DEAR MR. MAYOR

On Thursday afternoon, I walked through Dudley Square.   The city was off.  Like I have never seen it.  Instead of going in to work,  I stood outside for a little while and observed.  All of the young people that walked by, normally laughing, joking or horsing around were eerily quiet.  Somber.  It was strange.

I called a young man I know from Roxbury, who grew up in Orchard Gardens, and asked him about the shooting.  "Yo, man, Soheil didn't have nothing to do with the streets, Bobby.  For real. I mean nothing.  All he did was go to school and play basketball, that's it.  This is crazy, Bobby, they just shot that boy because of where he was from.  That's the only reason."

"Wow," I responded, unable to muster more.  There was a palpable silence.  "Are you okay, bro?" I asked."  "Yeah, I'm aight man, just trying to stay away from all of this.  It's just crazy out there right now.  It just makes no sense."

On the way home on the 15 Bus, which is the same number as Soheil's age, a route that drives right by the scene of the shooting on Dudley Street, where young people were gathered in mourning, and where police cruisers and personnel were still moving here and there, I noticed the above ad on the inside of the bus.  And it bothered me.  A lot.  Talking about cruelty to animals on a bus route that goes through neighborhoods where innocent children have been dying for years for no reason.  

And it made me want to ask: How much cruelty can you swallow, Boston?  How much cruelty can you swallow, Mayor Menino?

Yes, Mr. Mayor, I am talking to you.  Seems strange, doesn't it?  That someone in this city would talk to you like that, and not be scared of you.  I have to admit, I am kind of scared.  But I try to forget about that, and ignore the fact that if you win I will probably be shut out of the club for life, or for at least another four years.  Where people will distance themselves from me because they don't want you to know that they associate with me.  But it's okay, Mr. Mayor.  I'm used to it.  And despite it all, I brush it aside because someone needs to say this to you.  Someone desperately needs to say this to you, Mr. Mayor.  And because of your high approval ratings, the candidates running against you won't.  

Here goes, Mr. Mayor.  Everyone knows which young people in violent neighborhoods are heading for trouble.  Everyone.  DSS knows it.  Boston Police know it.  DYS knows it.  The ministers know it.  But most importantly, residents here know it.  If you go to any neighborhood in Dorchester, Mattapan, Roxbury or any other neighborhood touched by violence and ask residents which young people are headed for trouble, they can name them off the top of their heads for you in five seconds.  Five seconds, Mr. Mayor.  

I mention this because I read an article this week where you said that you "Know the neighborhoods and the residents better than any of the other candidates."  And it got me thinking that if what you boast is true, Mr. Mayor, then how have you not yet asked the residents you know so well which young people in which neighborhoods are in trouble before they pick up guns?  How have you not identified every young person in trouble in this city and intervened before they pull the trigger, before they are arrested, before they are put in jail, before the state has to spend billions of dollars on criminal justice and corrections systems that all of the research shows do little to prevent young people from dying?  

How have you not made a database of young people in trouble before they join gangs, instead of a database of gang members once they have guns and are ready to use them?  And how have you not used that database to intervene and prevent these tragedies from happening, which all of the research shows is cheaper than prisons and saves lives?  How have you not done this, Mr. Mayor, if you know this city so well? 

Everyone I have ever talked to in Dudley Square and Roxbury, two places you claim to know better than anyone else, Mr. Mayor, has unanimously told me that they would much rather see their taxpayer money spent on far more inexpensive prevention programs that help kids instead of prisons.  The teenagers in my neighborhood actually circulated a petition and got hundreds of signatures from residents here telling you so.  They even sent it to you, Mr. Mayor.  Sadly, you didn't even bother to respond.  Rep. Marie St. Fleur did, Mr. Mayor, but you didn't.  Are you sure you know the Quincy Street neighborhood of Dorchester, Mr. Mayor?  Are you sure you know Roxbury?  

Yesterday afternoon, I was watching the kids play in my neighborhood out the window.  There were about 20 of them, all from single-parent homes, all having experienced more hardship than most people experience in a lifetime, and all of them just full of life and beautiful as they ran around, rode bikes and threw the football.  I love watching them, Mr. Mayor.  They are beautiful children full of potential.  Some of them will go to college.  Some will graduate high school.  Some will drop out of high school.  And some will succumb to the allure of the streets, all around them, and join gangs.  

Mr. Mayor, I, and everyone else in my neighborhood can tell you right now which of these precious children we are worried about.  Each and every one.  

Which all leads me to an important question: If one of the young boys I know grows up, gets picked on, jumped, beat up or robbed because he is not in a gang and has no protection, as happened recently with a 16-year-old I know, and starts hanging out with the the wrong people because he is scared for his life, I am one hundred percent certain that you have hundreds of thousands of dollars ready and waiting to identify him, follow him, investigate him, stop and search him, harass him, arrest him, prosecute him and give him a criminal record that will make it nearly impossible for him to get a job in the future.  I know this for a fact, Mr. Mayor, because I used to work in the court system and I saw it happen every single day.  I also know that there are millions more dollars ready and waiting to put him in jail for 5, 10, 15, 20 years or more once he picks up a gun and/or uses it.  

