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City launches new website, CMPD discusses community strengthening initiative

By Gina Esposito, wsoctv.com and Mark Becker, wsoctv.com
By Gina Esposito, wsoctv.com and Mark Becker, wsoctv.com

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The city of Charlotte will launch a new website Wednesday, one year after the deadly police shooting of Keith Scott triggered days of unrest in uptown.

[READ MORE: Surveillance video of last year's deadly protest shooting released]

City officials hope that once the site goes live later Wednesday morning, it can be a place for reflecting on the events that led up to the shooting and the unrest that followed.

[READ MORE: Review board finds 'evidence of error' in Keith Scott shooting decision]

The site will track the progress of the promises Charlotte City Council made in its “Letter to the Community” after hearing demands from protesters.

The webpage will also contain personal stories from the community and local leaders and will address community issues and economic inequity that existed before the shooting.

It will also showcase the community-wide initiatives that were created from various corporations, nonprofits and other government agencies afterward.

The site will also allow citizens to make their own commitments to making Charlotte a better place.

Once the website is live, Channel 9 will post a link to it here.

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The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said it's reviving the Community Policing initiative, which addresses the factors that may be fueling violent crimes.

"We need to fix people. We need to heal families. We need to model community policing at its best," CMPD Chief Kerr Putney said at a meeting of civic and community leaders at the Sugar Creek Recreation Center in north Charlotte.

Police will partner with community advocates and local government agencies to help cut down on violent crime.

Police and several agencies made their announcement at the Sugar Creek Recreation Center. There are a lot of moving parts but what it boils down to is taking a holistic approach to reducing crime in communities by addressing other underlying concerns.

Putney said he sat down with one of his deputy chiefs in June and told her he wanted a comprehensive approach to reducing violent crime that would attack the root causes of crime, and line up agencies who could help address those problems.

They will start in the Hidden Valley neighborhood and sit down with the community to find out what their concerns are. Issues like housing, jobs and conflict resolution that often start within families.

“What we want to be, is a strong community where our quality of life is as good as any other neighborhood,” said Ella Williams, president of the neighborhood association.

“Person-by-person, family-by-family, block-by-block. That's how you change a community. That's how you strengthen a neighborhood. That's how you turn a city around,” the chief said.

The next step is a meeting in Hidden Valley where the community can lay out all their concerns, and then police and the other agencies will work on a plan to address them.

“This is a start of something huge,” Putney said as he spoke about the various agencies that will help with the project’s holistic approach. “Look around you today. Everybody's in here, committed to do work that will save lives.”

A date for that meeting has not yet been set.

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