The snitches-get-stitches mentality among her students is a sore spot for Detroit school principal Tamara Johnson.
Students don't tell on their friends, she says. And they don't trust cops.
"When they think about law enforcement, it's all bad. ... I don't think they see the police or FBI as people who can help anymore," said Johnson.
The nation's top cops are hoping to change that mind-set. The FBI has an outreach program that places agents and specialists into schools and neighborhoods across metro Detroit and throughout the country, hoping to build trust and relationships -- and recruit future agents. The program's motto: "The better we know our communities, the better we can protect them."
One recent stop for the FBI was Johnson's school: University Preparatory Academy-Ellen Thompson Campus. The elementary school is participating in a six-week FBI Junior Special Agent Program, in which more than a dozen students are learning how to become FBI agents.
The program involves physical fitness training -- the kids learned all FBI agents must be in tip-top shape -- and investigative techniques. On Monday, kids got a feel for what it's like to chase around bad guys with a 30-pound bulletproof vest strapped around them. There was a lot of huffing and puffing in the classroom, which had yellow crime scene tape. They also learned how to dust for fingerprints, among other things.
On Monday, they'll be sworn in as junior special agents, complete with a badge.
Reaching out to stop crime
FBI specialist Rhonda Kennedy is just one of many friendly faces the FBI has plugged into schools and communities in an effort to build trusting relationships in communities struggling with a variety of issues, such as racial profiling, gangs, immigration and violent crime.
Bushra Alawie, a former National Guard worker, is the face of the FBI in the Arab-American Muslim community. She works with community and religious leaders to build trust with the bureau, puts on Junior Special Agent classes and anti-bullying assemblies at schools, and helps run the FBI's citizens academy.
Will Council represents the bureau in the Hispanic community. Simon Shaykhet is the FBI contact for the Jewish community.
The FBI Community Outreach program has been in existence for 14 years, Kennedy said, although many schools and communities still don't know about it.
She noted that when the FBI contacts certain schools for anti-bullying seminars, the common reaction is, "We didn't even know the FBI had an outreach program."
For Kennedy, who has worked for the FBI for almost 30 years, teaching kids about the bureau is just one facet of her job. She also wants to empower youths and seniors, build trust in crime-ridden communities, fight bullying and recruit future agents.
"The initiative was adopted to build bridges and gain trust in various communities to show a more friendly side of the FBI, if you will," Kennedy said, adding that she's aware of stereotypes people have about the agency.
"We're not ... on the corner stopping everyone," she said. "The FBI does positive things in this community."
Shaykhet echoed Kennedy's sentiments, noting that outreach work also helps communities "to become empowered by knowing whom to contact when they feel their community could be in danger."
A lifelong Detroiter, Kennedy also is passionate about saving her hometown.
"It's always been near and dear to my heart," Kennedy said of Detroit. "I feel that positive outreach in our city is definitely needed. ... It's part of the bigger puzzle of preventing crime and hopefully keeping some of these kids off the streets."
Kids catch on
So far, the kids appear to be digging it, especially the fingerprinting and the bulletproof vest.
"Can I try it on again?" 8-year-old Bella Jones pleaded.
Her classmate wouldn't hear of it, and spun around the room with the vest strapped to him while Kennedy called on the group to huddle around her and listen carefully. She asked them what kinds of crimes the FBI handles.
Hands shot up.
"Kidnapping," said one boy.
"Civil rights (violations)," said one girl.
"Terrorism," said another student.
When Kennedy asked the kids to name a recent example of terrorism that the FBI investigated, 9-year-old Jacob Green was quick to answer.
"The Boston Marathon bombings," Jacob said.
Copyright 2013 - Detroit Free Press
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
