All weekend, the WNBA’s All-Stars talked about how the 18th annual game felt different. They described a higher level of attention surrounding the event, better player-thrown parties and an overall feeling of being treated like All-Stars.
Severely lacking, though, were planned fan activities and even the ability to purchase tickets to events such as the skills competition and three-point contest, which were held at McCormick Place, not Wintrust Arena. One event specifically, a concert thrown by Chance the Rapper, seemed like a great opportunity to engage Chicago fans.
But WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert didn’t see it that way.
“We would have loved to have opened that up to the public,” she said Sunday. “Because of security concerns dating way back to Mandalay Bay, dating back to other things that have happened here in Chicago, Uvalde and Buffalo, there’s a lot of concern about outdoor events right now unfortunately in our country. So we were just trying to do the best we could.”
Meanwhile, the Taste of Chicago was taking place less than two miles from McCormick Place, where the WNBA’s limited outdoor events were being held.
The general public was unable to attend most major All-Star events outside of the game Sunday. Nike Nationals participants, their families, All-Star players’ families and friends and select Sky season-ticket holders were able to secure tickets to the skills and three-point competitions Saturday. Youth players, corporate partners and players were admitted into the Chance the Rapper concert.
Despite Engelbert expressing concerns about outdoor events, the league’s lone event open to the public, WNBA Live, was held outdoors. The league had been planning the All-Star Game in Chicago since last fall. Engelbert said consultations with security experts, including the Chicago Police Department, led to the league’s decision to limit fan attendance.
Wintrust Arena wasn’t available to the WNBA on Saturday because of a Pampered Chef event, which is a better explanation as to why there were so few fan activities.
“Cobbling together everything that’s going on, coming off two tough COVID years and not having Wintrust available yesterday, it just wasn’t possible to have a fan event,” Engelbert said. “We didn’t have an arena to have it in here in the city of Chicago.”
Championship feelings
The All-Star Game at Wintrust Arena was played in front of a near sold-out crowd of 9,572. Last year during the WNBA Finals, the arena was at maximum capacity with 10,897.
Sky players weren’t on the same team in the game. Kahleah Copper and Emma Meesseman played for Team Stewart, coached by the Sky’s, James Wade, and Candace Parker and Courtney Vandersloot played for the victorious Team Wilson, coached by the Aces’ Becky Hammon.
“Just had Finals feels all over again,” Copper said. “I think the atmosphere was incredible. Especially when Chicago Sky players were being announced. It just felt so amazing to be a part of something so special.”
Copper added that the only thing that will help ease the pain of losing to her teammates is winning another championship.
Changes coming
Engelbert opened her news conference announcing changes on the horizon for the WNBA, beginning with chartered flights for both teams in the WNBA Finals this year and a 50% increase to the postseason bonus pool.
Also, the regular-season schedule will expand from 36 games to 40 next year, and two teams will be added by 2025.
“I’d say probably 10 or 15 cities are very interested in hosting a WNBA team,” Engelbert said. “We’re meeting here and there, I’ll call it with interested ownership groups. We’re looking for the right ownership groups with the right commitment, the right arena situation, the right city to support a WNBA franchise.”
It’s been three years since Hamilton’s Pride celebrations were disrupted by anti-LGBTQ demonstrators, resulting in a violent confrontation, several arrests and, as an independent report later described, a damaged relationship between the LGBTQ community and police.
Pride Hamilton is now getting ready for its first in-person celebration since that 2019 event at Gage Park. This year’s event will be held indoors in July 8 and 9.
As the celebration nears, some community members say the Hamilton Police Service (HPS) has more work to do to build back the fractured relationship.
“I’d like to see them… acknowledge what they did, not just by apologizing for it, but talking specifically about what they did wrong,” said Cameron Kroetsch, who was on the Pride Hamilton board in 2019 and was also the chair of the city’s LGBTQ Advisory Committee.
