ABOVE: Full crowd in Laura Lee Fellowship House gymnasium shows appreciation for Project Success’ Jamie Nightlinger as she is introduced.
An overflow crowd of parked cars and people arrived Thursday night at the community meeting at Laura Lee Fellowship House following last weekend’s three Danville shooting incidents; that wounded six and cost Ricky Dandridge, Jr his life.
Prior to the meeting, Project Success’ Jamie Nightlinger talked about the communication she has shared this week with so many.
AUDIO: And I feel like the people need a space to talk about it; to get their emotions out, and maybe to offer some supports and ideas of what we can do, and bring more people to the table for what we’ve been working on. It really touches my heart that so many people are here for this.
Phil Davis, Jamie Nightlinger, and Chris Hightower during community meeting at Laura Lee Fellowship House.
One of the speakers was Three Kings of Peace member, Danville NAACP president, and Alderman Ed Butler; who called the entire evening a “call to action.”
AUDIO: Everybody has to be involved; it takes a village for all of us to come together. I don’t care if you’re black, white, Asian, or Mexican or whoever. We all need to come together to save our city. Because we all have to live here together, so let us all get along.
One of the most passionate speeches came from state representative candidate Mary Catherine Roberson. After talking with CIMG, she later said that the gun violence problem is a “public health epidemic.” She asked the audience what they planned to do besides attend the meeting; and said the entire night was “not only for mourning the lost, but also for fighting for those still here.”
AUDIO: People want to sit and have like a public, open conversation about solutions that we can have; and what we can actually do moving forward to try to prevent these events from happening. We seem to be in a constant space of kind of “reaction to things” after we go through these tragedies. How can we build on what we’re already doing to have like a stronger, deeper response and prevention efforts in our community?
Mary Catherine Roberson, Alderwoman Tricia Teague, and Alderman Ed Butler take their turns speaking.
The emcee was North Ridge Middle School Home Program Interventionist Chris Hightower. He said Danville has good people that take the roll of community leadership. And it’s up to others to step up, join those people, and help them get the work done.
AUDIO: We don’t have to reinvent the wheel. We have a lot of resources in the community that are already doing great work. And what we need to do as a community is work to support those people that are already doing the work, and help them build on to that. And then that I feel would be the best course of action to bring that sense of community back to Danville.
Hightower cited as one of the hardest working people of all as Phil Davis, who has worked tirelessly to make the community safe since losing his daughter Aniyah Davis to gun violence in Winter Park last summer. Davis spoke at Thursday’s community meeting, and also at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting; where his wife Yolanda also spoke about their presence at Save-A-Lot during the shooting last Saturday that cost Ricky Dandridge, Jr his life. One arrest has been made in that incident, but no arrests have been reported in Friday, May 1st shooting on East Williams; nor the Sunday, May 3rd shooting on Lewis Lane.
