RICHMOND, Va. — Richmond Mayor Danny Avula addressed the spate of recent gun violence in Richmond.
He said Richmond is experiencing a recent spike in gun violence, though year-to-date data shows slight improvement compared to previous years.
"We know that this is continuing to cause trauma for our residents, our families and our community as a whole," Mayor Avula said. "I think it's also important to put things in context, and I realize that while it has felt really significant and acute in the last few weeks, our data year to date actually looks slightly better than it did the year before, and certainly better than it has in years past."
"It's important for us not to panic as a community or to make more of it than it is, but also to take very seriously that even one life lost is too many, and so I think for us, it this is a moment to acknowledge the pain that our community is feeling, to share that we too are heartbroken by the violence that is happening in our community, and particularly in in our Black families," Avula continued. "We are seeing the disproportionate impact of this violence happen in our Black community, and so it's important for us to give voice to that."
While he praised Richmond Police and Police Chief Rick Edwards, he said the job is reducing gun violence is not solely that of police.
"There's a lot of work that needs to happen that we can drive more effectively on the prevention side of the house," he said. "We have a lot of funded entities, a lot of nonprofits that are engaging on at different points. In the three months I've been sitting in this job, I've kind of been astounded by the amount of efforts going in different directions trying to address violence, youth violence, gun violence. But what feels like a missing piece is the fact that there has not been an effective coordinated effort to bring those together around our highest-risk individuals."
In an effort to fix that issue, Avula announced he would bring the Office of Gun Violence Prevention within the mayor's office to coordinate existing prevention efforts.
That office will be established with initial funding for one staff position and expected to be filled by next month.
The person hired for the job will
- Coordinate fragmented violence prevention efforts across city agencies and nonprofits
- Focus on "wrapping around" high-risk individuals
- Establish data-driven key performance indicators
- Provide direct connection to the mayor's authority
"We need to do a better job of actually building a relationship and wrapping around our various efforts," he said. "That will be the primary effort of this Office of Gun Violence Prevention coming out of the mayor's office."
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