Feb. 10, 2013

President, First Lady Focused on Street Violence This Week
By Hazel Trice Edney

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle, for the first time in the Obama Administration, has now targeted street violence as part of the President’s political focus.

The President was scheduled to head for his home town of Chicago on Friday where, in less than 40 days, more than 40 people - 42 as of Monday this week - have been homicide victims this year. His visit comes on the heels of First Lady Michelle Obama’s who attended Saturday’s funeral of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, a majorette, who performed in the Obama’s Inaugural Parade Jan. 21. White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and Education Secretary Arne Duncan were also slated to attend the Pendleton funeral at Greater Deliverance Temple Church of Christ.

The First Lady did not speak publically, but reportedly comforted Pendleton's family friends privately with the words, “Hang on” and “Stay strong”. The President reportedly sent a letter to Hadiya’s immediate family, promising to work hard to "end this senseless violence."

In Chicago, he is slated to speak about the issue of gun violence in that city and across the nation, a topic that was also strongly included in his preparations for the Station of the Union Address on Tuesday this week. Pendleton’s mother, Cleopatra Cowley, was also expected to attend the President’s State of the Union Address as a guest of honor.

President Obama has advanced new proposals for dealing with gun violence in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre of 20 first grade children in Newtown, Conn. Dec. 14. Those proposals include universal background checks as well as bans on high-capacity ammunition magazines as well as military-style assault weapons similar to those used at Sandy Hook, the movie theatre shooting that killed 12 people and injured 58 in Aurora, Colo. on July 12 last year among other mass shootings in recent years.

The President is also scheduled to visit Asheville, N.C. and Atlanta, Ga. this week on his tour on gun violence. This is the first time the President has directly spoken to and legislatively targeted street violence, which are usually the result of hand guns.

Hundreds of thousands of Black men and women have been killed by gun fire in cities across the U. S. over the past four decades since the Federal Bureau of Investigation began charting gun violence by race in the mid-1970s. Such shootings are often marked by a code of silence afterward during which even eye witnesses refuse to come forward because of fear of retribution.

Chicago police have reportedly spoken to “persons of interest” in the Pendleton homicide, but had made no arrest as of Monday this week, nearly two weeks after the killing Jan. 29. A gunman is said to have opened fire on a group of young people, killing the majorette as they gathered in a public park only blocks from the Obamas’ home. The youth were under a shelter, shielding themselves from rain when they came under fire. The shooting is said to be gang-related and that she was not an intended victim.

An anti-gang advocate in her own rite, Hadiya Pendleton, is still posted on a YouTube video she made in the Sixth Grade, telling friends: “It is your job as students to say no to gangs and yes to a great future.”