- [Announcer] Major funding for this program was provided by.

(ethereal music) - I see a lot of gun violence.

- [Sharrie Williams] It's a crisis that is deepening and impacting people of all ages.

(police siren blares) Parents who have lost loved ones and activists trying to make a difference are taking matters into their own hands to change the narrative.

- I hope that they will turn out better than me.

- [Sharrie Williams] Police, lawmakers, and citizens looking for solutions.

This is an Action News and WHYY Special, Reclaiming Our Streets, Community Voices.

Thank you for joining us for this special program.

I'm Sharrie Williams.

Action News is partnering with WHYY News to take a look at the gun violence epidemic how we got here, what's being done to tackle the problem in the city and also in the suburbs.

Numbers as of October 2nd show that more than 32,000 people have died from injuries involving guns with suicides making up more than half of those gun violence deaths.

The country surpassed 500 mass shootings as of September, and there is a growing movement to shine a spotlight on this dark topic, elevate the conversation and implement solutions.

We spoke with leading voices across the Delaware Valley about the state of the problem and the trajectory to address it.

- You have a fear of getting gassed in the middle of the day.

You have a fear of just walking to the corner store and it has an impact.

- [Sharrie] Since the mid-2000s, the United States has seen year after year increases in the number of deaths and injuries from guns.

But this year, nationally and in Philadelphia, police Commissioner John Stanford says the tide is shifting.

- Homicides are down around 19%.

Shooting victims are down about 24%.

It's not a victory by any stretch of the imagination.

The numbers are down, but it's still 321 people have been murdered in this city and so we would be insane to think that we can wait or stand by.

- [Sharrie] As for what's working.

- We discovered 43% of our gun violence was happening in four core districts.

The 39th district, the 22nd, 24th, and 25th district.

So we began looking at deployment strategies.

And so at any given time we had upward of a hundred officers that were being redeployed into those four areas of the city.

And with that, we started to see reductions anywhere from 30 to 40%.

Also, we combined investigative efforts, having our homicide unit and our shooting investigation group and then utilizing the investigative knowledge that was would come from those investigations to get in front of future shootings.

- [Sharrie] Policing is one part of the equation.

Legislating is another.

State Representative Joanna McClinton is Speaker of the Pennsylvania House.

- There are over 5,000 victims across Pennsylvania every year.

Every 33 minutes, someone is killed by a gun.

Whether it's suicide, which is very rampant in our rural communities, or homicide, which we see here in cities like Philly every single day.

- [Sharrie] The house recently passed two bills with some bipartisan support.

- The first bill was to get rid of the gun show loophole.

If you get to buy a long gun, a rifle, an assault weapon, there's currently no requirement in our state law that you do a background check.

- [Sharrie] The second bill is for extreme risk emergency protection.

It would temporarily disarm someone who's in crisis.

Adam Garber with Ceasefire Pennsylvania strongly agrees that stricter policies work.

- Take a look at California.

Their gun death rate is a quarter of what our gun death rate is in Pennsylvania.

And the main difference, the only real difference, right, is that they have requirements to get a permit, to get training, to report your missing weapons.

These life-saving laws that we have evidenced will prevent the next shooting.

- [Sharrie] Perhaps the most impactful piece to reducing gun crimes is involved community members and faith leaders, like Imam Hassan Abdi with the Germantown Masjid.

- Our faith instructs us to improve the area for ourselves and our neighbors, whether Muslim or non-Muslim.

- [Sharrie] The neighborhood surrounding the Masjid has been plagued with crime.

The violence recently erupted right in front of the place of worship.

- [Imam Abdi] And we heard a shooting, we run outside the Mosque, we go to the corner.

Sadly we see somebody you know was shot and he ended up dying.

- [Sharrie] The Imam is fighting crime by taking back the block.

The Mosque has purchased surrounding properties and turned them into restaurants, a convenience store, and a bookstore, even an apartment building.

The faith leader then made an unconventional decision.

- We hired private security.

It was not the ideal thing to do, but we provided it for the entire area, especially the businesses, and we noticed the change.

- Came here just to make sure y'all was good.

- As a community, if we're invested in our own areas, then I think we're more involved in the change rather than expecting people to come from the outside and do it for us.

- And that's what it's about, being a part of the change.

The City of Philadelphia is currently a legal battle with the State of Pennsylvania to try to enact its own stricter gun laws.

