Does Richmond have a crime problem? Community members share their voices.

RICHMOND, Va. -- How big of a problem is gun violence in Richmond and what can be done to help? On Wednesday, July 17, CBS 6 anchor Bill Fitzgerald sat down with Mark Whitfield, Maurice Washington, Charles Willis, David Bey and Pastor Marvin Gilliam at Trinity Baptist Church to discuss the issue of crime in Richmond.

Below are lightly edited excerpts from our conversation.

WATCH: Does Richmond Have a Gun Violence Problem?

Bill: Your beautiful nine-year-old daughter, Markiya, was shot and killed on a playground in the middle of the day and caught in the crossfire between people perhaps settling a score. What are you seeing? Does Richmond have a gun violence problem today?

Mark Whitfield (Daughter Markiya Dickson was killed in 2019 at Fonticello Park in Richmond): Every day is like, 'It's another one.' I always ask, where the numbers come from, where are they getting statistics from? How're they keeping tabs on these violent crimes? 

Who's really sitting back notating this, or that?

We want to know the facts on the numbers. Because if you live in the middle of it, it looks different from what you see on paper. It feels different than what you see on paper.

Bill: You've been to way too many scenes, way too many neighborhoods where people are hurting, like Mark. What do you see? Does Richmond have a gun violence problem?

Charles Willis (United Communities Against Crime): We have a crisis. It needs to be dealt with the same way that we are dealing with the homeless crisis. [As far as the] homeless crisis, Richmond took a stab at it. Sorry for that use of the word, but they took a took a plug at it, and put a lot of dollars and resources towards it. We need those just as much for this gun violence.

Pastor Marvin Gilliam (Richmonders Involved to Strengthen our Communities, RISC): It is an issue that's so multifaceted. And that really requires the totality of the resources that we can put in, rather than some words from our elected officials.

But I think also there has to be community accountability, as well as the community involvement. How are we taking care of one another?

David Bey (Trauma Healing Response Network): It is a crisis. And it is. Actually, like we said, It's firearm death and injury. Gun violence is a national problem. Yeah, Richmond, we have a problem. 

We've had a problem.

And those people that have been in the city or are related to someone in the city, going back to the 90s, a lot of people are saying that the consistency of it looks like the mid- to early-90s.

In Richmond, those of you that have been around remember.

But we want to make sure we frame the narrative accurately when we say firearm death and injury, because that way, we know we're focusing on the numbers that we see. And we're also speaking on behalf of our specific communities. Gun violence is a national problem.

What are programs that are working?
CBS 6 is committed to sharing community voices on this important topic. Email your thoughts to the CBS 6 Newsroom.

Bill: What do you see that works? One on one contact obviously seems to have a huge impact, I would guess.

Maurice Washington (REAL Life, Recovering from Everyday Addictive Lifestyle): And that's what needs to have more is identifying those who are at risk and then coming to them and seeing what they need and intervening. Once we identify the people who may be shot, or may be doing the shooting, we go to their door and let them know that.

But one of the initial responses sometimes is, 'How do you know, why you think that I'm involved in something? I'm not doing nothing!'

And my immediate response is, 'We have people that identify situations, and your name came up as somebody that's at risk. But I'm not here for that'- we let them know, automatically know, we're only here to help. 'We're only here to connect you to resources.' I tell them that, straight up, 'I don't want to know anything that you got going on. You know, I'm just I'm just here to see how I can help you know, if you need somebody to talk to, connect you to therapy.'

David Bey (Trauma Healing Response Network): And what are we doing? We have ongoing programs. The Trauma Healing Response Network is over 33 organizations, nonprofits, advocates, mentors, educators, and you know, to what the brother was saying. We have programs like the Broken Men Foundation, and the Broken Man Youth Academy. That's teenagers from junior high school, middle school, up to, I think, 27 years old. They mentor, they educate, and they build relationships.

So what are we seeing and what are we doing? Yeah, we respond to firearm injuries and firearm deaths. And we come in and we provide resources to the families that are in crisis as a result. But the day before that happened, the week before that happened, the month before that happened, we're in that very community, trying to build relationships.

Pastor Marvin Gilliam (Richmonders Involved to Strengthen our Communities): I'm a former public schools teacher, administrator. I was teaching at the former George Wythe High School. And one of the things that was always apparent after a student was killed, after gun violence in the community, or a family member was killed, that kid comes to school, and it was affecting how they would be able to focus on learning in school, you know?

WTVR

So they come in hungry, they come in and they ain't slept all night because they heard gunshots. And we're asking about, we're worried about SOL scores. And it's like, 'man, these babies trying to survive, make it from one day to the next' and that, and that was one of the things that was really sad.

One of the things I saw even earlier on in my teaching career I hadn't even realized.

Once I started talking to the students, understanding where they were coming from, it was like, I gotta figure out new ways to support them and understand that they come in tired.

It ain't because they don't want to learn, it's because they had a rough night. You know, and they're leaving. This is the only time we gonna be able to get some sleep. So how do we give grace?

How do we find ways to support our young people in the community? How do we make opportunities for our young men? I think, one of the things I see that has done a lot, we focused on, are youth programs. And I think that that is a phenomenal thing.