“In my opinion, the mayor and the police haven’t done what’s necessary to meet the mark,” Kroetsch, who is now a Ward 2 candidate in this fall’s municipal election, told CBC Hamilton.
The Pride Hamilton festival was disrupted on June 15, 2019, by a religious group with homophobic signs and people from the yellow vest movement, which is associated with far right groups. Protesters were met with Pride supporters who wore pink masks and used a large black curtain to shield the protesters from the view of the festival. Violence erupted, injuring several people.
Protesters at the 2019 Pride event were met with Pride supporters who wore pink masks and used a large black curtain to shield them from the view of the festival. (ihearthamilton/Twitter)
Police arrested one protester, charged three Pride supporters and arrested one person who was later found to not be at the festival.
An independent review by lawyer Scott Bergman found the police response to the violence was “inadequate” and the lack of police preparation meant the service “failed to protect” festival attendees. It also had 38 recommendations for police.
The damning review came out just days after a leaked copy of an investigation by the Office of the Independent Police Review Director, which found “policies and procedures were followed in this instance and that there were no identified issues.”
The leaked report is among the issues that still chafe for Kroetsch.
“If you’re trying to build trust with the community, why would you try to undermine the only external review being written?” he said. “I don’t think they understand what it means to move toward a resolution and build trust.”
Hamilton’s police services board has since said it “sincerely and unreservedly apologizes” for what happened and that it will implement all 38 recommendations from Bergman’s report.
A police board presentation made earlier this year said there are at least 16 outstanding recommendations to implement. Those include three related to the retention by HPS of a mediator to help guide talks with the community and establish a task force, HPS spokesperson Jackie Penman said in an email to CBC. The force is currently reviewing six names submitted by the community for that position, she said.
Five recommendations are related to training, and another five are related to the next Pride event, which called for better police communication, planning and community consultation ahead of and during such an event.
‘Police will be there to protect’: Pride chair
This year’s Pride is being held at the Hamilton Convention Centre by Carmen’s on July 8 and July 9, featuring two days of vendors and performers. The event closes with a show featuring drag performer and former RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant Nicky Doll.
The event will also have police present, says Pride Hamilton chair Kiel Hughes.
Pride Hamilton chair Kiel Hughes says the indoor setting of this year’s event is only intended as a one-off. (Submitted by Kiel Hughes)
Police have consulted with the committee several times on a plan to protect those attending the event, Hughes says, and will be stationed inside and around the perimeter of the building.
“Police will be there to serve and protect like they’re supposed to,” Hughes told CBC Hamilton, while acknowledging a “tense” relationship between many community members and the police force.
“I am pretty adamant that if the police are going to be there, they’re supposed to do what their mandate is. I am not interested in having police at Pride in a booth recruiting people or in their uniforms dancing around.”
If they’re working to make that change and do what they’re supposed to do, I am not going to try to stop them.– Pride Hamilton chair Kiel Hughes
There is still much work left to do to repair the relationship between the police and the LGBTQ community, but police do seem to be making improvements, Hughes added.
“I can see an effort is being made… As for how that will go and how that will look, that has yet to be determined… If they’re working to make that change and do what they’re supposed to do, I am not going to try to stop them. I would just encourage people to see what they’re trying to do and see how best it will work to everyone’s favour.”
In 2020, Pride Hamilton filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario against the city and police, asking for $600,000 in damages. It said police discriminated against the organization by not protecting people at the Pride celebrations.
That was before Hughes became chair, and when Kroetsch was still on the board. He says Hamilton police have applied to the tribunal to have the case dismissed, on the basis that the tribunal typically hears complaints from individuals, not organizations. Penman declined to confirm whether that is the case.
“That doesn’t seem like an organization that’s really interested in resolving things despite the tick-box exercise they’re going through,” says Kroetsch.
Cameron Kroetsch says he’d like to see police talk specifically about “what they did wrong.” (Richard Agecoutay/CBC)
This year’s event is being held indoors for several reasons, says Hughes: safety; accessibility; timeline challenges given COVID-19 regulations that changed at the end of March; and cost, as an outdoor event would have required a significant spend on security, among other items.
