On the heels of a yet another fatal shooting on Feb. 6, one Brooklyn community came together Sunday to call for an end to gun violence on their streets.
Canarsie residents gathered on Feb. 12 at a rally for recent shooting victims in the southern Brooklyn neighborhood: 20-year-old Ethen Flowers, who was gunned down last week near the corner of Paerdegat 1st Street and East 79th Street and 40-year-old Billy Jean Hippolyte, a father who was fatally shot last month near the corner of E. 83rd Street and Flatlands Avenue, not far from where Flowers was killed.
During the showing, Hippolyte’s two siblings, Naomi and Ruth Hippolyte, called not only for peace, but also for funding to help get guns off the city’s streets.
“Why are these guns coming to our community?” the two asked. “We need this funding to come in. We are asking for peace.”
While shootings in Brooklyn’s 69th Precinct, which serves the Canarsie community, are reportedly down year-to-date, elected officials on Sunday urged the city to look beyond the data — especially when that data directly impacts a community.
“The data means nothing,” said Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. “The Black and Brown community is still dealing with it even through the data,” the public advocate said, thanking the victims’ families for being there. Williams also used his time to call for funding for violence interrupters — and for the communities where these shootings are most frequently occurring.
Williams said deaths like Flowers and Hippolyte’s are preventable with the help of local cure violence groups and other crucial resources.
“These kids deserve whatever you can give them,” he said. “They need another outlet. Help us change the mindset.”
As of Feb. 5, when the most recent data is available, reported shootings are down 50 percent year-to-date in the 69th Precinct, according to Police Department data and, citywide, they’re down 27 percent compared to this time last year.
Still,…
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