Miami

Liberty City Leaders Hold Forum to Address Root Causes of Youth Gun Violence

The goal of Friday's forum was to find trends in youth violence and overall safety so they can be addressed before an act of violence breaks out

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Leaders in Liberty City met Friday to try to find the root cause of youth gun violence in that area.

The goal of Friday's forum was to find trends in youth violence and overall safety so they can be addressed before an act of violence breaks out.

The meeting included leaders with different backgrounds including church, community, and medicine.

“Is it generational issues that are affecting the continuation of gun violence in the community? Is it bullying, either cyberbullying or in-person bullying? What is the root of the issue?" said Shownda Pagan, CEO of Belafonte Tacolcy Center.

Those are some of the questions that leaders were hoping get answered. The meeting took place at Miami-Dade College North campus.

They presented surveys with questions like “if someone tried to start a fight with you, how likely is it that either of your parents would encourage you to use a weapon to threaten or hurt the other person?”

Nearly 10% said parents probably or definitely would.

Speaking of the “it takes a village…" mentality, former state representative Dr. James Bush III said the village has changed over time.

"Today, we don't know what the village is made of because a different type of lifestyle is going on today," he said. "So I think that that helps when we can bring a collaboration of organizations together to look at a holistically and collectively on how they can address these problems.”

NBC 6 asked Shownda Pagan, one of the speakers and organizers, how close they are to finding the answers.

“There are models out there that says this is how you address gun violence,” said Pagan. "There are models that say this is how you create community safety. But again, with the collective minds, I think we're very close to collectively together, working together to provide the solutions versus working in silos. So I think if all of us come together, which is the whole purpose of today, we'll be able to start seeing some traction.”

Meantime, others believe parents should be involved in these type of forums from the beginning stages.

“I would hope that I can convince them that they need to redo this and understand that if we don't get good dads involved, if we don't get parents involved in institutions, will not be able to,” said Talmade Fair, CEO of Urban League of Greater Miami.

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