The co-chairs of the new Initiative are former Mayor Norm Rice, former deputy mayor Bob Watt and Estela Ortega, associate director at El Centro de la Raza.

To give feedback, fill out the form below. Information is sent directly to the YFI Team.

“I’m here because I raise kids in this city, and they don’t feel safe,” said one woman who attended with her neighbor.  Both women said youth violence, safety and opportunities were their top concerns.

“I want to know what the guy [Mayor McGinn] is actually going to do,” said one man who identified himself as “Gary”.  “He talks a whole lot of stuff, but I want to know, when he is done hearing from all of us, is he going to put the city’s money where its mouth is, or leave these kids out to dry?”

Dozens of parents neighbors, volunteers crammed into a small room prepared to begin the discussion.

The co-chairs of the new initiative are former mayor Norm Rice, former deputy mayor Bob Watt and Estela Ortega, executive director at El Centro de la Raza and were on hand to lead the meeting.

So, what is the meat of the initiative?  Here’s what the Mayor had to say:

“Our goal with the Youth and Families Initiative is to get input from everyone in Seattle who cares about these issues,” said Mayor’s Office Community Engagement Coordinator Sol Villarreal. “We realize that not everyone is going to be interested in attending or able to attend one of the large group workshops, so in order to make sure we’re hearing from a representative sample of the population of the city, we’re also going to be holding up to 100 Community Caucuses around the city. The idea is that instead of asking someone to come to us, we’re going to go to them to make sure that their voice gets heard.”

Timeline:

Large Group Workshops:

March 1 � Northgate Elementary School 7:00-8:30 p.m.
March 8 � Van Asselt Elementary School 7:00-8:30 p.m.
March 15 � Denny Middle School 7:00-8:30 p.m.
March 22 � Garfield Community Center 7:00-8:30 p.m.

Community Caucuses March 22- May 2010

Community Causes are intended to reach communities, organizations and people who are unable or disinclined to attend large public meetings. They are also intended to focus conversations around community and neighborhood specific issues.  Like the Workshop small groups, each caucus will be provided a facilitator and note taker as well as a translator if one is required.

Each Community Caucus will elect one delegate to send on to the Kids and Families Congress on June 5 at Seattle Center.

Kids and Families Congress June 5th 2010 Seattle Center

Delegates from workshops and caucuses, city staff, school district staff and representatives of the business community, foundations and legislators will be invited to attend and participate.

Action Planning Groups September-December 2010

Teams composed of delegates, city staff, experts, and legislators will be formed to develop action plans for priority issues that emerge from the Congress.  Action plans will include priorities for city spending and the Families and Education Levy.  Action plans will outline and strengthen partnerships among the city, Seattle Public Schools, Community Based Organizations, foundations, businesses and elected officials at all levels.

The next meeting is scheduled for March 1st at Northgate Elementary

Mike McGinn, Mayor

For Immediate Release: Monday, February 08, 2010

Contact:  Mark Matassa, (206) 233-2655 or (206) 321-7307 (cell), mark.matassa@seattle.gov

Public input sought on Police Chief search

Announcing the first of three forums this week, and a new website

SEATTLE – The public is invited to offer feedback and help draft assessment criteria for Seattle’s next Police Chief during several upcoming public forums and through other means, including a dedicated telephone line and a new website launched today.

The first of three public hearings devoted to the Police Chief search is at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 10, at Northgate Community Center, 10510 5th Ave NE, Seattle. The first two hours of the meeting will be dedicated to public comments, with another hour set aside for the Seattle Police Chief Search Committee to begin developing competitive selection process and assessment criteria.

Here are the questions Mayor Mike McGinn’s Police Chief Search Committee is asking of interested parties:

• What qualities are you looking for in a new Police Chief?
• What is the most important public safety issue in Seattle?
• What does the Seattle Police Department do well?
• What changes would you like to see?