And while the city continues that fight to change gun legislation, it is also lending a helping hand to community groups trying to tackle the problem.

Action News Race and Culture Reporter TaRhonda Thomas now, with more on that initiative.

- It's a 10 office complex.

- [TaRhonda] It's a new space that Stanley Crawford is proud to show off.

- Historic.

- [TaRhonda] Because it's the space where he helped change lives as founder of The Black Male Community Council of Philadelphia.

- We came up with four pillars.

One is to clean up the community.

We also came up with the Mediation Committee.

Also, we came up with what we call the Education Committee and then we have security.

- [TaRhonda] The mission is not easy or cheap.

- And we paid for this space ourselves.

- [TaRhonda] Still, he feels compelled to help stop gun violence after losing his son.

- My son was murdered September 8th, 2018.

The creator put it on my spirit to create an organization so we as black men could get out in the community and try to help.

- [TaRhonda] His organization was among the nearly 200 nonprofits that applied for the city's first Community Expansion Grant or CEG Program, in 2021.

It gives funds to grassroots groups that have a proven track record of working in neighborhoods vulnerable to gun violence.

- It is really about how do we pilot an opportunity to support individuals and organizations who are doing good work in communities that just need a couple extra dollars.

- [TaRhonda] Erica Atwood, Deputy Managing Director of Criminal Justice and Public Safety says it's part of a multi-pronged approach to address gun violence.

- We have to look at gun violence as a deadly symptom of what are some systemic issues that exist in our communities.

- [TaRhonda] Last year, 29 nonprofits received grants totaling $13.5 million dollars.

That money coming out of the city's budget.

But the precursor to CEG had its issues with some nonprofits not receiving their funds on time and others struggling with the payout format that relied partially on reimbursement.

It raised questions about whether such a program could really work.

- So it wasn't perfect, but we set out with the right intent.

- [TaRhonda] Now the city has revamped its strategy, giving the selected groups part of their grant money and more when the groups meet their benchmarks.

- I can't speak to any city in the country that has given out grants to the level in which we've given them.

- [TaRhonda] The Black Male Community Council though was not chosen for a grant last year.

- We didn't stop because we did not get the money, but I also recognized the good works of those organizations that did get the money.

- [TaRhonda] City leaders sought out an independent evaluation of CEG.

The results were encouraging.

- What we learned, we picked the right organizations because they were in the right neighborhoods working with the right population.

- [TaRhonda] According to our 6 ABC Data Team, from January to July this year, fatal shootings in Philadelphia are down nearly 25% compared to the same time period in 2022.

As for whether CEG had anything to do with that decrease?

- It's too early to say, but anecdotally, I'm comfortable saying that this is a part of the solution.

- [TaRhonda] The goal now is to keep the grants going.

- We need to sustain funding.

Because one year is not enough.

- [TaRhonda] Whether or not he gets a grant this year.

- He was murdered.

- [TaRhonda] Crawford has vowed to continue doing the work, hoping to spare anyone else from the heartache of gun violence.

- [Stanley] No matter what goes on, we gonna continue doing this work.

- TaRhonda joins us now as we talk more about this initiative the city has.

And of course we know you need money to make things happen.

So talk to me more then about this program and how long though, is it sustainable when it comes to the funding?

- Yeah, you know, there's no exact timeline for when it will end.

It's open, but obviously the city will need to have that money to sustain it.

That $13 million is nothing to sneeze at.

It's a big amount.

- Yeah.

- But, if it's proven to be working, that certainly bodes well for the program and continued funding of it.

But it really depends on several factors like that.

- And I like the point that she makes that Philadelphia is investing like probably no other city, to really get into this problem.

So how many organizations really is this city hoping to continue to award grants to?

- Around 35 to 40.

And that includes new grants as well as grants to existing organizations.

So possibly around 24 of those existing organizations would have those grants renewed.

That's the goal for the city.

And then roll in those new organizations as well that have not previously gotten grants.

So kind of keeping that rolling and going with adding new organizations.

- Yeah, and accountability I know has to be a big part of the equation.

We heard the one organization saying maybe we didn't get money this one time around, but they didn't stop the work.

So the city acknowledges, right?

They cannot help every organization that is out there trying to make a difference when it comes to violence involving guns.

So how can organizations stand a chance of getting the city to back them?

- And that's a good question because these organizations, some of them are saying, hey, we're doing the work but we're not getting the money.

The city recognizes they can't give everyone money.

