Philadelphia blacks campaign to cut murder rate

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Thousands of black men gathered on Sunday to launch a campaign to cut murders in Philadelphia, which suffers the highest homicide rate among big U.S. cities.

Organizers of the drive to put at least 10,000 volunteers on the streets said preliminary indications were that they met their target, and would in the next 30 days be able to send patrols into trouble spots to deter crime.

Volunteers will be unarmed and have no powers of arrest but will be trained in conflict resolution and mentoring in a city where 85 percent of homicide victims are young black men.

Backers, including Philadelphia Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson and record industry boss Kenny Gamble, say the initiative has a better chance of succeeding than earlier anti-violence campaigns because it is broadly representative of the black community, and is not led by city government or the police, who are mistrusted in some inner-city areas.

It has been endorsed by more than 80 community groups, businesses, churches and government agencies, organizers say.

The homicide rate, which rose to a nine-year high of 406 in 2006, has defied repeated appeals by police and civic and community leaders, and has led national media to dub Philadelphia "Killadelphia" instead of its official title, the City of Brotherly Love.

In a two-hour rally at a Temple University auditorium, black leaders urged men to take responsibility for their communities and their families, and to stop blaming others for a history of economic underachievement.

"Slavery, at this late time, is no longer an acceptable excuse," said A. Bruce Cawley, a prominent black businessman. He said that in the 325 years since blacks have lived in Philadelphia, they had been overtaken in prosperity by immigrant Irish, Jews, Italians, and now Asians and Hispanics.

"And where are we? We are sitting on the sidelines," Cawley said.

Johnson, whose department has been criticized for failing to curb the homicide epidemic, said police cannot be blamed for its root causes such as poverty, unemployment, poor education, and weak gun control. "Traditional policing is not working," he said.

Chandlan Crawford, 38, a forklift truck driver from southwest Philadelphia, said he had already volunteered to join a street patrol, and was optimistic that the estimated 8,500 who attended Sunday's rally would generate more support. "The people that are here will take the message out there," he said.

Gamble, the chairman of the campaign, described the homicide epidemic as "a war" that can only be won by overcoming what he said was the "ignorance" and "self-hatred" that affect some black men.

"There are no more excuses," Gamble said. "We need a code of conduct and a standard of behavior that will outline what's right and what's wrong in our community. We as black men have to be able to enforce it."