For three hours, police, hospital administrators, criminologists, and emergency room surgeons tried to convey to a panel of 10 state legislators the effect that gun violence has on the citizens of Philadelphia.
"I think you have to throw politics out the window and everyone needs to agree there is a problem, and it needs to be fixed in a timely fashion," said Amy Goldberg, chief of trauma at Temple University Hospital, which hosted the hearing of the House Health and Human Services Committee.
"This is a long-term problem, which will take a multitude of solutions and many, many people," said Goldberg, a veteran of 20 years of treating the victims of shootings, stabbings and other life-threatening injuries.
Anne-Marie K. Podgorski, trauma room manager at Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia's Logan section, described the fear permeating her hospital: "We fear being shot as we walk from our cars. . . . We fear that somebody will come into our trauma bay to finish off a patient we're trying to save."
Scott Charles, outreach coordinator of Temple's "Cradle to Grave" program, which provides counseling to gunshot victims and their families to try to break the chain of violence and retaliation, cited the quick official response in September when three people died after eating spinach contaminated by the E. colibacterium.
"We have more than 300 dead in Philadelphia," Charles said. "If this doesn't suggest we're in the middle of a public-health crisis, then I'm not sure what does."
Patrick Carr, a sociologist studying Philadelphia at St. Joseph University's Institution for Violence Research and Prevention, testified that Chicago had dramatically reduced its homicide rate and shootings by implementing community policing and beat cops.
