CHICAGO – The folks constructing peace on Chicago streets day-after-day have one thing to say concerning the president’s plan.
Fox 32 heard from survivors of violence on what they’re attempting to guard and what’s now in danger.
What they’re saying:
Survivors of gun violence stood collectively Tuesday to say what they want. They included individuals who have been shot, individuals who buried their youngsters, and individuals who now spend day-after-day attempting to maintain another person alive.
“I do not use the phrase sufferer. I am a survivor,” mentioned Samuel “Mook” Mormon. “I survived gun violence. I’ve a bullet in my head. It is sitting right here proper now. See, it is proper right here.”
Mormon walks the identical blocks the place he was shot. He talks to folks earlier than issues escalate. He offers them choices that he mentioned he did not have. He calls it a approach out, and he is not the one one doing this work.
“I used to be solely 11 once we misplaced my sister,” mentioned Tamika Howard. “It does not simply affect one individual. It is a ripple impact. From the moms to the siblings to all the household, all the neighborhood.”
Howard grew up inside that ripple. She misplaced two siblings to gun violence.
Now she mentors teenagers who carry the identical loss. She says what they want most isn’t management, it is care.
“What they need is to really feel protected,” Howard mentioned. “This features a protected setting for therapeutic. They need alternatives. They need somebody to consider in them.”
Survivors credit score neighborhood applications with a drop in shootings this 12 months, however these applications are beginning to lose funding, and now they’re watching the dialog shift towards troops as a substitute of assist.
“The troops coming right here will solely trigger extra issues,” mentioned Eric Wilkins. “They’ll solely put extra trauma on us as males right here in Chicago being Black and brown, particularly.”
These survivors are asking for funding in remedy and mentorship and applications that interrupt violence earlier than police ever present up. They need stability.
They need to preserve doing the work and so they need to be heard earlier than extra lives are misplaced.
