The Gilbert Town Council Subcommittee on Teen Violence expects to give council its report on April 16 from its four public meetings and then hand off the work to the town’s Community Engagement Task Force.
Chairperson Scott Anderson set that expectation at the final subcommittee meeting March 26.
“The difficult task that we have now is to take all your comments, all these actionable items, synthesize them into a document that we can present to the council,” Anderson said. “So we're going to have to hunker down in the next two weeks, and the three of us will put together a document that will be made available to the public and especially to the council so we can take action on this.”
The subcommittee members asked that people making suggestions on actions to be taken write them down so the committee would be certain to have them.
Speakers from the public for the first time included teens in the community giving their input, which audience members encouraged and told them they would not have to give their names.
One, a senior at Perry High School, said the issue is growing a mystique around it because of how administrators shut down discussion.
“We're not allowed to say the names of the victims or the people involved, which I understand that we don't want drama, we don't want rumors spreading, but that almost amplifies it,” she said. “We're not allowed to discuss it when we're shut down by our teachers, our educators, we're not allowed to bring it up because admin hasn't deemed it to be an appropriate issue.”
She said that manner of handling it has created a “sense of negligence when we don't directly address what has already happened.”
The senior said she has heard some people joking about the Gilbert Goons.
“But I think that's kind of a facade because this is scary and it's real and it's affecting people that we love and care about, and we're not taking the time to talk about it,” she said. “We're not letting students have the resources to talk about it in schools.”
Her comments drew praise from the subcommittee and audience members.
Other speakers made suggestions such as an independent consultant to lead the task force through the issue and an audit of police actions to see why investigations were inactivated or why data did not reveal an issue.
Anderson acknowledged, when asked, the task force has some vacancies on it that will have to be filled.
Additionally, Gilbert Police Chief Michael Soelberg reported that the investigation into whether the “Gilbert Goons” constitute a gang is progressing and he expects a resolution soon.
Soelberg said two more arrests related to teen violence were made last week, bringing the total to 29 since the beginning of the year.
We would like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org. Tom Blodgett can be reached by email at tblodgett@iniusa.org or follow him @sp_blodgett on X.
Meet Tom Tom Blodgett joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2022, when the company acquired Community Impact Newspaper's Phoenix-area properties. Raised in Arizona, he has spent more than 35 years in journalism in the state.
Community: He has served as an instructional professional in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication since 2005, and is editorial adviser to The State Press, the university's independent student media outlet. He also is director of operations for an 18U girls fastpitch softball team from Gilbert.
Education: Arizona State University with a BS in Journalism.
Random Fact: He lived in Belgium during his freshman year of high school.
Hobbies: Tweeting enthusiastically about ASU softball (season-ticket holder) and grumpily about other local sports (pessimistic fan).
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