Community in DeKalb County rallies against surge in gun violence
DeKalb County community rallies against gun violence
A barbershop in the South DeKalb community held a 'Stop the Violence' rally Friday after a man was recently shot and killed at the establishment.
DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. - Members of one community in DeKalb County said they have had enough.
After a surge in gun violence across the Atlanta metro area, Damien Tatum, owner of Slight Edge Barbershop, felt he had to do something.
Especially after a shooting right outside his front door left one of his customers 29-year-old DeTrey Bass dead.
"It impacted the barbershop and it impacted one of our clients," Tatum said. "It really hurt me, it really touched me."
On Friday afternoon, he held a "Stop the Violence" event in that same parking lot Bass was murdered.
Just hours earlier, DeKalb County police said that U.S. Marshalls arrested a suspect in the shooting in another state.
About two miles up Candler Road from Slight Edge, Marquitta Willis, a supermarket clerk, was shot dead two weeks ago because she had asked a customer to put on a mask.
Last Tuesday, a 16-year-old boy was shot dead by another 16-year-old boy elsewhere in DeKalb County.
Within the last 72 hours alone, the Gun Violence Archive has tracked at least nine shootings in the region.
Clippers in hand, Tatum has a unique grasp on the painful impact gun violence leaves behind.
"Those people's kids still come through here," he said. "You could still see the hurt on these kids’ faces after."
Tatum said he knows he cuts the hair of at least four young boys who have lost their fathers to gun violence.
"When they come back here, this becomes a little sense of normalcy for them," he said.
Ted Terry, a DeKalb County commissioner for district six, said he thinks people have become more emboldened.
"Some of these acts of violence and shootings and murders are becoming more brazen," Terry said.
He thinks in order to fix this, the community needs all hands on deck.
"There’s only so much that our police can do, there’s only so much that our court systems can do," Terry said. "It takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to support the larger community."
Tatum hoped the rally outside of the barbershop would help people realize that.
"Just put it on their mind, we can do something else other than pick up a gun and kill one another," Tatum said. "What we are going to focus on here is different ways of conflict resolution. So we’re not going to worry about what’s happening with the police and things of that sort, we are going to worry about the way we handle ourselves when we have conflict with other people."
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