Escalating teen violence warrants escalating city action

A RASH of potentially gang-related fights and killings puts an exclamation point on Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels' request for millions of dollars to help at-risk young people.

The city is on time — or more likely, overdue — for a focused youth-violence-prevention program that provides useful services and helps young people stay out of trouble.

Nickels proposed spending $9 million over two years to reach kids recently released from juvenile court, those arrested but not charged by Seattle police, middle-school kids with truancy and suspension issues, and kids who know kids involved in violence. The potential exists for the latter to be targeted for retaliation or for knowing too much.

The City Council, facing a $19 million budget shortfall, trimmed the proposed spending by about $1 million. The remaining $8 million should be sufficient to reach out to young people who need a range of social services, mentoring or additional recreational offerings for evenings.

The Police Department also needs to increase anti-gang, anti-youth-violence efforts and is doing so. Four officers are expected to be placed in four middle schools with truancy and suspension problems, said Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske. A Seattle police officer has been assigned to Garfield High School, where some violence has occurred.

New attention must be paid to the school district's decision to switch many students to Metro buses. Bus shelters designed for perhaps six people now accommodate more than a hundred young people in an unsupervised environment.

Helping to reduce youth violence will take a combination of police, school district and City Hall effort. Police focused heavily on gangs during the mid-1990s and their efforts paid off. More recently, the violence has reached unacceptable levels. The latest victims tend to be younger. Six teenagers, some as young as 15 and 16, have died since January.

The mayor and police are on it but they have their work cut out for them.