Students and community members discussed safety among Charlotte youth at the summit over the weekend.
The youth-led summit, Empowering Tomorrow: Youth-Led Initiatives For Change, was held at West Charlotte High School on March 23 and focused on ways to keep young people safe in and out of school.
Why it Matters: Youth-involved violence has increased recently in Charlotte. Over the last year, both youth victims and arrests have been up.
Students shared their concerns about teen violence, safety in their communities and how to improve community engagement and youth outreach.
Attendees included Mecklenburg County Sheriff Gary McFadden, along with Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department officers and Brian Schultz, the chief operations officer for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.
West Charlotte High School students Christopher Abreu, executive treasurer of the West Charlotte Student Government Association, and Quinten Canty, executive senator of the West Charlotte Student Government Association, coordinated the summit in hopes of sharing the needs of youth and students in Charlotte.
“We wanted the youth to be represented,” Canty told QCity Metro. “The goal of this event is to have community and engagement. We want the youth to be able to interact with the community because we’re the future…Overall, we want to make a change.”
Local crime
Recently, youth violence has been on the rise in Charlotte.
Last year, shootings involving a youth suspect increased by 33% and shootings involving a juvenile victim increased by 18%, according to the 2023 CMPD Safety Report.
Youth property crime suspects were also up in 2023, by 86%, according to that same report.
The rise in property crime was mainly propelled by a 120% increase in auto thefts.
More than 8,000 vehicles were reported stolen in Charlotte in 2023, equating to around 22 vehicle thefts a day.
Of those thefts, youths accounted for two-thirds of more than 1,200 auto theft arrests made in 2023.
Currently, Sheriff McFadden says there are 360 men and women between the ages of 18 and 25 in the detention center.
Warith Muhammad, a lieutenant with CMPD, says he’s seeing many younger adolescents, around 11 to 13, unsupervised out and around the city.
He told QCity Metro that keeping the youth engaged through programs and mentorships could lower the growing rates of youth violence seen across Charlotte communities.
Student needs
Beyond physical safety, Schultz and others said ensuring access and funding to mental health resources is a priority for Charlotte-Mecklenburg students.
One goal is lowering the counselor-to-student ratio, Schultz said, upping the number of counselors available for students.
The American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio of one counselor to 250 students. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is not up to that yet, Schultz said.
One student on the panel, Sadiyah Saddler, who serves in student government, expressed the need for counselors to focus not only on student’s schedules but to provide more emotional support.
Increasing resources, like transportation and ensuring students have things at home like wifi, are also important, Saddler said.
“Some people live very close but getting back and forth to school is still a problem for them,” Saddler said.
Improving relationships
Camille Satterwhite-Ranbert, a tenth grader at North Mecklenburg High School, told QCity Metro she came to the youth summit to represent her student body.
“We believe our voices need to be heard,” Satterwhite-Ranbert said. “We want change to be made.”
During the summit, Satterwhite-Ranbert shared an experience with a school resource school officer playing sirens during class changes, which she described as dehumanizing.
“It’s gut-wrenching and it’s heartbreaking to see our students treated like criminals,” Satterwhite-Ranbert told QCity Metro.
She said the experience creates further mistrust between the police and students.
“We don’t feel like [police] value [students] and prioritize our well-being as not only students but just humans,” she said.
She said she wants adults, like teachers and officers, to respond to students and youth with more compassion.
“We just need people to meet us on our level,” Satterwhite-Ranbert said.
Other students, such as Zaria Rushing, a senior at West Charlotte High School, said that some students lack supportive homes, which can lead to a lack of emotional intelligence.
“Instead of expressing yourself vocally, they do it physically,” Rushing said. “They’ll fight each other over things that can be resolved by using your voice.”
Canty told QCity Metro that continuing education would be one possible way to lower rising crime among youth. He described that some students feel like they have to present a certain way at school instead of being themselves.
“You don’t need to [act tough] to be who you are,” Canty said. “You can be yourself. Looking [tough] to me is having a degree because as long as you have the education, your work speaks for itself.”
‘Collaborative effect’
Lt. Muhammad believes a collaborative approach between community members, students and CMPD is needed to address youth violence.
“There’s got to be a collaborative effect,” Lt Muhammad said. “[CMPD] can’t fix all the problems; the youth can’t fix all the problems. There’s got to be a joint effort.”
Lt. Muhammad also said that education on the CMPD policies could improve the relationship between the community and police officers. For example, he explained that people have a right to ask whether they are being detained, and if not, they have a right to leave or not answer questions from the police.
Sheriff McFadden said that hosting more community events that allow discussion, like the summit, can help to improve relationships and help students feel safer as well.
“We want to better connect with the students,” Sheriff McFadden said. “[Students] can tell us how we can better work with [them] to make [them] feel safer, but it takes both sides.”
