A proclamation declaring June 1st as National Gun Violence Awareness Day and June as Gun Violence Awareness Month.
Area. So tourism is a really important part of our economy and also a lot of fun for everybody as well. So thank you so much. Excellent. Thank you. All right, we have. Now Proclamation 594. Councilman Lopez, will you please read it. About Councilman Cashman instead? Councilman Cashman. Yeah. Councilman Cashman. Yes, please. Rita, we had a little typo there. Sorry about that. You know, £1 is as good as another. Yes. This is proclamation number 18 0594, declaring June 1st as National Gun Violence Awareness Day and June is Gun Violence Awareness Month, whereas every day 96 Americans are killed by gun violence. And on average, there are approximately 13,000 gun homicides every year. And. Whereas, Americans are 25 times more likely to be killed with guns than people in other developed countries. And. WHEREAS, in Colorado, 78% of firearm deaths are suicides. Nearly half of all suicide deaths in Colorado involve the use of a firearm, which is the most common method of suicide death in the state. And. Whereas, in 2016, in Colorado, 781 persons died from gun violence, with suicides claiming 605 lives and homicide another 176, with the majority of those dying from gun violence being less than 35 years of age. And. Whereas, in 2016, in Denver, 96 persons died from gun violence with suicides claiming 47 lives and homicide another 49. And. Whereas, the Denver metropolitan area has suffered the devastating impacts of mass shootings at Columbine High School in 1999 and the Aurora Movie Theater in 2012. And Denver has had Colorado's highest gun death totals with more than 800 residents killed by guns in the 12 years between those two horrific events. And. WHEREAS, research indicates there have been more lives lost from gunfire in America than in all the wars in which U.S. troops have been engaged since our nation's founding. Whereas protecting safety in the communities they serve is a city council's highest responsibility. And. Whereas, in January 2013, Hadiya Pendleton, the teacher who marched in President Obama's second inaugural parade and was tragically shot and killed just weeks later should be now celebrating her 21st birthday. And. Whereas, to help honor Hadiya and the 96 Americans whose lives are cut short and the countless survivors who are injured by shootings every day, a national coalition of organizations designated the first Friday in June as the fourth National Gun Violence Awareness Day. And. WHEREAS, the idea was inspired by a group of ideas friends who asked their classmates to commemorate her life by wearing orange, choosing this color because hunters wear orange to announce themselves to other hunters when out in the woods. And. Whereas, anyone can join this campaign by pledging to wear orange on the first Friday in June every year to help raise awareness about gun violence. And. Whereas, by wearing orange on June 1st, 2018, Americans will raise awareness about gun violence and honor the lives of violence victims and survivors. And. Whereas, we renew our commitment to reduce gun violence and pledged to do all we can to keep firearms out of the wrong hands and encourage responsible gun ownership to help keep our children safe. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the Council of the City and County of Denver, Section one, that the Council of the City and County of Denver declares the first Friday of each year, this year, June 1st, 2018, to be National Gun Violence Awareness Day, and the entire month of June to be National Gun Violence Awareness Month and encourages all citizens to support their local communities. Efforts to prevent the tragic effects of gun violence and to honor and value human lives. Section two that the Clerk of the city and county of Denver shall attest and fix the seal of the city and county of Denver to this proclamation and it be transmitted to Josie Brady, Colorado Coalition Against Gun Violence. All right. Thank you, Councilman Cashman. Your motion to adopt. I move that proclamation 18 dash 0594 to be adopted. It has been moved and seconded. Your comments. Councilman Cashman. Thank you, Mr. President. I first want to start by thanking those in the audience and those at home that are working against extremely daunting odds every day to reduce gun violence in our community. I also want to thank our Office of Special Events, who to honor your work, will be lighting the city and county building in Orange . The first week in June. But here we are again. We mourn the students and teachers murdered just the other day by a deranged gunman at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas. Jared Black 17. Shana Fisher 16. Christian Riley Garcia 15. Aaron Kyle McCloud 15. Glenda End Perkins Substitute Teacher. Angelique Ramirez 15. Sabeco Sheikh 17. Chris Stone, 17. Cynthia Tisdale. Teacher. Kimberly Vaughn. Student Age not reported. Since this Gun Violence Awareness Month proclamation was read last year, communities across the land have mourned dozens lost in school shootings, as well as the tens of thousands of men, women and children lost in random homicides and suicides. From sea to not so