RICHMOND, Va (WRIC) — More people are being shot in Virginia’s capital city, leaving an increasing number of families, broken. In Richmond alone, homicides are almost exclusively from gun violence.
The city’s most recent data report tells the story, as do the cries of people suffering from personal loss.
“They went in my house, and killed my baby,” said Akeyia Pernell after her 17-year-old daughter was shot dead Sunday morning.
“Protect your kids at all costs, ma’am’s, misters, grandmothers, grandfathers. Protect them at all costs,” Maverne MacMullin pleaded after her son was killed in the North Side on April 5.
Compared to counties nearby, the capital city of Richmond bears the brunt of bullets that fly.
The latest police data shows 15 homicides in 2022, and all 15 involved firearms; slightly more than the 14 gun homicides at this same time last year.
A man was stabbed to death since the report was published Sunday, meaning fatal shots are connected to nearly every slaying in Richmond so far this year.
Richmond Public Schools Superintendent said Wednesday, April 13 that he was fed up having the need to hold vigils honoring students.
“I don’t want to do it anymore,” he proclaimed.
City Hall recently put out an official notice to hire three Violence Interrupters to help curb the violence. The deadline to apply closes in just five days.
Hours after a 17-year-old was shot dead in the East End in mid-February, Police Chief Gerald Smith said, “We have high hopes that it will actually be able to interrupt some of the violence that we’re seeing out here.”
High hopes, but Mayor Levar Stoney expects that a solution will take time.
“The proof will be in the pudding a couple years from now. Right? We are investigating the root causes of these, of this violence,” Stoney said during a press conference late last month.