‘Nobody wants another virtual Pride’
Many in the community have complained about the indoor venue yet few have volunteered to help organize, said Hughes. The committee currently has only four board members and is exhausted, Hughes added, saying the indoor venue is only intended as a one-off for this year.
“Nobody wants another virtual Pride,” Hughes said. “After looking through the options…, that was the choice as it would help to alleviate some of the strenuous work of trying to get license and permits in the short period of time.”
The indoor nature of this year’s event is a barrier for River Holland-Valade, who is immunocompromised and worried about the COVID-19 risk of a large, indoor event.
But many people in the community are desperate for a sense of connection at the moment, they said.
“The community as a whole is really struggling,” says Holland-Valade, who is two-spirit and works in mental health services within that community. Pandemic isolation, burnout and struggles to keep up with the rising cost of living are among the challenges they are seeing regularly among their peers and clients.
River Holland-Valade says many people in the community are in need of a sense of connection. (Submitted by St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton)
“There’s a number of people through the pandemic and through lockdown that didn’t previously identify as LGBTQ, and this is the first Pride they’ll be accessing,” Holland-Valade told CBC Hamilton.
While there have been many Pride events held in Hamilton in recent weeks, including Queer Prom hosted by Fruit Salad in May and an outdoor Pride picnic hosted by The House of Adam and Steve on June 18, the July event is the only one put on by Pride Hamilton.
“[Knowing what happened at the last Pride] might discourage some of the people that really need resources and to connect the most,” Holland-Valade said.
They were at the 2019 event and said there is still a lot of pain left over from what happened that day, noting many people they know will feel uncomfortable in an “enclosed” space with police present.
“I know I would feel uncomfortable, especially as a queer and trans person of colour,” said Holland-Valade. “If something did happen, will they actually protect the community? Because they failed to in the past.”
The surge in right-wing hate-mongering against LGBTQ people is spilling into violence, with high-profile attacks this month casting fear over Pride celebrations throughout the country.
Extremism researchers have long warned of an escalating risk as hard-right Republicans and militant groups portray LGBTQ people as “groomers” targeting children, along with other baseless smears. Now, provocateurs are acting on those messages in what President Biden last month called “rising hate and violence” targeting LGBTQ communities.
The attacks have intensified this month during the first big Pride events since pandemic restrictions were lifted, most notably with the white nationalist Patriot Front’s foiled attempt to disrupt a celebration in northern Idaho.
In recent days, right-wing politicians and preachers have openly called for killing LGBTQ people. On a conservative talk show, Mark Burns, a Donald Trump-allied congressional candidate from South Carolina, called “LGBT, transgender grooming” a national security threat and proposed using treason laws as the basis for “executing” parents and teaches who advocate for LGBTQ rights. In Texas last Sunday, a pastor railed against Pride month and said LGBTQ people “should be lined up against the wall and shot in the back of the head.”
A study released Thursday signals these are not isolated incidents. Anti-LGBTQ activity including demonstrations and attacks increased more than four times from 2020 to 2021, from 15 incidents to 61, according to the global nonprofit conflict-monitoring group known as ACLED. As of early June, ACLED counted 33 anti-LGBTQ incidents so far this year, indicating an even bleaker 2022.
The resulting fear is a common theme in social media posts by LGBTQ people describing palpable changes in their collective sense of security. Hateful looks. Ugly slurs. Vandalized rainbow flags.
Baltimore authorities this week are investigating two separate fires on the same block — one at a house where a Pride flag was set on fire, and another across the street at a home decorated for Pride, according to local news reports. Three people were injured in one of the fires.
Analysts draw a direct link from hateful political speech to attacks on the ground. The ACLED report notes that the rise in violence comes as “right-wing politicians and media outlets have mainstreamed the use of increasingly inflammatory rhetoric against the LGBT+ community.”