shining sea. CNN lists the following school shootings thus far in 2018. Most won't ring a bell because they don't rise to the level of carnage that we saw in Parkland, Florida, or Santa Fe, Texas. May 11th, Palmdale, California A 14 year old boy went to Highland High and began shooting a semiautomatic rifle. A 15 year old boy was struck in the shoulder. April 20th, Ocala, Florida a 17 year old student at Forest High School, was shot in the ankle shortly before students were to walk out as part of the national protest against gun violence. April 12th, Raytown, Missouri A man was shot in the stomach at the parking lot of Raytown South Middle School during a track meet. April 9th, Gloversville, New York A student shot another student with a B.B. gun in Gloversville Middle School, March 20th. Lexington Park, Maryland. An armed student shot two others at Great Mills High School. The shooter was killed. One of the students, 16 year old Jaylen Willey, was taken off life support two days later, March 13th. Seaside, California A teacher accidentally discharged a gun during a public safety class at Seaside High School, injuring a student. March eight, Mobile, Alabama. One person was hospital hospitalized after a shooting at an apartment building on the campus of the University of South Alabama March 7th. Birmingham, Alabama. One student was killed and another critically wounded after an accidental shooting at Huffman High School March seven. Jackson, Mississippi A student was shot inside a dormitory at Jackson State University, and it goes on March 2nd in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, February 27, Norfolk, Virginia, February 27. It had been a mississippi February 24th, Savannah, Georgia, and of course, February 14th in Parkland, Florida. 17 unsuspecting students and adults were lost. February nine in Nashville, February 15. Oxon Hill, Maryland. February one in Los Angeles. January 31st in Philadelphia. January 23rd in Benton, Kentucky. January 22nd in Italy, Texas. In January 20th, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. That's this year. We here in Denver rightfully continue to mourn the horrific losses at Columbine and at the Aurora theater shooting and how fortunate we might think that we are that these most recent student shootings didn't happen to us. But can we be sure that we were actually spared? Our mayor, Michael Hancock, was born in Fort Hood, Texas. Governor John Hickenlooper came from Narberth, Pennsylvania. Robin Wittgenstein, head of Denver Health, grew up on the East Coast. Dr. Rebecca Chopp, chancellor of the University of Denver, came from rural Kansas. Those of you in the audience, please, and my colleagues on the dais. If you'll raise your hand. If you were not born in Denver. So lest you be comforted that these recent shootings haven't torn our community apart, realize that just might be an illusion. It might have been our future governor that died in Texas the other day. Or our mayor. Or Council president. Or a future scientist poised to finally find a cure for some hideous childhood illness at the Colorado Children's Hospital, or a mold shattering police chief or educator. Or maybe just the kid who grew up to be your next door neighbor or your best friend. I want to thank my colleague, Councilman Espinosa, for picking up the gantlet laid down at one of our public comment sessions and putting through a bill that outlawed bump stocks and reduced our allowable size for high capacity magazines. But there is so much more that must be done. We watch with interest to see how the courts will assess Boulder's recent efforts to eliminate assault weapons in their community. But at the same time, we're very aware that the scourge of gun violence goes far deeper than guns alone. We must finally make a sea change commitment to mental health care. We must address the widening income gap and the attendant frustration and hopelessness that shows a few having so much and so many having so little. Our children are becoming more and more frightened with every passing week, less and less sure that they are safe in their schools. I met last week with DPS security chief Mike Eaton to get an idea about what our public school district is doing to protect our kids. He spoke at great length about what the district is doing as far as infrastructure and process and systems and partnership with the Denver Police Department to change the paradigm. But security can only do so much to control the deranged. Again, we must do a better job of healing the sick, repairing the damage. Much of what this council might want to do is preempted by state law. As I've said before, we can't even create a database of gun owners. It's against the law. I am prepared to join with my colleagues Mayor Hancock, Governor Hickenlooper and our state legislators to again change that paradigm so that we might create a new Denver, a new Colorado, where kids get an full night of peaceful rest knowing that the worst that might happen to them the next day at school is a pop quiz that they weren't expecting. Thank you, Mr. President. Wow. