by Jeremy Morrison, Inweekly
Following another shooting Monday in a string of shootings in recent weeks in the Pensacola area, local officials joined with victims’ family members Wednesday to implore people with any information regarding the shootings to step forward.
Tameika Crayton was among those family members who stood on the steps of Pensacola City Hall and asked the community for help. Her brother, Terrell Crayton, was shot earlier this week as he sat in a car. He is currently in the hospital.
“We need to put the guns down, that’s all I’m asking, please stop shooting. It don’t make no sense.â€
Tameika Crayton
“My brother is fighting for his life now, he was on his way to work, he had nothing to do with nothing, he was at the wrong place, wrong time, he was on his way to work, so why? Why the guns?†Crayton said. “We need to put the guns down, that’s all I’m asking, please stop shooting. It don’t make no sense.â€
Escambia County Commission Chairman Lumon May said he has known Crayton since he was about 4-years-old, when the child began participating in a local youth sports program. During Wednesday’s press conference he spoke about the personal loss felt across a community due to gun violence.
“The lives that have been lost are not just statistics or social security numbers.”
Commissioner Lumon May
“The lives that have been lost are not just statistics or social security numbers,†May said. “These are children that we work with daily in our youth program and after school program and our sport program.â€
In the past three weeks there have been four shootings in the Pensacola area. Two of the shootings have been drive-by events and the string of shootings have resulted in two deaths.
“There are lives that are cut short, these people are brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters that are killed.â€
Mayor Grover Robinson
“There are lives that are cut short, these people are brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters that are killed,†said Pensacola Mayor Grover Robinson.
Another family member of a gun-violence victim that spoke at the June 5 press conference was Cindy Martin, who’s son Mathew Sheldon Cox, Jr., was shot and killed in 2012.
“I hate that people are being so complacent, because I have people that live three, four, five blocks away that never heard of my child, of his murder,†the mother said.
In her comments, Martin linked gun violence in the African-American community to poverty and infrastructure issues, as well as with the lack of schools in black neighborhoods.
