Hanging out with guys in green shirts

"What [games] do you like?" Lonte Hill asked the teenager.

"What's your name?" he persisted. "Devon," the student replied.

Hill, working the halls at Northview Junior High in Brooklyn Park, gave him a flier about a video game tournament at nearby Zanewood Recreation Center.

"We got PlayStation and pool. Devon, I'll see you there, man."

Hill, 34, and three other young men in lime-green "Outreach Worker" T-shirts, are a key part of a city-school-community effort that aims to engage students and reduce juvenile crime by offering social services and after-school activities.

Brooklyn Park is one of a number of cities with outreach programs directed at afternoon hours when many students go home to little parental supervision and few positive outlets. The city's approach is different from many others because young people helped create the program and help plan activities they want, said Carol Thomas of the Minnesota Department of Education. State officials are watching the program.

"One of the things we are very interested in is how they are allowing youth to have a voice and place at the table."

A recent nationwide study found that 46 percent of Minnesota school children were home alone or with siblings after school. The After 3 PM study, funded by JCPenny Afterschool Fund, said that 12 percent were involved in after-school programs, below the national average of 15 percent.

At Northview, many of the students have low-income single parents who are working when school lets out, said Principal Peg Vickerman.

Lunch and after school

A pair of outreach workers visits the school, at 69th and Zane Avenues, at lunchtime. They return when class lets out at 2 p.m. to deter fights and persuade kids to walk the block to Zanewood to play basketball, pool or video games.

About a week ago, Hill and a co-worker got wind of a possible fight brewing and followed a group of teens from Northview to Zanewood. About 30 kids were waiting, including one ready to fight a student Hill knew.

"We kept them apart and talked to them, and eventually they went home," Hill said. "We get to know the kids from hanging out with them for four months."

The Brooklyn Park program dates to early 2008, after the city and neighboring Brooklyn Center held a community wide conference on juvenile crime. Brooklyn Center has mirrored much of what its larger neighbor is doing and is trying to set up a drop-in youth center like Zanewood, police said.

Brooklyn Park's program shifted into high gear this summer when the remodeled Zanewood center opened seven days a week. Police got a two-year grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to hire the four outreach workers through a local nonprofit group called the Center of Hope and Compassion. Hill and his crew-- Jeremiah Fuller, 21; Chris Body, 27; and Scott Kelly, 42 -- are members of an area church and have worked with youth for years. Kelly has kids in the schools they visit. Hill said he worked seven years at the Bridge for Youth in Minneapolis.

The green-shirted guys have made thousands of youth contacts since June 15, when they began walking four nights a week along a high-crime, 22-block stretch of Zane Avenue. They followed the kids to school in September and visit Northview, Park Center High School and three other schools.

Police also stepped up curfew sweeps in warmer months. They give kids curfew tickets and take them to Zanewood, said Nancy Lageson, community liaison officer.

Police say it's too soon to see definitive results in the area of juvenile crime, but that early signs are encouraging. Along the Zane corridor, reports of common juvenile crimes for June through October dropped by 20 percent, from 146 incidents to 117, compared with the same five months last year, Lageson said. Those crimes include assault, disorderly conduct (fights and disturbances), runaways, night curfew and truancy violations.

At Park Center, Northview and Brooklyn Junior High, where outreach workers and police liaison officers are working, the same juvenile incidents dropped during the five-month period, from 22 in 2008 to seven this year, Lageson said.

The outreach crew also works in area rental housing, including Eden Park Apartments, about five blocks south of Zanewood. Hill, who grew up in Bakersfield, Calif., projects plagued by gang and drug problems, said their first hurdle was gaining acceptance from Eden Park's older youth and men, known as OGs, short for original gangsters.

"When we first walked through Eden Park the kids would run," Hill said. "They'd scatter, yelling the guys in the green shirts are coming. ...It took us about three weeks to get community buy in."

Now some people tip Hill's crew about potentially violent parties, and efforts are made to defuse them.

Northview Principal Vickerman said Hill's crew, who work with school liaison officers, are having a great impact. "The kids love it," she said. "It is powerful to have strong male role models. ... It's about having somebody that helps guide kids to go the right way."

Eighth-grader Jamir Tidwell said the green guys help kids with homework and taught him how to play flag football. His favorite outreach worker is Fuller. "He's like a big brother to me."

Jim Adams • 612-673-7658