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Councilwoman Ortega. I first want to thank Councilman Cashman for bringing this forward and for that very thorough overview of what has become too much of a norm in this country. We cannot accept this being the norm. We have to stand up and keep guns out of the hands of our children and out of the hands of criminals. This is just. We should not have to be doing this kind of proclamation. It's time across this country that we all stand up and make our voices heard loud and clear on behalf of our children, on behalf of our communities, that this is not acceptable. Not long ago, one of my granddaughters was at school and they they had to shelter in place because there was somebody in the neighborhood not far from here, very close to downtown. Their school is very close to downtown where, you know, this person had a gun. And so they wanted to make sure all the students were safe. Kids should. Feel comfortable and they should be safe going to school, going to the movies, going to any public place where they don't have to fear for their lives. Because we have too many guns on the streets in this country. Councilman Cashman, thank you for bringing this forward. Thank you, Councilwoman Ortega. Councilman Espinosa. Thank you, Councilman Cashman, for not only bringing this forward, but the comments you just made tonight. You can probably hear my voice. How moved I am by what you shared. But this is in context with the conversation I had on on on Friday. Anyway, the the Second Amendment starts with four words a well-regulated militia regulated being the third word in the Second Amendment. And if you have a well-regulated militia, we don't what we'd have is not a well-regulated militia. When you have this many members of that that militia. The people using that part of the the. Of this provision going off and killing people indiscriminately. You have a problem in your. Militia. And so that's where the well-regulated part needs to come in to effect and. What's interesting is then the next line. I mean, the next part of that first sentence is being necessary to the security of a free, strict, free state. If you have to have checkpoints at churches and schools in the recommendations, a single entry into that location, that's not a free state. That is that is everything that we fought multiple wars against. So there is just a very, very serious disconnect. By logging on to the right, the right of people to bear, keep and bear arms. If you're not doing the first two things, having a well-regulated militia and in maintaining a free state, the security of a free state , that those guns are not performing the function that they are, that that thinking is passé. It is old. And I am glad that on Friday I got two to it to be part of a panel held by Skinner students Lillie, Rachel and Ada led. It led a panel, a very, very capable panel where we learned about what this city in the state is doing. And so the good news is, is that we're making progress on focusing on well-being. I think if we. There's a lot that's wrong in America that we can fix. And there's examples in our own past. There's examples worldwide on how we can do a better America and be a more perfect union. And so we're moving towards that. If we can work on the well-being of the individual, cover their health, cover their education, make sure that they have all the things that they need so that they're not reaching that point. It probably won't matter how many guns you have. But the good news is, is that generation, those middle schoolers, the ones right before them, the Parkland High School students, they're getting it. They're understanding that there's a very big disconnect between a very, very, very vocal and well-funded minority in this country glomming behind a the fourth phrase in the Second Amendment and skipping over the other two crucial portions. And they're going to be the change agents. And so the combination. Let's work on the well-being. Let's work on the individuals. Let's work on the community, culture and environment that schools are, that our society is well, this and nurture a new generation that actually sees a free and secure America as being one that's open and tolerant and caring for one another. So, I mean, that is what's what what we've done in the past clearly isn't working. And it really frustrating thing is is that. Is that is is as depressing as it is hearing about school shooting over and over and over again. The the the I don't know what the total number of middle schools in high schools that were open and closed on that day that didn't experience that. And it's an overwhelmingly large number. The kids that are going to school today. Are fearful and I could not shake that out of in that room. I just couldn't I couldn't imagine it wasn't something that I went through in high school. It never occurred to me that we needed to have a school resource officer and metal detectors. And I went to school in Colorado, but there were two members of that board that had experienced gun violence in Colorado high schools. And so it's a thing that is affecting them. And until we we we we do the heavy lifting ourselves, nothing's going to get done. And until these guys get in charge. And thankfully for us, that's in my lifetime. And I'm looking forward to it. Thanks. Thank