So what they're trying to do is encourage more organizations and companies to be more equitable in their grant process.

So say a lot of these organizations may not have a big grant writers and a lot of experience in that that shouldn't hinder them, the city says for qualifying for those grants.

So looking at it more holistically if you will.

So if they can do more interviews, look at the body of work as a whole, just encouraging those companies to be more holistic, more equitable with their grants and they're hosting free grant writing workshops.

The City of Philadelphia does do that to try to give these organizations more of a chance of getting a grant, if not from the city, then from another organization that is working to curb gun violence.

- Yeah, and as we know, it will take resources.

I think it's a great idea if the city is going to try to help those smaller organizations figure out how to really pull the plan together to get funding.

- The ones that have the boots on the ground, those need the most money and the most help because they do a lot of the work.

- TaRhonda Thomas, thank you so much for all that you're contributing.

The gun crisis is not only a city problem.

Over the last five years, the suburbs have seen a rise in incidents.

The number of firearm related deaths climbed by more than half in Delaware County by about a third in Montgomery County and by a quarter in Chester County.

While deadly attacks on others are a major concern, suicides make up an alarming percentage of gun related deaths in the suburbs.

- A little more than half the gun deaths statewide are suicide.

And they're heavily concentrated in rural communities like up in the Poconos and Wayne County.

And so it's a statewide issue, but also it's a issue in our suburbs and it's an issue in our other cities.

We see it in York and Chester and Redding and we see it in our suburbs where people are worried about a mass shooting or a school shooting.

So yes, we have a huge problem here in the city, but we see gun violence everywhere.

- Officials say a rise in ghost guns has become part of the problem fueling the gun crisis.

The number of untraceable firearms recovered more than doubled from 2019 to 2020.

And again, the following year.

So far this year, the police department has already retrieved hundreds of ghost guns.

Local and federal leaders are putting even more emphasis on tracking and regulating these homemade guns.

- We've recovered over 4,500 guns off of the street.

You know, about 9% of them 400 or so are ghost guns.

And so those privately made firearms.

And so knowing that, that tells you right there, in terms of how many guns are out there, but how many of these ghost guns and private use firearms are available, too many.

- So, I mean, it's worth noting ghost guns, right?

The Biden administration established a new rule last year to treat ghost guns like every other firearm where you need a background check.

And we know those were a choice that criminals were using for violent acts because they were so easy to get your hands on.

- Yeah, they've been too easy to get access to, Many Philadelphians who have lost loved ones to gun violence, find themselves leaning on nonprofits and support groups in their communities.

WHYY's Sam Searles gives us a look at one father's pain and the nonprofit that has helped him and his family heal.

- [Sam] It's a day Randy Mills Sr., plays repeatedly in his head.

- My son was only 15 years old.

I never seen anything like that.

I never got a chance to tell my son I love him.

So, you know, I'm hurt by it.

He had my whole name.

Like, you know what I'm saying?

Like, so it is hard.

- [Sam] Surveillance video shows the person accused of killing his 15 year old son, Randy Mills Jr., on a SEPTA bus.

- [Randy Sr.] It's just very unsafe, like, it is, I cry at night, you know what I'm saying?

I'm not blaming nobody else for my son's death, but you know SEPTA gotta do a better job.

It's just not about my son.

It's the person that got killed before that.

Two weeks before that.

- [Sam] According to the SEPTA police chief shootings increased in 2023.

- We care about the neighborhood, we care about our kids.

We lost, I lost brothers, friends, cousins, so, to the streets and we tired of it.

- [Sam] Dwight Olds is lending support to the Mills family.

His organization, IDAAY works with families of victims.

IDAAY partners with state and community groups to support victims of gun violence through relocation services, intervention, and safe places for young people.

- We the ones out on the street every day, every day being consistent in not only the neighborhoods, but schools, rec centers, wherever we can go, wherever the youth is at, wherever the trouble is at, that's where we go and we make our presence known consistently and that's how we build the relationship and the bond with our community by being out here all the time.

- [Sam] While mills is appreciative of the work of anti-violence organizations, he just wants the violence to stop so other families won't experience this heartache.

- [Randy Sr.] If anybody out here to hear me talk, y'all willing to, help out and reach out, that's what they should do.

- So heartbreaking for that family and so many others.

That was WHYY's Sam Searles reporting.

Our Action News Data Journalism team found many young adults find themselves at the center of gun violence.

