‘It Takes a Village’: Vicksburg unites to ‘Stop the Violence’

VICKSBURG, Miss. (VDN) — Citizens and officials of Vicksburg came together yesterday to address the recent violence in the city, specifically addressing the challenges with the younger generation at a Stop the Violence Rally held at Catfish Row Park on Levee Street.

Just this week, a 15-year-old shot his uncle out in the county. The uncle did not receive life-threatening injuries. The only murder recorded in the city this year was 19-year-old Quincy Peoples, who was shot in an armed robbery near Locust and Jefferson streets. Two others were wounded in the incident.

After a prayer and a saxophone rendition of “Amazing Grace” by upcoming seventh grader Rush Sudds, James Johnson Jr. addressed the crowd.

“I am here today to tell you about violence,” said Johnson Jr. “We all gather here today to say, ‘Stop the gun violence.’ There are many people that have been shot in Vicksburg. It should never be this many people getting shot, especially kids. Vicksburg, Mississippi, is one good town to stay in. It should not have any violence in it.”

At the rally, Alderman T.J. Mayfield reminded the crowd that it takes a village to raise a child.

“We’ve got to have some courage ourselves,” Mayfield said. “We have to do the job of making sure our young people are coming up in the right way. Everybody wants to cast blame on the next person, but when I was growing up, I always heard, ‘It takes a village to raise a child.’ Not every child, but a child. That means each and every one of us has the responsibility to reach back and try to save somebody else. Now, I know we’ve gotten to the point in life where ‘I got mine, you get yours,’ but if that continues to happen, we’re gonna continue to have this cycle of violence that we have in Vicksburg. The chief of police can’t do it all. The police department can’t do it all. The sheriff can’t do it all. We as the city of Vicksburg can’t do it all. We’re a community.”

Alderman Alex Monsour also spoke at the event and said that although the city has recently enacted the largest penalty for shooting within the city limits, more action is required. The city recently raised the penalty for discharging a weapon inside the city limits from a maximum of 90 days in jail to up to 12 months in jail, the maximum legally allowed.

“We did all we could do as a misdemeanor in the city of Vicksburg,” said Monsour. “We raised it up as far as we could, but we’re gonna need some help from outside of the city. That’s coming from on the federal side of this thing to where maybe we can get these guys that are discharging these guns and shooting at people, where the crime would be up to 10 years. … I’m not saying we need to put all these people in jail, but if we don’t get the bad ones off the streets, the good ones don’t have a chance. So we’re gonna get tougher.”

Sheriff Martin Pace spoke directly to the parents in addressing knowing where your children are and what they are doing, and more importantly: “Violence is a choice.”

“Violence is a choice. Violence is a decision that you made,” said Pace. “When I hear somebody say, ‘Well, he made me mad.’ Nobody made you mad. That’s the way you reacted. It may have been something that you didn’t like. It may have been something said or done that was against what you believe, but how you react to it is your choice. It’s your decision to walk away from it or react inappropriately. A lot of the crimes that we deal with spill over city and county. Chief Jones and I talk all the time. Our investigators work with each other all the time. And it’s the same bad decisions, whether you live in Oak Ridge or Yokena or Bovina or downtown Vicksburg. It’s the same bad decisions that are getting these young people in trouble. So I guess I’m going back to the adults. Know where your kids are, know what time they come home, know who their friends are.”

Vicksburg Police Chief Penny Jones reiterated that it starts at home and encouraged parents to enroll their children in the upcoming community streetball program beginning June 2.

“So you all keep, keep, keep continuing to work with your kids in the community,” said Jones. “We’ve got streetball coming up, so please bring your children out. They have an opportunity to play basketball [and] football. We have mentors coming over to the schools to speak with the kids. This is a way for us to have an opportunity to get the kids off the street in the afternoon, so they won’t get into mischief. We don’t want that happening. The children are our future. We have to teach them the right way in order for us to be able to retire so that we can go home, because right now, the way things are looking, I might have to stay here another 20 years of work because I’m so afraid that something just ain’t gonna go right with some of these young folks.”