 Good morning everyone and thank you so much for being here. I am Councilwoman and Mayor Pro Tem Tamika Isaac Devine and it is my pleasure to be here to declare March 19th through 23rd 2018 as National Youth Violence Prevention Week in the City of Columbia. We are recognized this week for several years and it is a week that we created or to participate with the National Observance of the Week that was created to raise awareness and educate students, teachers, school administrators and staff, school resource officers, parents and the public about effective ways to prevent and reduce youth violence. Over the years we have participated in this week or observed this week in a lot of different ways. We've had events and activities, we've had panels, we've had discussions on social media and other things, but this year one of the things that we really wanted to do is focus in on two critical components of the City of Columbia, our law enforcement and our parks and rec, because we know that they are on the front lines every day interacting with our families, our students, our kids. We want to make sure that the public knows that you have a resource here in the City of Columbia for education and to have things for your students to do. And so this week to mark this week we have two notable events that I want to share with you. One we will have Wednesday, March 21st at 2018 and it is a forum on human trafficking. I think we've all heard about human trafficking over the last few years, I know particularly myself, the last year we've heard a lot about how its impact here in the Midlands area, but as I move around the city, as I deal with parents and teachers especially since I have young kids when I'm at PTO meetings, a lot of parents really don't understand what human trafficking is and how it is impacting our community. So we want to raise awareness and provide very valuable information to the public about the issue here in the Midlands. We will be at Drew Wellness Center at six o'clock p.m. on Wednesday and it will be a candid discussion about human trafficking. We'll have panelists from local and state agencies who will discuss human trafficking, the signs and how you can look for victims of human trafficking and what you can do to help prevent it and to help. Our panelists will include Richland County Councilman Jim Manning, Chandra Cleveland Jennings of It's On Me, Columbia Police Officer Michael Bailey, Raleigh Offert of Richland Ridgeview High School Scholars Academy Advocacy Against Human Trafficking, and Kanisha Green Human Trafficking and Immigration Initiative Program Coordinator for the South Carolina Commission on Minority Affairs. After a brief presentation on human trafficking, we will have again a candid conversation, question and answers. There's no question that's off limits and we're going to have the resources there to help inform the public. We'll also have exhibitors on hand that will provide information one-on-one. And then after Wednesday our Thursday event is each one reach one community outreach event. Again I mentioned that we have two great departments within the city of Columbia that are first-line resources when it comes to preventing youth violence but also support to our families. And so we will be at the colony apartments in the playground area at 5.30 on Thursday. We will have Columbia Parks and Rec staff as well as officers out there interacting with the community. It will be a fun event. It will not be something that will be structured. It will be just fun speakers, exhibitors, kids' activities zone which will include basketball, corn haul, tug of war, obstacle courses, and then refreshments. And so we want people to come out and just interact with our officers, with our Parks and Rec staff and so that you know that when your family might be dealing with something. If you want to know where your kids can go this summer, if you want to know who do you call when you're having some issues at home and you don't know where to turn, we want you to know that Columbia Police Department and Columbia Parks and Rec as well as the entire city of Columbia is there for you but certainly these two resources who are in the community all the time. And so now I want to briefly read the proclamation that the mayor members of city council have done recognizing this week. Whereas the city of Columbia Parks and Rec department and the Columbia Police Department have partnered to host events during National Youth Violence Prevention Week to raise awareness and educate the public about effective ways to prevent and reduce youth violence and whereas two planned activities including a human trafficking forum and each one reach one community outreach event will be held Wednesday March 21st and Thursday March 22nd and whereas the entire community has a role to play to help prevent violence and deter youth from criminal behavior or association and whereas the city of Columbia recognizes the role youth play in transforming their lives and becoming outstanding scholars, influential leaders and rising to the call to prevent youth violence and whereas schools school districts parents mentors youth organizations youth leaders civic leaders church leaders and the community at large are uniting to engage educate empower and encourage our most vital resources our youth. Now therefore on behalf of our mayor Stephen K. Benjamin and the entire entire Columbia City Council we do hereby proclaim March 19th through March 23rd 2018 as National Youth Violence Prevention Week in the city of Columbia and we urge all of our citizens to recognize and participate in this observance and I'm going to share this with um I have with me our director Parks and Rec Randy Davis and of course our police chief Skip Holbrook and so I'm going to share this proclamation with both of them did y'all get it sorry and now someone who does