City leaders address recent gun violence in Providence
By: Scott Cook
Email: scook@abc6.com
Twitter: @JScottCook
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) – City leaders say the recent gun violence is affecting the entire community, and on Tuesday night, the Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence is hosting a meeting at their downtown headquarters.
Providence residents are being urged to attend the meeting, as the Institute will address the issues of violence in wake of three gun–related incidents over the weekend.
Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza says, “When it happens to any one person, or when it happens in any side of the city, it happens to all of us.”
During one of the violent outbreaks on Sunday morning, shots were fired outside a Pop-Warner Football game at Hope High School, causing the game and other events to be canceled.
Mayor Elorza and City Council President, David Salvatore, met with the Pop–Warner team Monday to discuss ways to keep kids safe at public events.
“If that requires a police presence at every youth football game in the city of providence, then that is what we’ll do,” said Council President Salvatore.
Mayor Elorza also added that the city is ready and able to provide the kind of police coverage needed, but noted “at the same time, we want to make people feel safe, and at a certain point, if you have police cars and sirens blaring, that has the opposite effect.”
The mayor and other city officials be at Tuesday night’s meeting hoping to stir more discussion and raise better solutions to the gun violence problem.
That meeting will begin at 6pm Tuesday at the headquarters of The Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence, located at 265 Oxford Street in Providence.
© ABC6 News / WLNE-TV 2018
