In Philadelphia:
The city’s embattled police chief, acknowledging that police alone cannot quell a run of deadly violence, has called on 10,000 black men to patrol the streets to reduce crime.
Sylvester Johnson, who is black, says black men have a duty to protect more vulnerable residents. He wants each volunteer to pledge to work three hours a day for at least 90 days.
"It’s time for African-American men to stand up," Johnson told the Philadelphia Daily News, which first reported the story Wednesday. "We have an obligation to protect our women, our children and our elderly. We’re going to put men on the street. We’re going to train them in conflict resolution."
The program’s backers include Dennis Muhammad, a former Nation of Islam official who has been hired by police departments in Detroit, Syracuse, N.Y., and other cities to conduct community-sensitivity training.
Philadelphia, the nation’s sixth-largest city, has nearly 1.5 million residents, 44 percent of them black. It has notched 294 homicides this year. More than 80 percent of the slayings involve handguns, and most involve young black males.
[...]
The men who join Johnson’s program will not carry weapons or make arrests but will instead emphasize conflict resolution, similar to the Guardian Angels’ ground rules.
Police in other cities have hired Muhammad in recent years to provide sensitivity training to officers and community members, but it was not immediately clear whether any have deployed a volunteer patrol force.
Johnson, who had led the police department for seven years, appears increasingly frustrated by the daily gun violence. He and other city leaders have blamed the Legislature for not passing gun-control measures.
Several questions come to mind. How much will this "training" cost? What results from replacing law enforcement with "conflict resolution"? (Example: Getting the crack dealer to move 100 yards further from the schoolyard gives the volunteer a warm happy feeling, but really changes nothing.) Why should the volunteers be outgunned by the hoodlums?
They don’t need a community watch in Philadelphia, they need a posse.
