Different perspectives weigh in on youth gun violence in Birmingham

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. ( WIAT ) — Many events are going on this week in an effort to raise awareness about gun violence in Birmingham.

“Gun violence is a huge epidemic,” Jessica Barnes Brown, the regional lead for Voices of Black Mothers United, said.

Brown spoke to hundreds of middle and high school students Wednesday as part of the National Day of Concern. The students signed a pledge at her presentation. Brown hopes that having students sign a pledge against gun violence will raise awareness of the problem it’s become. It can also help students to think twice before they pull a gun in a fight.

“Everyone is affected by it. Not only by the family that’s lost a loved one, the community, the neighborhood, the school,” Brown said. “Guns are everywhere. They’re easily accessible to everyone if you want to purchase a gun or get a gun, it’s not hard at all.”

Sezja Gaines knows all too well the effect gun violence can have on a community. She’s a student at Midfield High School but says in her neighborhood, she hears at least three shootings a night which makes it hard to sleep.

“One night while we were all trying to just move into the house, we had somebody die on the end of the block just due to gun violence and our neighborhood has not been the same since then,” Gaines said.

Gaines believes pledges like what she signed do have an impact.

“We’ve done a pledge like this before and now you see with this school year, we haven’t lost any students,” she said.

Gaines thinks people her age are buying guns because they have nothing else to do.

“Maybe make a few more teen junctions that they could, you know, subscribe to kind of. Like a few more clubs for teens so that way they can stop going out and trying to act more adult,” Gaines said. “Because that’s really why people buy guns like that because they think that it makes them cooler.”

John Carroll High School Principal Ronald Steele hopes to be part of the proactive solutions to youth gun violence.

“Everyone is disturbed by the violence that we’re seeing,” Steele said. “I think anybody in education is looking for opportunities and ways to help students make better decisions to help them resolve conflicts, to help them think outside of immediate gratification.”

Steele will be a part of a speaker panel at the Stop the Violence Walk and Summit on Saturday.

“I don’t think anyone is naïve enough to think that one panel stops everything,” he said. “If we can help just one kid or one potential situation, I think it’s worth it because that’s one mother that’s not mourning her kid. That’s one less fractured family. That’s one less loss of life in the community.”

The annual Stop the Violence Walk and Summit will take place from 9 a.m. until noon at the Sixth Avenue Baptist Church. The community will have a chance to hear from a wide array of speakers from law enforcement officers and district attorneys to school principals and family court.

“Gun violence is a major issue, it matters,” Brown said. “When they see you out walking, ‘what are they walking for?’, to end gun violence.”

Many of Saturday’s panelists say it will take the whole community coming together to fight gun violence. However, a senior trial referee with the Jefferson County Family Court says it starts in the home with families.

“Our parents come here, they’re almost sick to their stomach about it when they see that their child is charged with something and they don’t know that part of their child,” Jefferson County Family Court Senior Trial Referee Amyrtle Allen said.

Allen has been in family court for 20 years. She’s talked with some children who have never been to family court for any reason, whose first time in the courtroom is over gun-related cases.

“It’s heartbreaking for me because I see them as children and babies but now they’re a defendant,” Allen said. “It’s a child and they may be in handcuffs.”

Allen says if the charges are determined to be true, the child and family are rehabilitated so everyone can get a clear idea that children are not trained to handle guns and don’t fully grasp the consequences that can come if someone were hurt, either accidentally or on purpose.

“It’s hard when you feel like the world is beating up on you and it would be easier just to pick up a gun and settle everything but that’s just the worst thing that can happen,” she said.

Allen says parents need to be vigilantly monitoring their kids’ social media pages because some children are using it as a way to ask people for guns.

Birmingham officials are also attempting to find solutions to address the crime. City Councilor Crystal Smitherman says she’s had a child tell her he knew of 15 other boys that had a Glock switch.

“That’s very disturbing to hear, the fact that they feel like they need a Glock switch to really protect themselves,” Smitherman said. “It’s a part of ‘oh, I think it’s cool’ but it’s also ‘I really need to protect myself because if everyone else has one, I need one as well’.”

Smitherman says a lot of people feel too comfortable committing crime in the city and it needs to be something people feel uncomfortable doing, no matter their age.

“What we’re seeing a lot of times is people in general, instead of using their fists, which they used to do or even using a knife, they’re starting to use a gun automatically,” Smitherman said.

During a press conference on Wednesday, Birmingham Police Chief Scott Thurmond said gun violence is the number one problem in the city. He also said overall crime in the city is down 11.3 percent, however, gun violence cases remain at the top.

“It’s the hardest one for police to get a handle on,” Thurmond said.

Birmingham Police say it’s hard to get ahead of gun violence in the city when the fights between people typically happen unplanned.

“We look at all of our shootings, our homicides, and other cases too, where could we as law enforcement have intervened prior to that taking place? And 9.8 times out of 10, there wasn’t a point where we could have intervened,” Thurmond said.

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