Hundreds of D.C. residents attend the Jobs Not Guns Recruitment Fair at the DC Armory to find employment opportunities and alternatives to gun violence.
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Mayor Bowser recognizes gun violence as a public health crisis, launches prevention program
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser signed a Mayor’s Order recognizing gun violence as a public health crisis and announced the creation of an emergency gun violence prevention center at a situational update on Feb. 17.
The order comes as a response to a spike in gun violence in D.C. last year and establishes the Gun Violence Prevention Emergency Operations Center (EOC), which is part of a new gun violence prevention program known as Building Blocks DC. According to the situational update presentation, while violent crimes from 2016 to 2020 have generally gone down, gun crime trends have gone up. 922 people were shot in D.C. last year, and 198 people were killed. Acts of gun violence and homicides disproportionately impacted the Black community. In 2020, 95 percent of homicide victims were Black, and 160 of the 198 homicide victims were Black men.