Members of the Philadelphia Police Department traded their badges for basketballs Wednesday night to help promote “peace not guns” for kids this summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The competition was high for the Peace Not Guns Memorial Basketball game featuring the Philly Ballers \u2014 a team comprised of members of the police and fire departments, the sheriff’s office and SEPTA police \u2014 vs. the Real Brothers Basketball League, a community anti-violence group. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The event featured a three-point contest along with five-on-five hoops.<\/p>\n
City Council President Kenyatta Johnson started anti-violence initiative Peace Not Guns in 1998 following the murder of his cousin.<\/p>\n
“If they are not involved in things that are positive during the summer, during the time when school is out, they get involved in things that are negative,” Johnson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Albert Custis is the coach for the Real Brothers Basketball League, which hosts games for kids and adults throughout the week at 20th and Tasker streets.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“The basketball league (has been) going on for 10 years \u2014 no shootings, no fights, no nothing,” Curtis said.<\/p>\n
This event at Vare Rec Center is just feet from the site of a mass shooting that killed three people and left nine injured on July 7 along South Etting Street<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n For Commissioner Kevin Bethel, events like this were an integral part of his childhood and now a way to help break the cycle of violence in his city.\u00a0<\/p>\n “I’m a byproduct of the neighborhood, I’m a byproduct of Sherwood Rec Center and a PAL kid,” Bethel said, “and I tell people all the time this is what got me out of the neighborhood.”<\/p>\n And no matter the score, everyone’s goal was the same: Pick up basketballs, not guns, making everyone on this court a winner.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n