you. All right, Councilwoman PANITCH. Thank you, Mr. President. There's little I can add to the. Eloquent words of. The sponsor of this, Councilman Cashman. But where there's a gap, I like to kind of jump in. Which is I think it's really. Important to focus on the school shootings because they have been such a. Visible symptom of the disease. Of guns in our country. But they aren't the only place where moms are losing kids. And I just I have to acknowledge the moms in our city who lose kids every day in individual shootings, in homicides, and many, many women in our city lose their lives at the hands of their intimate partners at the other end of a gun. And so I worry a little bit. That too much of the gun debate has moved to this realm of mass shooting and in some ways has has changed the. Debate. Where we're often talking about mental illness. And I. Think, you know, it is important to bring. More attention to mental illness and treatment. But if we did our. Raising of hands of who here has a mental illness or someone in their close family who suffers from one, I think many of our hands would go up. And so I think that I'm not comfortable with the way the national debate has taken the focus away from guns and tried to put it on mental illness as if , you know, that is the lethal element here. It's certainly an element where we miss warning signs, where we miss opportunities to intervene. Every piece of those systems should be fixed, but that does not replace the need to regulate guns in commonsense ways to save lives, and not just for mass shootings, but for the many individuals, more more individuals than Councilman Cashman read more mothers and more lost kids who lose lose their lives in other types of gun violence. So I think it's just important that those families and those folks be recognized. I don't have a list of their names, but I mourn for them as well and for them to. We need to keep this debate focused on the regulatory side. Again, mental health is important. We need to talk about it. But not as a. Substitute for controlling the lethality of guns. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Councilman Lopez. Thank you, Mr. President. I don't have much to add except one Councilman Cashman. That was a very, very well written proclamation, and your comments were right on point. When I think of when you were. Speaking. I was just thinking of a conversation I had with my daughter, who is ten years old. Goes to school in DPS. And I was just reflecting on how we were talking about tornado safety and. You know, if a tornado hit, you go to a hallway and you do your drills. Those are the drills that I had when I was in elementary school. She taught me something completely different. And she says, Well, we do the shelter in place, lockdown drills and all the lockdown drills. She says, Well. We have to stay away from the windows and we got to go hide and we got to be quiet. And I have a special job. And there was a job, me. And she says, I have to make sure that the closet I have to I'm the one that has to go run and make sure that the closet door is open so that the classroom door does not open. She was the real close together, and it locks. So nobody can come in bumper. I think to myself, man. Just one of those drills with skills. It scared the hell out of me as a kid. Imagine. I mean, I just imagined myself as an elementary school in her same elementary school, by the way. And just being scared for my life. I mean, tornado drills are bad as it is and hiding under the under the desks. You know, for some for some folks that are on the West Coast. That's scary enough as it is. Imagine those drills for lockdowns and. And imagine their reality. 20 years from now. Their deep sensitivity. The PTSD is just doing that and how that it would affect our future, our kids, our society. So I think about that then. Then I saw an update on CNN and it was a number that said there have. Been 2288. School shootings since 2009, which was 57 times more than the other six G7 countries combined. It's going to take a heck of a lot more. And it's becoming cliche than. Just passing the buck to hopes and prayers and everybody asking for action. It's going to take a culture change, a shift in our culture when we go to the flea market. Although there are four boys to play with and they market it right to the boys are the little plastic guns, the little M-16s, not even cowboy shooters, man. These are M-16s that they at their market. You go into any one of these malls in the area. And you can buy guns. And it's not necessarily the the ones that real bullets but they have their airsoft. And here there are replicas. Right. So you just think about that and think about our culture. There's so many different ways that we can change and make these shifts, encourage us, encourage other people to make these shifts. And, you know, there are these cultural psyches that that we create for our society. And it's it's something that we can do. You don't have to wait on Congress to do it or we don't have to wait on government, whether it be local or state to do it. Right. We can encourage them with our dollars. And if I might just add something. I think about growing up in the