Concern for our teenagers Public Comment from Eric & Sally BeckerAimee Brunckhorst
From: Eric & Sally Becker <thebeckers@gorge.net>
Sent: Friday, June 2, 2023 8:51 AM
To: Doug Overman; Kalispell City Council
Subject: EXTERNAL Concern for our teenagers...
Mayor, City Council Members, & Police Chief Doverman,
We are contacting you out of concern for our son and other youth in the city of Kalispell. Our son has worked at Super 1
for approximately a year now. In the past few months he has reported to us, and his managers, more and more
disregard for the law by the homeless. He has witnessed more aggressive fighting amongst the homeless, keys being
stolen out of motorcycles, people being chased with drugs, and most recently an adult drunk homeless man physically
confronted him while he was getting carts.
This man came up to our son and shouldered him as he was gathering carts then said words to our son trying to agitate
him. Our son then tried to ignore him and continue with his work and the man stood in front of his carts and tried to
confront him again in an effort to start a fight. Our teenage son, a junior in high school, is being confronted by a grown
drunk homeless man. He was able to go on about his work and reported this activity to the manager, but we are not
sure anything was actually done.
This physical encounter is very disturbing. The downtown is becoming so overrun with homeless that we are worried
more and more incidents like this will happen not only to our son but to others as well. We are wondering if more
patrolling can be done in that area? The area around the park and Super 1. We don't want people to get accustomed to
this behavior and start to normalize it, which may lead to more abusive incidents in the future.
How can we help? We've been looking up what has been successful in other cities to deter camps or group homeless
activities. You have probably already seen this but some stores have used classical or Christian music (not played too
loudly) to effectively scatter homeless groups from organizing in certain areas. Supposedly, the neuroscience is, this
music doesn't appeal to a lot of individuals so they leave the area where it is being played because their brains don't like
that particular type of music. Here are a couple links below. We are just brainstorming ideas. We noticed the other day
that there were at least at least 30 gathered in the city park.
https://www.policel.com/bizarre/articles/5-things-to-know-about-fighting-crime-with-classical-music-
wKgDTRPIOIgxtxx3/
https://www.Iatimes.com/caIifornia/story/2019-09-06/homeless-7-eleven-franchise-classical-music
The point of this email is to let you know that we have taught our son to respect people older than him. However, we
have also taught him to defend himself. If he is assaulted more aggressively in the future and feels threatened, then he
may be forced to defend himself. We don't want that to happen. Please let us know what we can do to help mentor our
son and to protect others.
Eric & Sally Becker
406-261-9165