44% of those impacted by gun crimes in the city are between the ages of 20 and 29.

Community leaders are now turning to the youth to help be a part of the change by guiding them on how to navigate difficult situations.

Action News Community Journalist Mateo Iadonisi takes us inside the second annual gun violence prevention and deescalation training day camp.

- So it looks like y'all are picking this up.

I'm gonna feel passionate about ending gun violence until we no longer hear about gun violence.

So you stuff it and then you have to apply pressure.

Last summer, our fraternity, Phi Beta Sigma came here to the City of Philadelphia for a strategy session to create a service project that could impact the city.

And with the rise that we've been seeing in gun violence, you know, the first thing I thought about was actually putting together a day camp.

Deescalation is the very first step.

After we cover the basics in the components of self-defense, we're then going to have a discussion on what they think they can do to be a part of the change.

- [Students] I will not harm my brothers.

- [Christopher] The Police Departments Community Relations Bureau is our co-partner.

- This whole community is waiting on you.

- They're gonna have an opportunity for these young men to just ask questions and get tips and insight from law enforcement.

- These are your choices.

Do I want to be like that or do I wanna be like this?

- [Christopher] Then we're gonna take them back downstairs for stop the bleed training.

- Just a little bit at a time, inch by inch here.

- [Christopher] We have representatives coming from Pin Trauma to walk them through techniques that they can use utilizing tourniquets on a shooting victim.

- Now bring that right over.

- There's been a lot of gun violence around from where I live.

Some of the things I learned today was how to use a tourniquet.

- You're going to, yep.

- [Student With Glasses] And to pack or use pressure to stop bleeding from happening.

- Until help arrives.

- [Christopher] We're gonna wrap up the day with a game of football where law enforcement officers and the young men who came today, they're going to be on the same teams.

- I'm here the same size as them or shorter.

- So we want to illustrate that the relationship between our youth, our communities, and law enforcement should not be adversarial.

- And I was you guys a long time ago, so.

- Police Officers are not so bad.

They just wanna help us and they do care about us.

I don't think we should go against them, you know?

- If you apply yourself, you will make it - [Student] They showed us a lot, telling us what should we do.

- Go and hit it.

(siren wails) - [Student] And we should not do.

(knocking against plastic) - Do you hear that?

Never want y'all in the back of that.

The same way we would talk with our children.

(radio beeps) - Hello?

- We're going over those type of scenarios with them as well.

At the end of the day, I want you to come home.

If we start them young, then as they grow up, they already have the skillset, they have the tools to do what needs to be done to be productive and be positive images in the community already.

They already have the conflict resolution skills.

- Can I see your license and registration.

- Here you go.

- [Officer Nance] So the earlier we start, the more effective is gonna be.

- Got one in the making, good job.

(group clapping) - Yeah, a great example of community policing.

Teaching children how to navigate challenging situations is just one part of the solution.

One West Philadelphia nonprofit is on a mission to provide a safe haven for them.

WHYY's Sam Searles is back with more.

- You can't really talk about the violence in our city without addressing or talking about the poverty.

- [Sam] In 2021, Philadelphia ranked among the poorest of the largest cities in the US.

- The poverty combined with the violence combined with so many other elements, it's given our youth this cocktail of hopelessness and the poverty leads to what's called crimes of poverty.

- [Sam] In the kitchen is where you'll find Pastor Aaron Campbell most days.

- Can you get me that one pan over there?

- [Sam] His organization Level Up prepares home cooked meals for youth in the city.

- Right over here.

We have about 800 young people come through our program a week, ages 10 to 25.

Are you ready?

- [Sam] During WHYY's Community Gathering to discuss solutions to gun violence, Campbell and others shared how food insecurity can lead to conflict and sometimes violence.

- I definitely grew up with everything y'all talking about, guns, shootings, drugs, no dad, just from one parent, you know, fights, arguments, I mean, what you all say is right.

I used to be in school hungry, starving.

Man, I get home, I'm even more hungry.

- [Sam] Getting an education can be the last thing on a student's mind.

- How can kids even focus in school when they're not eaten in two days.

And eating chips and water does not count as eating a meal.

- [Sam] Feeding the body and the soul is what Pastor Campbell and his volunteers do.

- Don't drop it.

- [Sam] But that's not all.

Level Up is also a dwelling place for safety.

- We really try to be holistic A to Z and we call it Level Up because we meet each young person where they are and we help them level up for their unique path for success.

