Arkansas Stop the Violence Movement speaking out after Sunday afternoon shooting leaving one injured

Mattison Gafner
·2 min read
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NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark.- Arkansas Stop the Violence Movement’s president and director spoke out after a Sunday afternoon shooting that left one female juvenile injured and many worried as gun violence victim numbers increase.

“Well anytime anyone gets shot, you know it’s very devastating and disappointing because you know the majority of it is senseless but when you have a minor involved it makes it even worse,” Arkansas Stop the Violence Movement President, Reverend Benny Johnson said.

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Calls came into the North Little Rock Police Department around 2 pm for shots fired at the Shorter Garden Apartments off Ninth and Hickory Streets.

Leaving a female juvenile being transported to the hospital for nonlife-threatening injuries after another gun violence event in North Little Rock.

“We got to be more proactive instead of reactive,” Johnson said.

Saying that it starts with teaching not just kids but everyone that solving problems does not start with picking up a gun.

“First, we have to try to teach our youth that they are important people, that they are made and created in the image of God,” Arkansas Stop the Violence Movement Director, Pastor Walter Crockran, said.

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Also teaching the lesson that gun violence impacts more people than you think.

“You need to think a million times before you pull that trigger cause once that bullet comes out that chamber, there is no coming back, and once you kill that person, two people are lost, one to the graveyard and one to the system,” Johnson said.

Arkansas Stop the Violence Movement also calls for a community to come together to solve problems.

“If we come neighborhood by neighborhood and come together collectively, we can help get a lot of this nonsense and all these senseless homicides and violence, but we are going to have to work together,” Johnson said.

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Both Johnson and Crockran agree that kids do as they see done.

“It is just a cycle so we have to somehow change that cycle,” Crockran said.

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