As he rises, the Rev. Darryl Spence sends his son the same message, again and again, just in case.

“I have a 21-year-old son and every morning my first text is ‘Son, are you OK?’” said Spence, flanked by reporters and television crews outside the Golden Thyme restaurant on Selby Avenue in St. Paul. “We have to stop.”

That sentiment was repeated across the city Tuesday morning as residents woke to the news that gun violence claimed three lives in an eight-hour span.

The fatal shootings in the North End, Payne-Phalen and Frogtown were the latest in a back-to-back string of violence across the city since Labor Day.

It’s unclear how many, if any, of those incidents are related.

What is clear is that many involve young black men in their teens and 20s, the very group that Spence has spent years mentoring as the leader of the God Squad, which does outreach in low-income corners of the city. He said the tension is palpable out on the streets.

“The kids are worried,” said Spence, a former football coach at the Jimmy Lee Rec Center. “Our kids are definitely hurting. They’re afraid. The problem is they can’t show fear, because fear will get you killed on these streets.”

Dora Jones-Robinson, founder of the Rice Street-based nonprofit Mentoring Young Adults, cried as she recounted losing her adult niece to gun violence last year in Texas. She distributes lawn signs and t-shirts that say “Guns Down St. Paul,” a message she wants young people to embrace.

Jones-Robinson said some community members hesitate to reach out to law enforcement with information that can be used to catch suspects or avert future crimes because they fear being labeled or suffering retaliation. She urged anyone in that situation to reach out to her organization at 651-432-2203.

“If they don’t want to feel like they’re snitches, they can call us,” said Jones-Robinson, wiping bleary eyes. “We can walk them through it.”

LESS POLICE HIRING?

On Sept. 5, St. Paul Police said they were alarmed to report that seven people were shot in six days.

Since then, violence has continued, drawing fresh attention to St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter’s recent budget proposal, which would trim hiring within the police department next year by five officers, decreasing the department’s authorized strength from 635 to 630 officers. The total, said Carter, would still elevate the police force to record numbers.

That decision, yet to be finalized, has nevertheless drawn outrage in some corners, with many residents and candidates for St. Paul City Council demanding more officers, not fewer.

All seven city council seats will be up for election in November.

“With all the gun violence in this country, it doesn’t make sense to cut our police force,” said Council Member Dai Thao, who supports police efforts, still ongoing, to obtain ShotSpotter gunshot detection technology to track the source of gunshots. “It’s a multi-prong approach. We need jobs for youth, and the ShotSpotter. We need more resources in this community. When people are shooting each other, it’s the symptom, not the cause.”

Thao led a prayer circle on Tuesday evening in front of the Libby Law Office on Rice Street, where attorney Kirsten Libby said she witnessed the fatal shooting of Raumez Ross, 18, during rush hour the day prior.

Libby said she called 911 even before the last shot was fired, and witnessed Ross stumble across the street into the Winnipeg Grocery and Deli, where he died. Two 15-year-old suspects have been arrested in the case.

At the same time as Libby’s rally on Tuesday, Ross’ relatives and friends gathered across the street in front of a small makeshift memorial composed of candles, photos and other remembrances assembled in the Rice Street doorway of the small convenience store.

“What we have out there right now obviously is not working,” said Gidget Bailey, co-owner of Tin Cup’s on Rice Street, who witnessed an afternoon shootout on Sept. 4. “Decreasing, obviously, is not going to work either. I think we need more boots on the ground. Our police officers are stretched way too thin. Minneapolis wants to up their police officers. There’s a reason why. Stray bullets don’t have names on them.”

The mayor’s father, former St. Paul Police Officer Melvin Carter II, joined Spence and Jones-Robinson in addressing the media on Tuesday, but he said he had not discussed the recent gun violence with his son, whom he said grew up on some of the same streets most impacted by crime.

Ward 4 City Council Member Mitra Nelson said she’s seen no data showing that hiring more officers reduces violent crime.

Instead, she hopes to convene a listening session with community members about problem sites that have drawn criminal activity, with a broader discussion about streetlights, abandoned properties and other issues that could be addressed by different means.

“In this budget climate, if we say ‘yes’ to one more officer, you’re saying no to something else, like more programming for youth,” Nelson said. “If we are reactionary, and all we do is react with adding one more of one kind of tool but not the others, we’re not going to move. This is a moment that tests our values, but I still believe that we need a whole range of responses. … We’re seeing a lack of common sense actions on gun violence at the state and federal levels. We don’t live in a vacuum.”

Nick Khaliq, a former St. Paul firefighter, served on the St. Paul City Council for a period after Carter stepped down to take a job with the state of Minnesota. He urged the public to think beyond what he deemed short-term solutions. Related Articles Minneapolis man pleads guilty to torching University Avenue business during May unrest

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Both in St. Paul and nationally, fatal street shootings were more prevalent in the 1980s and ’90s, and some of the resulting get-tough-on-crime approaches, such as judicial three-strikes rules, have aged poorly and have now been widely rejected, he said.

“We can go all the way back 25 or 30 years when the community demanded that there be more officers, and it was just a temporary fix,” Khaliq said. “It didn’t really resolve the problem.”