A Need to Address Gun Violence in the Black Community Newark Mayor Baraka Speaks
In an address to the city council, Mayor Ras Baraka called the latest death on Dec. 30 “heartbreaking.”
“This morning…I had to go to a resident’s home who I’ve known for a very, very long time as she cried on the floor,” he told the council.
“She lost the third of her sons…all to gun violence in the city.”
At the council meeting, Baraka used the death as an example of what he said was a “desperate” need to do something different, pointing to his recent creation of a public safety department that will restructure the leadership of the police and fire departments in Newark.
“(We have to) make sure that our residents don’t have to experience what this mother experienced,” he said.
Tyquan Rogers, the 20-year-old man who was gunned down on South 11th Street Monday night, is the last of three brothers to have been killed by gun violence in the city in the last five years, officials have confirmed.
Rogers was the brother of two men – Anthony Rogers and Antoine Rogers – who were shot and killed in Newark in 2011 and 2012, respectively, Essex County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Thomas Fennelly confirmed Tuesday.
According to Gun Violence Archive, there has already been 125 gun deaths in 2016.
