Baltimore Vigil Image Source
On Sunday July 22nd, I packed the last of my belongings into my car and said a fond farewell to Baltimore, a city I have so enjoyed calling my home for the last 11 years. As I began the 9-hour trek north to my new home in Toronto Canada, I couldn't help but reflect upon the initial reactions I have received from so many who are familiar with my research on survivors of homicide victims…”why would you leave the states!?!?!?! Homicide violence is rampant here!” There is certainly glaringly painful truth to these words. In 2016 Baltimore experienced 318 homicides, in 2017 342 and to date 161 homicides have occurred in the city, averaging 23 murders a month. While Baltimore, MD and many US cities like it have more murders-per-capita than Toronto, less than 24 hours after moving here texts messages and various alerts flooded my social media feed informing me of the mass shooting that took place Sunday evening on Danforth Avenue, the epicenter of Canadian city’s Greektown killing an 18-year-old recent high school graduate, a 10-year-old girl and injuring 13 others.
Toronto is grappling with a sharp rise in gun violence this year. Deaths from gun violence have jumped 53 to 26 percent so far in 2018 from the same period last year with the number of shootings rising by 13 percent. Toronto has experienced 48 homicides within the city since January 1st. That's more than double the 23 homicides that occurred last year at this point.
As I watched politicians, law enforcement, community members and neighbors on the TV screen express sentiments of shock, horror and inexplicable pain as they wrestled with why the shooting in Toronto’s Greektown occurred and how do they go about surviving such tragedy, I realized that this grappling of one’s emotions is something that I am all too familiar with both personally and professionally. I as a Black homicide and trauma researcher with over 2 decades of experience working with and for survivors of homicide victims know that this culture of violence is a common occurrence that continues to plague our most vulnerable throughout our global community.
Homicide-related death has an immense impact on the mental, physical, and spiritual well-being of family members, friends, and communities who must face the daunting challenge of learning to survive the homicide of their loved one. In the days, weeks, and months that follow survivors of this tragedy can expect to experience a range of emotions (e.g., disbelief, anger, sadness, hyper vigilance).
Although, learning to survive such tragedy and injustice is familiar terrain for US citizens, Sunday’s horrific tragedy is a jarring reminder of the fact that no one is immune to violence and therefore we must be vigilantly focused on cities like Baltimore overwhelmingly impacted by homicide violence but also those beyond it. Our ability to support survivors of homicide victims assist law enforcement, first responders and policy makers in preventing and responding to homicide violence lies within our ability to expand our worldview, working as a cross national collective made up of members of our global community committed to understanding factors that contribute to homicide violence, developing strategies to best prevent it and when homicide violence does occur making accessible services designed to best support survivors struggling to make sense out of that which is senseless.
As someone who is new to the Toronto community I am still becoming familiar with local service providers. As I do begin to immerse myself in the community I look forward to providing you with resources to culturally responsive programing that adequately reflects the needs of our diverse communities.
On Sunday July 22nd, I packed the last of my belongings into my car and said a fond farewell to Baltimore, a city I have so enjoyed calling my home for the last 11 years. As I began the 9-hour trek north to my new home in Toronto Canada, I couldn't help but reflect upon the initial reactions I have received from so many who are familiar with my research on survivors of homicide victims…”why would you leave the states!?!?!?! Homicide violence is rampant here!” There is certainly glaringly painful truth to these words. In 2016 Baltimore experienced 318 homicides, in 2017 342 and to date 161 homicides have occurred in the city, averaging 23 murders a month. While Baltimore, MD and many US cities like it have more murders-per-capita than Toronto, less than 24 hours after moving here texts messages and various alerts flooded my social media feed informing me of the mass shooting that took place Sunday evening on Danforth Avenue, the epicenter of Canadian city’s Greektown killing an 18-year-old recent high school graduate, a 10-year-old girl and injuring 13 others.
Toronto is grappling with a sharp rise in gun violence this year. Deaths from gun violence have jumped 53 to 26 percent so far in 2018 from the same period last year with the number of shootings rising by 13 percent. Toronto has experienced 48 homicides within the city since January 1st. That's more than double the 23 homicides that occurred last year at this point.
As I watched politicians, law enforcement, community members and neighbors on the TV screen express sentiments of shock, horror and inexplicable pain as they wrestled with why the shooting in Toronto’s Greektown occurred and how do they go about surviving such tragedy, I realized that this grappling of one’s emotions is something that I am all too familiar with both personally and professionally. I as a Black homicide and trauma researcher with over 2 decades of experience working with and for survivors of homicide victims know that this culture of violence is a common occurrence that continues to plague our most vulnerable throughout our global community.
Homicide-related death has an immense impact on the mental, physical, and spiritual well-being of family members, friends, and communities who must face the daunting challenge of learning to survive the homicide of their loved one. In the days, weeks, and months that follow survivors of this tragedy can expect to experience a range of emotions (e.g., disbelief, anger, sadness, hyper vigilance).
Although, learning to survive such tragedy and injustice is familiar terrain for US citizens, Sunday’s horrific tragedy is a jarring reminder of the fact that no one is immune to violence and therefore we must be vigilantly focused on cities like Baltimore overwhelmingly impacted by homicide violence but also those beyond it. Our ability to support survivors of homicide victims assist law enforcement, first responders and policy makers in preventing and responding to homicide violence lies within our ability to expand our worldview, working as a cross national collective made up of members of our global community committed to understanding factors that contribute to homicide violence, developing strategies to best prevent it and when homicide violence does occur making accessible services designed to best support survivors struggling to make sense out of that which is senseless.
As someone who is new to the Toronto community I am still becoming familiar with local service providers. As I do begin to immerse myself in the community I look forward to providing you with resources to culturally responsive programing that adequately reflects the needs of our diverse communities.