Additional public hearings are scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 17, at Franklin High School, 3013 Mount Baker S., Seattle; and 5:30 p.m.-8:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 26, at New Holly Gathering Center, 7054 32nd Ave. S., Seattle. At the New Holly meeting, language interpreters will be available in Tagalog, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Laotian, Amharic, Oromiffa, Khmer (Cambodian), Somali, and Tigrinya.

In addition to the public meetings, residents are invited to find background material on the Police Chief search process, including links to online input, at a new website, www.seattle.gov/mayor/spdChiefSearch/.

Residents also may call 206-684-CITY (206-684-2489) to offer answers to the Seattle Police Chief Search Committee’s four questions for the public, listed above.

Mayor McGinn will appoint a new chief in June to succeed former Chief Gil Kerlikowske, who is now the nation’s drug czar, subject to City Council approval. Kate Joncas and Charles Rolland are Co-Chairs of the mayor’s 26-member Seattle Police Chief Search Committee, which will recommend three finalists to the mayor in May.

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During his inaugural address last month, Mayor McGinn announced a Youth and Family Initiative to engage as many Seattleites as possible in the process of identifying and helping to address the problems faced by our city’s families and youth; more information on the dates and times is available here.

We hope you can attend one of these engagement meetings to contribute your input and ideas to the broader conversation.

You can also make an enormous contribution to the success of the Initiative by giving some of your time, in the weeks leading up to the meetings and at the meetings themselves, to help us ensure that we are able to bring a multitude of different voices to the table and to effectively manage those voices once we are all together in the same room.

Please contact me directly at sol.villarreal@seattle.gov or 206-233-2656 if you are interested in volunteering with the Youth and Family Initiative, and include any information you think I should know about you, your background, and your specific interests regarding youth and families.

The City of Seattle’s 2009-2010 budget included a new, multi-million dollar Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative to dramatically change how the city deals with youth violence.

In proposing this new Initiative, former Mayor Nickels stated, “We will not stand for this violence; this has to stop. The time has come for the city and the community to fundamentally change our overall strategy on preventing youth violence. I am asking neighbors, families, schools, churches, service workers and community members to come together and join our efforts.”

In 2008, five teenagers were shot to death in Seattle.  Earlier in the year, former Mayor Nickels brought together community leaders, principals, members of the faith community and others to develop a new approach to preventing youth and gang-related violence.

The Initiative is underway and focuses on about 800 young people a year who are at highest risk of perpetuating violence or becoming victims.

Initiative planners began by examining programs in Seattle and in cities across the nation including Boston, Baltimore, Chicago, San Jose, Washington D.C. and Lowell, Mass.Representatives from cities with proven strategies to decrease youth violence were invited to Seattle to share their innovative programs.  Baltimore’s Operation Safe Kids used intensive outreach to juvenile offenders and saw a 44 percent drop in the number of youth re-arrested. “The lesson for Seattle is collaboration. You always need a strategy,” advised Director Chris Williams.

Penny Griffith works with Latino youth and their parents in neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., where they dramatically reduced shootings and stabbings.  ”The community got angry and said enough is enough,” Griffith said.

Seattle’s Initiative incorporates many of the ideas from these national models.  It proposes a new approach to street outreach with the use of violence interrupters who are privy to information on the street and may actually prevent violent acts and retaliation before they occur.

Engaging Our Young People

Young people will be referred to a wide range of services through juvenile court, police, community outreach workers, schools, Seattle Parks and Recreation youth centers, and the neighborhood network agencies.

The Seattle Initiative calls for establishing extended hours at some youth centers, giving children a safe place to go, or be taken, to stay out of trouble.  In addition to case management, anger management and recreation programming, the City will support more community-based projects that engage and mentor young people.

In April 2009, school emphasis officers were assigned to four middle schools, where they  work to improve attendance and train children to deal with conflict.  In summer of 2009, the Initiative helped to fund summer youth employment, giving 200 young people an opportunity to learn important job skills and putting them on a path for a better future.

