Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - The East Buffalo community continues to mourn the loss of 14-year-old Jazzmine Fomby, who was tragically gunned down in a shooting late Saturday night that saw six teens struck by gunfire.
In addition, one of the five teens wounded in that shooting was last known to be in critical, but stable condition at Erie County Medical Center.
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For community leaders and activists alike in East Buffalo, the latest shooting involving teenagers was a shock, and another reason to call for the continued fight against violence across the city.
Masten District Councilwoman Zeneta Everhart said Sunday her heart broke when she first heard of the shooting that claimed the life of a 14-year-old child.
"This is a kid, this is someone's baby that was taken from us, and my heart broke," said Everhart in a Zoom call with the local media. "There are no words. No parent wants to deal with this, no parent wants to go through this. And quite frankly, do they want to hear our condolences? I don't know that they do. It's another one of those moments where it's like, 'Sorry for your loss.' And it's like, 'I don't want to tell that family sorry for your loss. I'm sorry that they lost their baby, but why does this keep happening?' That was my initial reaction. Why? Why are we here again?"
Pastor James Giles from Back To Basics Outreach Ministries and Buffalo Peacemakers says this shooting death of a 14-year-old is devastating, especially with such a focus on engaging with, and improving the lives of teenagers in the community.
"We want to make sure they get an opportunity to live life. We've tried to construct programs and other activities that's going to be positive for them. Unfortunately, we just don't have enough positive recreational activities and entertainment activities that can be supervised and guided for our youth, and they begin to create their own. And sometimes in the creation of that, it begins to attract negative elements. That's what happened here," said Pastor Giles in an interview with WBEN.
Community activist and educator Dr. Eva Doyle was saddened and angered upon hearing what transpired over the weekend in East Buffalo.
"After I thought about it, I thought about my own grandchildren, and I have great-grands. I think everybody could say it could have been one of their children. And for this to happen just about a week, a little more before we are observing the [second] anniversary of the Tops massacre, my community, specifically the African American community, we are dealing with a lot of pain. We have not really healed from the 5/14 massacre, and now we have this, and having young people involved in this," said Doyle while speaking with WBEN.
Everhart is angered by the fact that not only does one family suffer from the loss of their child and loved one, but the other teenagers and their families will have their lives altered in the years to come. It is something Everhart continues to deal with right now with her son Zaire Goodman, who was one of the three survivors of the Tops mass shooting nearly two years ago.
"Being a survivor of gun violence and the mental anguish that they're going to go through, how do we make them feel better? How do we make them feel safe in our communities? I don't have an answer for that, unfortunately, because it hits so close to home, and it's so personal," Everhart said.
"I'm heartbroken as a mother, I'm heartbroken as a community member, I'm heartbroken as a government official. I'm disgusted, quite frankly, with our country and the way we just so easily take lives. We don't think of it as these are humans, these are people, these are people that are a part of our community. I'm just going to be honest, I don't have the words, but I'm angry for these families. I am angry. These are babies, these are children that are going to be traumatized for the rest of their lives around this. And one family doesn't get to have their kid today. And as a community, we should all be disgusted. We should all be angry. It really hurts, and for me, it is about galvanizing our community and our lawmakers across the state and across the country, and our community members."
For activists like Giles and Doyle, they have continued to caution and plead with parents at every turn that it's not safe to allow their children to go out to these type of parties or other events unsupervised, because stuff like what happened Saturday night can happen.
"Unfortunately, we have an element in the community that wants to resolve its issues and problems and angst with each other by hurting each other, and sometimes killing each other. And, again, here we are, the anti-violence community, all of us are scrambling to say, 'What do we need to do?' And the other piece is, 'How do we get the necessary resources, so we can be impactful?'" Pastor Giles said.
"We recently celebrated a birthday for Jaylen Griffin, who was missing for four years, and parents, please, watch what your children are doing. They're too precious for us to just be that laxed in allowing them to move in the way that they want. And unfortunately, sometimes these situations are dangerous, the streets are dangerous. Until we are able to eradicate this element and begin to reduce the proliferation of guns on our city streets, I would be very cautious about what I allow my child to go to after 7 or 8 o'clock at night. It's just unsafe, and it's undetermined what may happen."
"I remember, and this was long time ago, a Channel 7 newscaster, Irv Weinstein, every night in the 11 o'clock news would say, 'It's 11 o'clock. Do you know where your children are?' We need to be reminded, our parents need to be reminded of children at this young age - 14-years-old and there were five young people who were injured, a one I think is still in the hospital - it's going to take a whole lot to solve this. This is a complicated issue. It's going to take a lot to solve these issues," Doyle added.
Another area where Doyle has advised parents to take a more active role in their children's lives is on social media, and what activity they may be engaged in online. Doyle acknowledges, though, that is never an easy task.
"I have three adult children, and during my time, I didn't have to worry about all this stuff. And when I was growing up, I wasn't allowed to go to parties, at 13 or 14 after 11 o'clock. My mother, even when I was in high school, she was saying, 'When I look out that window, you better be standing under that streetlight.' That's hard to enforce now, because times have change. But we have to do more in terms of trying to help our families, because a lot of families are struggling with so many issues now," Doyle said.
Pastor Giles says one of the biggest challenges for the youth of the community is they desire and long for other forms of recreation to rid their sensations of boredom.
"Them sitting at home, playing their games is not enough for them. They are social creatures, they need to be socially interactive with each other. There's a need for that, and so they tend to create their own social constructs. And unfortunately, this kind of thing happens, and I'm upset about it, as many people in the community are," he said.
Where there's an elevated concern for community leaders and activists is with kids having more access to guns. While fights have been, and will continue to be a concern in the community for quite some time, the level of concern jumps significantly higher when kids are resorting to guns to turn violent.