Trans people have been particularly targeted. The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group, says the past year saw record violence against transgender and gender-nonconforming people. Women of color, especially Black trans women, were the most frequent targets.
In that same time frame, state legislators introduced more than 250 anti-LGBTQ bills, many of them designed to stop transgender youths from participating in sports. At least 24 of the bills were enacted, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, giving anti-LGBTQ activism “one of its most successful years” in terms of legislation.
The LGBTQ media advocacy group GLAAD said that political hate speech was leading to violence in a statement issued after the arrests in Idaho. The group said “anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and the nearly 250 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced this year are responsible for this dangerous climate,” along with tech platforms that are “fueling the hate and misinformation that inspire white supremacist groups like the Patriot Front.”
Targets have said the attacks are unnerving even when they don’t involve physical violence.
In San Lorenzo, Calif., on Saturday, a group of suspected Proud Boys, a far-right group with a history of violence, interrupted a drag queen storytelling hour by screaming anti-LGBTQ slurs in an incident authorities are investigating as a hate crime. In an interview with Teen Vogue, event host Kyle Chu, whose drag name is Panda Dulce, described up to 10 Proud Boys marching in, including one in a T-shirt emblazoned with a gun and the words “Kill your local pedophile.”
“We stopped the song and the Proud Boys … started hurling insults, calling me a pedophile and a groomer,” Chu said in the interview, adding that she was taken to a safe room as organizers called authorities. Chu summed up the incident as “terrifying.”
In Arlington, Tex., Proud Boys were among the protesters who showed up to a drag brunch that was for an over-21 crowd. Amateur video of the incident shared online by LGBTQ activists showed protesters screaming anti-gay slurs in their targets’ faces. One man was filmed acknowledging that he was blocking the brunch participants’ entry, saying he was conducting a “citizen’s arrest.”
Extremism monitors at the Anti-Defamation League tracked seven in-person extremist activities targeting LGBTQ people over the past weekend, according to an ADL summary of the recent threats. The summary included a June 12 Pride event in Georgia that was canceled because of anonymous threats “targeting the rally’s location, time and date.” In a separate incident the next day, according to the ADL, white supremacists in New Jersey protested a drag event during a Pride celebration, “with one individual displaying a sign reading, ‘Hands off kids.’”
The intimidation also has led to moments of defiance, as in North Carolina, where threats of violence prompted organizers to cancel a drag queen storytelling event at Pride in Apex, a suburb of the capital, Raleigh. Local news reports said town officials had received complaints and that the festival’s chairman was warned that he and his family “will be harmed” if the event took place.
Outraged, an advocacy group called Equality North Carolina stepped in to sponsor Apex Pride and reinstate the story hour. The group said in a statement that LGBTQ people would fight attempts “to invade our spaces, to silence us, to disperse us, and limit our freedom to be ourselves in our community.”
Several of the incidents illustrate what the ACLED report called “cross-pollination opportunities,” the coalescing of disparate right-wing factions around common targets such as critical race theory, pandemic-era lockdowns and abortion access. These days, anti-LGBTQ activism has jumped to the top of that list.
The report noted that a June 4 demonstration against a drag show in Dallas brought together “self-proclaimed ‘Christian Fascists,’ adherents to the QAnon conspiracy movement” and several other extremist factions.
“They’re actually building solidarity and the left is not,” said Eric Stanley, an associate professor of gender and women’s studies at University of California at Berkeley.
For Stanley, also a community organizer, the issue is personal. Menacing emails arrive every week. Stanley is always on the lookout for unfamiliar faces among students, wondering “who’s going to film you, who’s going to storm the classroom, who’s going to attack you.”
“In the last few years, I definitely think about, ‘Where are the exits? Is it too high to jump out of this window?’ ” said Stanley, who teaches trans studies classes.
Still, Stanley doesn’t want the current danger “used as justification to hire more police, put more police at Pride, put more police in schools.”
Whether — or to what extent — to work with law enforcement agencies is a contested topic as LGBTQ advocates figure out how to respond. Stanley belongs to the camp that rejects partnering with police because of law enforcement’s longtime patterns of discrimination and violence.