Even before the Initiative began, Seattle police stepped up emphasis patrols, working especially closely with schools, and doubled the number of officers working in the gang unit.  Mayor Nickels emphasized that law enforcement can be only part of the solution.  He also acknowledged members of the faith community for their efforts and contributions.

To read more about the City’s Initiative, including related reports and documents, click here.

“Did you ever touch him or have him smile at you? Did you ever really listen to him? Did he ever do a mean thing? Was he ever himself associated with violence or any public disturbance? For if you did, you would know him. And if you knew him, you would know why we must honor him…” Ozzie Davis, Eulogy of Malcolm X

The early hours of February 16^th a man lay dying on a Seattle sidewalk, shot as he walked through his beloved neighborhood home to his family after work.

Raised in the Central District, Tyrone Love was unique. At 26 years old he provided for his mother and sisters Gwen and Christyna, and girlfriend Margarita Quevedo-Walker.

Tyrone ran a successful business, Vibrant Entertainment 206, with partners Jamar Jones and Bruce Williams.

Talk to those who knew him best and the description is consistent: Tyrone focused every day on giving back and making a positive difference in his community. He was the peace keeper, the idealist, the one to turn to when you needed a non-judgmental ear or honest advice. He was the big brother, the best friend, the one who always had something positive to contribute. He was never concerned with himself and always put others first.

For the Love of the City

Chukunde Salisbury (aka DJ Kun Luv), CEO of The SeaSpot, first met Tyrone when he was a student at Garfield High School, and Kun worked at the community center. He DJ’d most of Garfield’s student events, and a mutual respect grew easily despite the more than 10 year age difference.

Kun Luv started promoting his own DJ events online in 1997, well before the internet was the information super highway that it is now- when all you had was a dial-up modem, a scanner and AOL email. Seeing Seattle Urban culture on a computer screen created a spark.

The need grew and the SeaSpot.com was born. “I started it because there was a need. This traditionally a flier town, and during that time, more and more people were moving out [of the city limits] if you didn’t get the flier for next week, you didn’t know what was going on. It just seemed like a lot of the people (local talent and DJ’s) that matter to me and to us, it wasn’t in the Weekly, it wasn’t in the Stranger, it wasn’t in the Seattle Times- they have some band that doesn’t even have an album out [on the cover]. Nothing against those papers, there was no one doing articles on our people, and especially the scene I was in, so it was a niche. We wanted to be the gateway to the Northwest urban culture. We did that.”

Tyrone joined SeaSpot in ‘03/’04. “He had a sense of organization. He was a natural, really personable. He was the leader of the Street Team crew. He had a lot of charisma, he was a people person, you gotta have that when you’re trying to convince people to come to events. People aren’t buying the product, they’re buying the person. Once you get off the mainstream, people start looking at ‘who handed me this’, so that’s important in promotion.”

The site receives 3 million hits a month, with 50,000 registered users all eager for the information- and the connection to urban and hip hop culture that it provides.

SeaSpot is 11 year old, and Kun Luv recognizes the importance of expansion and now includes a site focused on gospel, one for the urban professional network, and a site targeting high school students. “How can we be the gateway to urban culture if we don’t capture that whole scene? It’s not just about the party scene.”

Tyrone relished the work, and eventually wanted to start his own business, something Kun Luv and the rest of SeaSpot fully supported. Vibrant Entertainment 206 was born, headed by Tyrone, Jamar Jones and Bruce Williams.

The Next Level

Jamar met Tyrone in 2003 through the SeaSpot. After a few years they came together with Bruce and decided to combine their efforts in Vibrant.

“He was unique; he was different,” recalls Jamar. “He made me humble, and mellowed me out a lot. Just being around him, he was a really cool person. I don’t know how to explain it.”

Vibrant set out to run a legitimate business that provided opportunities for people to kick it and have a good time, while also quietly promoting west coast hip hop- and music in general- through the DJ’s they worked with. It’s a venture often underestimated.

