In an effort to address youth involvement with violence, community leaders put together a panel Monday to discuss the issues affecting teens across Chattanooga.
“We know about the obvious incidents with officers at East Ridge High, Brainerd High, Howard High, but we need to talk with lawmakers, decision-makers about how we move forward to ensure safety for our youth in schools and in the community,” LaDarius Price, director of the community outreach program at Chattanooga Cares, said via text about the event.
Panel members included Hamilton County District Attorney Coty Wamp.
“As we see an increase in juvenile crime, we see an increase in juvenile victims, particularly of gun violence,” she said. “As district attorney, I see kids on the back end, once they made the mistake, once they’ve been through the system.”
The panel also featured Hamilton County Juvenile Court Judge Robert Philyaw; Chattanooga Police Chief Celeste Murphy; Chris Sands, the interim executive director of the community safety and gun violence prevention program; William Terry Ladd III, pastor at First Baptist Church in Chattanooga; and Chattanooga Police Officer Josh May of the department’s gun unit task force.
Brian Bush, the legal counsel for the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office, was present for Sheriff Austin Garrett — who was in Nashville — but was not part of the panel.
The Sept. 20 arrest of East Ridge High School student Tauris Sledge was mentioned several times by both panel and audience members.
“Egos get in the way of a lot of stuff,” May said of the relationships between teenagers and officers. “Trust is a two-way street, it has to be built … but we need to come together.”
It is important for everyone to step back and acknowledge the problem at hand in order to find a solution that works best for everyone, he said.
School Resource Deputy Tyler McRae made headlines after he forcefully arrested 18-year old Sledge, who can be heard in an hourlong body camera video released by the Sheriff’s Office screaming at faculty members as well as McRae. In another clip of the incident, McRae can be seen pulling Sledge’s hair and forcing him to the ground. The incident later sparked a protest walkout that included both students and faculty members.
“We want to do better,” Bush said.
He said school resource officers and school resource deputies “are to only step in when an unlawful act occurs.”
Bush added that the Sheriff’s Office is working with the county schools to better equip school resource deputies and make a clear outline of their duties moving forward.
In another school-related incident on Sept. 20, Chattanooga officers arrested a Howard High School student after a firearm in a backpack was discovered during school hours.
“I’m scared for my own kids and for other kids as well,” Murphy said. “It’s important to mentor them.”
For officers and deputies placed in schools, a hefty vetting process should be in place to ensure they are the right person who can protect and guide young Chattanoogans, she added.
Philyaw urged parents to make clear to their children there will be legal consequences for breaking the law. “It’s a myth” that a young person will not get in trouble should they get caught, Philyaw said, reiterating an earlier statement.
“I had an opportunity to talk to probably 50 or so students, mostly athletes … and had a conversation, like I had many times before,” Philyaw said. “I asked, ‘How many of you have heard that you won’t get in trouble if you do this thing,’ and more than half the hands went up, and so it reminded me to have the conversation, that serious things, life-altering consequences can happen.”
After a shooting May 28 on Walnut Street in downtown Chattanooga left six teens injured, former Hamilton County District Attorney Neal Pinkston filed a motion to have the teens arrested in connection with the shooting transferred to the adult criminal court system to be tried as adults.
“The district attorney doesn’t want to send juveniles to jail,” Wamp said. “You don’t want a 16-, 17-year-old kid to go to jail, until it’s your child is the one being shot.”
Eight days after the Walnut Street shooting, another mass shooting incident took place on McCallie Avenue, in which 14 people were left injured, one of them 16 years old. Three people died. The youngest fatality was 21-year-old Howard High School graduate Darian Hixson.
After the series of shootings, a group called the Lighthouse Collective held a series of roundtables at local high schools at which students said the shootings left them feeling helpless, numb and unsafe.
The city also collaborated in organizing a series of events aimed at families with various activities, music and food during the summer, in an effort to curb gun violence.
Since then, shootings involving teens and young adults have continued. One high-profile case was the arrest of two teens — an 18- and 19 year-old — as well as a 21-year-old in connection with a Brainerd tunnel shoot-out that led to a fatal crash that left one woman dead.
“We’re here to fight for young people no matter what neighborhood they come from,” said Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp, who was not a member of the panel but made an appearance at Monday’s meeting.
Contact La Shawn Pagán at lpagan@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6476. Follow her on Twitter @LaShawnPagan.