They also die between 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. When we look at those figures, we believe that even though we have dropped homicides significantly in the city, we know we can still make an impact. We can see certain parts of the city, Rampart, Newton, Southwest, Southeast, and Harbor are where 60 percent of all the homicides occur in the city of Los Angeles. So it s very localized in certain parts of the city and in ethnic groups. And the key for us in this campaign is changing a couple of things.
First part is to be out in the community versus the community coming to the police station.
What we are looking to do is go out into the community, block off the street, invite the public into their neighborhood, and give them a message about violence and what they can do and how they can help themselves. Second part is to bring your materials and community-based organizations and police efforts to show what you can do to help those communities help themselves. No matter how visible we are and how much we want to be out in the community, we can t be there 24 hours a day on every corner. So we have to instill in the community a belief that they are in charge of their communities when we are not there. It s getting people together to realize they have a great deal of power to set the level of acceptable behaviors in their neighborhood.