“People think we just throw parties,” he says, “we have a business license, we have insurance, it’s not just some guys hanging out kickin’ it, this is how we support our families. People think we can just walk into any venue and say ‘we want to throw a party here’; it’s not like that with hip hop, you have to come with a resume.” Jamar explains that mainstream promoters who may not turn out as many people have an easier time locking down venues- mostly because of stereotypes and misperceptions about urban culture.

In ‘07/’08 a rash of club related shootings caused Seattle’s Mayor Greg Nickel’s to go after venues for the purpose of shutting them down; and used the state liquor board to do it. Jamar- and others, say that urban culture and its music got caught up in the situation and pointed to as a cause for violence- a concern many share.

Now when they propose a venue, Vibrant is presented with contracts that ban West Coast hip hop- Top 40 hits only. “We have some local hip hop and R&B that’s really great. What are we supposed to play? Hip hop is a way of life, it’s a culture, and it’s not just some gang members [who] listen to it. Rap is society now, you have to face it. Everyone listens to it.”

The misconceptions of urban culture bothered Tyrone. “Tyrone is a hip hop head. He always used to say ‘hip hop lives’.

The Mayor never reached out to the urban community in his efforts to make the point that violence would not be tolerated, but the promoters reached out to him. “We invited him. He was nowhere to be found.”

True Love Remembered

When you talk to Margarita Quevedo-Walker it is easy to understand why Tyrone loved her so much. Intelligent, grounded, funny and real; her character is without pretense.

An energy surrounds her; it is the evidence of what cannot be seen; the deep, soulful connection they still share to this day.

“We were friends first,” she explains as her face changes. When she recounts memories of their quiet courtship, the genuine happiness he brought to her life plays colorfully across her eyes and teases her mouth into a broad smile. After months, Tyrone professed his love in his own way, announcing to her one day that it was time for her best friend- whom she hung with daily- to share her- with him.

“I think from that day on, we were never apart,” she explained as her face warmed and she laughed in wonderment, shaking her head. “He always made a point every day to tell me “Did I tell how beautiful you are today?” We told each other we love one another millions of times in a day or more.”

There is no need to embellish the memories. “Everything he did, he did for the women in his life; his sisters, his mom and me. He worked so hard to take care of us, and he did…he really did. He was the man of the house.”

She cannot recount his life without moving to the details of his senseless murder. Margarita dropped Tyrone off in Pioneer Square that night, and she finds herself thinking about the last time she saw him; “why did he look at me that way? Why did he say ‘bye’ the way he did? All night long, something didn’t feel right.”

4:50am

It was Margarita that discovered Tyrone hadn’t made it home. She awoke to find his side of the bed empty; something was wrong.

Jamar received an early morning text. “It said that Tyrone didn’t come home and I knew something was up, he always goes home.” Jamar sent out word asking if anyone knew where Tyrone was.

Kun Luv: “I remember thinking that it was strange, that he hadn’t been home yet,” he recalls, “but I wasn’t worried.”

But then news came in; an unidentified 26 year old male had been shot to death just blocks away from Tyrone’s house.

The unthinkable was confirmed around 9:00am. Margarita recounts, “I was upstairs in his room, and the…I can’t really describe it, the scream…I heard his mom scream, and I ran, I almost fell down the stairs onto his mom.” A man, dressed in dark clothes stood in the front doorway. “He didn’t belong, you know? He wasn’t a friend of the family, he didn’t look like anybody…he wasn’t supposed to be there.”

Tattoos on a body in the King County morgue were described to the family- the 26 year old killed that morning was Tyrone, and the memory of Roberta Love’s scream- a wail of maternal agony- is something Margarita will never forget; “I have dreams about that scream.”

Jamar called Bruce who was in Portland hosting a Vibrant event. “He didn’t believe me.”

“It seemed surreal,” described Kun, who also received word from Jamar, “I just couldn’t believe it…oh my God.”

People were calling and texting; did you hear about Tyrone? Is it true? What can we do?

