CHICAGO – The people building peace on Chicago streets every day have something to say about the president’s plan.
Fox 32 heard from survivors of violence on what they’re trying to protect and what’s now at risk.
What they’re saying:
Survivors of gun violence stood together Tuesday to say what they need. They included people who were shot, people who buried their kids, and people who now spend every day trying to keep someone else alive.
“I don’t use the word victim. I’m a survivor,” said Samuel “Mook” Mormon. “I survived gun violence. I have a bullet in my head. It’s sitting here right now. See, it’s right here.”
Mormon walks the same blocks where he was shot. He talks to people before things escalate. He gives them options that he said he didn’t have. He calls it a way out, and he’s not the only one doing this work.
“I was only 11 when we lost my sister,” said Tamika Howard. “It doesn’t just impact one person. It’s a ripple effect. From the mothers to the siblings to the entire family, the entire community.”
Howard grew up inside that ripple. She lost two siblings to gun violence.
Now she mentors teens who carry the same loss. She says what they need most isn’t control, it’s care.
“What they want is to feel safe,” Howard said. “This includes a safe environment for healing. They want opportunities. They want someone to believe in them.”
Survivors credit community programs with a drop in shootings this year, but those programs are starting to lose funding, and now they’re watching the conversation shift toward troops instead of support.
“The troops coming here will only cause more problems,” said Eric Wilkins. “They will only put more trauma on us as men here in Chicago being Black and brown, especially.”
These survivors are asking for investment in therapy and mentorship and programs that interrupt violence before police ever show up. They want stability.
They want to keep doing the work and they want to be heard before more lives are lost.