FIND IT FIX IT Its a start, says the mayor.
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  • FIND IT FIX IT WALKS "It's a start," says the mayor.

Mayor Ed Murray and a host of city officials joined residents of the Central District for the first "Find It Fix It community walk" last night in response to what Murray has called "a crisis of confidence in public safety." The whole shebang kicked off at 7 p.m. with a crowd gathered in the Red Apple grocery store parking lot at 23rd and Jackson.

Police officers spoke at a makeshift podium about how they want to partner with the community. Murray held a moment of silence for victims of gun violence. New SPD chief Kathleen O'Toole reiterated that prevention and intervention are just as important as enforcement when it comes to crime. City Council Member Bruce Harrell said he's come to absolutely "adore" the mayor for his leadership on public safety, which seems a bit premature.

I recognized a lot of familiar faces, particularly of neighborhood activists, including several who successfully pushed for the closure of the CD's last black-owned nightspot. Engaging people who aren't already politically involved and don't typically attend neighborhood meetings will require more deliberate outreach to those who feel marginalized.

Led by the police, the group walked one block west to the corner of 22nd and Jackson (home of the affordable and delicious Ethiopian Chef Cafe). Officials with clipboards were available for attendees to record their ideas and complaints, though it's not clear what the one-block trek was supposed to reveal.

After an ambulance careened past, we turned around and headed straight back, going East on Jackson on a route pre-planned by the authorities.

We passed the Starbucks—a popular meet-up spot for locals—and The Medium, one of Seattle's two black newspapers.* We did not, however, on this particular route, pass any of the gleaming, boxy, modern homes that keep popping up throughout the area, driving rents up and displacing longtime residents. No one with the megaphone talked about gentrification.

An elderly woman complained to Murray after the walk ended, though, that she feels like she's being driven out by new developments. Murray said he wants to see more workforce housing in the area, but he hasn't offered a timeline or specifics for such a plan. After a welcome focus on the connection between inequality and public safety in last week's address to the city, there was little emphasis on the neighborhood's underlying problem during the community walk: poverty (borne out by historically lower median incomes as compared to the rest of the city). And besides one city official who pledged to send a street-cleaning crew, there wasn't much in the way of "finding and fixing" that I saw.

(Nor, unfortunately, did the walk go past Judkins Park, where a tennis court has been converted into a thriving urban space where youngsters play soccer—specifically futsal, the small-sided version of the game.)

Lifelong Central District resident Tony Shelman watched the throng of politicians, police, reporters and neighbors from outside the Starbucks. "Tschhhhh," he said, waving his hand, when I asked what he thought of it. The biggest issues, he said, are rampant violent crime—he suggested the police set up a sub-station in the Central District instead of operating out of Capitol Hill's East Precinct headquarters—and brutality from the police themselves.

The walk wound its way up to Floware Park and concluded nearby, where, within a several-block radius, officials said, three young black men—Ronnie Brown, Kevin Brown, and Deszaun Smallwood—were murdered in three separate incidents in the space of one week in April. None of their killers have been apprehended thus far.

Police say Ali Muhammed Brown, the suspect in the June 1 double murder of Dwone Anderson-Young and Ahmed Said, is now at large on the East coast, where he's alleged to have carried out carjackings and robberies.

Greg Bear, another Central District resident, following the walk, said virtually the same thing as Dwone-Anderson Young's mother after Murray's teleprompter-assisted public safety speech last week. "I just want to see a year from now—all these things that he said," she told me. "Did he do it?"

Back at the Red Apple parking lot, I asked Murray whether the "Find It Fix It" walk—the city has a smartphone app of the same name where you can report illegal dumping and broken streetlights—had turned out like he wanted it to. The walk won't solve everything, he said, but, "it's a start."

As a mayoral candidate, Murray once declared, "Building togetherness is the only way I know how to do politics." And last night's community walk felt like it did that, if only in a limited and short-lived way. There will be four more community walks, all in South Seattle, through mid-August.

*Correction: This article originally misstated the number of black newspapers in Seattle. There are two, not one: The Medium and The Facts.