Antiviolence

A war between teenage gangs injected terror and chaos into a West Philadelphia antiviolence vigil when an 18-year-old woman was shot in the back, police said. Gunfire erupted about 8 p.m. Tuesday as about 150 people attended the vigil in the 6000 block of Market Street for Terrence Walker, 19, who had been shot in the head as he left a bar early Sunday, said Lt. John F. Walker of Southwest Detectives. A gold Mercury Grand Marquis stopped in the middle of the intersection of 61st and Market, and a group of teenagers from 60th Street emerged, said Walker, who is not related to the homicide victim.

After a year and a half of work, the Chester County Violence Prevention Project today will officially announce the establishment of the Chester County Center for a Peaceful Community. The center will serve as a resource for local efforts to prevent violence and assist victims of violence, including victims of spousal and domestic abuse. The center will open within several months, County Commissioner Andrew Dinniman said last week. The center has received grants from the Lang Family Foundation and the Southeast Pennsylvania Area Health Education Center, a West Chester-based organization that serves the five-county Southeastern Pennsylvania region.

When injuries flood into an emergency room, doctors conduct triage to decide the severity of injuries and who gets treatment first. It's time to examine violence in Philadelphia as though it were in triage. Which factors are most urgent; which require long-term treatment? Join us tonight at 6 for a panel discussion of these issues as part of the All Join Hands: Visions of Peace antiviolence mural project. It will be at the F.U.E.L. gallery, 3d and Arch Streets. For more information, call 267-971-0155.

For 16-year-old Tareva Alston, this homework assignment hit home. After her older brother Uri went missing, Tareva poured her emotions into a school essay. When police late last month found a body under the Betsy Ross Bridge that matched her brother's description, Alston and her 10th-grade classmates took action. They created YELL (Young Educated Leaders Leading), an antiviolence group. Yesterday, Alston and more than 30 of her peers gathered at JFK Plaza to honor victims of gun violence.

Thirty-seven years ago, a Philadelphia man decided to marry a widow with six sons, one of whom was a gang member. Yesterday, David Fattah continued to defy convention with his longtime wife, Falaka Fattah, staging an antiviolence youth conference on the last day of Kwanzaa. As many New Year's revellers focused on sobering up, the Fattahs, founders of the House of Umoja, a West Philadelphia boys town for troubled teenagers, responded to a sobering statistic: 380 Philadelphia homicides in 2005.

In a Germantown high school auditorium yesterday, young people gave community activists and law enforcement officials an earful of something rarely heard: frank talk about how youth violence affects teens. "Someone had me trapped in a corner with a gun to my head," said a student named Royal who did not give his last name when he came to the lectern. "I ran away. I told the cops, and I still got no justice. " Royal was among a stream of students who stepped to a lectern in the packed auditorium of Germantown High School to tell community leaders and law enforcement officials their stories, in a program organized by the Mayor's Office of Community Service.

On a blustery, bitter Friday night last fall, hate came crashing through Patrick Morrison's living room window. "I came downstairs and I felt a draft, and I saw these two things that looked like stones or rocks on the floor," Morrison recalled yesterday. "I was in a state of shock. " The window was shattered. His front door, covered with eggs. And his family, frightened. All because Morrison, who is black, had recently moved onto a block in mostly white Burholme in Northeast Philadelphia.

Philadelphia is our home, and the recent string of violent crime and the desire to find a solution to this epidemic weighs on our hearts and minds, just as it does with many other citizens. The state legislature has worked to implement a number of anticrime measures and worked to get illegal firearms off Pennsylvania's streets, but we, all Philadelphians, believe that the city's problems must be addressed through education and prevention, focusing on those who are most at risk of falling into the dark and deadly realm of violent crime.

The prevalence of violence in our schools ("Assault on Learning," April 3) is no surprise to our members. Many of them are the targets of violence. The solution to this culture of chaos must go way beyond cameras in the hallways. We need personnel who are there to work with the students. We need non-teaching assistants and counselors. Over the last five years, the School District has removed 50 percent to 75 percent of the assistants from our schools. Assistants supervise students inside and outside the school buildings and in the cafeteria.

An 18-year-old man was charged yesterday with attempted murder in the shooting of another teenager at an antiviolence vigil Tuesday evening, police said. Kalim Williams was arrested at his home in the 1200 block of Marlyn Road in Overbrook, said Lt. John F. Walker of Southwest Detectives. Williams told police he had a pending gun-possession case in Family Court. Williams shot Bianca Junious, 18, in the back as she tried to flee with some other teenage girls in a gold Oldsmobile 88 from the 6000 block of Market Street, where a vigil was being held for Terrence Walker, 19, who was shot to death there early Sunday.

