PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Dozens of kids came together Friday at Temple University for a youth violence prevention basketball game between officers and students from Kensington Creative and Performing Arts High School.
“We try to bring the youth together and show them a different way because you can have a disagreement on the street or whatever, but you can solve that [without] gun violence,” said Officer Brian Graves, who coached one of the teams.
He says cops need to earn the trust of kids for any chance at stopping the bullets.
“We got to do it together, we can’t do it ourselves.”
The number of teenagers shot each year keeps rising – from about 100 in 2016 and 2017 to now more than 200 kids per year, with about five dozen kids shot in 2023 alone.
Rahmel, a 15-year-old from South Philly, says he hears gunshots at night but doesn’t necessarily trust the police to help solve the problem.
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“When I was younger I used to be scared of the cops because of something personal that happened, but as I got older, I understand what their job was to do, so I lost that fear,” Rahmel said.
For reasons like this, Graves runs Philly Ballers Bridging the Gap basketball team with other first responders to play on the court with kids throughout the community so they can see them as friends, not foes.
“Sometimes the uniformed police officers is intimidating and sometimes they don’t want to come to us and talk to us, so here we use basketball to break that ice. So when they see us in the street, instead of them knowing me as Officer Graves, they can know me as Brian.”
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Rahmel agrees with this sentiment.
“I feel like if we have these charity events, we can bring a bond to the community and all get along with each other. I do think it’s going to work.