Bloomington’s Special Commission on Safe Communities on Monday reported the findings from its first two years of work to the city council.
The commission was created in 2022 with the goal of analyzing gun violence data and developing recommendations to prevent it in the community.
Commission chair Scott Denton said most gun violence involves young men, with the average age of shooters at 22, and victims at age 18. According to Denton, some youths congregate in loosely associated “hybrid gangs” that share guns that are available.
Denton said these hybrid gangs coordinate quickly and easily using social media, and the groups demean and provoke one another with videos on YouTube. When their access to guns meets spontaneous conflict, shootings can result.
“We need to get young people not interested in guns. Guns seem to be an interest, and a means of resolving conflict,” said Benton.
“And we need to find a way to stop that. Schools seem to be the place that we’re going to focus on going forward.”
More instruction in de-escalation is one direction the report suggests — for teachers, police officers and potentially for students themselves — to defuse conflict before it becomes violent.
In addition to homicides, the commission gathered information on suicides involving firearms. White men over 45 years of age are the most likely to die this way, and also are the least likely to use suicide hotline resources. Like in hybrid gangs, the immediate availability of guns may translate violent intentions to actions more often, with 47% of suicides occurring within 10 minutes of forming the idea, according to the commission's findings.
Because the commission has been at work only two years, and meets only two hours each month, processing a lot of complex information has been difficult, said Denton.
Ward 7 city council member Mollie Ward arrived at Monday’s meeting bearing a piece of broken glass. She said it came from her front door that was damaged by gunfire in an incident last week. Ward reminded the council that while Bloomington-Normal fares better than many cities in regards to gun crime, what remains can still fracture a community’s peace.
“The problem of gun violence in our community is not only measured by the number of gun homicides. The fear of random violence destroys communities in ways that are not always measurable on a heat map of crime,” Ward said.
The commission plans to bring in new voices for information in the future, including school resource officers, the NAACP, the Boys and Girls Club, and additional representatives of the criminal justice system.
Bloomington Mayor Mboka Mwilabmwe urged the commission to include domestic violence with firearms in its mission, an issue reemphasized after the murder of Amy Moore in May.
Bison coach heralds inaugural season
Phillip Barski, head coach and general manager of the Bloomington Bison, expressed optimism on the upcoming season for the community's new AA hockey team.
Barski said new teams tend not to see great performance at first, but he’s confident the staff he’s assembled can better that record. Along with managerial talent who share Barski’s background in Canadian leagues, the team has made development agreements with two NHL squads, the New York Rangers and the Carolina Hurricanes.
He told the council the Bison staff also is utilizing analytics and data as they build a team. A model they’ve built accounts for many aspects of a player’s performance in a bid to recruit effectively.
“We were able to, or we think we were able to, we’ll figure that out quite soon here, but we were able to build a model and target players that other teams hadn’t identified,” Barski said.
On top of that, Barski said his own experience moving to Bloomington-Normal gives him optimism about the community players will live in, potentially further helping the team’s prospects.
About 700 season tickets have been sold so far. The Bison will play their first game on Oct. 19.
