By Brian Myers
Hundreds gathered at Colina Del Sol Park Tuesday evening to demand a safe and peaceful park.
The event was one of many across the nation as part of National Night Out, a program that supports crime prevention and encourages police to build community partnerships.
Sidney Michael, a community organizer with the City Heights Community Development Corporation and a 20-year resident of Colina Park, has witnessed the park change over the years.
“On weekends the park used to always be crowded. Then for a while it stopped,” Michael said. “So, when you don’t have a lot of activities in a park, then your gangs come in and take over. And then that scares the families off, because you get a lot of gang violence.”
The park was crowded again on Tuesday with entertainment provided by a local radio station, children playing sports and the community sharing a meal together.
“We need to let the gangs know, and send a message to those gangs, that we’re not going to let them have it,” Michael said. “We’re taking these parks back for the families.”
The event concluded after sunset with a candlelit march around the park.
Transcript:
Sidney Michael:
Well tonight is sorta special. In all the different areas we’re having a National Night Out. And here at Colina Park we do it every year as well. What goes on is, we get the community together, we get them involved in walking around the parks and letting people understand that this is their park. This is where their families want to come. This is where they want to enjoy themselves.
We got people out here playing soccer, we got kids on the swings in the playground area, we got entertainment going on up here, we got raffles going on. We’re getting the people involved so we can engage them in taking back what’s theirs. Our National Night helps us to do that. We can get more and more people involved in some of the things that we do. We have different organizations up here and they’re passing out information so people can get involved, because it’s your community! If you don’t get involved, then who else will?
Phet Guiney:
We are here tonight to support the neighbors on what they call National Night Out, which is like giving the bad guys a going away party, basically. All the community comes out united together against gangs and drugs, taking back our neighborhoods.
Sidney Michael:
We remember at one time on weekends the park used to always be crowded. Then for a while it stopped. So, when you don’t have a lot of activities in a park, then your gangs come in and take over. And then that scares the families off, because you get a lot of gang violence. You get shootings, you get muggings, you get people getting beat up. But when you have a whole bunch of people here your gangs move out. Because they can’t do anything, they can’t drink, they can’t smoke.
We have electric candles and what we do is pass these candles out and we walk around the park, we make a circle around the park. This is just what communities should do. They should be involved. And they should have that opportunity to express themselves. Because this is where you live. This is their park. And we need to let the gangs know, and send a message to those gangs that we’re not going to let them have it, we’re taking these parks back for the families.
If there’s a park in your area, even if there’s not a park in your area, if there’s somewhere that you want to keep safe where the community goes to enjoy yourself, then you should put together events and stuff there to drive the gangs out. One person can’t do it, the community has to band together so that they can make that possible.