At a time when San Diego County is wrestling with the ramifications of a fatal police-involved shooting, a group of teenagers met with federal authorities Wednesday to talk about building relationships between law enforcement and community.
“I don’t really know what you guys do in your job and what you guys do on a daily basis,” said 18-year-old Elijah Johnson, one of about a dozen young people who took part in the discussion in southeastern San Diego.
“We can learn from each other,” Johnson said.
Among the authorities in the room was U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy, several of her deputies, and representatives from the FBI and U.S. Marshals Office. The session, dubbed a “community building circle,” was the second in series hosted by Second Chance, a San Diego nonprofit that works to reduce recidivism, unemployment and homelessness, and other outreach groups including Project Aware and the National Conflict Resolution Center.
Johnson said it would be helpful for people like Duffy to reach out to residents to learn about what they go through in their daily lives. He said there are things people in positions of authority might think they know, but don’t fully understand.
“We go through a lot,” he said. “Being ‘at risk,’ you know, I’m young and I’m black and I just feel like I’m targeted sometimes. But I want to feel as though I’m helping my community, and I can change lives (like) you guys are changing lives.”
Mathew Gordon, a policy adviser for San Diego City Councilwoman Myrtle Cole, told the group he understood how they felt. He said there was a time in his life when he never dreamed he would be working in local government.
He described himself as a former at-risk youth who’d had run-ins with the law and whose parents were both gang members. He said he knows not all police officers are bad, but he has experienced harassment by police.
“The experience is traumatizing,” Gordon said. “It makes you want to not trust anybody.”
Gordon told the group not to give up hope.
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