Other organizations have close ties to law enforcement officials, but acknowledge the frictions.
“With everything that’s happened in the Black Lives Matter movement and the distrust of police, it’s this really hard, fine line to navigate,” said Jeff Mack, executive vice president of the Matthew Shepard Foundation, a LGBTQ nonprofit group that supports victims of hate crimes.
Those who favor working with police were encouraged that Idaho authorities arrested dozens of masked members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front before they could disrupt a Pride event Saturday in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. The city’s police chief said the group, piled into the back of a U-Haul, had an “operations plan” for Pride and gear such as shin guards, shields, helmets, at least one smoke grenade and long metal poles.
The 31 men charged with misdemeanor conspiracy to riot came from at least 11 states, including Colorado, a point that was noted on a Denver Pride planning call Monday, two days after the Idaho incident.
Mack said he and other Hate Free Colorado organizers were in “disbelief” and couldn’t help but wonder what they might face in Denver later this month. Still, there was no question of scaling back.
“We are not going to let them win and we are going to take every precaution to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Mack said. “We all acknowledge that we just need to be hypervigilant and hyperaware, but we’re not going to let them take away our celebration of who we are.”
As the climate crisis leads to more intense and more frequent extreme weather and climate-related events, this in turn risks increasing the amount of gender-based violence experienced by women, girls, and sexual and gender minorities, say researchers.
In a study published in The Lancet Planetary Health, a team led by a researcher at the University of Cambridge analyzed current scientific literature and found that the evidence paints a bleak picture for the future as extreme events drive economic instability, food insecurity, and mental stress, and disrupt infrastructure and exacerbate gender inequality.
Between 2000 and 2019, floods, droughts, and storms alone affected nearly 4 billion people worldwide, costing over 300,000 lives. The occurrences of these extreme events represent a drastic change, with the frequency of floods increasing by 134%, storms by 40%, and droughts by 29% over the past two decades. These figures are expected to rise further as climate change progresses.
Extreme weather and climate events have been seen to increase gender-based violence, due to socio-economic instability, structural power inequalities, health-care inaccessibility, resource scarcity and breakdowns in safety and law enforcement, among other reasons. This violence can lead to long-term consequences including physical injury, unwanted pregnancy, exposure to HIV or other sexually transmitted infections, fertility problems, internalized stigma, mental health conditions, and ramifications for children.
To better understand the relationship between extreme events and gender-based violence, researchers carried out a systematic review of existing literature in this area. This approach allows them to bring together existing—and sometimes contradictory or under-powered—studies to provide more robust conclusions.
The team identified 41 studies that explored several types of extreme events, such as storms, floods, droughts, heatwaves, and wildfires, alongside gender-based violence, such as sexual violence and harassment, physical violence, “witch” killing, early or forced marriage, and emotional violence. The studies covered countries on all six of the major continents and all but one focused on cisgender women and girls.
The researchers found evidence that gender-based violence appears to be exacerbated by extreme weather and climate events, driven by factors such as economic shock, social instability, enabling environments, and stress.
According to the studies, perpetrators of violence ranged from partners and family members, through to religious leaders, relief workers and government officials. The relationship between extreme events and gender-based violence can be expected to vary across settings due to differences in social gender norms, tradition, vulnerability, exposure, adaptive capacity, available reporting mechanisms, and legal responses. However, the experience of gender-based violence during and after extreme events seems to be a shared experience in most contexts studied, suggesting that amplification of this type of violence is not constrained geographically.
“Extreme events don’t themselves cause gender-based violence, but rather they exacerbate the drivers of violence or create environments that enable this type of behavior,” said Kim van Daalen, a Gates Cambridge Scholar at the Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge.
“At the root of this behavior are systematic social and patriarchal structures that enable and normalize such violence. Existing social roles and norms, combined with inequalities leading to marginalization, discrimination, and dispossession make women, girls, and sexual and gender minorities disproportionately vulnerable to the adverse impacts of extreme events.”
