Quiet night follows ‘A Game of Peace’

Posted on June 16, 2013 by Jim MacMillan

On Saturday, the Gun Crisis reporting team attended “A Game of Peace,” a basketball tournament organized at the Martin Luther King Recreation Center by Philadelphia Ceasefire, a public health violence-intervention program. Photographs for the Gun Crisis Reporting Project by Jim MacMillan.

The tournament was modeled after a program led by Cure Violence, formerly Chicago CeaseFire, which was correlated with reduced gun violence in that city’s Auburn Gresham neighborhood. Philadelphia CeaseFire’s Marla Davis-Bellamy says the local organization plans to organize more events.

About 100 people cheered on four teams wearing colorful “A Game of Peace” tee shirts while others cooked hot dogs, kept the music playing, painted children’s faces and led other activities. Philadelphia 76ers posters and other free items went quickly.

“Lost Dreams on Canvas” — a mobile portrait exhibit of children who have been innocent victims of violence — was also on display at the tournament. Over 100 artists have donated their time and talent to paint over 400 portraits.

Finally, we stopped in on a homecoming block party for PJ Rainey, the 13-year-old girl who lost an eye to a stray bullet last week in North Philadelphia. PJ is still feeling camera-shy but we are happy to report that she looks terrific and spent the day playing basketball and laughing with friends and family.

We are also happy to report that Philadelphia got through Saturday night and into this Sunday morning with no gunshot victims reported, although one young man was wounded Saturday afternoon.

If you want to get involved in gun violence reduction in Philadelphia, please consider volunteering your time or making a donation to one of the organizations listed under our Network tab at the top of this site. If you would like us to add your group to our list, please email us at info@guncrisis.org.

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Status report: The Gun Crisis Reporting Project at 15 months

Posted on June 14, 2013 by Jim MacMillan

Police cover the body of a teenage boy who was shot to death in frankford on May 31st. Photographs

Police cover the body of a teenage boy who was shot to death in Frankford on May 31st. Photograph for the Gun Crisis Reporting project by Joseph Kaczmarek.

Forty people were shot in the first ten days of June in Philadelphia — and the rates in May were even worse — but gun violence has plummeted across the city this week, with only three new victims reported since then, although one has died.

At the Gun Crisis Reporting Project, we have taken advantage of this overdue break from constant reporting to catch up on internal business, including a moment to reflect on new honors for our reporting staff.

Next, we have been working on our latest grant application as we continue to seek seed funding to build an economically sustainable organization — and we wanted to share our responses as an update for the community:

Gun Crisis Reporting Project: Seeking Solutions to the Epidemic of Gun Violence in Philadelphia

Police investigate after a different officer opened fire on a man who officials say was shooting at other men during an incident last month in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. Photograph for the Gun Crisis Reporting Project by Joseph Kaczmarek.

A bloody gun marks the scene after police opened fire on a man who officials say was shooting at other men during an incident last month in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. Photograph for the Gun Crisis Reporting Project by Joseph Kaczmarek.

The Need:

Philadelphia has suffered the highest rate of homicide per capita among America’s largest 15 cities since 2006 and the number of murders has risen each year since 2009. In 2012, 85 percent of the people killed in our city were shot to death.

In recent years, innovations in public health and criminology have led to double-digit reductions in gun violence in several other cities and corners of our own. But we are not doing enough.

Leaders say that everybody has to come together to end this epidemic, but there is no place to meet. We are building that community at GunCrisis.org.

a child looks on after a double shooting left one man dead at about 8 p.m. Wednesday in the area of 18th and Cumberland Streets in North Philadelphia. Photographs for the Gun Crisis Reporting Project by Joseph Kaczmarek.

A child looks on as police investigate a double shooting that left one man dead last month in North Philadelphia. Photograph for the Gun Crisis Reporting Project by Joseph Kaczmarek.

The Program:

The Gun Crisis Reporting Project — launched in March, 2012 — is an award-winning, independent, nonprofit journalism organization, designed to illuminate the epidemic of homicide by gunfire in Philadelphia — and to present solutions.

First, we meet the needs of citizens by providing original reporting on uncovered or under-covered gun violence incidents across Philadelphia, including the impact of gun violence for all stakeholders, in context and in a chronology that begins with root causes.

Next, we report on the groups and individuals pursuing possible solutions to end the epidemic of homicide by gunfire, and look for evidence of successful intervention in our city and beyond.

We avoid polarizing political debates on gun access, striving instead to support solutions that everyone can support. While others quarrel over the supply of guns, we hope to reduce the demand.

We engage community leaders, public officials, students and scholars in public forums, and engage online readers to participate in a conversation on solutions.

We support other violence prevention groups and events with publicity, social media and communications, a directory of service providers, event promotion and a public calendar.

We collaborate with local, national and international media to redirect gun violence reporting narratives to focus on solutions and the path to peace.

The catalyst behind our project was a conference on best practices for youth violence reporting, organized by the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma and convened at WHYY in Philadelphia in 2011.

In addition, the core staff of the Gun Crisis Reporting Project is made up of four award-winning journalists with more than 50 combined years of reporting experience in Philadelphia.