A makeshift memorial grew and Margarita went to see it for herself. Flowers, candles and pictures could not pull her attention from the 5 spray painted dots that marked where Tyrone’s head, arms and feet had been. A scratched button from his clothes, discarded in the horror of those fleeting seconds, lay on the cold cement. “I still have it, the button,” she says.

When asked what is hardest each day, she answers immediately, “waking up each morning.” Tyrone has visited her in dreams, as he has others. Sleep is when she can touch him again, when he shows her glimpses of paradise, and when she can tell him profusely just how much she loves him. As sleep fades in the morning she tries in vain to pull him out, and back to the life they shared, back to his sisters and mother, their puppy and weekly nacho nights with his best friend.

While she grapples with the brutal pain that comes with such a senseless experience, she is wise enough to also know the impact of Tyrone’s murder is something Seattle has never seen before and describes it in one word: “amazing”.

Community Love

DJ Kun Luv had a mission; $9,000 was needed for the funeral. He set up an account and put out the word- go to the bank right now and deposit $20. The plea was replicated in text messages emails and Facebook posts. Promoters from across the city gave profits from a nights work and donations came in from around the globe. A benefit concert brought in nearly $6,000 in a few hours.

The tone was set. Tyrone was not your average guy, he was special, he was important, he was cherished. His family would be taken care of. His name, reputation and legacy would be protected by those who knew and loved him.

As for the murderer, there were more rumors than facts.

It was the second point of action for the community and a press conference was held to highlight The Silent War Campaign which served to send two very clear messages; violence in the community must stop and the silence that has prevented justice from being served in numerous shootings of Black young men and boys must cease; no murders in our midst- if you know who did this, you must come forward.

Mayor Nickels spoke at a rally against violence, alerted by his Director of Community Outreach Pamela Banks, a long-time resident of the Central District who also works on the Youth Violence Initiative, a lofty yet severely underfunded City-led effort to break the cycle of violence for those at risk and those whose lives have been impacted. The Mayor since requested to meet with Kun Luv and others close to Tyrone to talk about violence prevention- a wise move considering the large urban audience they connect with and influence regularly.

The Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative will set a new direction by identifying and helping children who are at a vulnerable point in their lives. Specifically, the initiative will:

• Help youth with repeat offenses re-enter society from state detention programs.
• Provide alternatives for youth who are arrested for crimes, but released because they don’t meet the admission criteria for county detention.
• Help middle-school truants and students at risk of suspension stay in school and succeed.
• Prevent victims of violence and their friends and relatives from continuing the cycle of violence through retaliation.

Love Lives On

Tyrone’s funeral was standing room only. On speaker commented that babies, elders, friends and enemies had all come together to honor him.

To date, more than $20,000 has been raised to support the Love family in their greatest time of need as they struggle to carry the insufferable weight of loss and grief.

His friends work to find the good- and to keep Tyrone alive as they move forward. Margarita and others are working on a public mural; an idea Pamela Banks says the City can likely give funding to.

Jamar envisions a scholarship in Tyrone’s name, and stresses Vibrant isn’t going anywhere. “He loved music, especially hip hop and he wanted to make sure that hip hop continued and that people embraced it as a culture that is positive. He was all about keeping it in the city, and making sure everyone had fun, and was safe. We’re going to make sure that happens. Tyrone was someone who can’t be replaced; he was the heart and soul of what we created. We want to thank everyone for their support, it’s overwhelming.”

For Margarita, Tyrone’s impact is simple yet profound. He led a purpose-driven life. “All he wanted was to make a difference in people’s lives, and be remembered for that. He did that. He never knew that he really did accomplish that. He did make a difference in millions of lives, and people will always remember him for that. He was a good person who loved his family and wanted to make a difference. He gave one hundred percent in everything he did. He was perfect.”

Anyone with information about Tyrone’s murder should call Seattle Police Detective Russ Weklych 206-684-5550

Contribution to the Estate of Tyrone Love Benevolent Account are still being accepted at Bank of America; give to support his family and honor his life’s contribution.