not need any introduction but I always I think I make him blush when I do this but I always have to um to just introduce um our fabulous police chief I'll tell you Skip Holbrook since day one when he came to the city of Columbia he has made this his home and making it his home he has been entrenched in making sure that we have a dynamic Columbia Police Department which you can see the men and then the women of Columbia Police Department are serving our community every day but he's always out there looking at what they can do above and beyond to make sure that our citizens and our families feel safe and so he has some information he wants to share about what the Columbia Police Department is doing so if you would welcome us Chief Skip Holbrook. Thank you Mr. Vine. Good morning. Well uh it's um probably is very fitting that we're having this press conference today um youth violence as as we all know too well as widespread and becoming much too common place in society and the consequences of such risky behavior among our youth is further compounded by the availability of firearms. Unfortunately we see this trend every day in our in our city just last month we had a 14-year-old that was shot and killed by another youth during an argument over a video game a young life lost and a family affected forever. This is a public health crisis that needs everyone's attention and action to address effectively. I want to mention some of the youth programs that we feel are making a difference in our community that we're very proud of. You know we're coming into kind of on the home stretch with the school year we always look forward to our summer intern program and our summer jobs program that we do every year. It's an opportunity for some of our youth from some of our most vulnerable communities to not only have a paying job throughout the summer but have activities and be able to interact with law enforcement and it's a time of year we look forward to. We have a young ambassadors for justice roundtable program that is an annual series of forums that are offered to high school students and designed to promote mutual respect between law enforcement and officers through the students and the officers engaging in dialogue. We've had over 40 people participating this we do this every year and it's it's something that again we look forward to and it's an experience that I think the takeaway is and what we look for is for those children that have spent those forums and those roundtables in in very open discussion with our officers they see the human side of us and we're able to answer a lot of questions a lot of tough questions and they are able to take that back to their peers to the other kids in the school and we think it's helped us build trust and legitimacy through being open and transparent. Another program that we have is called operation risk rescuing inner city students and kids it's a proactive and educational youth program and it's designed to help deter youths 11 through 16 from criminal behavior or association with other people that are involved in that risky behavior. Our goal with operation is to educate the youth on the importance of making right decisions and also assist appearance with providing an effective alternative to their children and to help them become responsible and productive members of society. A new initiative that we're very excited to to mention today is our handle with care initiative. A recent national survey of the incidents and prevalence of children exposed to violence and trauma revealed that 60 percent of american children have been exposed to some violence violent crime or abuse and 40 percent were direct victims of such prolonged exposure as we know to violence and trauma can seriously undermine that child's ability to focus and behave appropriately and learn. It often leads to school failure, truancy, suspension, expulsion, dropping out and then becoming part of the criminal justice system. The initiative is a result of a collaborative effort between the police department and our education partners with Richland 1 and 2 and it builds upon some proven successes in our country. The goal of the initiative is to mitigate negative effects experienced by children who are exposed to trauma and increase the knowledge and awareness of the issue. So what this looks like just very simply put when we are on a call for service, if we've executed a search warrant, we're in a home and we're causing some kind of law enforcement action and there's a child present. It is communicated through the respective regions and through our watch commander's office and that very next day before that bell rings the school system where that child that was exposed to goes to school is going to get a handle with care notice from the police department simply stating that this child was a witness to a police action and we're simply alerting the school system that they need to pay particular attention to this child and maybe the inattentiveness or potentially acting out is not bad behavior as a result of something that that child's experienced and instead of it being a disciplinary issue it brings the the resources that the great resources that our school schools have for our children to bear and provided that child and again instead of it being a disciplinary matter it's a situation where we counsel and give that child some help and give them what they need to be successful students so we're we're very excited about that again i'm very proud of our officers and the importance and priority they place with our relationships in the community and especially recognizing that we we know that we have challenges and trust when it comes to our young adults and youth and it's very important to us that we humanize ourselves and and our youth know that they can trust us and that we are here to help them be successful thank you