A missed opportunity and tragic loss of life as Fresno’s gun violence remains constant

I write today to address Mayor Lee Brand with a concern:

On Friday, April 10th, a young man who I loved and cared for as if he were my own brother died as a result of gun violence.

Coincidentally, the last day of Jacaree Fisher’s life would land two days shy of one year since a meeting between you and I concerning gun violence in Fresno. On April 12th, 2019, Aaron Foster, a father who lost two children to gun violence, and I, a youth mentor of 15 years in Fresno who has buried dozens of Fresno youth, came to you with a plan. The details of that plan and its manifestation are not the point of this letter. Rather, what I am writing about today is the value of Jacaree Fisher’s life, and how his death mandates that our city move beyond reactionary strategies concerning gun violence.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. faced the injustices of violence by inviting outsiders to look beyond an examination of the “who” and take seriously the investigation into the “what.” If Fresno sincerely wants to prevent and reduce instances of gun violence in our city, it is not only important to identify who killed Jacaree Fisher; it requires we also inquire into what killed Jacaree Fisher.

In the 15 years I have spent serving this city and its youth to prevent, intervene, and de-escalate violence, I have learned many things. The greatest of these learnings was that the cure to violence is often counter-intuitive to our customary ways of addressing it. Opposed to strong armed, scared straight, hyperpunitive tactics, I have learned firsthand that intimacy and the redemptive disruption of the rhythm of life for those who live in despair is the optimal formula to create a holistic and safe environment in any community.

Naively, I believed that the transmission of Aaron’s and my own pain, along with our successes as practitioners, would implore you to trust us and our recommendations. Sadly, that is not what transpired, and our hopes for moving toward a newer and safer Fresno were punctuated with you stating that “it would cost the city too much.” A year later the city and the consequences of its moral inclement climate created the conditions that would cost Jacaree Fisher his life.

Jacaree Fisher was born and raised in southwest Fresno. He was an intellectual juggernaut, an exceptional athlete, and in his teenage years found a support system in a gang. I know in the minds of many, participation in gangs signifies an automatic forfeiture of humanity and implies an individual is inherently deviant. These categorizations and oversimplifications are part of the problem, however.

Jacaree never participated in violent crimes, functioned as an intermediary between rival groups, maintained employment, and served as an advocate for his community. In the 2018 election, Jacaree singlehandedly canvassed the neighborhood and spoke to over 350 people, encouraging many of them to vote for the first time. Jacaree, like all of us, was complex and that complexity made him strong and vital in the process of creating a Fresno for all.

Many would hear of Jacaree’s label and automatically classify him and those like him as the core of Fresno’s problems. The truth is Fresno’s problem lies in its inability to see the value of investing in Jacaree and those like him.

In the macro view, Jacaree was the victim of a hubris that has plagued our city for decades. Every year, our city sees national news for the wrong reasons, through our high rates of concentrated poverty, substandard educational outcomes, and adverse health conditions. Then, year after year, we proclaim that “we have it under control” and that “Fresno is all that Fresno needs” and then fall back into the same patterns that created the crisis in the first place. Aaron and I tried to communicate to you that Fresno needed something more. Something beyond the insular, incestuous machine that touts that “no one tells Fresno what to do” and perpetuates a cycle of operation that is exclusive, discriminatory, and dismissive.

Sadly, this pattern of suppression was not altered in our conversation that day. Sustaining the absence of a deeply informed, strategic, and organic strategy to prevent violence would ultimately become what killed Jacaree Fisher.