Action United Tackles Gun Violence

Nearly 100 people crowded into the Chester YWCA to talk about solutions to youth violence in Chester.

Moderated by Desire Grover, and featuring a panel of individuals who work on community solutions to violence, the community meeting took on a spirited vibe right from the beginning as people were asked what they found to be the one issue that they considered most pressing. 

Schools, illegal guns, truancy, parents, police, and more, were expressively shared by the passionate audience.

After the panel introduced their particular interests, Desire went into the solution mode hoping to find one or two action items that people could walk away with.

As with most of these type of meetings, it’s difficult to come to any single remedy to the myriad of factors that create our environment ripe with youth violence. But, town watch, youth intervention without conflict, parental control, and the ability to quickly track guns and process crime scene evidence were all topics that were bounced around repeatedly.

It was great to see such a huge cross section of the community come out to the meeting although some suggested that future meetings should take place within the communities and also have more of the young people in attendance.

Yet, Action United took a formidable stand in arranging the meeting which begs for more of the same in the very near future. 

Plenty of people are willing to step up and help stop the violence. As the word spreads that the community is serious, the results will be soon to come.

The Panel 

The Audience Participation

The Moderator

The Issues