At a round table, covered in a black table cloth, near the pulpit of Old West Florida Primitive Baptist, four barbers and a chief with the sheriff’s office asked a specific question: Why are Tallahassee’s youth shooting each other?
In red Expo marker, Chief Ron O’Brien wrote down the reasons:
“Guns easily accessible””Gangs providing guns””Lack of education””Music influence/social media””Environment (32304) and haves and have nots perpetuates violence”
About 80 people spent their Tuesday evening brainstorming ways to prevent the ongoing threat of gun violence in the capital city. The event, called the 1,000 Men Community Meeting, was the launch for the Tallahassee Council on the Status of Men and Boys‘ community-wide survey.
Most in attendance were resource providers and law enforcement. Besides the sheriff, City Commissioner Curtis Richardson was the only elected official in attendance. Tallahassee Police Chief Lawrence Revell also attended and gave the opening and closing prayers.
The council, a crime-prevention initiative effort headed by Leon County Sheriff Walt McNeil and Royle King, recently received an extra $350,000 from the city for violence intervention. That money was originally earmarked for out-of-town experts with the Group Violence Intervention program, a national initiative aimed at reducing crime, that city commissioners were eager to implement.
Background:Commission redirects $200K from out-of-town group to sheriff’s effort to thwart shootings
More:Council focused on prevention of youth violence in Leon Co. outlines plans, updates progress
Developed at John Jay College, the GVI program focuses on deterrence rather than prevention and has seen success in Boston, Louisville, Miami and Chicago. But three city commissioners said they were frustrated by the stalled pace to finalize contracts for the GVI program and redirected the funding to McNeil and King’s program instead.
The council has also received a $1.4 million federal grant, a recurring $1 million from the City of Tallahassee for the next five years, and money from the Leon County Commission, Leon County Schools, Tallahassee Police Department and the Leon County Sheriff’s Office.
“We’re going to stick to the efficacy of the research that we do, and that means that something that somebody is doing may or may not be funded with respect to the dollars that we’re trying to put on the streets to deal with these problems and issues,” said McNeil. “And I hope that the dollars isn’t why we’re here in the first place, that we’re here to fight crime.”
At the meeting, McNeil’s deputies along with TPD officers, sat at tables with community leaders and Tallahassee residents. Representatives from public relations firm SalterMitchell, who are helping the council with the survey, were moderators of the discussions about gun violence.
After about 20 minutes, each table shared what they thought were the reasons for the violence and ways to address them. Almost everyone came up with the same answers.
Recent crime news:2 injured after being shot at while in a car in north Tallahassee. Another shooting injures 1.
When Dedrick Steward, a barber at Fade barbershop, was handed the microphone, he laid it out simply. He was frustrated to see that every table came up with the same thing.
“You have to start putting the money where it really counts,” Steward said. “Not in the offices downtown and these other places, it has to be with the people who are out here doing the leg work.”
Every day, Steward and his coworkers see the same demographic of boys and young men cited in the Anatomy of a Homicide study. Of all the homicides between 2015 and 2020, most of the victims and offenders were 15-25 years old. Seventy-five percent of the victims and 81% of offenders were Black.
“They need people that they see on the regular, people that they see throughout every day. Other than that, we’re just gonna have these conversations over and over again, and it’ll go down as a bookmark and say that we did it, but it’s not gonna change,” Steward said.
A Tallahassee Democrat special report:‘It’s breaking them’: Amid guns and poverty, Black teens often wind up in survival mode
Titus Smith, another barber at Fade, said three of his clients at the barbershop have died from gun violence in recent years.
Fade Barbershop is located on South Adams Street and close to South City and the Providence neighborhoods.
Smith said he didn’t learn much from the conversations he heard Tuesday evening.
“Everybody said the same thing. We talk about the issues every day in the barber shop. We don’t miss a day without doing so. These issues come up all the time because we see it,” he said.
But Smith is still hopeful. He said he plans to go to more of the council’s community meetings. The 50-year-old Tallahassee native doesn’t want to see generations of Black boys and young men lost to gun violence.
“Without them there is no future. You kill a 16-year-old, neither one of you guys have kids. One is dead and the other is going to prison for life.” he said. “Two families are broken and whoever else is involved. It’s a ripple effect.”
So far this year, three people were killed and 25 were injured in at least 31 shooting incidents in Tallahassee and Leon County, according to a Tallahassee Democrat analysis.