Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Several local members of the Western New York community gathered on Wednesday evening at Luxor Steak & Lobster on Main Street in Buffalo for a Stop the Violence rally organized by owners Tara and Taru Woods.
Among the local anti-violence organizations also on-hand for Wednesday's rally included those from SNUG Buffalo, Peacemakers and Most Valuable Parents (MVP), the organization the recently saw one of its members, Shakenya Griffin, lose her 3-year-old son in a shooting last Friday carried out by two teenage boys, ages 16 and 14.
"Basically we just decided to do it because there's been so much violence in the city, just since the weather has broken, since it got warm. It really just seems like everybody's crazy, things have turned up another notch," said Tara Woods in an interview with WBEN. "It's not only affecting businesses, but now you have babies being killed, teenagers, and the summer hasn't even started yet."
Wednesday's rally was geared toward trying to bring awareness to the gun violence that has plagued the City of Buffalo in recent months, while also advocating for parents to get more involved in the every day actions of their kids.
"We've got to let these youth know there's more than one way to fight. It shouldn't always have to be with a gun or an instrument, period. There's other ways, but we have to get to them first. If we can get to them kids, then maybe they have a chance, maybe we have a chance," said Marlon Keith, a member of MVP. "The summer just started, there's tragedies that happened already, and this is the first day of summer we're talking about. Something's got to be done, rallies. We have to do whatever we can do."
Woods feels it's very important for parents to be spending as much time as possible with their kids, especially in their teenagers when they may be the most fragile.
"There's so much peer pressure, they're being pulled this direction, pulled that direction, trying to fit in with different groups and trying to find their selves at the same time. High school, before you go to college or before you go off into the world, you think you're grown. That's a very important time, and I think people have to really just start diving into their kids. Just daily checks on your kids. 'Hey, how you doing?' They act like they're grown with their nasty mouths, they're teenagers. It's real easy to be like, 'I don't want to be bothered today with that,' but you have to. You have to be in your kids' faces," Woods said.
Both Woods and Keith were heartbroken by the news of 3-year-old Ramone Carter's death this past Friday, but were perhaps just as shocked on Tuesday when they learned the fatal shooting was carried out by the two young teenagers.
"It's a double edged sword. Either way it goes, this is not a win-win, it's a lose-lose for both sides. Somebody's child is going to prison, somebody's child is already dead. There's no winner in this," Keith said with WBEN. "Let the due process happen, and we just have to teach the youth, they just can't be out here doing stuff like this. You have kids running up-and-down the street in the summertime, people are going to be out. And for the people that got these children to do this heinous act, they should think about it and never send kids to do something [like this]. They don't know what they're doing. They've never been to a gun range or anything like that, so we have to take some accountability as adults for stuff like this. It's awful."
"We have teenagers, and to know that these weapons are in the hands of children who they haven't even lived their lives, and then they took the life of a child, a baby who hadn't even had a chance to go to school yet, hasn't experienced any part of life really outside of being at home with their mom. And these kids, they don't even have the mental capacity to know the impact of their actions. That's what makes me really sad because now you have a baby gone, but these kids are gone too. And they're somebody's baby," Woods added.
Meanwhile, Woods and her husband have also been victim to recent gun violence in the city. Their business on Main Street near UB South Campus has not been open since late May after a shooting took place outside their restaurant that resulted in the death of another individual.
Despite having no direct correlation to the shooting, with the business being closed at the time, the Woods are preparing to go to court on Friday in an effort to get the green light to re-open to the public.
We are in the process, it's a fight," Woods said. "It's odd to us, because we've seen other businesses experience the same things within the past weeks, just as us before us and after us, and they're back open. For some reason, we're held at a different standard, not really sure why. ... We followed the steps that we were supposed to. We called the authorities, they came, they left, and I guess they had something else that was going on that took precedent, and then that ended up happening.
"We're just hoping that things go in our favor on Friday, because this is our livelihood. We have our children to support as well. And to put all of our workers out of employment [15 employees], it has put other people into the street trying to figure out now what they're gonna do. We had some at-risk youth working here as well, and now they're back out here at risk."
