The dots couldn't have been connected more clearly:

Headline on the front page of the Democratic and Chronicle's A section on Saturday: "Mourners gather to say goodbye to Camry."

Headline on the front page of the B section: "Surround Care closes doors."

In yet another of our long string of killings, 12-year-old Camry McKnight died earlier this month when a man on a bicycle shot a gun into a crowd. Two teenagers in the crowd were wounded, one seriously.

This can not go on. And yet it does. And we have only a patchwork of the usual responses: stepped-up police patrols, Zero Tolerance, candlelight marches. We talk a good game, promising that this time we'll do what it takes. But we don't follow through.

A few years ago, we seemed headed down the right path with the creation of the Children's Zone. The program was to focus intensive health-care, education, public safety, job training, and other resources on one part of the inner city. I thought this was the best chance we had at dealing with Rochester's concentrated poverty - and the crime, unemployment, low student achievement, and health problems that are the tentacles of that poverty.

While Surround Care has closed its office, its leaders apparently plan to struggle on with volunteers. But the job's much too big for that. And it is appalling that this community, with its resources, would leave the job to a small group of volunteers.

Children's Zone - Surround Care had their problems. Could they have been fixed? If not, where's the alternative? Who is stepping forward with something that will address the roots of our violence?

We have let generations grow up in poverty. This is not something the police can correct. It is not something teachers can correct. And even the best of parents can not always overcome the pressures of poverty and the street.

So the cops will patrol, and the teachers will teach. Doctors will bandage wounds and try to save victims like Camry. The city will offer after-school recreation programs (as long as the money holds out).

According to the D&C's lovely report on little Camry's memorial service, Mayor Bob Duffy said that "the community has the cure for the 'cancer of violence that took Camry's life."'

Really? Then where's the will? And where's the leadership?

Among the speakers at Camry's service was Paul McFadden, a family friend and brother of City Council member Adam McFadden. The D&C reported this powerful indictment from McFadden's address:

"Somebody asked me, who do I think did this, and I said, 'A demon did this.' Our main focus now is to end the generational curse."

I wonder what it will take for the broad population of the Community of Monroe to dedicate itself to ending that generational curse. If not the Children's Zone or Surround Care, what? And when?

Betty Altier

Rochester lost a diligent advocate for downtown, and this newspaper lost a friend, last month. Betty Altier died August 21 after a brave struggle with cancer.

The list of Betty's civic involvements is a lengthy one. She was a board and executive-committee member of the local Red Cross, served on a Red Cross capital campaign that raised money for an important blood laboratory, was president of the YWCA, co-chaired a recent annual appeal for the Y, and served on the "Breaking New Ground for Women" advisory committee. She served for many years on the board of the Rochester Philharmonic.

She chaired the Monroe County Planning Commission and was a member of the Monroe County Visitors Association. And as a passionate advocate for Downtown Rochester, she was a founding member of the City's Cultural Commission and chaired the Metro Center Commission.

Many people, of course, serve on multiple boards and do little. Betty Altier, like her late husband Ted, was a doer. As a civic volunteer, she was engaged, creative, and dedicated, and, as a person, strong, calm, kind, wise, and incredibly ethical.

A memorial service will be held at First Unitarian Church at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, September 29.