Introducing Philly Under Fire, a new podcast about gun violence in Philly
Apr. fifteen, 2021
"If you lot look upward almost whatever night of the calendar week, in Philadelphia, if you live in one of these neighborhoods that's affected past gun violence—and it'due south almost every neighborhood in Philadelphia—and you know to look up at sunset, you will come across these balloons."
That'due south Colwin Williams, one of the city's violence interrupters, talking to award-winning journalist, podcaster, and author Jo Piazza almost the nightly vigils in Philadelphia for victims of gun violence, which typically end with the release of balloons into the dusk sky. It's a haunting image, and ane all too familiar to Philadelphians in the last year.
Mind to Episode 1 of Philly Under Fire here:
The numbers don't prevarication: As of Apr 11, 2021, in that location have been 139 homicides in Philadelphia—a 36 pct increase over 2020—and 440 nonfatal shootings. That'south on top of a year when shootings skyrocketed: By the cease of 2020, 499 of our neighbors had been murdered, and another ii,200 shot.
Just numbers don't tell the whole story. That'southward why, at the start of 2020, The Philadelphia Citizen tapped Piazza to spend a year reporting for a podcast on Philadelphia'due south gun violence epidemic—its roots, its victims, its price on our communities—and the solutions that could be effective in curbing it.
When she began the project, Piazza had no way of knowing that 2022 would see a global pandemic, also as the highest charge per unit of gun violence in Philadelphia in years. Just fifty-fifty every bit Covid-19 ravaged communities, Piazza and her acquaintance producer, Nadira Goffe, continued to dig into their reporting: talking to victims, mothers, healthcare providers, urban center officials, journalists who have covered the violence, and dedicated grassroots leaders hither and around the country who are devoting their lives to stopping the spread of this trigger-happy epidemic.
Listen to Episode 2 of Philly Under Fire hither:
The result: Philly Under Fire, a heart wrenching seven-office serial that will alternately devastate, movement, and daze listeners—and, hopefully, fuel action. You can stay on top of all new episodes as they drib by checking our Philly Under Fire episode guide.
Here, Piazza talks near the feel of working on Philly Under Burn down in an unexpectedly traumatic year—and the lessons nosotros tin can take away from what she'due south learned.
Jessica Blatt Press: Yous spent the last xiv months reporting on gun violence in Philadelphia, and looking at how people here and around the country are attempting to adjourn it. It's a powerful, heartbreaking series, and a existent call to action. What are your biggest takeaways?
Jo Piazza: There are a lot of stories that stuck with me throughout this reporting, simply there are two in particular that have stayed with me. I did several interviews with Colwin Williams, who works on the squad with Cure Violence. They're a grassroots organization that goes out in the streets afterward a shooting, talks to the people in the neighborhood, talks to potential shooters, talks to the victims. They try to make sure there'south not going to be a retaliation.
But Colwin likewise runs these vigils for victims of gun violence. And at the vigils, a bunch of balloons are released into the air, commonly at dusk. And Colwin said to me, If you wait up nearly any night of the calendar week, in Philadelphia, if you lot alive in ane of these neighborhoods that's affected past gun violence—and it's almost every neighborhood in Philadelphia—and you lot know to look up at sunset you will run across these balloons.
And I didn't know that these balloons existed, that I should await up, because I think there'southward just not the awareness that this is happening right under our noses. And and then I don't want to tell Philadelphians to wake upwardly, but I want them to think we tin't have a vibrant metropolis unless all of u.s.a. have a vibrant city. I want Philadelphians to recognize that gun violence is happening all over our city, and even if it is non side by side door to you lot, it affects this city that we honey and that we live in.
There were times when we were reporting this podcast when we said we don't know if we can practice information technology. Nosotros don't know if we can pull this off. Because of the pandemic, but likewise because of all of the issues surrounding gun violence.
While I was reporting the podcast at that place was really a shooting at the playground where I take my kids. About three blocks away from our house, at eight at nighttime. And there were ii murder victims; in that location were 21 shots fired, during a time when I could've been walking beyond that playground with my ii children. And I was reporting the podcast so I knew how often this happens. But a lot of the mothers in our neighborhood were shocked. And I don't think we can be shocked. I recall we have to recognize that this happens every single twenty-four hours and that it's a problem and it's a problem that our government can and should exist fixing.
I think another very important part of this podcast is that you can't prepare a problem that you can't run into and that you don't care about. And I don't know if enough people care well-nigh this right now. Which is why we wanted this to exist a podcast of stories. We don't desire to preach at anyone in this podcast. We want you to hear the stories in people's own voices. Because no 1 —including our government officials— volition piece of work on the trouble if you can't see it, you can't hear it, you can't understand information technology, you tin can't care most information technology.
JBP: Part of what's and so powerful about the serial is that you lot really do give a platform to the people in Philly who are on the footing doing this work every twenty-four hour period. Yous step back, and center them. Talk most the range of people you lot met in your reporting, and how important it was to you to make certain you lot were lifting up their voices.
JP: This podcast has zip to practise with me. I just happen to be a homo who reports and knows how to create audio content. The goal is for it to be a podcast of voices.
