A plea to stop gun violence in Hartford. One survivor of gun violence is pushing for a different approach to public safety to hopefully stop shootings and encourage dialogue.
Life hasn’t been the same for the past six years for Barbara Turner. Her son Norris Jackson was shot and killed while working at a Manchester restaurant in December of 2017.
“It devastates families. Your life is never the same,” she said,
She’s still processing his death.
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“The pain never goes away. It will never go away,” she said.
A pain that Aswad Thomas felt when he was shot twice during an attempted robbery at a convenience store in Hartford in 2009. During his recovery, he learned something startling.
“One of the teenagers that shot me was also a victim of gun violence as well. In fact that same doctor that saved my life, saved that teenager’s life as well,” he said.
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That led to Thomas working with Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice. During an event Tuesday, he made a push to get cities to approach public safety differently by helping survivors heal and end the cycle of violence.
“Investing in more conflict resolution, investing in things like violence intervention programs while also investing in things like trauma recovery centers,” he said.
Thomas said some policy solutions include having more trauma recovery centers providing mental health services for victims and protecting their voices by giving input on accountability towards perpetrators.
He said “victim’s rights” currently focus too much on punitive actions rather than measures that encourage rehabilitation.
“Instead of being more punishment, we’re calling on healing and that’s what safety looks like for most crime survivors across the country here,” he said.
Hartford police say murders are down 25 percent from last year with non-fatal shootings down 32 percent.
Thomas says while it’s progress, there’s more to be done.
“We want what happened to us to never happen again. We also want what happened to us to never happen to someone else,” he said.
Turner took Thomas’ advice and says access to therapy has helped her heal. Now she wants others to be given that same opportunity.
“Maybe we can all come together and get a plan to help so many people in my community,” she said.
Thomas said he plans on bringing thousands of gun violence survivors to Washington, D.C. in September to push federal lawmakers to consider right to heal policies.
