The Commercial Appeal

Memphis officials call for end of violence

‘Time for a change’ after 332 homicides in 2020

- Laura Testino

As a historical­ly deadly year for Memphis drew to a close, local officials and community activists gathered to issue a challenge: No violence for the next 30 days.

“It’s time for a change. Would you accept the challenge? We cannot go through another year like this. Too much senseless killing in Orange Mound and around the city,” Orange Mound organizer Keith Leachman said in an impassione­d speech. “We broke the murder rate this year. It’s time to break the cycle. We cannot lose another generation.”

According to the Memphis Police Department, there were 332 homicides in Memphis in 2020, as of Thursday afternoon, breaking recent records in numbers of people killed.

“To put it quite simply, we are in a crisis. We’re in a crisis which just seems to keep on giving us crisis,” said Tennessee Rep. G. A. Hardaway Sr. Hardaway, who assisted Leachman in introducin­g some two dozen speakers outside of the Orange Mound Senior Center Thursday afternoon.

He pointed to the current COVID-19 health crisis fueling existing crises in economic, education, housing and civil and criminal justice. These crises, he said, are “merely the revelation­s of an aggravatio­n of existing crises that have always plagued the communitie­s of color.”

Memphians are being lost both to the pandemic and to violence, said Shelby County Commission­er Eddie Jones. As of Thursday, both had claimed 1,223 lives in 2020: 891 deaths from the pandemic and 332 homicides. And, as Memphis City Councilman Jeff Warren put it, the homicides should be addressed as a public health crisis.

“This is a medical issue. Violent crime, we’re going to need to take medical terminolog­y and medical approaches much like we have to the pandemic,” said Warren, who has been part of the local COVID-19 task force this year. “And we’re going to have to hit it on many fronts.”

Though arrests can be an important piece of curbing violence, systemic and historical issues show they are merely a small part in addressing community violence, Warren said. Providing services to those in need will be a large part of the solution, he said.

MPD has solved 191 of the 332 homicides this year. “We need people to come forward to help solve that other 42% of these homicides,” said Deputy Chief Samuel Hines, who oversees precincts in and around Orange Mound. “So families can bring closure to the devastatio­n they have suffered.”

Of the homicides, 138 victims knew the suspected killer, Hines said. “That is a tragedy within itself.”

Joined by council members Cheyenne Johnson and Martavius Jones, Warren said he wants the city’s council and administra­tion to focus on a plan to mitigate the violence and help Memphis’ youth. Hardaway expressed similar interest in strategizi­ng new, community-driven solutions at the state level.

Of the 332 homicides this year, more than 30 have been children, said Shelby County Schools board member Joyce Dorse Coleman, who also advocated for 30 days of no violence.

Board member Stephanie Love issued another plea to local officials: “What are we willing to lose? What are we willing to give up? To decrease gun violence in Memphis, Tennessee.”

While education is a piece of the solution, it is not the only broken part, Love said. It will take a collective effort, one in which elected officials hear about the problems from the community — both its young people and their parents — and allow them to drive the solutions.

Esther Jones, of Guns Down in Orange Mound, called on all mothers.

“There have been times that I’ve been up in the park talking with children, and some of the kids actually tell me they’re blessed if they get to be 25? We can’t keep this going on, y’all,” Jones said through tears.

The sentiment hit home for rapper MJG of 8Ball & MJG, who came out to support his friend and organizer, Leachman.

“A lot of kids these days think 25 is old. You have to tell them that 25, you’re just beginning. At 30 and 40, you’re just beginning ... 25 and 30, it’s not old. A lot of people are just getting out of school, like lawyers and doctors, just getting out of school at 30,” said the rapper, who said he has lost friends to gun violence. “(Kids) need hope, something to do, jobs. A lot of them just need a chance.”

Laura Testino covers education and children’s issues for the Commercial Appeal. Reach her at laura.testino@commercial­appeal.com or 901-512-3763. Find her on Twitter: @Ldtestino

 ?? ARIEL COBBERT/THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL ?? Memphis Police Department Deputy Chief Samuel Hines calls for 30 days of no gun violence, after reading homicide numbers for the year at Orange Mound Senior Center in Memphis on Dec. 31.
ARIEL COBBERT/THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL Memphis Police Department Deputy Chief Samuel Hines calls for 30 days of no gun violence, after reading homicide numbers for the year at Orange Mound Senior Center in Memphis on Dec. 31.

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