We are further informed by our daily reporting process, meeting residents at crime scenes, participating in community events, reading about criminology, walking the streets with public health practitioners, meeting political leaders, scouring the media — and more.

Shell casings litter the scene as police investigate a fatal shooting Monday night in North Philadelphia. Photographs for the Gun Crisis Reporting Project by Joseph Kaczmarek.

Shell casings litter the scene as police investigate a fatal shooting last month in North Philadelphia. Photographs for the Gun Crisis Reporting Project by Joseph Kaczmarek.

Innovation:

We combine the best practices in peace journalism, trauma-informed journalism and social media journalism to create a solutions-driven approach to gun violence reporting.

Rather than simply reporting on each incident without context, we focus on the roots of violence, the chronology of the conflict, the path to peace and possibilities for community engagement.

Instead of simply telling stories, we strive to maintain open conversations across social media and help people in our community tell their own stories.

Employing digital technologies, we are building a network for peace as well as a body of knowledge.

Our first 1,000 blog posts covered 252 crime scenes, included 184 community reports and 101 reports on solutions. More than 92,000 site visitors have consumed almost 600,000 pages — and our social media community numbers in the thousands.

We lead discussions on gun violence solutions at Philadelphia City Council, Temple University, the University of Pennsylvania and more.

Our work has been featured by local, national and international media and earned numerous journalism awards.

Most importantly, year-to-date homicides are down by 40 percent in Philadelphia. We hope we made a difference.

Alvita Davis, left, and Nicole Hyman, mothers of murder victims Latia Jones and Rodney Ramseur, Jr., embraced after releasing balloons with about 50 other people during a vigil held in remembrance of the couple Tuesday night on Sparks Streets in the Olney section of Philadelphia. Photographs for the Gun Crisis Reporting Project by Joseph Kaczmarek.

Loved ones came together last month to remember a young couple shot to death last year in Olney. Photographs for the Gun Crisis Reporting Project by Joseph Kaczmarek.

Next year:

We won’t celebrate before we can point to sustained reductions in gun violence, but we continue to quantify our impact step-by-step.

Attention is currency in digital media, and we are working to continue growing our online audience exponentially — to increase awareness of the epidemic of gun violence and to support and illuminate programs and organizations demonstrating success.

We hope to organize and participate in more public events and bring our communities together with elected officials. We hope to see informed civic engagement eventually lead to changes in funding, policy and practice that will contain and eliminate this epidemic.

Funding:

The Gun Crisis Reporting Project is a member of the New Beginnings Nonprofit Incubator at Resources for Human Development, Inc. (RHD). While RHD has provided very generous administrative, development and other professional support, the Gun Crisis Reporting Project receives no direct funding for news gathering operations.

To date, all professional services have been provided free of charge by our volunteer staff of award-winning journalists, most of whom have incurred enormous direct and indirect costs.

Recently, we enabled crowd-funding tools on our site and we have been humbled by the generosity of a small number of supporters, but those contributions have not come close to meeting our costs. We also have high hopes for a couple of small grants in the coming months.

Swarthmore and Haverford Colleges have provided us with interns at their expense, and a Swarthmore class helped with strategic planning. (Come back to hear more about our 2013 interns and summer staff in the near future.)

Next, we have several grant applications in the works, as well as plans for more aggressive crowd-funding, and we are presently developing a strategic plan for economic sustainability.

Bottom line: We need your help.

Please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to support the Gun Crisis Reporting Project right now. Help us lead the way to ending gun violence.

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Thank you for your attention and concern for this critical issue. It doesn’t have to be this way, it won’t go on forever — and the harder we work, the sooner we will see the the end of this epidemic.

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Saturday: Philadelphia CeaseFire teaming up with residents for ‘A Game of Peace Basketball Tournament’

Posted on June 12, 2013 by Megan Gallagher

(download this flyer)

What happens when you launch a basketball tournament in a neighborhood known for high rates of gun violence?

A Game of Peace.

Philadelphia’s 22nd Police District lead the city in homicides last year but Philadelphia Ceasefire is now organizing an event that has proven to reduce violence in another city: Chicago.

Forty basketball players will come together for the tournament Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Martin Luther King Recreation Center at 2101 Cecil B. Moore Avenue in North Philadelphia.

Marla Davis-Bellamy and Philadelphia Ceasefire organized the event to raise awareness about gun violence prevention, adding that there were seven homicides and approximately 60 shootings in the 22nd District last summer alone.

If one young person gets to know another through the tournament, they will be less likely to shoot each other, according to Davis-Bellamy. But she also emphasized the need for community support and “wrapping our arms around” the issue of gun violence — in the 22nd district in particular, but also across the rest of the city.

Davis-Bellamy is the director of Philadelphia Ceasefire, an intervention organization created to address gun violence, and which has focused heavily on the 22nd District but encourages all Philadelphia communities to join their efforts.

Philadelphia Ceasefire modeled its program after Cure Violence, which utilizes public health strategies with the understanding that violence is a learned behavior which can be prevented with disease control methods.