WASHINGTON - House Republicans set up a showdown Wednesday with the Senate and President Obama over legislation to protect women from domestic violence, a fight that's become as much about female voters this election year as cracking down on abuse. The House voted 222-205 to reauthorize the 1994 Violence Against Women Act for five years, as the Senate already had done. But big differences remain: Obama, other Democrats and a long list of advocacy groups say the House bill doesn't go far enough to protect abused immigrants, Native Americans or gays.

In his inaugural address earlier this month, Mayor Nutter declared that reducing gun violence would be one of his top priorities. That task is all the more urgent now that the city has seen a spate of senseless killings, including a triple shooting in Juniata Park. The mayor has done a good job of expressing community outrage and empathizing with the survivors, but so far his antiviolence agenda is short on new specifics. More cops are coming, the mayor says, and he's promised a crackdown on illegal guns.

The World Cafe has hosted a lot of wild and crazy events, but seldom has it hosted anything like Jesus, Bombs, & Ice Cream , which strikes up at 7 p.m. Saturday. Jesus? Bombs? Ice cream? All in one breath? Well, yes, and that's the point. An impressive and surprising coalition of folks will be on hand to perform, present, and play. They're taking aim at the epidemic of violence in U.S. society, drawing a special bead on the Pentagon budget. Ben Cohen, the Ben of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, will be there.

On one of the hottest nights of the year and amid a chilling two weeks of violence, a group of Norristown church members walked the streets of the community with a simple intent: to be seen. Two young people had been shot and killed in Norristown within nine days. The 20 men and women walked in an effort to curb the violence, but not by overt preaching from the good book. "As members of churches, we tend to turn the city over and not be out at night," Ralph Gordon said Friday as he stood on the corner of Marshall and George Streets, with the temperature over 90 degrees.

The prevalence of violence in our schools ("Assault on Learning," April 3) is no surprise to our members. Many of them are the targets of violence. The solution to this culture of chaos must go way beyond cameras in the hallways. We need personnel who are there to work with the students. We need non-teaching assistants and counselors. Over the last five years, the School District has removed 50 percent to 75 percent of the assistants from our schools. Assistants supervise students inside and outside the school buildings and in the cafeteria.

Homicides in New Jersey dropped by 24 percent in the first six months of 2009 compared with the same time last year, Gov. Corzine said yesterday. There were 158 homicides reported from January through June, compared with 209 during the same stretch in 2008. In Camden, homicides were cut nearly in half in the first six months this year compared with the same time in 2008. In the first half of this year, there were 17 killings in Camden, compared with 30 in that time last year, according to police statistics.

Wayne Fussell, 11, thinks gangs are Camden's biggest problem. Charles Watkins, 17, believes an inadequate school system hurts the city most. George Jimenez, 12, says simply that Camden has too many "hobos. " They were three of about 100 middle and high school students who gathered yesterday at the First Nazarene Baptist Church to talk about the violence and pressures that affect Camden's young people. The antiviolence forum, hosted by the Camden Center for Youth Development, included workshops with youth leaders, who offered students a chance to discuss the challenges of growing up in Camden.

Scott Charles describes himself as the "biracial black son of a white alcoholic single mother raised in a Mexican neighborhood in Sacramento. " He was a drug addict at 18. In his 20s, he cleaned up. Through personal enlightenment and a few lucky breaks, Charles made his way to Philadelphia and earned an Ivy League degree. In 2005, he landed a job as trauma outreach coordinator at Temple University Hospital and helped create a program called Cradle to Grave, which exposes troubled youth to the gruesome reality of urban violence.

Some people question the necessity of students learning African American history. The d'Zert Club and its African Genesis Corrective History Educational Program do not. They recently celebrated 10 years of exposing black youth to their true history and their connection to the land of their ancestors - Africa. Founded in Philadelphia and now operating in 12 cities nationwide, the organization has changed the lives of black youth. The program is a proactive, three-semester, educational and cultural program for African American young people ages 7 to 14, focused on developing an understanding and awareness of the African experience in America.

Philadelphia is facing a crisis of violent crime. According to the annual Philadelphia Safe and Sound report card on children's well-being, the number of homicides of youths in the city - 179 - was the highest in a decade. We know how to stem this tide of violence against our youngest citizens. For eight years, Philadelphia's Youth Violence Reduction Partnership - a successful, nationally recognized program - has worked with at-risk youth in the city's most violent neighborhoods.