In one of the most heinous stains on the fabric of the community of East Flatbush, a young man, Christopher Rose, 15, was recently stabbed to death while peacefully walking with friends toward a subway station last Saturday.

The desire for an iPod proved to be the rallying call for about a dozen teenagers who closed in on Rose and his friends, beating them and stealing the iPod. One of the teens stabbed Rose twice in the chest.

This despicable act of senseless violence has inspired Christopher Rose’s courageous Jamaican-born parents – Errol and Sharon Rose – and Ngozi Moses of the Brooklyn Perinatal Network to develop a plan for a community mobilization campaign to help prevent such tragedies in the future. This innovative plan has been fully endorsed by Assemblyman Nick Perry (D-East Flatbush, Canarsie) and his colleagues, Senator John Sampson (D-Brooklyn), Councilman Charles Barron (D-East New York) and City Council candidate, Sam Taitt.

“As a community, we failed this child of East Flatbush. Never should a child be able to be accosted in the middle of the afternoon by a gang of thugs. We must take back our streets and let it be known that anyone interested in doing bad that the streets are indeed watching,” said Assemblyman Nick Perry. “Being a concerned and nurturing community we must not allow the past to repeat itself. Christopher’s legacy should not be blemished by a repeat of the same mindless and evil act that ended his life. The time is now to atone for these failures. This new campaign is a step in the right direction.”

The campaign, Christopher Rose Community Empowerment Campaign to Reduce and Prevent Youth Violence through the East Flatbush Children’s Safety Zone Initiative, developed by Ngozi Moses along with Errol and Sharon Rose, will attempt to create a cause for optimism during this time of great sadness. The three-tiered initiative urges communities to take a more active role in raising our children, endorsing and embracing the old African proverb that states it takes a village to raise a child.

“We need to recreate the village atmosphere in our neighborhoods by developing a greater sense of responsibility for each other’s children in order to keep community streets safe and to train our children away from the culture that glorifies violence,” said Moses.

The parents of Christopher Rose stressed the need for parental involvement along with a greater sense of community involvement. Their son’s death is a community-wide problem, not just one affecting their grieving family.

“The loss of our children to the streets, to gangs, to community violence, is a community problem,” said Errol Rose. “My child’s death is tragic. I want to act now to prevent other tragedies. I did all I could to protect my child but the community problem of youth violence took him from me. Alone I could not, and alone I can’t address that factor.”

“Much more resources to support, educate, inform and organize parents for effective parenting is needed; and community-wide mobilizing to coordinate resources and efforts are needed to help stem the tide of these growing problems,” said Sharon Rose. “This initiative in Christopher’s memory will ease our pain if it can be implemented to save other kids. We have lost our only son. We want to prevent others from being lost.”