CINCINNATI — Monday is the start of National Gun Violence Survivors Week, a time when communities share the stories of those who have been impacted by gun violence and those who are trying to make their communities safer.
The nonprofit Everytown For Gun Safety found at least 120 people are shot and killed in the U.S. every day. More than 200 are shot and wounded.
In Cincinnati, crime statistics show shootings went down in 2023, with 332 recorded shootings compared to 342 in 2022 and 346 in 2021. It's also a significant drop if you compare those numbers to 2020, when Cincinnati recorded 422 shootings.
Pastor Jackie Jackson is one of the first people in Cincinnati to arrive at the scene of a shooting, consoling a family impacted by gun violence. He didn't become an advocate simply because he wanted to end gun violence. He knows firsthand the trauma of gun violence.
When Jackson was 10 years old, he said he and a group of friends were chasing an adult neighbor on 13th Street in Over the Rhine when the man turned around and fired a gun. Jackson said the bullet passed through his hand. However, it doesn't end there.
"I had never told my children I had been shot," said Jackson. "Over the last nine years, (my family) has had nine family members' lives taken by gun violence."
Last December, his 37-year-old son Jackie L Jackson II was shot in Evanston on Wold Avenue. The pastor's son spent days recovering at UC Medical Center from intensive surgery. He said his son still has a long walk ahead of him to heal. It's also a healing process for Jackson himself.
"My son was shot also back in 2007," Jackson said. "We both want to do everything that we can to make sure that his son, my grandson, Jackie III, doesn't become the third generation of Jackie's to get shot. As far as I'm concerned, it stops here. He's dealing with the physical, but he's also now starting to deal with the fact that somebody has for the second time in my life tried to murder me."
In June 2019, Jackson's 14-year-old cousin, Anthony Hinton was shot and killed.
"That shakes up a family. That shakes up a mother who has to deal with the loss of a child, which I saw with my niece who had to deal with the loss of her child, and what she went through," said Jackson.
On Tuesday, Jan. 23, Cincinnati City Council's Public Safety & Governance Committee is recognizing National Gun Violence Survivor Week with presentations with Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, intervention services and Cincinnati police.
Jackson feels he still needs to do more work to get his message across that guns are never the answer.
"You got to look at yourself and say, 'What am I doing?'" said Jackson. "When all of us get together — we start putting that pressure, with the community, with our politicians, on ourselves — we work on solutions."
