How brazen and absurd has the sickening wave of gun violence in the Triad become in 2023?
A man was shot and killed last week in Winston-Salem while attending a vigil for a friend who had been shot and killed.
On Monday, 37-year-old Aljerone Miquel Sims lost his life near his home on North Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, police said.
Two days later, 27-year-old Ricky Renea Davis was shot and killed at the vigil for Sims.
The shooter walked up and fired, and, just like that, the grim toll of gun deaths in the city had ticked up yet again.
Is nothing is sacred? Has the value of a human life become so cheap and disposable?
People are dying so fast it is, literally, hard to keep up.
As of Friday, five men had been killed since Monday in Winston-Salem and Forsyth County.
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Meanwhile, in Greensboro, one person was killed and five others were injured Thursday night in two separate shootings.
Ronald David Green, 42, died and a 20-year-old man was in critical condition following one of the shootings that police suspect was drug-related.
Also injured in the same incident were a 16-year-old and a 15-year-old … too young to vote or buy a drink but old enough to get shot.
There have been 42 homicides so far in Greensboro in 2023. There were 41 in the city in all of 2022.
As of Thursday in Winston-Salem, there had been 32 homicides — 10 more than during the same period in 2022, police say.
Said Winston-Salem Police Chief William Penn: “This is our community and what we’re allowing is unacceptable to me. Everyone should be angry. If the police were shooting people like this, they would be this angry.”
And in both cities the vast majority of the victims are Black, a trend emphasized in recent days by police and city leaders.
As of last week, when Greensboro Police Chief John Thompson and city leaders in Greensboro held a briefing that they described as a “call to community action,” 50% of homicide victims in Greensboro were Black males and 29% were Black females.
“I’m very concerned,” District 2 Councilwoman Goldie Wells said. “We are very concerned. … These young people are losing their lives and it’s senseless.”
Sadly, this is not a new problem for either city. But, for whatever reason, it has gotten worse,What to do going forward?
An honest discussion of race is a good place to start. It is an uncomfortable truth that needs to be confronted in the open.
As Penn, who is Black, points out, police killings of unarmed civilians rightly deserve scrutiny and concern. But so do the rampant shootings that seem to claim victims almost daily. Those Black Lives Matter as well.
Adds Greensboro City Councilwoman Sharon Hightower: “We may not always want to talk about race, but in this instance it’s critical that we do.”
It’s the only way to begin to peel the layers of underlying causes.
For instance, what role does domestic violence play and could existing resources such as the Family Justice Center help?
What is and is not happening to our young Black men to turn them to violence, mostly against one another? Is economic disparity a factor?
What role can parents, the church, schools and the broader community play in addressing the problem?
How can we more effectively teach our young people that there at least 100 better ways to resolve a dispute than shooting someone?
Why are guns so easily obtained by young people and why are our lawmakers making it easier?
“Back in the day, you knew which kids were carrying guns,” Robert Martin, executive director of the nonprofit High Point Community Against Violence, or HPCAV, said Friday. “Today, everybody’s carrying them.”
Also worth considering is regional approaches to the problem.
“We get calls from all three cities,” Irish Spencer, who founded Families Against Senseless Killings in 2016 after her son, Tre, was shot and killed in Greensboro while trying to break up a dispute.
“Where are the three mayors?” Spencer said, referring to Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point. “Why haven’t they called a meeting?”
Bullets obviously have no respect for borders. A fatal shooting in Forsyth County last week involved a 20-year-old charged in the murder of a 21-year-old, both from Greensboro.
Clearly, the Triad has seen success, especially recently, in creating the economic infrastructure necessary to attract new jobs and industry. It should be just as a proactive and intentional in creating the social infrastructure needed to address violence.
That means a commitment by the entire community.
“We have a section of our city that basically is full of violence, poverty and so many ills that we’ve yet to address,” Forsyth County Sheriff Bobby Kimbrough told a Winston-Salem Journal reporter. “... The police can’t fix them. ... These are issues that are going to require all of us getting involved.”
HPCAV’s Martin put it another way. “I take offense when there’s a murder,” he said.
We all should.