#KEEPDCALIVE
2022 SIGN-ON LETTER

MARCH 2, 2022

 

Dear Mayor Bowser, DC Councilmembers, and candidates running for local elected office, agency Directors and staff,

 

This letter and appendix serve to amplify the voices of survivors, peacemakers, advocates, and everyone who wants to live in a city where they do not have to fear gun violence.  Addressing gun violence is a key step to building racial & economic justice. The goal of this letter is to provide specific recommendations that are critical to DC reducing the rate of violence and making progress toward safe and peaceful communities.  We ask that our elected officials keep these recommendations in mind when drafting the city’s FY23 budget and when thinking about the landscape and ecosystem of gun violence reduction in the District. 

 

We find ourselves once again reflecting back on a year where the homicide rate in DC has increased and hundreds of DC families are mourning the loss of a loved one due to gun violence. The steep toll of violence can be told through both numbers and stories.

 

Nyiah Courtney was only six years old when she was killed in July in a shooting that also injured her mother and four other adults.(1) Eight-year-old Rufus Hayes was in the car earlier this month when his mother, Pamela Thomas, was shot and killed.(2)  Parents are burying their children and children are burying their parents.  That level of grief and trauma sticks with you for the rest of your life.  And those intense emotions ripple out into the community to everyone who knew and loved these victims.

 

Twenty-nine year old Alex Fleming was meeting her friend for dinner in Columbia Heights when two stray bullets shot her on the right side of her chest, puncturing her lung and grazing her liver.(3) She spent 11 days in the hospital with a chest tube aiding her wounds. While she begins to mend physically, emotional healing from her trauma will take time.

 

All of the 27 children who attend activities at the TraRon Center have lost a friend or relative to gun violence, or know someone who was shot, in the past year.  These innocent children continue to balance the mental trauma of two public health crises, both seemingly with no end in sight.

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Karen Lee, a Social Studies Teacher, Department Chair, and Pathways 2 Power advisor at Thurgood Marshall Academy reflected on how normalized and casual it has become to talk with her students about hearing gunshots and even bullets coming through a window into a student's home.  Reflecting on hearing shots fired near her home recently, Ms. Lee reflected, "in the past I have hit the floor.  I am alarmed at my own reactions when I work really hard to try to not normalize this, but my brain just can't cope...It isn't just about losing people, it is also about living with the fear".

 

These stories detail some of the deeply damaging ways that gun violence impacts Washingtonians, including individuals who have themselves been injured, those who have had a loved one injured or taken by gun violence, as well as people who hear gunshots or witness gun violence in their neighborhoods.

 

The human toll should be enough to urgently drive us all to care and act.  The financial toll is secondary, but still staggering as well.  The economic cost of gun violence in DC is estimated to be as much as $3 billion, using 2021 figures, including costs to survivors and families directly affected, employers, government, and the broader community.(4)  The cost borne by taxpayers, including the government portion of medical and mental health care, first responders, ambulances, police response and investigations, and criminal justice services, are estimated to be roughly $300 million.(5) Imagine if we invested this amount proactively in our communities instead.

 

We all want the same thing:  To feel safe.  To be safe.  We call on all our elected officials to listen to our recommendations, and to work with us to build peace.  The Council on Criminal Justice’s Violent Crime Working Group recently released its final report.(6) The Ten Essential Actions in the report hold true for DC, as for so many other cities. This report, as well as countless conversations with individuals working in gun violence reduction in DC and other cities, have greatly informed the following specific recommendations.

 

1. ESSENTIAL FUNDING FOR ESSENTIAL WORK: Sustained, focused funding for violence prevention and intervention programs.

2. A GOAL WITHOUT A PLAN IS JUST A WISH: We need one plan, with clearly defined goals, open to transparency and adaptation.

3. COMMITMENT & EMPOWERMENT: Commitment from city leadership and empowerment of communities.

4. PREVENTION, INTERVENTION & TRANSFORMATION: Investment in short- and long-term violence reduction efforts, with an emphasis on strengthening our system of community-powered public health strategies.

 

One murder is one too many, and every homicide victim and gunshot survivor story is tragic.  But it is the stories of the innocent children- who are killed, who are injured and confined to a wheelchair, whose siblings are killed, whose parents are killed- that really break our hearts. Every summer violence in DC reaches a fever pitch and another precious child’s life is taken- Makiyah Wilson, Karon Brown, Davon McNeil, Carmelo Duncan, Nyiah Courtney.  We have a few short months until it is again summer in DC.  What are we all doing to ensure this will not happen again?  And to prevent the next shooting that will inevitably happen tomorrow or the next day? Business as usual is not enough.  We must go beyond our typical efforts, focus our energies and funds, start the conversations and connections that will grow into collaborations.  We must start now.  Today.  It’s on all of us.