RICHMOND, Va. — Richmond Mayor Danny Avula and Police Chief Rick Edwards are vowing to make safety a top priority this weekend, nearly a week after a mass shooting in Shockoe Bottom killed two people and left seven others injured.
Edwards says increased police enforcement will begin Friday evening and will be clearly visible to the public. He described it as the first in a series of solutions that business owners in Shockoe Bottom have been requesting for months.
"We will have a whole different plan this weekend," Edwards said. "It will be more of the summer strategy that we had, so you will see an increased presence. I will be there tonight and through to the weekend. Our team will be there as well. We're going to ensure that what happened last weekend doesn't happen again."
Avula is also pushing for a safety ambassador program through the office of gun violence prevention that would train violence interrupters and community ambassadors to be deployed at different times to support police. He says the program has already seen some progress.
"It might be a group of people who are out on a Friday or Saturday night who are engaging club owners, talking to residents as they leave a club, ensuring people have a safe driving option or as clubs are closing down, ushering people home," Avula said. "We've already trained a small handful of people to do that. And the plan leading up to next fiscal year is to have more funding to try and expand that."
Concrete details on the ambassador program are still pending continued meetings with the office of gun violence prevention.
"Originally, the plan was that we would roll it out sometime this summer. I need to get an update from the office of gun violence prevention for the implementation of that," Avula said.
Avula and Edwards were also asked about establishing a curfew to help curb the potential for violence in the midnight hours. Avula said he believes there are other pressing factors that could be more effective, including legislation in the general assembly that would penalize people for having handguns visibly stored in their vehicles, as well as legislation for gun-free zones.
"There was legislation that got continued in the General Assembly that would have allowed a locality to create gun-free zones. That is a solution that I would very much advocate for, if enabled by the state, to make Shockoe Bottom a gun-free zone," Avula said.
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