Mayor Harrell, Alongside Community Leaders, Honored Gun Violence Victims at New Memorial Garden Located in MLK Jr. Park
Mayor Bruce Harrell spoke to Seattle residents on the recent surge in gun violence and commemorated a new memorial garden at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park. (Photo by Besa Gordon)
On Friday, June 7th, Mayor Bruce Harrell, city officials, and community leaders reflected on the recent surge in gun violence and commemorated a new garden in memory of victims of gun violence at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park. This event comes in the wake of a shooting at Garfield High School, where 17-year-old Amarr Murphy-Paine was shot and killed while attempting to break up a fight between the shooter and another person.
"This memorial garden is a place to remember the lives we lost, the lives we lost, the lives that were cut short," Harrell said.
Emphasizing the urgency of the worsening problem, the mayor presented statistics on gun violence, reiterating the need for change within the current system.
"In our country, every day, more than 110 Americans are killed by gun violence," Harrell said. "Alongside, more than 200 are shot and wounded. On an average, there are nearly 16,000 gun homicides in America every year. We know the data is very clear that Black, Indigenous, mixed race, [and] Latino young people in King County are disproportionately being exposed to gun violence."
Representatives from the Seattle City Council, Seattle Parks and Recreation, the Black Agriculture Leadership Council, Clean Greens Farm & Market, and the Seattle King County NAACP, all organizations that partnered together to bring this community garden to life, spoke alongside the mayor.
"Right now, more than ever, we need God," emphasized District Three's Seattle City Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth, who stressed the need for community intervention and a renewed focus on faith.
"We need God. We need prayer. We need community. We need church. We need connection. We need family. We need all these things, and it's going to take our community-based organizations, take our pastors, our reverends," Hollingsworth said. "It's going to take all of us because this is literally our community. It is our city, our community, and violence like this amongst our kids should not be normalized."
Jenine Lewis, the mother of Elijah L. Lewis, a community activist who lost his life to gun violence in 2023, also spoke at the commemoration. In her speech, she called for action to stop gun violence and emphasized the significance of the new garden, describing the park as "a beacon of hope, a place to come for consolation and receive some form of release from the madness and pain of our loss and for our grief."
"As of yesterday, in the midst of gun violence prevention day conferences and workshops to educate our youth on financial literacy, we lost more babies to the very evil we are championing to prevent, losing precious lives to senseless acts of violence," Lewis said. "We will come, and we will come to this very spot to cry, to mourn, and to scream because that's what I do because Elijah was ripped from me."
Jenine Lewis, mother of the late Elijah Lewis, stands alongside Mayor Harrell to call for action against gun violence and highlighted the significance of the new memorial garden. (Photo by Besa Gordon)
Harrell, echoing the sentiments of other speakers, stressed the importance of partnering with community organizations to tackle armed violence in Seattle.
"These community-based organizations that we are investing in, these organizations that are right in front of me right now; you are the answer," Harrell said. "The streets are talking to us. We have to be aligned with you. We have to invest in you. I can't just do it with police officers. That's reactionary. I can't just do it with technology. I have to do it with you."
This recent tragedy adds to a series of shootings in the Central District just this school year, including two in March: a drive-by shooting outside Garfield High School that injured a 17-year-old student and another event where a woman was fatally shot.
"Someone drew that gun thinking it was the only way to make a point, to retaliate, rather than deliberate, to talk through the moment," Lewis said. "It only takes a second, and all of our lives are changed forever. Our community is changed forever. It's going to take all of us ... to put down our own agendas and our motives, and roll up our sleeves and pour into these babies constructive ways to articulate how they feel, to decompress rather than to elevate in a situation when it comes up and remind ourselves that we could do that too."