This is not only their safe space, but this is home.

And for some of them, this is the most stable home they have.

- [Sam] But like every home, the four walls of the church that house Level Up is not immune to the harsh realities of the streets.

- So in the last year and a half, about 18 in our program have been shot.

The triple shooting that just happened in North Philadelphia over the weekend, that was two from our program.

They both survived, thank God.

- [Sam] So having someone like Pastor Campbell and the volunteers at Level Up or a loving family member can give a young person hope for a brighter future.

- My teacher said I'm doing good.

- Yeah, in school?

I'm proud of you, very proud of you.

- When you have at least one person there for you and that person is your mom who saved your life so many times over and over again, you could hit rock bottom, but your mom would be there for you to bring you back up, that one person.

I'm telling you, everybody need that one person.

- Yeah, someone to actually just care and reach out.

It's great to hear from our youth.

Joining us now is Amanda Fitzpatrick, a news reporter with WHYY.

And tell us more, Amanda, this is a part of the initiative from WHYY to really hear directly from our residents.

- It's hard to tell stories unless you can hear the stories from the people themselves.

And this particular event, this young man spoke at our Bridging Blocks event.

It's one of our many community engagement events that we host across the city.

And hearing his story, just again, it speaks to some of the issues that are behind this gun violence that we are seeing across our area.

And one of the things he talked about was hunger.

Another issue is poverty.

And those are just some of the things that kind of, start to reveal themselves when you have these type of events where you can let people come and be able to talk in a safe space without feeling like they can't express their true emotions.

And that's why he said he came to that particular barbecue.

- Yeah, - To open up.

- I'm so glad when you say the word safe space, because it's not easy to talk with people and tell them you haven't had food, right?

That's just not really an easy thing to really admit to.

But you guys are helping create these spaces and you're hearing from the community on the underlying concerns.

Another one I know then you're probably hearing about is the health, the mental health.

- Absolutely.

Think about it, you probably don't, but it's like mental health is one of those things where a lot of the people that we talk to at these events, they're saying, if I'm hungry, I'm sad.

If I am poor, then I'm depressed.

And so mental health plays a major role in how they're feeling and they feel some sense of just being lost, and even hopelessness he talked about that as well.

Those events are very important and WHYY news is making it every effort to have community engagement, have these dialogues.

And we're doing that through bridging blocks, along with the free library at various venues where they can come and be themselves.

But we also have dedicated our newsroom to telling these stories.

We have two beat reporters, and so their job is covering gun violence prevention.

So you have two reporters tackling this issue, which is definitely affecting our city.

- Lastly, I wanna ask you, in regards to that sense of family and village, what are you hearing from residents about that?

- Sadly, a lot of people that we're talking to in these spaces, safe spaces, they're saying that it's not like it used to be in Philly, if you were here 20, 30 years ago, it was the City of Brotherly Love.

And now they're saying that instead of fighting it off with their fist, they are pulling out guns.

And one of the things they talked about was, why can't we go back to that?

And so these stories of this, you know, continual, I guess you say cycle that we're seeing, we're reporting on it, but we're offering people a place to be able to communicate what they want to see.

They want to see help with mental health.

They wanna also see some changes in how people are responding to this and get some help.

- Yeah, it's good to be able to have a space to communicate that.

Amanda Fitzpatrick with WHYY.

Thanks Amanda.

Our program is taking a new approach at preventing gun violence among youth.

Action News' TaRhonda Thomas now showing us how the Safe City Boys initiative is making a positive difference.

- Of the more than 1.5 million people living in the city of Philadelphia, 22% of them are kids and some think they could be the key to solving the gun violence epidemic.

- [Brian Williams] It's not the same as when I was growing up.

- [TaRhonda] In Philadelphia, childhood has changed and not in a way that Brian Williams likes for his son, Brian Jr. - I see a lot of gun violence and stuff like that.

- It's scary, every day you wake up on social media, you see stuff that happened right around the corner from your house.

- [TaRhonda] But instead of being influenced by the problem, Brian could be part of the solution.

- [Safe City Advocate] This is the first Safe City Summit.

- He is among the first graduating class of the Safe City Boys.

(students laughing) Derek Haley is a Safe City Boy too.

- Amaya, Josh, Aiden.

- [TaRhonda] So are the four other young men who completed six weeks of training to get to this moment.

- Keith Dallas, come on up.

