The Austin community quickly mobilized after two mass shootings Easter weekend, which left two teenagers dead, to make a message clear: Enough is enough.
On April 2, the 37th Ward held an evening march on the block where Arianna Murphy, 19, died. At 5 p.m., Austin residents gathered, along with elected officials, the 15th District of the Chicago Police Department, faith and community leaders, to mourn the victims of the weekend’s shootings and call for an end to gun violence.
“If this rampant and negative crime and violence continues to plague distressed neighborhoods across the city’s West and South Side, then these communities are facing uncertain futures. This is completely unacceptable,” Emma Mitts, alderman of Chicago’s 37th Ward, said in a statement. “After decades of rising crime and deteriorating fortunes in parts of Chicago’s once vibrant areas, we need fresh, new novel approaches to addressing our pressing community public safety challenges.”
The march comes after the violent weekend. On March 31, four young women were shot and Murphy was killed at Poppy’s Chat Room on West Madison Street just after 1 a.m. That afternoon, four other people were shot in the 400 block of North Lavergne Avenue. Johnveir Winn-McKeever, 16, died at Mount Sinai Hospital.
The unidentified shooters contributed to the city’s deadliest weekend of 2024, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Last year, 2,948 people were victims of shootings in Chicago, according to the city’s violence reduction dashboard. The most shootings in any of the city’s neighborhoods occurred in Austin — 226 of them. The next highest number of shootings was 166 in North Lawndale.
Such violence has led to organizers putting on marches and gatherings like the one in the 37th Ward, even before the devastating shootings over Easter weekend. On April 13, the Columbus Park Advisory Council, plus community partners and sponsors, are hosting the 16th annual anti-gun violence prayer vigil at Columbus Park from 3 to 7 p.m.
Also on April 13, the Westside Block Club Association, in partnership with the 7th Platoon Jeep Club, will hold a March for Peace, which was planned over a month ago. It will start at 11 a.m. at 3800 West Madison, then head west to Kilpatrick Avenue and Madison Street before turning around to the starting point. The march is the first in a series of initiatives from the Westside Block Club Association to promote community unity and fight local gun violence.
Other initiatives include connecting at-risk individuals, who might be committing crimes, to employment opportunities by preparing and training them for interviews and connecting them with employers. Another is creating events on the West Side to keep locals out of trouble and reduce shootings.
Shawnetta Murry — a West Side resident and organizer who graduated from Austin High School in 1989 and now works with the school to increase enrollment and fundraise for student fees — remembers attending social events like skating and bowling when she was a teenager.
“We had so many different activities that we could be involved in. They don’t have activities,” Murry said of today’s younger generation. “We have to do a better job of engaging our children.”
Current students, alumni and administration of Austin High School, where two victims of the shootings over Easter weekend attended, are invited to the March for Peace April 13.
“I want to make sure that we’re giving back and we’re giving tools to help these youth become successful,” Murry added. “We want to do things that create value because if you don’t have value, you have no respect. And if you don’t have respect, you can’t respect life.”
Summer initiatives to reduce gun violence
The number of shootings usually increases with warmer weather. In 2023, 82 murders occurred from May 1 to Sept. 1 in Austin, North Lawndale, Garfield Park and Humboldt Park, according to Talei Thompson, who founded the Westside Block Club Association about three years ago and collected the data from the City of Chicago and district council members of the 11th District of the Chicago Police Department.
This is why the Westside Block Club Association organized a gang truce among four of the six street organizations on the West Side this summer. Thompson met with people of influence from the four street organizations in March. They agreed to attend the march April 13 and to cease fire from May 1 through August.
“They were very transparent with us, letting us know what they can do, who they can help and lead, and then also that they can’t maybe get to everyone,” Thompson said. “Our only reason for doing this is to work together collectively to reach all of the youth in our community who may be at risk, or may be participating in this type of life, to let them know our goal is to have zero murders.”
Chicago-based nonprofit Violence Interrupters also accesses people of influence in a similar effort to decrease conflict among street organizations. Their model has been used in 15 Chicago neighborhoods and is currently being implemented in Austin and Maywood.
As far as how residents can help reduce gun violence in their neighborhoods, “they need to be responsible,” Murry said. “If you see something, you say something.”
Both Murry and Thompson are part of the block club for the 4200 and 4300 blocks of Jackson Boulevard and communicate with their neighbors whenever violence happens on their street.
“I am encouraging that we immediately begin bringing together a wide variety of stakeholders in areas of need across Chicago,” Mitts said in a statement, “rallying neighborhood residents, police officers, housing authorities, community service providers, nonprofit agencies, local schools, investors and business owners to confront local challenges in a targeted and highly collaborative manner — before summer starts.”