi, a Florida Department of Education official speaking during welcoming ceremonies for the 23rd annual National Conference on Preventing Black on Black Crime.

The Nigerian-born Fayemi said African-American culture is a heritage based on collaboration, faith and community-building. That's all impossible, she said, without education and communication among generations.

"We should make sure that we do not lose our culture," she said.

The four-day event, which continues through Sunday, is expected to draw an estimated 2,500 people — mostly a mix of local and state politicians, community leaders and law enforcement administrators — to downtown Tampa.

The focus Friday was on youth.

Jermaine Walker, sitting in the audience with several other teens in forest green collared shirts, paid close attention. When he was a boy, Walker, 18, said he was put in foster care for one year during his mother's legal woes.

"There was a lot of hurt inside, and I wanted to blame everybody else," he said.

Instead of acting out, he found an outlet: the Hamilton County Sheriff's Explorers program.

Now, he's the vice president of the nationwide Explorers program. In a few months, he's off to college to play football and study international business. After that, law school.

Walker is a case in point for the hundreds of teens from across the state who will attend seminars, job fairs and scheduled "listening summits" during the conference.

During a lunch break, Ashley Ruffin and Sandra Gabriel sat at a round table, explaining the daily struggles as high school students in Fort Pierce.

There are gangs, bad attitudes and maybe "being lucky enough to end up with teachers willing to help you," said Gabriel, 15.

Since joining the Community Outreach Youth Program last year, the girls have learned to embrace diversity, set examples and dissolve confrontation.

"Sometimes you can walk away," Gabriel said. "And sometimes you can help them."

Casey Cora can be reached at (813) 226-3386 or at ccora@sptimes.com