CHARLOTTE, N.C. — There is an alarming spike of violent crime in Charlotte. Last weekend, there were four deadly shootings, two of the victims just teenagers.
It comes after a month of unrest in Charlotte and across the country and weeks of protests in every major city. Calls by some of "defund the police" after the death of George Floyd.
CMPD Communication Director, Rob Tufano said it's going to take the department and community to put the end to violence.
"A lot of people have the notion that this is something police can arrest their way out of or police can manage on their own but it's been said before — this is really a collective thing," Tufano said.
He said the department will continue its operations, strategies, violent crime interruption programs and other initiatives but they can't do it alone.
“It’s going to take a community," Tufano said. "It’s going to take all of us getting together, rolling up our sleeves and getting after it.”
Tufano also spoke on the Charlotte protests over George Floyd's death — namely, a particular incident that led to an SBI review of CMPD's actions toward protesters. He said whenever people are attempting to exercise their First Amendment rights, police have a duty to facilitate that.
“We have an obligation, we have a responsibility, we take an oath to facilitate that, to make sure that they do get to exercise that First Amendment right," he said. "We saw the video, you saw the video. You’d have to squint awfully hard to find anything that looks good there — that was a horrible look, I think we’re all in lockstep there.”
Tufano said he personally was a little underwhelmed with the state review and felt it lacked recommendations on how to do better.
One of the leading voices for police reform is city councilman Braxton Winston.
He's been out front on this issue for years. Winston was actually arrested during one of the recent protests.
Winston said the community has to treat each other better in response to the violent crime spike.
"In the end, regardless of who has to deal with it, we have to treat each other better as human beings," Winston said. "That starts with the examples that we as adults set for the young people in Charlotte, North Carolina, all across America. We have to be aware of the rhetoric, the way we talk to one another, especially when we disagree.”
Winston said he believes victims of crime and people who have committed violent crimes in the past should go out in neighborhoods and communities and speak to young people.
"Those are the folks that have the credibility," Winston said. "Those are the folks that have the experience and those are the folks that actually know the recourse and repercussions of these violent acts."
As for his own part in it, Winston said it's up to the city council to carry out plans now and "not sometime down the road."
One thing Tufano and Winston were able to agree on even though the two spoke separately with WCNC Charlotte's Ben Thomspon — police often are taking on too much.
"Is there are an argument that can be made that right now police are doing way too much?" WCNC Charlotte's Ben Thompson asked Tufano.
"Absolutely," Tufano said. "Absolutely, too many hats on and arguably hats that they should have never put on in the first place."
Winston also said police are asked to do a lot and other government services should help ensure a safe community.
“I think something that he [Tufano] and I both agree on is that we ask police to do too much," Winston said, adding he believes police should focus on law enforcement.
Winston and Tufano both acknowledged the different tasks police are often expected to do that may go beyond their training. Winston said people who are trained in social services, mental health professionals, trauma-informed respondents and others should be handling some of the responsibilities and should be funded to do it.
"Police are not able, they’re not equipped and it’s not in their training to interrupt violence in the way that it’s necessary, to get into these groups of folks and talk and level with them in a way that parents, mentors and these other specialists that are trained in trauma-informed, first response, social services and mental health crisis should be doing," Winston said.
Tufano said he can see the merit in potentially reallocating some of the police's funding to other social services.
“Cops are expected now to be social workers and mentors and conflict resolution negotiators and school resource officers and clinicians," Tufano said. "There are more suited professional developed people in our society that would probably be more suited to manage these kinds of things but here we are, this is where we’re living these days as a profession.”
Winston said moving forward, he believes it's the government's responsibility to look at the bigger picture and how other services can be a part of the solution.
“We really have to not just be so myopic and look at law enforcement, we have to look at the entire government’s response and how we work to ensure our safe communities," Winston said. "I think when we step back and take a look at the bigger picture, the status quo is quite unsatisfactory.”
Both Tufano and Winston agreed that long-term solutions won't come solely from police departments, but rather communities and officials working together.
“There’s a lot of common ground there when we actually sit down and do the work and get past the rhetoric," Winston said.