Members Of Safe Streets Plan To Honor DaShawn McGrier On Saturday
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Members of Safe Streets will gather Saturday at noon to remember DaShawn McGrier, a young father who worked with the anti-violence program.
They plan to meet at the site of the mass shooting that took three lives Wednesday in the 2400-block of East Monument Street, just a few blocks from Johns Hopkins Hospital. One victim survived the shooting and no arrests have been made.
Councilman Antonio Glover remembered McGrier as a person who "gave back to his community. But as a result of him giving back to his community, he lost his life."
Glover is calling for tougher penalties for gun crimes and more resources for his district to handle violence. He told WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren he understands people are fed up with the shootings. "It is very tough. It's tough when you hear from constituents who want to leave the community," he said. "Everybody is sick and tired of being sick and tired. I understand it because enough is enough."
McGrier is the third Safe Streets worker murdered in a little more than a year.
Dante Barksdale, a respected leader in the program, was shot last January.
And Kenyell Wilson, who spent years with Safe Streets in Cherry Hill, was gunned down in July.
The program uses people respected in the community as peacemakers to mediate disputes before they turn violent.
"When you have individuals like the Barksdales and the Kenyells and the DaShawns who have turned their lives around to give back to the safe streets organization only for them to lose their lives doing their jobs, it's frustrating," Glover said.
Daphne Alston with Mothers of Murdered Sons And Daughters knows the pain, after losing her own child.
"My son got murdered, shot in his head contact wound. People say shake it off, god is going to bring you through that. No, that's not what's going to happen. That was an evil act, and my heart goes out to the person who killed my son and these other young men and women because it's learned behavior," Alston said.
She regularly works with victims of violence and holds a vigil each year to remember the city's homicide victims. "When the smoke clears, there's joy that comes in the morning. We are not going to let their children's lives go in vain," she said.
Alston noted the community needs to come together to help stop the bloodshed. "It does take a village, and we need the village to come back," she said.
She also said adults need to nurture and mentor young people who are impacted by the violence. "Young people don't know what to do with their pain, they haven't been taught. They're burying their friends every day. That's pain, pain, pain."
