You will not find anyone in this city more passionate about addressing gun violence and those struggling with mental health issues than Mario Benavente, the freshman Fayetteville City Councilman who is a leading advocate for an Office of Community Safety.
Passionate would be something of an understatement.
The councilman, you might say, is adamant.
“The vast majority of our instances of gun violence in Fayetteville stem from folks dealing with some type of struggle that could be mitigated by intervention,” Benavente, 34, said Monday after the City Council heard from a state expert about an Office of Community Safety. “Self-harm, intimate partner violence, young people turning to deadly weapons to feel safe from the insecurity that dominates their lives, which have steeped them in trauma. The people who are picking up weapons and harming themselves or others aren’t evil people that need to be treated like enemies of society, which is what plus 30% of our city’s current punitive policies do exclusively. They are people who need help solving their problems rooted in trauma.”
Benavente said he is about to take his place in the community as an attorney, and he has been in the Judge E. Maurice Braswell Cumberland County Courthouse to see those facing a judge when an Office of Community Safety might have been something that could have mitigated an issue.
On July 21, 2022, Jada Johnson, a 22-year-old woman died at the hands of Fayetteville Police officers at her grandparents’ Briarwood Hills home, where family members say the woman was suffering from a mental health crisis. A Crisis Intervention Team of licensed mental health practitioners, the woman’s grandfather has said, could have saved his granddaughter’s life. The officers were exonerated in May 2023 by the state of criminal wrongdoing.
“The OCS is the way to go,” Benavente said on March 20, 2023, where Latisha McNeill, who is director of the Office of Community Safety in Greensboro, told Fayetteville residents during a town hall about how the program has been a part of Greensboro since 2020 and is making a difference.
The councilman was saying so then.
The councilman is saying so now, and Benavente is beating the drum loudly.
Defining the OCS objective
Gerard Tate was at Monday’s council work session to tell Mayor Mitch Colvin, Mayor Pro Tem Kathy Keefe Jensen and council members Malik Davis, D.J. Haire, Lynne Greene, Derrick Thompson, Brenda McNair, Courtney Banks-McLaughlin, Deno Hondros and Benavente just how the city might go about implementing an OCS that can address Fayetteville’s issues with violent crime, youth crime, mental health concerns, and even homelessness.
Since July, Tate has been director of the Office of Violence Prevention, established by Gov. Roy Cooper, under the N.C. Department of Public Safety.
Tate wasted no time when getting to the crux of an OCS.
“First, when you think ‘Office of Community Safety,’” he asked, “do you think of community and gun violence or is it mental health?”
Truth is, the City Council has earmarked $250,000 for an OCS director, but with not much more than anything else.
That’s why the city brought Tate here to the work session — to get the council to thinking about just what its vision will be.
“The first thing you have to do is have a clear mission and vision, and then staff,” Tate said. “… My biggest worry, if you don’t have a plan and a focus, is it will be a catchall, and if it's a catchall, it's not going to get anything accomplished.”
Tate had the council’s attention. Tate had the council thinking.
By his presentation’s end, he made a point — cross your t’s and dot your i’s, and do it right. And, Tate, reminded, the city can’t do it alone.
It takes a village to include all of the community, to include mental health folks, the courts, law enforcement from city and county, fire and Emergency Medical Services, and private partnerships that can be a part of the OCS.
“The public health approach to addressing public safety needs means that we stop relying on one single department, law enforcement, to address the complicated needs of our citizens,” Benavente said. “I am willing to take any and all willing to do their part to serve folks before they become ensnared in the criminal justice system when all they needed was a resource before they got charges.”
$3 million price tag
It’s complicated, this OCS thing.
It’s costly, too. We’re not just talking $250,000. Full funding, Benavente says, will be about $3 million from the city general fund.
“The second we get the seed money, everyone will wonder why we quibbled over $3 million when it saves our police department tens of millions in overtime and lawsuits against the department,” Benavente said. “And the courthouse 100 of millions in court costs, and makes the city billions of dollars in folks getting back to work with taxable incomes instead of on a path to jail and perpetual poverty. One percent of [the city's] $300 million budget is nothing in comparison to the return. It’s going to be the first thing we fund in June, if this City Council decides to do the right thing.”
The price tag for an OCS is expensive, but Benavente says, it is worth every dollar.
“The council members who want to fully understand OCS have either gone to Durham to visit their OCS or watched a highly impactful 30-minute documentary on their first six months,” the councilman said. “It includes Durham’s police chief and her officers that started off as skeptics and now gladly rely on the assistance provided by HEART as an alternative response.”
HEART is the acronym for Holistic Empathetic Assistance Reponse Team. You can view it at https://heartforthis.org/ and see for yourself what Durham Police Chief Patrice Andrews, City Manager Wanda Page and other Durham city leaders have to say.
“There will be a coordinated effort between now and June to screen this documentary at the Cameo, and at any and all community watch groups across the city,” Benavente said. “A critical mass of citizens of Fayetteville will have a full understanding of the OCS before June and be able to take note of those in leadership who need to get with the program.”
Benavente said he has been appointed by the mayor as chairman for the City Council’s Community Safety Committee which includes Councilwoman Courtney Banks-McLaughlin and Councilman Deno Hondros. It meets every two weeks to bring the OCS to fruition.
“We would be pioneers in the state and in the nation doing this type of work, so let’s build the office, and any additional partners will come in time,” Benavente said. “And if they don’t come soon enough, we’ll hire and train our own as a city.”
Epilogue
We as a community must be pragmatic.
We will not arrest our way out of crime. We cannot solve every case of those with mental health challenges. We cannot end homelessness. All we can do is what we believe is best, and then measure our community efforts.
“I hope anyone else doesn't get it twisted that the Office of Community Safety department is a one-all that’s going to cure everything,” Councilman D.J. Haire said at Monday’s work session. “Because as I've said on this item, and I said with other items, this is just another part of our toolbox that we need, and I'll accept that we do need it.”
Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