(group cheering and applauding) - [TaRhonda] The idea is from the founders of the Philly Truce app, which was created to stop conflicts before they turn deadly.

This program has the same goal, but looks to achieve it in a different way.

- Snitching for these young people a lot of time is almost synonymous with just asking for help, put the kid at the center, give them the resources.

- [TaRhonda] Focused on boys 11 to 15.

The program trains them in conflict resolution, equipped with strategies they can use to help others think twice before resorting to violence.

- One juvenile can say a word to turn one of their closest friends or family members from making a very violent or rash decision.

- [TaRhonda] The boys could be the go-tos for conflict resolution in their schools.

- If you send the kids to him, this guy knows how to get in touch with us.

He's trained to do X, Y, and Z.

- I'm either going to try to make them stop fighting or try to stop a fight before it happens, or get a teacher to help.

- [TaRhonda] Trained to recognize anger in others and themselves.

- It's always a fight for me.

- When somebody gets me angry, I just instantly snap.

- [TaRhonda] Aiden and his brother Keith, are at the beginning of what could be a life changing journey.

- The program is nothing but positive vibes, I love it.

- I found people who I can talk to about how I feel.

- [TaRhonda] The boys take classes and literacy, finance, emotional health, and more, all led by volunteers who teach in more ways than one.

- Many of black children don't have father figures in their lives.

- If we had the the level of black manhood that we need, our communities, that changes everything, - I hope that they will turn out better than me.

That's what I hope.

- [TaRhonda] Now that they've finished the first phase, the boys now move on to the second, which includes more learning, community work, and paying jobs.

Help around the libraries and different neighborhoods of the cities.

- With the money, I can help my mom get some stuff, like a house.

- [TaRhonda] This graduation, not the end, but the beginning.

- Oh man, this is, you know, I probably could cry, - [TaRhonda] Beaming with pride just like Brian's dad.

- Oh man, I'm proud, I'm proud.

- [TaRhonda] Knowing that his son is helping to give other kids the chance to enjoy childhood.

Proud to be a Safe City Boy.

- [Brian] I hope the city is better.

- You know what I love about that, TaRhonda?

Seeing our young black men smiling.

- Yes.

- And talking about the positivity that is happening.

- Being happy and proud.

- Yeah.

The Safe City Boys, they've been very busy since graduation.

What else are they up to?

- Oh my goodness, it has been a Safe City Summer, as they call it.

They've been doing Peace Patrols, handing out flyers, talking with other kids, just letting people know about the options, including Philly Truce that they can use to kind of dissolve conflicts before they turn violent.

So they've been really busy.

- And it seems as if they were really engaging this program.

- Yes, yes, they were so into it.

And it was great to see those boys grow from maybe being a little quiet, shy, apprehensive, to fully embracing it.

- I'm sure those who are watching or wondering how can I get my child involved?

So how can parents or young people who see this say, I wanna be in, get in.

- Yeah, they need more Safe City boys.

So Philly Truce, the Philly Truce App and their website, they're gonna keep putting out information.

So keep an eye on that because they'll put it out when they're ready to get more Safe City Boys.

But you don't have to wait for this program to make a difference.

Right now they're doing something called Peace Patrols where they go to different blocks and patrol every single night for dozens and dozens of weeks.

So the point is, it doesn't have to be just one program to jump into to make a difference.

You can join right now and start working with Philly Truce and other great organizations that really embrace these young men and help them to make a difference.

- Yeah, you'd think it's the visibility, right?

Being right out there?

- Oh, absolutely.

Just being seen, that's a deterrent to crime in so many neighborhoods.

But also the boys seeing men who are showing them great examples of this is what your life can be and here's what you are worth and you're worth a lot.

That really, really encourages the boys and then they spread that message to other kids.

- Yeah, it seems to be really mentorship and also a guidance of how to really survive in the streets.

- Absolutely.

What do they say?

You know, if you see it, you can be it.

So they have some positive examples and now they're being positive too.

- We love that.

TaRhonda, thank you so much.

Violence involving firearms, it's a tough problem to solve.

But there is hope.

Additional resources are coming, including the newly formed Office of Gun Violence Prevention by the Biden administration.

This as more and more voices are joining the conversation to push for safer communities.

Thank you so much for watching this special programming, Reclaiming Our Streets, Community Voices.

For WHYY News and all of us here at 6 ABC, I'm Sharrie Williams.

(dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) - [Announcer] Major funding for this program was provided by.