Reporting on US gun violence in 2021 revealed how the toll is spread unequally
When I ask parents, siblings and children what they want Guardian readers to know about their family member lost to gun violence, each one emphatically tells me their relative didn’t deserve what happened to them. They tell me their loved ones adored animals, loved kids – that they were just special. The people I speak with, especially parents, want the world to know their sons and daughters weren’t stereotypes.
This desire for posthumous exoneration isn’t anything new, but the pleas sounded especially urgent in 2021.
2021 was a brutal year for gun violence in the US, where communities across the country experienced a heartbreaking increase in homicides and shootings. The rise started in 2020, when homicides rose by 30% from the year before, the highest single year increase since the FBI began tracking crime data in 1960. The increase amounted to an estimated 5,000 additional deaths. The majority of victims were killed with guns. The full data for 2021 is not yet available, but the rise appears to have continued in 2021, with homicides in cities such as Oakland, Portland and Detroit continuing to climb.
These dramatic increases have led to intense and divisive conversations about why people shoot others and the role police and prosecutors play in preventing injuries and death. It was discouraging to watch conversations about people losing their lives morph into political fodder and an excuse to push debunked “tough on crime narratives”.
Reporting on gun violence this year reinforced that most Americans don’t understand that the deadly and traumatic toll of this violence isn’t spread equally across the country.
Shootings, as well as the grief and trauma that come with it, are concentrated in lower-income, mostly Black and Latino communities in California, New Jersey, Louisiana and other states. No group feels the impact more disparately than young Black men.
The stories that have struck and saddened me the most were those of children and teenagers who don’t get to make it out of adolescence alive or free of the scars that gun violence leaves on your heart, mind, and spirit. I continue to grieve the losses of Shamara Young, a 15 year-old who was gunned down after getting a fresh set of braids, Jasper Wu, a toddler who died while riding in a car seat and Demetrius-Fleming Davis, who, at 18, was shot while riding in a truck with friends. Communities are still reeling from these tragedies while new slayings force their way into our collective conscience. Just this month a 12year-old was killed and a nine yearold was wounded during a shooting in Wilmington, the next day a teenager was killed in Boyle Heights.
Speaking with families and community members highlighted how gun violence incidents have ripple effects that extend far beyond what most people consider or what most news media covers. People may have read a local news story about a shooting, seen a vigil the day after a shooting or passed by a commemoration on the anniversary of a death. But few have heard about the day-to-day struggles that make the burden of gun violence so heavy to carry – making funeral arrangements or traversing the same streets your child was killed on to go to work – a burden that is exponentially more devastating when somebody is killed young, violently and in their own community.
So many mothers I’ve spoken with on this beat told me about the physical consequences of having a child shot and killed. They are on anti-depressants, can’t go back to work, are fearful for their remaining children’s lives, are trying to muster the strength to go on and make their family work now that a huge chunk has been ripped from them. “I already know where my health is going and I’m not scared,” Sonya Mitchell, whose 23-year-old son Daimon “Dada” Ferguson was shot and killed, told me this summer. “I wanna stay here for my daughters and grandkids, but my heart’s too broken. I used to have a hella life, but I just don’t anymore.”
“The death of my son doesn’t affect just me, it affects so many other Black women who I’ve seen suffer, mothers who are my friends and we all buried our sons,” she added. “We have to be there for each other because no one knows this pain but us.”
The pain of losing a loved one to gun violence affects the entire family unit and community at large. Younger siblings, family and friends of people who have been killed, they all live with the repercussions of gun violence in all of these different ways.
But as consistently as there’s been community gun violence, there are dedicated residents who swoop in to help entire neighborhoods heal. I spoke with Tashante McCoy in Stockton and Jasmine Hardison in Oakland, who embrace and support people in their homes and organize events to bring joy, awareness and healing in their communities. DeWanda Joseph in Richmond holds weekly meetings for people who still don’t know how or why their child was killed and are losing faith in the justice system’s ability to get answers.
Reporting on gun violence before and during the pandemic made me realize how many systems– governmental and community-based alike – need to be in place and ready to respond to these traumatic situations. The many interactions someone has after a loved one is murdered can either compound trauma or start that healing process. And most people don’t get to see that unless they have been impacted by gun violence or work with those who are.