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IT’S YOUR CALL
Teresa Thorne, Executive Director
City Action Partnership
www.CAPisDowntown.com
Our city has awesome potential. It is heartbreaking that we must struggle to realize it against the cancer of crime that threatens our growth and health. The power to stop its spread, however, is in our hands. If even half of those who have knowledge about a crime would report it, we could liberate ourselves and our communities.
Why don’t people report information about crime? There are two answers: Peer pressure and fear. Fear of speaking up is understandable. Pointing a finger at a community on the other side of town is not the same as pointing at the drug house next door. The latter carries a risk, the risk that your neighbor will learn you were the person who reported them.
Still, isn’t the risk justifiable when the failure to take it means the ultimate capitulation of everyone’s safety, the deterioration of your world? It is the very neighborhoods which bear the risk of retaliation that are most likely to see their neighborhood destroyed.
CAP is partnering with the community and other organizations to motivate and empower people to safely report crime. Those partners include Crime Stoppers, the Chamber of Commerce, FBI, the City of Birmingham, Birmingham Police Department, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department, FBI Citizen’s Academy Alumni, Association, and many more.
The focus is on youth because they know a lot about what is happening. Also, they are often vulnerable to the fear and peer pressure of a “don’t snitch” culture. It is natural for youth to band together against perceived authority. It is also to be expected that a culture which has learned to survive by avoiding police has trouble finding the trust to make them partners. How can we challenge and empower people to do that?
We can lay the case at their feet, at your feet, because it is everyone’s responsibility. This is the message: “It’s Your Call. It’s Your World.” You will reap what you sow and what you fail to stop others from sowing. It is your neighborhood, your friend, your brother, your mother, your sister…your child who will pay the price for your silence.
We can also offer this—a way to make the call anonymous, guaranteed. No phone traces, no tricks, no police coming to your house, no court. You never give your name or any information about yourself, only a code number. Anyone can make the call or go online through a secure coded system. But ultimately, it is your call. You have to make the decision because, “It’s your world.”
Call 254-7777 or visit www.birminghamcrimestoppers.org
* For All Emergencies, call 911 *
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