Acknowledging a problem is often viewed as the first step to recovery. So Americans appear to be on the right path.

A new poll from The New York Times and CBS News found increasing pessimism about race relations in the U.S., among black and white respondents. Some 61 percent of respondents said race relations in America are “generally bad”—up almost 20 percent from a similar poll taken last December. The starkest rise in negative perception of race relations was found among whites.

The poll, conducted last Thursday through Sunday, comes on the heels of the death of Freddie Gray, a black man who mysteriously died after being taken into custody by Baltimore police. Gray’s death triggered days of protests and renewed an often painful national conversation about persistent racism, inequality, and our troubled criminal justice system.

In a Yougov/Huffington Post poll released last week, white respondents said they are increasingly likely to see deaths like Gray’s as part of a larger pattern in the way police treat black men rather than an isolated incident. The results marked a shift from an earlier poll in which participants were asked the same question about Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Missouri.

The research suggests that Americans have arrived at a new awakening about the persistent race problem. Just last week, Hillary Clinton, a Democratic presidential candidate, delivered an unusual speech at Columbia University in which she called for reforms to a criminal justice system that disproportionately impacts young black and Latino men. “We have to come to terms with some hard truths about race and justice in America,” she said.

On Monday, President Obama unveiled an extension of My Brother’s Keeper, his initiative to empower young black and Latino men. In his speech announcing the initiative, President Obama reminded the audience about the numbers stacked against communities of color: “In too many places in this country, black boys and black men, Latino boys, Latino men, they experience being treated differently by law enforcement—in stops and in arrests, and in charges and incarcerations.”

The mother of a 12-year-old Cleveland boy who was shot and killed by police last year says she lived in a homeless shelter for a time to avoid living next to "the killing field of her son," according to court documents.

Monday’s filing on behalf of Samaria Rice, Tamir Rice’s mom, calls on city officials to allow the court to proceed with the civil suit and investigation of the boy’s death, saying months of delay have been costly for the family. A fund-raising site for the family’s expenses has raised more than $20,000 in the past two months—the goal is $25,000.

Tamir was holding a toy gun when he was shot by a Cleveland police officer on Nov. 22, 2014. The video of the shooting showed that police drew weapons and fired the fatal shots mere seconds after arriving at the park where Tamir was playing. No charges have been filed, and the criminal investigation is ongoing. A spokesperson for the local sheriff’s office told NBC affiliate WKYC that there’s no update on the investigation.

Samaria Rice’s attorney, Walter Madison, tells Cleveland’s ABC5 that she was in the homeless shelter for a time but moved into a Cleveland home a few weeks ago with her family’s support.

The 14-year-old boy accused of stabbing a girl on the playground at Aspen Creek K-8 school in Broomfield last week has been charged with attempted murder and assault.

The charges, which include attempted first-degree murder, first-degree assault and possession of a weapon on school grounds, were announced Monday afternoon by the 17th Judicial District Attorney's Office

The stabbing happened around 11:30 a.m. Thursday on the school playground. The victim, a 14-year-old girl, survived the attack, the DA's office stated in a news release.

She was flown to Children's Hospital after being stabbed in the back, according to Broomfield police.

The boy accused in the stabbing also is being charged as a violent juvenile offender for the use or threatened use of a deadly weapon, and as an aggravated juvenile offender, both of which are sentencing enhancers, according to a news release from the DA's office.

The boy is not being named because he is a minor. He is being held in the Adams County Juvenile Detention Center.

The case is set for filing of charges at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday.

Classes resumed at the school on Friday, with many students wearing purple as a show of support for the victim.

Megan Quinn: 303-410-2649,quinnm@broomfieldenterprise.com ortwitter.com/MeganQuinn2

Tribune
New Ferguson City Council Members Consider Permanent Michael Brown Memorial

FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — To some, a makeshift shrine in the middle of the Ferguson street where Michael Brown was killed last summer is a hallowed symbol of a new civil rights movement over race and policing. To others, it has served its purpose and is now more of an eyesore and a road hazard.

Within hours of Brown's Aug. 9 shooting death by a white police officer, people began placing stuffed animals, candles and other tributes in the middle of Canfield Drive, where the unarmed black 18-year-old's body lay for about four hours before it was removed.

The shrine stretches several yards down the center of the two-lane road that bisects a housing complex, and city leaders are grappling with the thorny question of whether to remove or replace it and risk further inflaming racial tensions in the 21,000-resident St. Louis suburb, which is two-thirds black. Another section of the shrine sits along the curb a few yards away.

"It's a very sensitive topic," says Janie Jones, a black, Washington-based mediator who says she has been working behind the scenes with Ferguson municipal leaders and the Brown family on how to clear out the memorial without agitating the black community.

"It represents a community's cry for justice — not just for Michael Brown, but for people all over the world," Jones told The Associated Press on Monday. "The city has some serious decisions to make going forward."

Brown's killing by Officer Darren Wilson, who left Ferguson's police force after a grand jury decided not to charge him, touched off weeks of sometimes-violent demonstrations and a national "Black Lives Matter" movement that only gained momentum with the subsequent police killings of unarmed black men in other U.S. cities.

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Spiritual teacher Iyanla Vanzant pours holy water on a shrine for Michael Brown where he was shot an …

Although Wilson wasn't charged, the U.S. Justice Department released a scathing report citing racial bias and racial profiling in the Ferguson Police Department and in a profit-driven municipal court system that frequently targeted blacks.

Ferguson Mayor James Knowles III, while appreciative of the memorial's status as a nexus of protests and prayers, said it is now a public safety issue that comes with "any time you leave items in the middle of the roadway." Knowles, who is white, pointed to last Christmas Day, when an unidentified motorist — whether intentionally or accidentally — plowed through the shrine. Neighbors and Brown supporters swiftly cleaned up the damage and rebuilt the site.

Now, Knowles said, "the city would like it moved," adding that "we're working on getting a buy-in with the family and community" to make it happen. He said no decisions have been made and there isn't a deadline to decide the matter.

During a Ferguson City Council meeting last month — the first since city elections tripled black representation on the governing board that had been largely white — Jones proposed replacing the shrine with a permanent dove-shaped marker embedded in the street.

That would "take a very tragic situation and use it as a teachable moment to encourage community healing and symbolize the unity that is very much needed," said Jones, president and CEO of the Joint Council on Policy and Social Impact. "The way we deal with this memorial is how we move forward in Ferguson, because that memorial represents the best and the worst of Ferguson."

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A makeshift memorial on Canfield Drive in Ferguson marks the spot when unarmed black teenager Michae …

Jones said Brown's mother wants a portion of the road where the memorial rests carved out and repaved because "she feels like her son's blood is still in the streets."

Jeff Small, a Ferguson city spokesman, said discussions about the memorial's fate likely would go the city's traffic commission comprised of various Ferguson residents and newly elected Councilwoman Ella Jones, who did not return telephone messages seeking comment for this story.

The Brown family's attorney, Benjamin Crump, also did not reply to messages seeking comment.

Debate about the memorial's fate comes as Brown's parents are pressing a wrongful-death lawsuit against the city of Ferguson, Wilson and the former police chief. Dorian Johnson, who was with Brown at the time of the shooting, also sued those same parties last week, accusing Wilson of being the aggressor who used excessive force and "acted with deliberate indifference or with reckless disregard" for Johnson's rights.

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Follow Alan Scher Zagier on Twitter at https://twitter.com/azagier .