The three-step process interrupts transmission, strives to identify and change the thinking of the highest likely transmitters, and to change group norms.

Cure Violence — formerly know as Ceasefire Chicago — created a basketball tournament in 2012 to promote peace in that city’s Auburn Gresham neighborhood — which has also suffered from high rates of gun violence. NBA legend Isiah Thomas and Rev. Michael Pfleger, a Catholic priest and social activist, have lent their support.

In Chicago, the tournament grew and expanded into a weekly Peace Basketball League at the ARK of St. Sabina, a local community center created as a safe haven for youth.

At the same time, homicides are down. According to a Chicago Police statistics, 36 people were killed in the in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood in 2011, but only 17 were killed in 2012, according to a report from DNAinfo of Chicago.

One of the participants in Chicago explained that people who had been engaging in conflict and violence attended the tournament, but he stayed in touch with many of the other players and said he feels safer, according to a Chicago Sun-Times report.

To register a team or learn more, call Philadelphia Ceasefire at 215-204-3321 or email astones@temple.edu.

Last summer, the Gun Crisis Reporting Project spent a few hours walking through sections of North Philadelphia and Strawberry Mansion Tuesday night with Philadelphia CeaseFire — wearing orange — and other groups taking to the streets for National Night Out.

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New York responds to violent weekend while Philadelphia suffers four times over

Posted on June 7, 2013 by Jim MacMillan

Police investigate the crime scene on Arrott Street near Penn Street in the Frankford section of Philadelphia on Friday May 31, 2013, after a teen was fatally shot. According to police, they received a call for gunshots at the intersection around 9:40 p.m. and found the victim lying on the sidewalk suffering from a gunshot wound. Police said the unidentified male was approximately 16 to 19 years-old and was pronounced on scene by medics. A large crowd of neighbors gathered around the perimeter of the crime scene watching police move around the victim's body still lying in Arrott Street. GunCrisis.org/ Joseph Kaczmarek

Young neighbors watch as police investigate the scene where a teenager was shot to death in the Frankford section of Philadelphia last weekend. Photographs for the Gun Crisis Reporting Project by Joseph Kaczmarek.

Last weekend, the New York Daily News shouted “Mayhem” when 25 people were shot across the city in 48 hours.

But per capita, almost four times as many people were shot here in Philadelphia, where two people were killed and 14 were wounded during the same period.

If New York City had suffered at that same rate as Philadelphia last weekend, 88 people would have been shot — instead of 25.

On Monday, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg addressed the violent weekend during a news conference, according to the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Police Department announced that it was putting more officers in certain neighborhoods “to suppress further violence,” according to the New York Times.

Bloomberg also met with the father of an 11-year-old girl who was paralyzed after she was hit by a stray bullet outside her Brooklyn home Friday, according to nbcnewyork.com and a peace and prayer rally was held in Bedford-Stuyvesant, according to news12.com.

This week in Philadlephia, you could spot city leaders and most of the news media staff, vehicles and other resources at 22nd and Market Streets, at the scene of a building collapse that killed six people and injured 13 Wednesday.

We wish to express our sympathies to the victims and their families and commend our colleagues on outstanding reporting. A great deal of attention has been turned toward the cause of the catastrophe, who should be held responsible, and what the city can do to prevent it from happening again.

But at the same time, very little attention has been paid to the 30 shooting victims reported across Philadlephia so far this week.

We can only imagine the possibilities if the same demand for accountability were applied to the ongoing epidemic of gun violence in our city — as we have seen in New York.

Neighbors look on as police investigate the scene where a teenager was shot to death in the Frankford section of Philadelphia last weekend. Photographs for the Gun Crisis Reporting Project by Joseph Kaczmarek.

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Call to action this Sunday: Mourning the recent death of Montel Royster

Posted on June 6, 2013 by Jim MacMillan

Heeding God’s Call organized this vigil in North Philadelphia on good Friday. Photograph by Jim MacMillan.

Heeding God’s Call, a faith-based movement to prevent gun violence, is planning a “Call to Action Public Witness Against Gun Violence” this Sunday, June 9th, from 3:30 to 4:45 p.m. at 54th and Hazelhurst Streets in the Wynnefield section of West Philadelphia.

The event will mourn the death of Montel Royster.

Philadelphia Police said that Royster, 20, of Diamond Street near 52nd Street in Wynnefield, died at 12:18 a.m. Saturday, May 18th at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, after someone shot him in the stomach and chest on Hazelhurst Street near 52nd, accoding to a Philadelphia Daily News report.

At this time, Philadelphia Police are reporting that 102 people have been murdered in Philadlephia in 2013.

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#GunCrisis: Philadelphia

The Gun Crisis Reporting Project: Seeking solutions to the epidemic of homicide by gunfire in Philadelphia

Category Archives: Community

Quiet night follows ‘A Game of Peace’

Status report: The Gun Crisis Reporting Project at 15 months

Saturday: Philadelphia CeaseFire teaming up with residents for ‘A Game of Peace Basketball Tournament’

New York responds to violent weekend while Philadelphia suffers four times over

Call to action this Sunday: Mourning the recent death of Montel Royster

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