The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
MORE COVERAGE
Atlanta rallies taking stand against rising gun violence in the U.S.
Gun control organizations and advocates including Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action staged nearly 200 events across the country over the weekend, calling on Congress to reinstate an assault weapons ban.
In Atlanta, rallies were held at Piedmont Park and at the intersection of Virginia and North Highland avenues in protestof rising gun violence.
On the day before Mother’s Day, a Stone Mountain woman stood before a crowd of hundreds to remember her only son Jared, who was shot in the forehead after being caught in the crossfire of a 2015 southwest Atlanta shooting.
“(Sunday), instead of spending the day with my son, I will be spending it at his graveside,” Sharmaine Brown said to protesters who gathered in Midtown Atlanta’s Piedmont Park to rally for stricter gun laws. “I am one of many mothers who will be spending the day in mourning.”
Just a mile away, a crowd of nearly 100 protesters for gun safety waved signs at the intersection of Virginia and North Highland avenues, near where the two children of Amy St. Pierre attend school. St. Pierre was fatally shot when a gunman opened fire in a Midtown doctor’s office May 3. Four other women were injured.
From a sidewalk lined with cozy bars and trendy shops, protester Sally Woods, also a mother of two, sent a warning to politicians who failed to pass legislation curtailing gun violence.
“We’re tired of living in fear,” said Woods as drivers honked their horns in support. “Every single time we drop our children off at school, we’re reminded that this is a critical issue.”
Mothers rallied across Midtown Saturday afternoon in support of legislation to curtail shootings and gun deaths. The Piedmont Park rally, organized by Georgia Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, was part of a national series of protests organized with national nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety to highlight the mounting toll of gun violence.
The Virginia-highland rally was hatched one-and-half weeks ago, with a flurry of text messages between concerned neighbors, organizers said. Momentum grew after news of the death of St. Pierre at a Northside Medical facility spread.
The Midtown killing was one of a litany of deadly shootings across the nation.
On April 15 in Dadeville, Alabama, four people were killed and 32 people were injured in a shooting during a teen’s birthday party. On April 28, a man fatally shot five people in Cleveland, Texas, including a child, after neighbors asked him to stop firing a gun in his yard.
On May 6, a purported white supremacist fatally shot eight people, including three children, and wounded at least seven others at an outlet shopping mall in Allen, Texas.
The Midtown Atlanta shooting served as a local warning that gun violence can strike terror anywhere. Law enforcement officers fanned across the metro area as part of an eight-hour manhunt for the suspected gunman, setting residents on edge.
Deion Duwane Patterson, 24, faces counts of murder and aggravated assault in the shooting.
At Piedmont Park on Saturday afternoon, attendees repeated calls for local and federal gun legislation, and waved signs signaling their support.
“All I want for Mother’s Day is an assault weapons ban,” one said.
“I don’t want to die in school,” said another. The artist was Parker Pumpelly, 8. Under the lettering, she drew a rainbow arching over a schoolhouse. Her school works hard to protect its students, she said, but it can’t stop violence outside its doors.
One of her schoolmates’ mother was Amy St. Pierre, she said.
“I don’t want other people to die,” Parker said.
‘I don’t want other people to die.’
Parker Pumpelly, 8