Community members gathered Wednesday night in Northeast during the wire to discuss gun violence trauma and prevention for young people and families in the District. The meeting came during National Youth Violence Prevention Week and followed two separate shooting incidents in Northwest on Tuesday, including a 5-year-old child shot in a triple shooting and a teenage boy shot in a separate double shooting.
Tia Bell in Northeast
Tia Bell, founder of The T.R.I.G.G.E.R Project, said the effort should move youth violence prevention away from a traditional public safety approach and toward public health. “This week is about the optimism of our youth, the hope of our city, and informing people,” she said Wednesday night.
Bell added, “With public health, we can see prevention as a real possibility, real programming, real support for young people.” She also said, “Because what they’re doing right now is crying for help, begging for attention.”
Cedric Hendricks on support
Cedric Hendricks, an official in the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, said the meeting was hosted in partnership with the agency. He said, “It can impact individuals and households, but there are places in this community where people can go to get help.”
Hendricks said, “People need housing, health care, education, employment.” He also said, “Another solution is putting youth initiatives under public health.” Advocates at the meeting said prevention efforts must include safe spaces, youth programs and expanded access to mental health resources.
Events through May 1
Bell said, “It’s unbearable to imagine something like this affecting someone so young,” referring to the 5-year-old child shot Tuesday. She also said, “But if we continue to treat it only as public safety, it will continue to plague our city.”
The T.R.I.G.G.E.R Project partnership events continue through Friday, May 1, as advocates keep pushing for support that they say reaches beyond enforcement and into the services families use after a shooting. Hendricks said, “We already have coalitions and collaboration, we just need support from the city to invest in our youth,” and added, “The solution is using public health science and allowing the people closest to the pain to be part of the solution, not the problem.”
