Kids don't go to school for a variety of reasons. Yes, some deal drugs instead of studying books. But others have to cross gang turf and deem the trip too dangerous, or have to work to support a broken family, or can't afford lunch, or feel a disconnect between teacher and student, or simply don't care.
It matters because, as DeVore said in his opening remarks, "If a child is not in school, good things are not going to happen."
DeVore said that when he arrived here two years ago, he was "dismayed to see how frequent it was that a child would be killed" and equally dismayed to discover that many had been or were under state care. He talked about new and improved partnerships with city police to identify at-risk children, about monitoring kids in his charge with satellite tracking devices, about expanded curfew patrols.
"There is a fine line between a youth who kills and a youth who gets killed," DeVore said.
Last year, city police say, the average murder suspect had been arrested 10 times before being locked up for a slaying. The average victim had been arrested 10 times before being killed.
The latest burst of violence - 11 killings in seven days - forced Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III to face a tired city on Thursday.
He noted that his cops yanked 87 guns off city streets - in the first seven days of 2009.
That's a walking arsenal.
"There was a man on downtown Water Street just a couple nights ago whose car window had been broken out," the commissioner said. "He was jumping up and down yelling about the fact his car was broken into. As he was jumping up and down, a gun fell out of his waistband."
Bealefeld, as he has done in the past, as his predecessors have done in the past, as his predecessors' predecessors have done in the past, pleaded for help from a seemingly indifferent community.
"It can't just be the mayor and the police commissioner standing up and trying to engage people's morality about violence in this city," he said. "We need everybody to step up and do their part, and if they support what we're saying about handgun enforcement and bad guys with guns, they need to make phone calls to their elected officials and say, 'Doggone it, we support these guys, and give them the help they need.' "
So let's try and find a way to keep Chante safe in her school, and keep Jonathan in his school, and keep Christian interested in his school.
That might be three more lives saved this year.
