Director of OVP Statement on the Current Gun Violence

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To our Resilient Community;

Gun violence is a public health and safety issue, and this is going to require that ALL of us find a way to get involved.  I acknowledge that many of us in the black community have already began to gather men and women together, and we need to keep this momentum going.  The magnitude of violence that we are seeing is not something that any one group or organization can solve, it’s going to take all of us working together, doing what we can to cultivate the change that we are looking for in our communities.

I am a mother, a wife, and an active community member, before I became the Director of the office of Violence Prevention. To know that we had 98 shootings and 15 homicides in the month of July alone, is more than alarming, it is disheartening.  To know that we have families in our community who have experienced unimaginable loss and that we have other community members living in fear of what could happen next is completely and utterly unacceptable.

We must stop the bleeding!

We must hold those who continue to perpetuate violence in our communities accountable at every level.

As the Director of the office of Violence Prevention, I am committed to fighting for the health, safety and welfare of everyone in our community.  I am committed to working with our dedicated Outreach workers, our Healing Hurt People staff,  other City partners, and all of those who are impacted by violence to come up with and implement community-based solutions that will save lives.

I don’t care whose idea it is, if it’s a good one, we can and must try it.

This is a clarion cry, a call to action to any and everyone who wants to see change in our community

We NEED YOUR HELP!  You can make calls, you can make flyers, you can design websites, you can do something.  The reality is that we are not going to get the change we need sitting at home waiting for someone else to do something; we are the answer that we have been waiting on, and now it’s time to

We ask you to JOIN US IN THE FIGHT FOR CHANGE!