By Kylie Marsh
Kylie.marsh@triangletribune.com
DURHAM – Community members are fed up with workshops and listening sessions over gun violence in Durham. Following a particularly violent week in February, where six shootings in six days took place, emotions are high.
The city has launched a multitiered approach to reducing gun violence, including learning sessions and public input workshops which will culminate in a final summit in the next few months.
Community members gathered March 20 to discuss the youth gun violence issue at the Holton Career and Resource Center. Many said a lack of supervision, mentorship and opportunity are at the root of the youth violence in Durham.
“Idle hands are the devil’s workshop,” said Michelle Laws, professor of sociology at North Carolina Central University’s School of Social Work. Laws’ family has been directly impacted by gun violence. One of her nephews was murdered at a gas station in South Durham in 2022, and another nephew was involved in a shooting where an 8-year-old was killed by a stray bullet.
“There used to be midnight basketball, there used to be the Police Athletic League, that really also doubled in a lot of ways as a mentoring program for kids,” Laws told The Tribune. “People would do what we would call today ‘pop-ups,’ where they would engage kids out there in those communities unengaged and uninvolved. We know that there were things that were working.”
Laws said the nets were taken down due to gang activity. “They didn’t replace them with anything, so you had kids that had nothing in these neighborhoods.
“Thank God for the Mayor’s summer work program, we know that that’s successful,” referring to Durham YouthWorks, which connects Durham teens with opportunities to explore careers while earning an income.
Other workshop participants said the children impacted by gun violence are often unsupervised and forced to be the caregivers for other family members. Laws said when she looks at the programs offered by Durham Parks & Recreation, the costs and schedules do not work for the families impacted by violence. “You’ve got kids that are very susceptible and at risk for being recruited into the underworld,” she said.
Following calls from Durham Mayor Leonardo Williams for an “all-hands-on-deck” approach between city leadership and community members, nonprofit organizations took the initiative to bring resources to different areas in the city.
Weekly crime statistics from the Durham Police Department show that 10 shootings took place between Feb. 8-15, 2025, making the year-to-date total 77. This year, between Feb. 7-14, were also 10 shootings, but the year-to-date total was lowered at 53.
Ryan Smith, director of the Community Safety Department, said national trends in cities similar to Durham show reductions in gun violence, but the Bull City is an “outlier.”
Willis Hart Jr. is a chef from Durham and hoping to launch a new nonprofit to educate Durham’s youth about its vibrant Black history. “If you want these kids to change, you’re gonna have to put in that time, dedication, boots on the ground, and show them you care,” Hart Jr. said. “Just talking is never going to change anything.”
Hart Jr. brought personal expertise to the workshop, having been incarcerated. After an altercation in 2008, Hart Jr. shot his cousin’s partner. He turned himself in three days later. At the time, his firstborn daughter was only 2 months old.
“This took me away from a freshly born child until she was 3 years old,” Hart Jr. told The Tribune. “That right there was a realization. Gun violence has taken so much away from me, but it’s taken more time from me. It’s taken everything. I had to start over.”
Hart Jr. said all children need is somewhere safe and fun to go. In 2024, Durham voters approved an $85 million bond referendum for parks and recreation. Hart Jr. said that money can be used to build a state-of-the-art facility. A $43 million water park project at Merrick Moore Park, on the edge of East Durham, is currently underway.
His ideal is that the city leadership make more of a push to pressure investment back toward the “inner-city kids.”
“They got Google, but I don’t know nobody that’s gonna work at Google,” he said. “What they gonna be, the custodians? Let’s be realistic.”