But what happens when kids age out of those programs, what happens to the 22- to 23- or 24-year-old that may not have had the best experience in education and may not have the skills? How do we help support those individuals, so now, they don't have to turn to streets and turn to violence as a way to just like survive and make ends meet? How did you give them skills?

Bill: We talked about lots of interventions and talked a lot about applying resources like helping whether it's a rent issue, whether it's an acute health issue. How would this play out in your neighborhood, Mark? How would we make an impact in your neighborhood?

Mark Whitfield: That's why I've really focused on children because you know what, I can't go get a grown man to change his ways. But a kid, I'm looking at the future, I'm thinking ahead it again. Because that little 10-year-old, you're gonna be 16 in a little while. He's gonna be the one right toting a gun if you don't give him no structure. 

WTVR

[Local officials need to come out], dress like me, dress like him. Come out in the 'hood. Walk through. Don't put on no badge. No, no, no. Cause they see that, then you [as a cop] are all that matters. Even for my pastors. I love religion. Nothing against it. But we can't go out with the [formal dress], no we gotta look like them, talk like them That's why people connect with me because I'm not coming to put on no suit to talk to you.

What programs would you like to see going forward?
CBS 6 is committed to sharing community voices on this important topic. Email your thoughts to the CBS 6 Newsroom.

Bill: What about going forward, what would you like to see?

Mark Whitfield: The mental thing is the worst, like y'all just don't understand man, the depression that comes with it. 'Cause the victims, the surviving victims, deal with it the best. We need people to tap in like them that's coming around like, 'Hey look, I'm here. You got to have somebody to pick you up sometimes. You feel like it's all over, so that make you flip out of your head and go do some crazy or you just feel like don't matter. Nobody cares.' You crawl under a rock. I done been there. I had suicidal thoughts because of the trauma, the pain, everything just feel like you can't deal.

But our programs [aren't advertised]. These kids that never know none about none of these programs. Nobody knows because it's not televised.

Maurice Washington (REAL Life, Recovering from Everyday Addictive Lifestyles): We need more people to know what's going on, so that they can get involved. Because at the end of the day, we are doing things, but we can't do it ourselves. And my job is, once we identify people who are at risk, my job is to connect him to different individuals in a different community.

People that are able to help, you know, because REAL life doesn't, offer everything, but we connect them to everything. So we need more people that are willing to help

David Bey (Trauma Healing Response Network): We have people in our network, people that are pastors, that are deacons, that are church leaders, and we got people that are non-religious. We have people that are educators, and people that are not traditionally educated, but they go into the community and they get their work done. And they help people prevent themselves from going off the deep end and being in mental health crisis. So it's breaking the barriers down, and then figuring out how to be a team.

So we can focus on the health crisis, and not judge each other based on what you do or don't do, what I do or don't do, and how we can all figure out what each other's job is and support that. City Council can support somebody that doesn't know anything about political stature and City Council advocacy. And I can support somebody that is only focused on elders who are dealing with Alzheimer's disease. It's just figuring out that we can't speak the same language unless we first go to relationship.

Pastor Marvin Gilliam (Richmonders Involved to Strengthen our Communities, RISC): I want to go back to what Mark said about being a disrupter because what was just described is disrupting, this breaking down barriers is disrupting. And I think that that's really important in this whole process: is how do we how do we make sure, how do I make sure that everything that I got going with the Trauma Response, that my folks will know and my church will know so that they can carry into their community?

And say, oh, yeah, I heard my pastor talking about this, because some of that were some of the some of the best advertising is word of mouth, right?

And then they're able to share that in their communities in the networks that they're in. And that's one way to do it as well. But we also disrupt by making sure making sure that all of these organizations at the table all of the ones that are in our communities, that we able to come together and know what everybody was working on know what everybody offers, understand what folks are doing in their particular lane so that we can then use that connective tissue that you know, we talked about it we have the networks that we had, and broaden our networks so that young people, elders, everybody can feel safe, everybody can live healthy, everybody can move towards a holistic new, safe, safe, surviving - past surviving - into a thriving life.

So that takes that takes the whole community elected officials and any cats on the corner. It takes everybody to be that.

Mark Whitfield: When I was growing up, they had something called Richmond Career Redevelopment, right? And that took us out of the streets, man, like we was in the streets. But it gave us a job. It took us right down Broad Street, you're going in there, they had computers. You had a pastor, you had structure. [But] they couldn't fund it no more. Let's defund it, right? We don't know what happened to all the Boys and Girls Clubs? They're slowly closing them down. Oh, we don't have funding for that. Right? It's like why all the stuff that you're taking away is affecting us later.

Charles Willis (Communities United Against Crime): Our elected officials [need to just come out] not to shake hands, not to be seen, not to be notified, not with no security detail, you need to come and shadow Mark, you need to come and shadow these gentlemen here.

With no cameras, no nothing, just shadow us one night. Stay with us, stay with Dave one night and hear that gunfire.

CBS 6 is committed to sharing community voices on this important topic. Email your thoughts to the CBS 6 Newsroom.