Engaging Monterrey - stone by stone

Painted stones marking trail in Monterrey, Mexico 

What is impressive about a gravel trail with painted stones?

I've been reading reports from SafeGrowth teams in Connecticut. One struggle I hear is how to engage community members.

Last week, I was in Monterrey, Mexico, site of the 2011 narcoterrorist attack on a downtown casino where over 50 people were murdered. Engagement should be more difficult here than anywhere. I was taken to a poor community on the outskirts of the city near the construction site of a master-planned community.

It was unlikely residents in this poor community could afford to live in the new development. My guides, a dynamic Monterrey CPTED team, showed me the poor community and a rocky ravine beneath a highway overpass with an elementary school on the other side. School kids had to walk across this unsafe stretch to go to school. A gravel trail had been built connecting the community with the school.

Sometimes the simplest ideas can trigger community engagement - a gravel trail

Residents, school kids, the developer, and volunteer construction crews had come together to build the trail. The Monterrey CPTED team ran a painting day when school kids painted stones. They then used the stones to mark the trail edges.

The visible part of this project was simple - a gravel trail, painted stones, and construction volunteers. It was the invisible part that caught my attention – engagement!

The kids and their parents enthusiastically showed me their trail and the stones, from one end to the other. This was clearly a source of pride. Discussion focused on expanding the trail and adding play areas.

In other words, residents with few resources had built their own solution to a neighborhood problem in a region of Mexico not far from one of the most violent narco-gang wars in history. By partnering with others they were making their community a better place, stone by stone. Those actions are community-engagement seeds starting to grow.

Not just a gravel trail and painted stones. Much more.

Scenic mountains surround Monterrey's 4 million residents

Gun crackdowns or transforming violence? Choosing our future

Monterrey mass murder scene

News this week of a mass killing in Norway depicts a racist flat-earther for what he really is; a murderous bigot. Small solace for the victims. Can community safety ever be immune from such madness?

Worried about events far away, I checked on a friend's safety in Mexico following the recent drug cartel slaughter of 20 people in a Monterrey bar.

Mass murder by lone bigots? Hard to see that coming. Drug violence and cartel gun crime? That's a different story with no simple explanation. Something can be done. But what?

Crackdowns?

Some still grasp at simple explanations. I just read a blog from a combat-cop acolyte suggesting more cops and crackdowns is the way to community safety. Facts and research suggests otherwise.

Michael Scott, director of the Center for Problem Oriented Policing, published The Benefits and Consequences of Police Crackdowns, a study of 42 police crackdowns.

He found that carefully planned gun crackdowns did show some promise when "supported by problem analysis and conducted in a way to safeguard civil rights". Yet half (47%) of the crackdowns in his review had no impact, weren't evaluated or had mixed results.

Fast and Furious

The fact is too many crackdowns have unintended consequences, none more spectacular than the failure of last year's ATF operation Fast and Furious.

The idea was to target Mexican gun runners, provide guns through undercover sales, track and then catch them. That would, supposedly, help stem the flow of American guns feeding the Mexican drug war. The opposite happened.

Fast and Furious resulted in a dead US Border Patrol officer and over 1,500 guns missing, many in drug cartel hands. Some may have even been used in the Monterrey shooting. According to ATF's report to Congress yesterday, the crackdown spiraled out of control. An ATF attache to Mexico called it "insane".

So, what will stop the violence?

Emiliano Salinas

A short while ago Emiliano Salinas, son of the former Mexican President, provided ideas for the future on TED.com. Watch it HERE.

He gave examples about how to organize each community and act together. Says Salinas: "The problem is that we play the role of victims. We need a civil response against violence."

Made me think of The Tragically Hip's lyrics in Courage:

So there's no simple explanation
for anything important any of us do
and yea the human tragedy
consists in the necessity
of living with the consequences