DETROIT – On Wednesdays in the City of Detroit, you might see a group of people walking the streets led by Detroit Police Chief James White. It’s an effort to speak directly to people in their neighborhoods about gun safety.
The message is about unity and being united on the message to secure guns and getting that message to as many people as possible.
It’s Walk A Mile Wednesday and White was doing more than just walking. He’s passing out gun locks.
“What’s more important to me than getting these locks out is people using them,” said White. “So we can pass them out all day long, but you got to take that 30-45 seconds and secure your weapon. Guns get us into more trouble than they get us out of. If you have a gun, you have a tremendous responsibility to secure them properly.”
More than 50 Detroit children were injured or killed by guns in 2022, including a five-year-old who was killed on Aug. 23 when they found a gun in a relative’s house, and it went off.
Stories such as those take the steam out of statistics that may show progress in other areas.
“When you have 100 non-fatal shootings less than you did the year before, it doesn’t help when a child is hurt or you’ve had a citizen who’s lost a loved one, those numbers mean nothing,” White said.
In addition to children being shot, Detroit has also seen a wave of mass shootings. That, too, brings concerned citizens and community groups out to the walks seen in the video player above.
“Get in front of the problem, not behind it,” said Karen Amica. “Once you see we have a problem, handle it.”
“We want to see our city safe,” said Quincy Smith.
Smith is with Detroit’s Cease Fire which preaches conflict resolution and de-escalation as ways to stop the shooting before it starts.
“There’s so many strategies we can push in the community that are so beneficial,” Smith said. “There’s a lot of groups out here doing that kind of work. We just got to touch a lot of people.”