nineties. In having guns pointed out you are being threatened with weapons because you had a different color on. I those of us who grew up in the nineties just knew how tough that was. It was not uncommon to have a weapon in somebody's locker or to have shootings outside. I mean, we got chased around by the CVS outside of West High School with guns. That culture has to shift. And we can't wait for it to be a school shooting. And we can't just talk about it in school shootings as an everyday thing that we have to change. So and. I don't know. Maybe this is something that we can look into. I never thought I would come to this point or even say this publicly, but. I think it's time to start looking at the metal detectors in our schools, if that's if it means saving people's lives. I folks. My friends that are all the way all across the country, they look at me weird because my high school didn't have a metal detector and. So there are small steps I wish we didn't have to cross, but I think we've passed that threshold a long time ago. So thank you, Councilman Cashman, for for bringing this topic up again. I'm glad that we're not just kind of like a one and done council or, you know, we just have one proclamation or one action and we forget about it. I'm glad that you brought this forward again. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Councilman Lopez. And thank you, Councilman Cashman, for bringing this for a lot to think about here. It has been moved in second. Madam Secretary, Raquel Cashman. I can each Lopez. I knew. Ortega. Susman. Black Clerk Espinoza. Flynn, I. Gilmore, I. Mr. President. I. Pluto's wondering in the results. 12 Eyes, 12 eyes. 594 has been adopted. Councilman Castro. And is there anybody you'd like to bring up? Yes, Mr. President, I'd like to bring up Jose Brady representing the Colorado Coalition Against Gun Violence. Today, I gratefully accept the proclamation from Councilman Cashman on behalf of the Colorado Coalition Against Gun Violence. When I was 13 months old, Columbine happened. 13 people lost their lives that day. When I was nine years old, I was at City Park Jazz and I fled for my life when my friends and I had to run as a shooting broke out between two rival gang members. Five years later, Officers Officer Selina Hollis was killed at that same event. Seven weeks after she was killed. The Aurora theater shooting happened where 12 lives were taken. The next year I was sent home early from I attended East High School and I was sent home early. Classes were canceled that day because there were threats against our school. That shooting would happen. And just a few weeks ago, I was working with my friends at Regis University where I now attend, and we were working out homework in a classroom. And we learned that two shooters ran on to our campus from 50th and federal, and we had to barricade the doors with our legs and we didn't know what to do. Let's just say I didn't get my homework done that night. What do these all have in common? Well, these are things that have happened in my life, but I'm not alone. I have not felt safe in my schools, in my parks, at my movie theaters, or in my neighborhood. Fear has consumed me and many others in my generation across the country. As of five days ago, 943 young people under the age of 18 have been killed due to gun violence in 2018. That's under the age of 18, not even my age group. That number does not include the people that have been killed for many years, ever since 1970, when the Arkansas shooting happened. This number includes those 17 year old Ty Martinez who was shot and killed in March at West Colfax in law. I initially took this fear and turned it into action. I started a group at East High School to bring in young people to start talking about the issue and what to do about it. I got involved on the national level with Generation Progress to organize young people across the country. And as four years have passed, our leaders have done things. But it's not been enough. We have seen how young people are fed up. The parents like the moms and dads here today, which I would like everyone, if you are here working on this issue currently, if you could please stand and recognize you. The March for Our Lives was just the beginning. The walkouts were just the beginning. This proclamation is the next step. Next, we need solutions to reduce the disproportionate gun violence deaths of young people, and especially young people of color that are not recognized. We should all feel safe in our neighborhoods and our schools. And thank you to Councilman Cashman and to the city council today for sponsoring for you for sponsoring this proclamation, for everyone. Voting yes on this. This population is not the end, though. We all have to keep showing up and working to reduce gun violence. We have to. We have to. For everyone who has lost their sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, parents, friends and family members and countless others. Enough is enough. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thanks again, Councilman Cashman, for bringing that forward. Our last proclamation this evening. Councilman assessment, will you please read Proclamation 595 happily.