And so I ask, Mr. Mayor, if all of this money is available to do all of this once a beautiful child has grown up and become seduced by the streets into a misguided shooter or killer, and has shot and/or killed someone, why not work with the residents that you know so well now in order to prevent all of this madness from happening?  Why not spend a fraction of the money you have waiting to put him in jail on identifying and helping him now, so that you don't have to have a press conference in five years with the parents of the next dead 15-year-old? 

I would be willing to bet, Mr. Mayor, that everyone in the neighborhood of the boy that killed Soheil Turner knew him and knew that he was in big trouble.  And I bet they saw it coming from a mile away.  Just like everyone in Boston, including police, baseball coaches, ministers, residents, etc., knew 15-year-old Eloy Sierra was in big trouble before he killed college-bound Abdirauf Abdullahi in 2006.   Had we intervened with a fraction of the resources it will cost to incarcerate 16-year-old Eloy for 19-20 years (19 years times $47, 500/yr. = $902,500), we probably could have prevented this tragedy.  

Like, if we had surrounded him with positive resources, like a good, interesting year-round job, mentors, a social worker, some volunteers from programs or churches or colleges or universities, of which Boston has an overabundance, and refused to let him get away, much like the police and prison walls refuse to let him get away now, things might have turned out differently.  But something like that takes vision.  It takes political courage. It takes guts to stick with new ideas that work, such as the "Boston Miracle," Mr. Mayor.  What ever happened to the Boston Miracle, anyway?

I will you tell you, Mr. Mayor.  You fell asleep.  You gave up on it, and the whole thing fell apart.  A report out of Harvard is the smoking gun proving that the City of Boston let the success of the Boston Miracle fall through the cracks without even putting up a fight.  As infighting and egos in the police department and clergy circles threatened to undermine the whole thing, you just let the whole thing slip away.  I just cannot believe this, Mr. Mayor.  I cannot believe it.  

And I cannot believe that after all of this, you have the nerve to say that you understand this city.  The facts are rather simple: You didn't understand that if left alone the problem of violence would come right back once everyone got out of jail and the same old problems plaguing the same old neighborhoods remained unsolved.  You didn't understand this then, Mr. Mayor, and you don't understand it now.   

How do I know this?  I know this because we are back to where we started, with innocent 15-year-olds en route to school getting killed on busy streets in broad daylight, where witnesses are scared to come forward because they don't trust the police, where orders for the police to bang guys against cars and go through their pockets have only created more complaints against police and further exacerbated widespread mistrust and hostility towards law enforcement and the court system. 

How could you let all of this happen without more of a fight?  How could you let something that was saving lives all over the city die?  

And now that we are back here, how could you let rank and file police boss you and your new police commissioner around?  He started to do the right thing by focusing on community policing and putting officers on walking beats to build relationships and begin repairing the high levels of mistrust between residents and police.  But then the rank and file pushed back, and because it's an election year and you didn't want a fight with the police unions, you caved.  

Is that leadership, Mr. Mayor?  What is more important here?  You getting reelected, or kids being able to cooperate with the police in murder cases because they have trusting relationships and they are no longer scared they will get killed for going forward? 

You started to do the right thing with the Jefferson family, Mr. Mayor, but then the worst possible thing happened and you gave up, despite the fact that all indications prior to that tragic moment showed that this approach was working very effectively.

You started to do the right thing with CEO, and you brought them to Boston to see if we could do it here, and then you gave up on that too.  So now we have no CEO program in Boston, although ROCA is trying valiantly to make something similar happen here and they should be commended for their vision. Meanwhile, as New York City has seen its recidivism rates drastically reduced and has a pipeline of men going straight from prison to employment, we are now years behind the curve in Boston because you didn't have the vision to stick with it.

Where is the leadership, Mr. Mayor?  Where is the courage?  Where is the vision?

Mr. Mayor, Sam Yoon understands that this city needs a more comprehensive youth violence prevention program.  Why haven't you been saying this?  He gets it Mr. Mayor.  Why don't you? Why is he saying now what you should have been saying all along?  To be honest, I wish he would get tougher on you and hold you accountable for this.  Because you have dropped the ball on this issue, Mr. Mayor.  You have dropped the ball big time.  

Mr. Mayor, you are a good man.  You have done a lot for the City of Boston, and you should be proud of that.  I know you truly do care about this city and its citizens.  But, and I ask this sincerely, please think about dropping out of this race.  You have been in office for so long that it is hard for you to see things.  It's like trying to edit your own thesis after working on it all night.  You can't see the mistakes because you are just too close to it.  

This city needs a fresh set of eyes, Mr. Mayor.  It needs a fresh start.  You haven't adapted to the new Boston, the urban Boston, the minority Boston, and the city is suffering for it.  It's not all your fault, but it is the truth.  The Bay State Banner Editorial should be more than enough to show you that, Mr. Mayor.  More than enough.

