Photo: (Jacqueline García / Real America News) / Impremedia
In recent weeks, Southern California has been plagued by a rise in crime. From armed robberies to murder of innocents, they have caused concern in the community and the authorities.
Among the most recent shootings, Anaheim authorities reported that on Wednesday night an 8-year-old girl was grazed by a stray bullet that went through her home. The incident is being investigated as a settling of accounts between gang members.
This occurs only one week in Boyle Heights that a teenager of 14 year old, identified as Jeremy Galvin, was gunned down in front of a recreation center on December 7.
A day earlier in Wilmington, Alexander Alvarado of 12 died near his school on December 6. Authorities said that some suspects approached the truck of the person with whom Alvarado was traveling and fired discriminately. In the incident, a 9-year-old girl who was playing in the schoolyard was also injured.
The 20 November in San Diego turned fatal when a stray bullet killed Ángel Gaspar Gallegos, of 12 years, while playing in the backyard with his cousins and brothers celebrating Thanksgiving.
And the 20 in Pasadena Iran Moreno Balvaneda, of 13 years old, he died when a stray bullet crossed the wall of his home while he was playing video games.
The anti-firearms organization Everytown for gun safety indicates that in the United States every day more than 100 people die from gun violence and hundreds more are injured.
Marco Vargas, college student and member of Students Demand Action, a Everytown for gun safety division, said that it hurts him a lot to hear that these tragedies occur and especially when innocent children are involved.
Vargas said that with an increase in the sale of weapons from fire and first-time gun owners over the past year and a half, the number of children living in households with unprotected weapons has been seen to rise to 5.4 million children, up from 4.6 million six years ago nationwide, according to the Everytown for gun safety organization.
“Safe storage of firearms is a solution that can directly prevent incidents like the death of children from stray bullets,” said Vargas, who grew up in South Central Los Angeles.
Solution strategies
The young activist He added that to avoid an increase in shootings, it is important that local communities assess the type of violence firearms violence that affect them the most, including police shootings, city firearm homicides, firearm suicides, and domestic violence in homes.
He asserted that work can begin locally using a variety of armed violence prevention strategies, designed and approved to reduce this type of violence.
He indicated that with Students Demand Action, he is charged with educating low-income students and survivors of gun violence to become catalysts for gun violence prevention in their local community.
“Our crisis gun violence is a preventable tragedy, but for too long, many of our so-called leaders have only offered thoughts and prayers, ”said Vargas.
In Los Angeles, Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore said they have created strategies to confront violent crime, through the use of face-to-face police officers, investigators, interventionists and community workers who can identify the communities where acts of violence occur.
“We are working with our federal partners and law enforcement partners to identify those who are supplying guns to these neighborhoods and to identify and prosecute them with federal and state charges to the fullest extent possible,” said Moore recently in an interview with the media.
Moore explained that they will continue their outreach commitment by targeting the most troubled communities to help rebuild them with officers on patrol and on foot.
“Not only to deter violence, but also to reach out to members of our community and assure them that we will do everything possible to protect them,” said jo Moore. “At the same time, we are alerting the public that these crimes that are occurring are real.”
Additionally, the LAPD is working with prosecutors to prosecute people who possess or use weapons, whether in robbery or other assault.