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A 15-year-old boy stood next to his aunt and looked down at his feet last week in East Anchorage’s St. Anthony Church. His aunt, Rose Talamaivao, held his shoulder and told two assemblymen and roughly 450 other people in the church how Justin was beaten and shot last August.
“I thank God he’s still alive,” Talamaivao explained.
St. Anthony was ground zero for a public crime meeting Feb. 2 at which eight people walked down the aisle to tell Assemblymen Brian Whittle and Allan Tesche that murder, drugs, robbery, violence and prostitution pervade their neighborhoods.
A knife was pulled on a 9-year-old while he walked home from school. A Mountain View resident witnessed open drug deals in the street. Police took 45 minutes to respond to a burglary and accused the victim of working in cahoots with the robbers. A young woman was murdered in the stairwell of her apartment.
“People are scared; they feel alone,” said Pamata Lolesio, a parish leader who helped run the crime meeting. “That’s the reason I got involved.”
The Feb. 2 meeting, or “action,” was the fruit of months of work on the part of the parish’s community organizing group. The parish is part of the Anchorage Interdenominational Sponsoring Committee, a partnership of eight local congregations and the archdiocese’s Justice and Peace and Native Ministry departments.
The organization’s work included crime research and more than 200 home visits with St. Anthony parishioners and neighbors.
Those conversations brought to the surface that people “deeply care about our neighborhood,” St. Anthony pastor Father Fred Bugarin said during the meeting. “They’re concerned about the future of our youth, the safety of our elderly, and the security of our families.”
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