Please think about stepping down.  You can donate your campaign funds to violence prevention organizations that are hemorrhaging money in Boston right now.  You can retire, have a wonderful life, relax, travel, spend some time with your family, and let Boston move in a new direction.  Sometimes, Mr. Mayor, you have to let go of something for it to grow.    

Thank you for your time.  I am sorry if I have been hard on you.  It's just that I am tired of hearing gunshots at night.  I am tired of worrying about the teenagers in my neighborhood each time they leave the house.  I am tired of living in a city that has infinite funds available to prosecute young men and so little available to help them.  I am tired of tears welling up in my eyes everytime I think about Soheil Turner's family, and how they just lost their most precious treasure.  

I am tired, Mr. Mayor.  I am really really tired.  And I am not alone.   

  

Sincerely yours,

Bobby Constantino

 

THE UNEMPLOYED LAWYER

I googled myself today.  The first thing that came up was the Italian Language Meetup group, which is weird that it comes up first.  Second, was an op-ed that I had published in the Bay State Banner last summer.  And third, grrrrrrrrr, third.  The article.  

In 2007, a Boston Globe reporter named Michael Paulson did an in-depth piece on a church in the neighborhood where I live.  It was a great piece that won all kinds of awards.  Great, that is, except for the part about me.

At the time, I had moved to the Quincy Street neighborhood of Dorchester.  I was working with the children and teenagers in the neighborhood through the church.  And I was killing myself.  Thirty, forty, fifty hour weeks, working without pay.  I went to workshops to learn how to do youth work and raise money.  How to build an organization and sustain it through different stages.  I went to court and to meetings with DSS and at the Boston Housing Authority with people from the neighborhood, tutored youth, went to meetings at churches and organizations to recruit mentors, made the connections, sustained the relationships, raised money for a summer program for the children, hired teens from the neighborhood to help me run it, raised money for the youth group, formed a relationship with Park Street Church to take a group of teens to South Africa, and so on.   

I specifically left the practice of law to do this work, and I poured my life and my heart and soul into it.  At the time of the article, I had been at it for about a year and I was worn out.  I was trying to pick myself up off the ground and it just wasn't happening.  The work was the most important and demanding work I had ever done.  It was heartbreaking. And often very dark.  There were big victories, but more often huge tragedies.  But I kept at it, often not knowing where my next meal would come from, just barely hanging on each day.

And then Michael Paulson came.  He was a reporter with the Globe.  I was thrilled that he would be writing about us.  I thought that it would somehow bring me relief.  Where I might get a salary because our work would become known.  I hoped he would highlight some of the work we were doing and that it would lead to some financial connections that would help me raise money for the teens.   And the day came.  And I rushed online to read it.  And I saw it. "Wait, what the hell did he just call me?" 

In my whole life, I don't think any three words have hurt me more.  "An unemployed lawyer." I was crushed.  And I read on.  He mentioned the trip to Africa, the same trip to Africa that I had been working so hard to plan, get the kids passports, get them motivated, prepared, raise money, everything.  They were going to Africa!  "And wait, what?!?!?  He's talking about it like the whole thing just happened without me!  Wait, this means that every time someone googles my name it's going to say unemployed lawyer! I can't freaking believe this!!"  

I will never forget that day.  I didn't want to leave the house.  I was so hurt.  Depressed.  Imagine working forty and fifty hour weeks for no pay, doing some of the hardest, most important work you have ever done, and then having some guy blithely call you an unemployed lawyer as if the work you are doing is not a job.  Or that you are doing it not because you choose to, but because you can't get a job otherwise even though you are actually turning down jobs to focus on your work.  I can't even begin to tell you how angry I was.  

Here I was thinking this guy was going to help me get up off the ground.  He was going to help rescue me.  He was offering his hand, holding it out for me.  And as I went to grab it, he pulled it away, took two steps back to get a nice clear run at me, and then wound up and kicked me in the ribs.  

I could keep going and tell you what I think about the whole thing, but I won't.  Rumor has it the Globe is not doing so well.  If I learned anything from that experience, it's that getting kicked while you are down is not fun.  And besides, aside from the part about me, it really was a great article.  

GOOD WILL JOB HUNTING

I have found the Will Hunting of Roxbury.  His name is Reggie, and he is one of the brightest people I have ever met.  I have been impressed, literally, by every word that I have heard him speak.  

Reggie has had a very difficult life, growing up in a tough neighborhood in Roxbury.  Where he lives, people die too early and are shipped off to prison as if it is normal.  

Despite it all, he has maintained. He has a great sense of humor.  He is super smart, perceptive and thoughtful.  He has a keen understanding of people and of life, and if he had been given more comforts and advantages in life, I am confident he would be at Harvard or some other amazing place leading the way for the rest of us.

Instead, unfortunately, he finds himself like Matt Damon in the movie, a genius yet to be discovered, a young man from a dangerous neighborhood trying to find work in a rotten economy.

If there is anyone out there looking for a genius, or who wants to hire one, or get him a college scholarship, I have your man.