"Our lawmakers are across the state, across the country, many, many of them are pushing for gun reform and getting the guns off the streets. And then it's a slap in your face," Everhart said. "How many more guns do we need to recover? How many more mothers and fathers have to cry at the loss of their kid before we do something about the guns in this country and on our streets, and in our communities, taking our 14-year-old babies from us? It defies all reality. You don't even know what to say."
Pastor Giles feels not many kids understand how gun violence has a way of being final for the people that are engaged in that, particularly those that are victimized by that.
"There's no coming back from that. And it begins to affect a number of families adversely," Giles said. "My kids that were fighting on the corners, we were able to kind of get them, sit them together and resolve the issues. In fact, we just recently had to go to a school, I was called by the administrator. We went up to the school, they're 7th and 8th graders, and we resolved a conflict that was going to be a big beef outside. That was their plan, we were able to dissuade that just by our presence, going and talking to them and mitigating those issues they were having. But this kind of thing, this negatively impacts many families when this happens.
"There's a 14-year-old girl that had brothers and sisters, got a father, mother, uncle, cousins, friends, classmate, it just resonates. And then this character that did this, his family will invariably become affected as well, because he will not get away. He may get by, but he will not get away. I believe in law enforcement, they will tighten up the web on this, and justice will be done."
Dr. Doyle believes this problem is not just a gun problem, especially when it comes to illegal guns, but like Pastor Giles stated, it's the young people not knowing what they're doing, and realizing the consequences of every action.
"They're not adults. At the age of 14, you just want to have a good time, you want to be with your friends. But we have to let them know that what they do now will affect them in their future," she said.
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As of Monday evening, there has been no known arrests made as a result of this past weekend's fatal shooting. For Everhart, her message for the person or people who played their part in carrying out the shooting is to turn themselves in.
"This is our community. The lives of the people in this community are precious. Their life is precious. The choices you're making are not just your choices, those choices have consequences. Someone has lost their life, others are injured," pleaded Everhart. "You're gonna go to jail, and now your family is going to be traumatized, and they're going to have to deal with things because of the choice that you made. So yes, if you had any part in this, turn yourself in."
Meanwhile, both Giles and Doyle are hoping for the community's involvement in helping bringing the perpetrator(s) to justice for the families affected by the shooting.
"The majority of the people that do this involve themselves in this activity because they strongly believe they'll get away and nobody will say anything. Once we start saying stuff, there will be a small element that will continue to do this because they don't care, but the majority of them do care about the consequences of their actions. Once people started saying something, this trend will slow down," Giles said. "It's just we have to begin to orientate the community that nobody should be hiding this, because you've got to begin to look at it like if it happened to your family, you would want somebody to say something. So naturally, we are pleading to people that's involved, if somebody knows something to say something. And this individual that's doing this, if they do that once, they won't to do that again."
"Some of the community members, I think, have come with some information. We need to do more of that. We cannot sit back and allow our young people to take over the village," Doyle added. "This is supposed to be a community of people. They have taken over the village, but the adults must bring it back and control it."
So what calls to action are leaders and activists attempting to make in order to properly address not just this shooting, but also the rise in violence amongst the youth?
For Everhart, she is calling for a ceasefire in the City of Buffalo.
"How many more kids, how many more people? I've said this before, this is not a simulation, this is not a movie. These are real people, and, quite frankly, we all should be angry," she said. "I am angry, everyone in the community should be angry, every lawmaker in the city, in the country, in the state should be angry, because we can't make this better for these families. We can't make it better. So we need to put our minds together, and we need to come out and call for a ceasefire in the City of Buffalo. That is someone's baby that was taken from us."
Pastor Giles is efforting to reach out to the Anti-violence Forum that was formulated a couple years ago, and trying to organize another meeting to take the next actions to better ensure the safety of the community.
"We met on a regular basis and talked strategically around what it is that each of us could do, and how we can network with each other. And in those forums were not only the anti-violence groups that I mentioned, but also other groups, positive groups that work with young people and training. People from restorative justice were in those groups, the probation department, the District Attorney's Office was a part of that forum that we had. I'm talking about reconvening that, so I'm reaching out to all my friends and the people that are stakeholders in this to say, 'Let's get together and let's begin to develop some strategy about how we can begin to tighten up or, at least, expand the preventative measures that we've all done so well,' But we need to do even more. We have to have the resources to do that," Giles said.
Meanwhile, Dr. Doyle is calling for the church community, particularly the Black church community, to come together and have a town hall meeting to discuss this ongoing community crisis, and come up with some possible solutions.
"We can talk to each other as a family, like families would get together and solve their problems, and see what we can come up [with]," she said. "If our young people can call each other and come together on social media, and come together with 100 or more young people at one time, we, as a church community and other organizations, should be able to put out a call and come together with 100 or more in a town hall meeting. And I'm not only talking to the church community, I'm talking to the sorority members, the fraternity members to come together. And when you walk through the door, wherever that meeting is going to be held, put your titles aside. Come in there as a concerned community member with the determination to come up with some solutions."
In addition, Doyle is asking to bring back a campaign she started on the first anniversary of the Tops mass shooting.
"Through my writings and on the radio, I called for people to put on their porch lights - I called it, 'Lights for Peace' - in memory of the 10 victims and the three who were injured in the Tops massacre. I just wrote it up for this coming week, but I'm going to extend it," Dr. Doyle detailed. "I'm going to extend it in memory of our young people, this 14-year-old girl who we lost in a senseless killing, the missing young man -Jaylen Griffin - who we lost, and all of the young people who are getting killed. I'm going to extend it beyond that weekend and ask people to join me."