Experiencing gender-based violence can also further increase vulnerability. When faced with the likelihood of experiencing harassment or sexual violence in relief camps, for example, some women or sexual and gender minorities choose to stay home or return to their homes even before doing so is safe, placing them in additional danger from extreme events and further restricting their already limited access to relief resources.
Extreme events could both increase new violence and increase reporting, unmasking existing violence. Living through extreme events led some victims to feel they could no longer endure abuse or to feel less inhibited to report the abuse than before the event. However, the researchers also noted that reporting remains plagued by a number of factors, including silencing of victims—particularly in countries where safeguarding a daughter’s and family’s honor and marriageability is important—as well as fears of coming forward, failures of law enforcement, unwillingness to believe victims, and the normalization of violence.
Van Daalen added, “Disaster management needs to focus on preventing, mitigating, and adapting to drivers of gender-based violence. It’s crucial that it’s informed by the women, girls, and sexual and gender minority populations affected and takes into account local sexual and gender cultures and local norms, traditions, and social attitudes.”
Examples of such interventions include providing post-disaster shelters and relief services—including toilets and bath areas—designed to be exclusively accessed by women, girls, and sexual and gender minorities or providing emergency response teams specifically trained in prevention of gender-based violence.
Likewise, empowerment initiatives for women and sexual and gender minorities that challenge regressive gender norms to reduce vulnerability could bring opportunities to negotiate their circumstances and bring positive change. For example, women’s groups using participatory- learning-action cycles facilitated by local peers have been used to improve reproductive and maternal health by enabling women to identify and prioritize local challenges and solutions. Similar programs could be adapted and applied in extreme event management to empower women as decision makers in local communities.
Case studies
Hurricane Katrina, violence and intimidation
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast of the United States in August 2005, gender-based violence increased, particularly interpersonal violence or intimate partner violence, and physical victimization increased for women. Likewise, a study on internally-displaced people in Mississippi found that sexual violence and rates of intimate partner violence increased in the year following the disaster.
Furthermore, the New Orleans gay community was blamed for Hurricane Katrina, with the disaster being described as being “God’s punishment.” Same-sex couples were prevented from receiving relief from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, transgender people were threatened in shelters or prohibited access after a natural disaster, and LGBTQI people experienced physical harm and violence in post-disaster shelters.
Flooding and early marriage in Bangladesh
Studies suggest a link between flooding incidence and early marriage, with spikes in early marriages observed in Bangladesh coinciding with the 1998 and 2004 floods. Next to being viewed as a way to reduce family costs and safeguard marriageability and dignity, these marriages are often less expensive due to flood-induced impoverishment lowering expectations.
One study included an example of the head of a household explaining that the 2013 cyclone had destroyed most of his belongings, leaving him afraid that he would be unable to support his youngest unmarried daughter, who was under 18. Marrying off his daughters was a way of reducing the financial burden on the family.
More information:
Extreme events and gender-based violence: a mixed-methods systematic review, The Lancet Planetary Health (2022). DOI: 10.1016/PIIS2542-5196(22)00088-2
Citation:
Extreme weather, climate events may lead to increase in violence towards women, girls, and sexual and gender minorities (2022, June 13)
retrieved 13 June 2022
from https://phys.org/news/2022-06-extreme-weather-climate-events-violence.html
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GRAND RAPIDS, MI — The Grand Rapids Art Museum is hosting two events later this month.
“In A New Light: American Impressionism 1870-1940,” runs from June 11-Aug. 27.” The GRAM describes it as a “the first major exhibition of American Impressionism” at the museum in over a decade.” It features “groundbreaking paintings, prints, and drawings from acclaimed artists such as George Inness, Lilla Cabot Perry, Childe Hassam, Thomas Moran, John Sloan, Theresa Bernstein, Ernest Lawson, and Guy Carleton Wiggins, among others.”
