Crime
March For Our Lives launches billboard campaign
FLORIDA COURIER — Like ticker tape, the messages quickly scroll on the digital billboards.“I saw my brother get shot. I saw my sister get shot. I saw my son get shot,” the words flow in New York’s Times Square. They are the latest anti-gun violence messages from the March For Our Lives group, which was founded by the survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre last year in Parkland.
By Johnny Diaz
Like ticker tape, the messages quickly scroll on the digital billboards.
“I saw my brother get shot. I saw my sister get shot. I saw my son get shot,” the words flow in New York’s Times Square.
They are the latest anti-gun violence messages from the March For Our Lives group, which was founded by the survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre last year in Parkland.
The digital billboards sponsored by the nonprofit group went up Monday, April 15, and will remain in place throughout this month.
“For the next two weeks, a series of billboards in Times Square will remind Americans that we must come together to save lives,” wrote Brendan Duff, a co-founder of March For Our Lives and a communications strategist for the group — in an opinion piece he wrote with Lauren Hogg about the billboards.
Duff graduated from Stoneman Douglas and his brother was a freshman at the school during the Feb. 14, 2018 massacre that killed 17 students and staff and wounded 17 others.
‘WE WANT CHANGE’
The group expects the billboards to reach about 5 and a half million people.
After the messages roll on the billboards, they suddenly shatter into digital glass with the words, “Enough. We want change” on a yellow background. There is also a number (954-954), which is Broward’s main area code, for people to text to get more information about the group and local chapters.
“The Times Square billboards are meant to reach people from around the world in an impactful way, and like all of our messages, they are meant to be accessible to those willing to fight for safer communities, schools, concert venues, places of worship, and everywhere the threat of gun violence exists,” added Duff, a student at Elon University in North Carolina.
Previous ads by the group, including one meant to get people to the polls in November, included a video that depicted a gun firing bullets through a school hallway.
This article originally appeared in the Florida Courier.
Activism
‘Donald Trump Is Not a God:’ Rep. Bennie Thompson Blasts Trump’s Call to Jail Him
“Donald Trump is not a god,” U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., told The Grio during a recent interview, reacting to Trump’s unsupported claims that the congressman, along with other committee members like vice chair and former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, destroyed evidence throughout the investigation.
By Post Staff
U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said he not intimidated by President-elect Donald Trump, who, during an interview on “Meet the Press,” called for the congressman to be jailed for his role as chairman of the special congressional committee investigating Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, mob attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“Donald Trump is not a god,” Thompson told The Grio during a recent interview, reacting to Trump’s unsupported claims that the congressman, along with other committee members like vice chair and former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, destroyed evidence throughout the investigation.
“He can’t prove it, nor has there been any other proof offered, which tells me that he really doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” said the 76-year-old lawmaker, who maintained that he and the bipartisan Jan. 6 Select Committee – which referred Trump for criminal prosecution – were exercising their constitutional and legislative duties.
“When someone disagrees with you, that doesn’t make it illegal; that doesn’t even make it wrong,” Thompson said, “The greatness of this country is that everyone can have their own opinion about any subject, and so for an incoming president who disagrees with the work of Congress to say ‘because I disagree, I want them jailed,’ is absolutely unbelievable.”
When asked by The Grio if he is concerned about his physical safety amid continued public ridicule from Trump, whose supporters have already proven to be violent, Thompson said, “I think every member of Congress here has to have some degree of concern, because you just never know.”
This story is based on a report from The Grio.
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of December 11 – 17, 2024
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of December 11 – 17, 2024
To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.
Activism
Outgoing D.A. Pamela Price Releases Report on County Gun Violence Epidemic
The 84-page report is divided into two parts: the Public Health Impact of Violence and the Contribution of Structural Inequalities; and the Public Safety Impact of Gun Violence and the Regulation of Firearms. Each section documents trends in rising gun violence in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, with special attention to the rise in gun-related deaths of women and children in Alameda County. Each section advises innovative approaches for the County to address gun violence and build safe communities.
By Post Staff
Criminal Justice Reformer District Attorney Pamela Price, who is leaving office this week after losing a recall election, released a comprehensive report on the gun violence epidemic and public health emergency in Alameda County: “Tackling Gun Violence Epidemic in Alameda County: A Public Health Emergency (2019-2023).”
This report represents an unprecedented collaboration between public safety and public health partners and provides data and recommendations to guide the County’s continued work to reduce violence while advancing justice reform.
The 84-page report is divided into two parts: the Public Health Impact of Violence and the Contribution of Structural Inequalities; and the Public Safety Impact of Gun Violence and the Regulation of Firearms.
Each section documents trends in rising gun violence in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, with special attention to the rise in gun-related deaths of women and children in Alameda County. Each section advises innovative approaches for the County to address gun violence and build safe communities.
“Between 2019 to 2023, an average of three residents were killed by firearms each week in Alameda County, and behind every statistic is a shattered family and community,” said Price.
“Under my administration, the DA’s office has taken bold steps to combat gun violence while promoting equity and healing for survivors,” she said.
The report highlights strategies for keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people. Last month, the DA’s office secured a $5.5 million grant from the California Judicial Council to help improve compliance and case management for gun cases and gun relinquishment orders —the removal of guns from people prohibited from possessing a firearm – with law enforcement and court partners.
This effort builds on Price’s work in 2023 and 2024 in attacking the gun violence epidemic.
“We launched an innovative Gun Violence Restraining Order Outreach Project to educate communities about the availability of tools to remove guns and ammunition from people who are a danger to themselves and others and the intersectionality of domestic violence and gun violence and convened gun violence roundtable conversations with our law enforcement partners and collaborated with the Alameda County Public Health Department to produce this comprehensive report,” she said.
“We supported Oakland’s CEASEFIRE program through its transition and implemented a pilot Mentor Gun Diversion Program with our collaborative court partners, offering non-violent youth in possession of a gun pathways to interrupt the potential for escalating harm.” added Price.
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