Del Paso Heights once again copes with violence. And city leaders once again promise change

Amie Pettaway grew up in North Highlands but moved in the 1970s to Del Paso Heights. The north Sacramento neighborhood has been her home ever since, a place where she has raised her family and built a network of friends and loved ones.

“We come to this park, I come to this park, every day practically,” she said Tuesday in Mama Marks Park.

But the effects of gun violence have been relentless. Parents teach their children how to duck when they hear shots ring out. Kids have to keep a lookout when they’re at the playground, watch for who’s around.

“It’s sad, it is. It’s just sad,” Pettaway said.

Del Paso Heights is once again coping with gun violence, this time after the shooting death of 9-year-old Makaylah Brent at Mama Marks Park on Saturday. And city of Sacramento leaders are once again promising changes.

Councilman Allen Warren, who represents the area, told a crowd at the park Tuesday he was preparing to bring to the City Council several proposals on community investment in the coming weeks.

His plan calls for more funding to support existing community organizations, create more youth programs, install cameras at neighborhood parks, improve playgrounds and local library branches, and offer more prevention and intervention services for people affected by gangs.

The coronavirus pandemic has given way to more violent crimes in Sacramento this year compared to last. But it also follows decades of “disinvestment and economic and social challenges that take place in communities like this,” Warren said.

“How do we bring the investment into communities like this that give people a chance to grow and to prosper?” Warren asked the crowd that included Council members Jeff Harris and Angelique Ashby, and Mayor Darrell Steinberg. All three said Tuesday they would vote in favor of Warren’s proposals when they come before the council.

In an area where roughly one in four households are living at or below the poverty line, and where the coronavirus pandemic has disproportionately affected the health and financial stability of thousands of residents, community advocates say more resources could not come soon enough.

“We need just what Granite Bay has, we need that,” said Sherri Kirk of Sister to Sister. “Just what Folsom has, we should have access to the same things. It should be no different.”

Brother to Brother president Aaron Cardoza worries that the proposals are just promises, the kind that come when tragedy strikes and “they try to cool us down, calm us down.

“We don’t know if it’s going to be action,” Cardoza said.

Among the community’s needs: More grocery stores and healthcare clinics, Kirk said, along with more school programs and summer programs to keep kids occupied, said Peter Arafiles, Makaylah’s cousin.

“Ain’t no water in the pool, ain’t been swimming all summer due to COVID,” he said. “You gotta put (kids) around the right people. Put them around the wrong people, stuff is gonna happen to them.”

Cardoza said there needs to be a new community center like Boys and Girls Club that’s filled with mentors and academic tutors — a safe zone “where if you’ve got a problem and you’re running from someone, you can run right into our community center, and we’ll protect you.”

It has to be built where everyone can access it. “Not on Del Paso Boulevard, not on Rio Linda,” he said, but here, in Mama Marks Park, named for the neighborhood matriarch known for feeding hungry kids and raising dozens of foster children.

“Right in the heart of Del Paso Heights,” he said.

This story was originally published October 8, 2020 at 5:00 AM.