“This comprehensive exhibition of American Impressionism traces the emergence and evolution of a truly American style of art,” according to an event announcement.
Another event this month is “SHEEPDOG,” a one-act play by Kevin Artigue being held June 16-18 as part of this year’s West Michigan Loving Day Celebration.
An announcement describes the play in the following way: “This one-act play follows Amina and Ryan, both officers on the Cleveland police force. Amina is Black, Ryan is white, and they are falling deeply and passionately in love. When an officer-involved shooting roils the department, small cracks in their relationship widen into a chasm of confusion and self-doubt. A mystery and a love story with high stakes and no easy answers, SHEEPDOG fearlessly examines police violence, interracial love, and class in the 21st century.”
The play is presented by Ebony Road Players, a Grand Rapids theater company “whose mission is to inspire, educate and engage the cultures of our community with high-quality theater productions focused on the Black experience.”
With gun violence skyrocketing, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson declared asked people to wear orange throughout the weekend to raise awareness.
MILWAUKEE – With gun violence skyrocketing in Milwaukee, Mayor Cavalier Johnson declared Friday, June 3 National Gun Violence Awareness Day and asked people to wear orange throughout the weekend.
Saturday, photos of people who lost their lives to gun violence lined Sherman Boulevard.
“It’s really sad, and it’s hard because it’s really just a struggle when you just sit and think like: Wow, my son was killed,'” said Karin Tyler with Milwaukee’s Office of Violence Prevention.
Tyler lost her son in 2011. He was shot and killed during a robbery at his apartment. June is a hard month for Tyler; her son’s birthday was June 8.
“It’s an emotional time for me, and I don’t think people realize the different things that moms or families have to go through after everything happens, even years after,” she said.
Photos of gun violence victims line Sherman Boulevard, part of “Wear Orange” weekend
How to reduce gun violence is a topic many people have opinions about.
“We want to be out here to show support to the families, to show support for the community, but to also distribute gun locks to promote firearm safety,” said Vaynesia Kendrick, an adolescent suicide community outreach specialist.
About five miles south of Saturday’s event along Sherman, Adam Campbell works as the director of training for Brew City Shooter’s Supply.
“There’s a lot of people that have guns that don’t know anything about them, and they get most of their information from movies or the media,” Campbell said. “To reduce gun crime overall, if you’re just putting that question, posing it to me like that, I would say the key is education, training.”
Brew City Shooter’s Supply
Back on Sherman Boulevard, people held up signs and wore orange Saturday. The city’s Office of Violence Prevention said it will continue to offer outreach events.
“We’ll have different organizations out in all types of communities every weekend doing this work,” said Tyler.
The “Wear Orange” event started seven years ago to honor a Chicago teen who was shot and killed.
CHICAGO (CBS) — An orange flag few above the Wrigley Field marquee on Friday as part of Wear Orange Weekend – a campaign against gun violence.
The Wear Orange movement was created in honor of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, who was shot and killed on a Chicago playground.
Hadiya and some classmates had gone to Vivian Gordon Harsh Park on the 4500 block of South Oakenwald Avenue on Jan. 29, 2013, and were taking cover from a rainstorm, when prosecutors said Ward opened fire.
Prosecutors said Ward thought he was shooting at rival gang members. Instead, he killed Hadiya.
The shooting happened a week after Hadiya had performed with her school band at President Barack Obama’s inauguration for his second term in Washington. Coincidentally, Hadiya had also appeared in a public service announcement about gang violence in late 2008.
Wear Orange began on June 2, 2015, which would have been Hadiya’s 18th birthday. Since then it has expanded to a period of three days each year – National Gun Violence Awareness Day on the first Friday in June, and Wear Orange Weekend on the Saturday and Sunday afterward.
Wear Orange noted that orange has now become the defining color of the gun violence prevention movement.
The Cubs are encouraging fans to wear orange to Sunday’s game, at which Pendleton’s family will throw out the first pitch.
Other Chicago sports teams have also tweeted support for Wear Orange.
