Gun violence was in the headlines again this week after the State Crime Commission met to discuss the topic. And it’s not just mass shootings. As one expert testified, its the slow and steady grind of suicides and homicides.
Last year almost 800 people in Virginia went to the emergency room because of a gunshot wound. While they survived, a thousand more didn’t. This story is a remembrance of one young victim.
Mark Whitfield and Ciara Dickson have three children. Two are still alive.
Earlier this summer the family was staying at a hotel outside Richmond as they waited for a lease on a new place. They had moved out of their old one, because they couldn’t spend one more night there, the home where they had raised their daughter.
Mark Whitfield holds his young son Mark Jr. and shakes his head.
“He’ll never know his sister. That’s the crazy part,” Whitfield says. “He ain’t gonna remember none of this. Nothing.”
If his sister, Markiya Dickson, were still alive she’d be getting ready for her first day of fourth grade. She loved making YouTube videos with her older sister.
“She was very feisty. But she was smart, outgoing, very kind hearted. Real loveable,” says her mother Ciara Dickson. “Honestly she’d take the mic and would start rapping or singing in it.”
Markiya was shot and killed this summer in Richmond. The family was at a cookout at a public park on Memorial Day weekend. Hundreds were there when a fight broke out. Markiya, and a young boy, were caught by stray bullets.
“You just heard the gun shots,” recalls Whitfield. “I just looked over and I could see the smoke. I knew right then and there, I just knew.”
He ran towards the gunshots and towards his daughter. He picked her up and drove her to the hospital.
“I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy,” says Ciara Dickson. “I wouldn’t want nobody to feel this pain."
Richmond Police have suspects, but haven’t made an arrest. They say they still need an eye-witness. The FBI is offering a reward of $20,000 for information leading to an arrest.
According to the Virginia Department of Health’s preliminary numbers, there have been more than 500 gun related deaths in Virginia through June of this year. 162 of those were homicides. That includes 9-year-old Markiya Dickson.
'People Killed Out Here Everyday'
Whitfield and Dickson are no strangers to gun violence. They both grew up on the southside of Richmond, not far from the park where their daughter would die.
As a teenager Whitfield was grazed by a bullet during a drive by shooting. His father was murdered at gun point. Ciara Dickson recalls being told to go to the bathroom and get in the bathtub when the sound of gunshots was close.
“It’s like your immune to it. And it’s sad to say that. But it is what it is,” she says.
Whitfiled says mass shootings happen once in a blue moon but “people killed out here everyday.”
“It’s not by a person that bought a registered firearm. It’s by a person that get them off the streets. I can call a person right now (and say) ‘I need two or three guns.’,” he says.
That’s why Whitfield isn’t convinced gun control is the answer. Instead he points to what he sees as the root cause of the violence -- poverty, hopelessness.
“Don’t get me wrong. You want to be this person,” he says. “But it’s so hard to get to being that person you want... because you got too many hurdles in front of you.”
He says people turn to selling drugs in low-income areas, because it can be the only way to support a family.
“But with the drugs comes guns,” he says. “You gotta be able to protect yourself."
'We All Bleed and Breathe the Same'
After his daughter died, Whitfield went to the state capitol for the special session on gun control. He says it was a waste of time. His contempt for politics crosses party lines. Instead he’s turned his focus to community.
“That’s what people got to do. Engage with people. I don’t care the color of your skin. What nationality, none of that. That doesn’t matter to me,” Whitfield says. “Because we all bleed and breathe the same right? We all feel the same. We all hurt, cry. So why not help each other.”
Whitfield has started a nonprofit in his daughter’s name. He wants to have a strong community presence, knocking on doors, getting to know people, helping to feed kids, and connecting men to jobs.
This weekend at Carter Jones Park in Richmond is one of the first steps. He’s organized a talent show in his daughter's memory and is hoping the community will turn out.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
