Task force meets to tackle youth violence in Scotland

LAURINBURG — Concerned citizens and community leaders throughout Scotland County joined forces this week to generate a plan of action to counteract youth-involved violence within the county.

The Stop the Violence Task Force, which met at the AB Gibson Center this Tuesday, aims to unite the community in fostering ideas to prevent violence and make Scotland safer for youth. The Scotland County Schools district has taken the initiative with the task force but Superintendent Adell Baldwin made clear that this is not a district-led task force but a community-led one.

Baldwin pointed out that since the 2024-25 school year began, Scotland County has seen the death of a high school-aged child every month. The latest was that of Jasmine Smith, a 17-year-old Shaw Academy student who was gunned down in Laurinburg a week ago.

The superintendent said that in another place the alarms would have been sound but the thing that “scares” him the most is the community becoming numb. “Like you go to school and it’s another day, another event … We’ve gotta do something,” Baldwin said.

Setting the task

One accomplishment met during the meeting was setting a date and time for a community outreach event on May 3. A survey was taken up to discuss where the event would be held.

Former police chief and current Scotland County Commissioner Darwin Williams said that it’s important to consider locations in Wagram and Gibson as well.

During the task force meeting, stakeholders also discussed planning a series of pop-up events throughout the county as opposed to large-scale events in central locations.

“We realize now as a community that it’s a divide. It’s a divide with demographics, it a class divide so what we want to do is bring everybody together,” said one of the committee members.

The task force also discussed a plan of action in offering the families of victims support after a traumatic experience.

Laurinburg Police Chief Mitch Johnson told organizers that it is important to coordinate a plan with the department as the location of family members is often an active crime scene.

“I would suggest that you reach out to myself, someone, and we meet at a location to provide, if possible, if the family has agreed upon, to have someone to talk to them about the trauma that they’ve just experienced whether that be someone who deals with mental health issues and/or the grieving process,” Johnson said.

As far as public relations, committee heads said they would use graphic students to creative visuals for flyers and website imaging. The group is tasked with reinventing the image of Scotland County.

Laurinburg City Council member Barbara Rogers pitched the idea of offering training that teaches soft skills on safety at these pop-up events like responding to wounds immediately.

“I’ve even seen people do some training around responding to wounds immediately like where people learn like when you are in the presence of a gunshot wound what are we to do? Cause granted we don’t want to have to treat nobody’s gunshot wound but the reality that we’re dealt with is that that may happen,” Rogers said.

Building on Rogers, Chief Johnson suggested bringing in the American Red Cross and the American Heart Association to have a periodic CPR first aid class.

“So that we can get individuals to understand that again community first aid works toward all the other safety and that’s something they have a certification for,” Johnson said.

Another topic of discussion during the meeting was identifying high-risk youth heading down the wrong path and staying involved in their lives. Baldwin said these students can be identified as early as the third grade.

“If we don’t keep our hands on ‘em, they’re going to turn into the shooter but we gotta do something,” Baldwin said.

Join a committee

Committees are still open to membership from individuals throughout Scotland County.

Keisha Hood has been tapped to captain the Outrach subcommittee. Joshua Williams was named co-captain. Freda Singletary and Lauren Holloway will captain and co-captain the Public Relations subcommittee. Umeka Leak and Jonathan McRae will captain and co-captain the Faith-Base Support subcommittee. Jamie Adams and David Wall will head the Safe Zone subcommittee and Patricia Powell-Patrick and Patrick Williams will captain and co-captain the Community Support Subcommittee.

Each committee is made up of members representing agencies throughout the Scotland County including law enforcement, mental health, churches and more.