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St Paul community center aims to rebuild trust, as it reopens after shooting

For decades, the Oxford Community Center has been one of the city's biggest safe spaces, but a shooting shattered community confidence last month.

ST PAUL, Minn. — A month after a shooting abruptly closed the doors of St. Paul's largest community gathering spaces, the doors of the Oxford Community Center are set to reopen on Saturday.

"We want these doors to be open, we want to be able to serve community, but we had to take some time to reset a bit," said Andy Rodriguez, Director of St. Paul Parks and Rec. "That was probably the worst incident in our department's history."

On January 18th, a shooting outside the community center left a 16 year old critically injured. Prosecutors say a 26-year-old city employee argued with the 16 year old and another teen, eventually getting in a physical fight with them before allegedly pulling a gun and shooting the 16 year old in the head.

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Kent Erdahl: "You have been closed for a month now. How have you been using that time?"

Rodriguez: "We had to give some time to the staff who work at this facility to heal. What our staff witnessed was such a traumatic event on the property and some of them responded to it directly. We have also worked on de-escalation training and going over lockdown and weapons policies. Today we also have St. Paul Police here to answer questions from staff related to safety." 

Kent Erdahl: "What have you learned about any kind of tensions involving students and staff, or other dynamics, that might have led up to this?"

Rodriguez: "Over the past year and a half, we've experienced a lot of different things when it comes to our young people engaging in violence, fights, things of that nature, that occur after (Central High School) releases, and then they head on over to this side of the street. Responding to that, I think, boils down to how our community responds collectively."

Going forward, Rodriguez says there will be a new collective security effort in the neighborhood during that transition out of school during weekday afternoons. That includes extra St. Paul Police presence outside Central High School, and community groups helping provide a public safety presence between the school and the community center. 

"Central releases 17 hundred students at 3pm," he said. "Between 3-4:30pm is really the peak time that we've seen the highest level of incident over the last year or so. Some of the things that are challenging are larger groups of young people, and how those are managed. When I say large, I mean 40-50 plus. That is a large group for anyone to handle."

Despite trying to address those issues for months, he says community center and school staff have been putting in more work since the shooting to get on the same page and channel. 

"We are on the same radio system now with Central," Rodriguez said. "So when things need to be communicated, we can communicate with one another that way." 

He says they're also providing more staff support within the walls of the community center itself.

Rodriguez: "We've beefed up our staffing model. We've changed kind of the structure of it. So we have a top tier position where we'll oversee the entirety of the building, whereas before it was kind of a joint leadership model. In addition to that, we've created two youth worker positions that are really going to focus on relationship building with our young people.

Erdahl: "You've spent a lot of time in the last month talking to staff. Do they feel safe?"

Rodriguez: "The majority of our staff team have returned here, that tells me that they are comfortable coming back into this work environment. I would say that they are in a good place. We had a few staff that did ask for reassignment based off the incident that occurred and we honored that, obviously."

Erdahl: "What have you heard from families who may be enrolled or no longer enrolling have you seen a change on that front too?"

Rodriguez: "To be honest, I haven't. Tomorrow will be a good litmus test for that. I have heard, strongly, from community about access to this space, and wanting to get back in here. Whether you're here to lap swim or you're here to play basketball, we may have to rebuild some of that trust with the community for those who are a little hesitant to come back here. That may take some time, but I think we're prepared for that and I think we're able to demonstrate how we've made changes."

As part of that effort to rebuild trust and welcome everyone back, the Oxford Community Center will offer a free open swim tomorrow from Noon to 5 p.m., along with gym games, and other recreational activities. Normal hours and programming will resume on Sunday.

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