By Kelan Lyons / CTMirror.org

Survivors of gun violence and those working in the community to stop its spread gathered Monday at the state Capitol in Hartford to urge legislators to create and fund an Office of Gun Violence Prevention and to declare gun violence a public health crisis. 

Tragic toll of gun violence

Janet Rice recounted how her only child, Shane Oliver, died nine years ago after getting shot during a verbal altercation. 

She recalled 3-year-old Randell Jones getting shot and killed last year, as he sat in his mother’s car, awaiting a special treat from the corner store. 

She mentioned Sylvia Cordova, a grandmother who was shot and killed while cooking dinner in her home, and Heriberto Garcia, shot in the back by a friend. 

And she mentioned a recent death, Allison McCoy, shot to death as she slept in her bed.

The problem they were gathering to discuss was not new, Rice said. “This epidemic has been going on for decades.”

Speakers included state Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, D-Westport, and other leaders both in and outside of government.

Advocates want new office to focus on gun problems

Many called on lawmakers to create a state-level office to focus on reducing gun violence across Connecticut. 

That office would unify state agency responses to the crisis and address root causes of violence. Instead of focusing efforts on the supply of guns, the agency could address the demand, providing a holistic, community-centered response to what advocates described as a crisis in both public health and mental health. 

The demonstration took place on the ninth anniversary of the March for Change Rally, when 5,000 people gathered following the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School to demand changes to Connecticut’s gun laws, and the fourth anniversary of the Parkland High School shooting in Florida, where 17 people were killed.

Gun homicides hit a 25-year high in Connecticut last year, mirroring national trends. The victims were disproportionately people of color. 

Of the 118 people who died in a gun-related homicide in 2021, 65 percent were Black, Jeremy Stein, the executive director of CT Against Gun Violence, said at the rally. 

An hour before the press conference, the General Assembly’s Public Health Committee agreed to hold a public hearing for a bill that would establish an Office of Gun Violence Prevention and declare gun violence a public health crisis. The measure appears similar to proposals made by the governor that would address gun violence.

Steinberg: State officials need to do better

Westport’s Steinberg, the co-chairman of the Public Health Committee, admitted that legislators’ efforts to address gun violence have been “piecemeal” ever since they passed landmark legislation in the wake of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012. 

“We have yet to make a serious effort to really stem the tide of guns in our state,” Steinberg said. “We’re expecting that in the public hearing, we will have a robust conversation about a variety of specific steps we might take.”

Steinberg, who attended the rally, reiterated what he told his colleagues at the committee hearing. 

“We expect that public hearing to be an opportunity for us all to comment, not simply on creating these offices and recognizing this problem,” he said, “but to address exactly the kind of opportunities you’ve heard described here today, investing in community programs that work, coordinating between these programs so that they’re more effective, scaling up these programs so they are available throughout the state.”

Gun violence as contagious as COVID

Gun violence is every bit as contagious as COVID-19, said Jacqueline Santiago, the CEO of COMPASS Youth Collective, an organization that Santiago said works with youth “that stand on both sides of the gun — they’re either drivers of violence, or victims of violence, because violence is a public health issue.”

Santiago said COMPASS works with survivors of gun violence to stop the cycle of retribution, helping to heal their trauma and make streets safer. But community groups need funding, Santiago said. 

One way or another, taxpayers will foot the bill, she assured the crowd. They can either pay to prevent gun violence, or they can cover the cost of hospital bills and incarceration, tragedies that unfold in the aftermath of shootings. 

Members of Connecticut’s federal delegation were also in attendance.

Impact of community intervention 

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a longtime champion of gun reform and member of the Judiciary Committee, said that President Joe Biden has proposed $5 billion for community intervention efforts, which Blumenthal said are vital because they reach young people before they turn to gun violence.

“These community intervention programs work,” he said. “Connecticut is showing that they work.” 

One theme of the community groups’ speakers was that they know how to help their communities because they are from the same streets where the violence is taking place. They are effective because they have lived through it themselves. They are living proof to young people involved in gun violence that there is a better way to live.

Sean Nattis is one of the young people who has been helped by COMPASS. A Hartford resident, he was shot when he was 12 years old. It was hard growing up, he said, feeling unsafe while walking around his neighborhood with his mom.

“There’s so much gun violence in my community. It just won’t stop,” he said. “I just want better for my community.”