Proud to support those choosing to Wear Orange this weekend, continuing to highlight the need to end gun violence across the country. pic.twitter.com/leMFmN5lXu
This weekend we #WearOrange to continue to highlight the need to end gun violence that impacts thousands of Americans in communities across our country.
BALTIMORE — With violence impacting Baltimore at a high rate, a local non-profit group spent Memorial Day with its “Summer of Peace” events to promote ways of stopping violence.
As of Monday afternoon, Baltimore City Police say there are investigating 137 murders since the start of the year.
The “Summer of Peace” events included a concert that spoke out against violence, including those involving teens and children.
Community group “We Our Us” took place Monday in Baltimore’s Sandtown neighborhood.
Sandtown resident Antoine Bennett hopes the community event gives residents hope and inspires them.
“Anytime you offer hope and you put the hearts of the residents, inspire the residents and cherish the residents, that’s always a win,” Bennett said.
Torey Reynolds, who lives in the Sandtown community, said that she has seen violent crime in her neighborhood become more common.
“Oh this the worst I’ve seen it,” Reynolds said. “I’m talking about killing people in front of people. Growing up, this used to be an area that was very oriented as far as community-oriented, family-oriented.”
Residents said that although drugs and violent crime often plague the Sandtown community, many believe there are deeper-rooted issues that need to be addressed.
“If you got young kids who got criminal records they can’t get a job because their records is so messed up,” Reynolds said. “A lot of people got underlying mental issues that they don’t know about and need help with, don’t have insurance to go nowhere to get the help.”
That’s where community group “We Our Us” comes in with their “Summer of Peace” events, hoping to impact areas by spreading a peaceful message and providing resources.
“Not only do we wanna spread the message of life, but also, we want to bring resources so those that need it, whether it’s jobs, whether it’s treatment, whatever it is, ‘We Our Us’ is here to bring those resources,” said Antoine Burton, ‘We Our Us’ organizer. “Instead of death, we want to put the message out of life live and not die.”
Monday’s event was the first of many that will happen this summer.
Organizers said the mission is to ultimately reduce crime and stop the gun violence in communities.
“We are devastated as it relates to gun violence in the community,” Bennett said. “Most people think we’re desensitized to gun violence in the community. We are just as devastated as somebody looking from the outside in the community.”
Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP also alleged that Delhi BJP president Adesh Gupta recently honoured and felicitated ‘eight goons who were arrested for vandalism and hooliganism’ outside Delhi chief minister’s residence
A charred remains of a vehicle at a site where violence broke out between two communities during the Shobha Yatra procession at Jahangirpuri. Delhi – ANI
New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was behind the violence during the Hanuman Jayanti procession in northwest Delhi’s Jahangirpuri.
The reaction of Arvind Kejriwal-led party came on Sunday after Delhi BJP president Adesh Gupta alleged that the violence was the result of the AAP government aiding illegal stay of Rohingya and Bangladeshi immigrants.
The BJP leader also alleged that one of the arrested accused in the violence was an AAP activist.
At least 21 people have been arrested in connection with the stone-pelting and arson in which some vehicles were also torched during the clashes between two communities on Saturday evening.
In a statement, the AAP said it also celebrated Hanuman Janamotsav and took out a Shobha Yatra (procession) in Greater Kailash which saw “heartwarming” interfaith bonding and respect.
The Delhi government also organised recitation of Sundarkand in the Gole Market area later in the day on Saturday, the AAP said.
“Why is it that such violence doesn’t take place in AAP’s events and only happens when BJP organises it?” it asked.
The party said that Delhi BJP president Gupta recently honoured and felicitated “eight goons who were arrested for vandalism and hooliganism” outside the residence of Delhi chief minister.
“Seeing how the recent events have panned out, it is clear that the BJP itself is behind the violence,” the AAP alleged.
It said Delhi BJP chief by honouring and felicitating those eight activists of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Mocha (BJYM) sent out a message to the masses that it stands by the violence.