One of the things we learned early on was that the people who are really doing the piece of work on gun violence in our metropolis are small grassroots community organizations that have no funding. They are the ones doing all of the heavy lifting—it is not our city authorities. It is not our D.A.'southward office. And it is not our police department. It'southward not. Helen Ubiñas from The Inquirer said that to me right off the bat—she said those are the people that are really doing this work and those are the people you lot have to talk to. And a lot of people didn't want to talk to us. To be honest, people accept fatigue. People who have been fighting this state of war for and so long have a lot of exhaustion from there not being more government- and metropolis-enacted solutions to work on this in a very meaningful way.
People now ask me how do you solve gun violence? And I say solve poverty. Solve poverty and solve our broken education system, get people meaningful jobs that bring nobility to their lives, so that kids who may fall into the trap of violence and move into the illegal economy have something else to do. Have bigger dreams and have function models that are showing them those lives are possible. So there's no easy solution for gun violence, which made this very hard.
JBP: Among the many other people you introduce to listeners is Jennifer Lawson, of The Philly Obituary project—explain what she does, and why her piece of work is so important.
JP: I don't want to present this podcast as if we at The Philadelphia Citizen are just discovering the result of gun violence. There have been incredible people reporting on this issue way earlier me, and I want to recognize that we stood very much on their shoulders. And I want to elevate their work in this series and say they did this before we did, they laid all of this background.
The original goal was to try to elevate these stories about people affected by gun violence, and then that we could examine the upshot in a very nuanced and human-centric mode, which is oft not done. I recollect information technology's done at places like The Inquirer—[journalist] Helen Ubiñas is wonderful at information technology. It's definitely not washed enough on television news—all nosotros hear is "in that location was a shooting in so-and-so neighborhood," and that'due south it. Information technology goes away. It immediately disappears from our consciousness. And nosotros wanted to dig deeper than that.
Then of course, the pandemic happened.
I don't want to tell Philadelphians to wake up, but I desire them to think we tin't have a vibrant city unless all of us take a vibrant metropolis. I want Philadelphians to recognize that gun violence is happening all over our city, and even if it is not side by side door to you, it affects this urban center that we love and that we live in.
Jennifer Lawson has been running The Philadelphia Obituary Project, which writes obituaries for victims of gun violence—people who typically would not take their life celebrated in an obituary in a newspaper or on a website considering they are a role of a marginalized customs or they did die at the hand of gun violence, and perhaps they were involved in the illegal economy. And for so long our media has just missed these people, and said their lives don't deserve to exist chronicled. And Jennifer takes the time to give them not just an obituary, simply a damn adept obituary. She takes the time to inquiry and talk to victims' friends and family and paint the landscape of their beautiful lives to bear witness that there are existent human beings backside these murders in our city.
JBP: What did you larn about who'due south affected by gun violence?
JP: One of the things that we were very interested in going into this is that gun violence acts like a communicable disease. Information technology acts like a virus. And nosotros all know very well how a virus works after this year. It'due south transmitted from person to person and the trauma that it causes is transmitted from person to person. So nosotros spoke to emergency room trauma nurses and doctors who treat victims of gun violence, and what that is similar to have to do that twenty-four hour period in and day out, and how that trauma is transferred to them and how they think that this should be solved.
Nosotros talked to victims' mothers, many of whom are trying to solve their child's murder on their ain because the homicide clearance rate in our city is so bottomless that these women have become private detectives and are literally tracking downwardly their child's killer on their own.
We talked to teachers who work in schools where kids are afflicted every twenty-four hours past gun violence, and they accept to figure out how to alleviate some of this trauma so that kids can just learn and experience safety. And then nosotros also talked to these immature people who, bluntly, this yr got fed upwardly and said this is enough. And they organized their own protests and wrote their own articles and op-eds and created their own grassroots organizations to try to solve this problem. Then all of these voices came together to endeavor to give us a pic of what gun violence looked like in 2020.
And it's not complete. It will never be complete. But I think it does smoothen a light on what happened in our city in the past twelvemonth.
JBP: You lot also talked to leaders in other cities who are moving the needle on gun violence more than people are in Philly—what rose to the surface as things those cities have in identify that Philly lacks?
JP: The cities that are the most successful are the cities where at that place'southward good cooperation between different bureaucratic agencies. And this seems and so simple, right, where everyone is talking to each other? Where there are very regular meetings between the police, between the Commune Attorney's part, between emergency room physicians and between the people who are out on the streets trying to gainsay gun violence. The people who are trying to become the shooters to really lay down their guns. And nosotros do not see any of that cooperation in Philadelphia.
The cities that are the nearly successful are the cities where at that place'south good cooperation betwixt unlike bureaucratic agencies. And this seems so elementary, correct, where everyone is talking to each other? We practice not see whatsoever of that cooperation in Philadelphia.
Instead, nosotros meet a lot of agencies working on their own. And this is not a problem that'due south going to be solved by whatever lone wolf. This is a huge problem that needs massive coordination between all of the urban center's agencies and many many more social services. There are ways to get shooters to put down guns. Those ways have to do with asking them what they need so they don't selection up the guns in the first identify. And that means good social services throughout a city to run into people where they're at.
JBP: Later so many months enmeshed in this issue, how are y'all feeling, coming out of this procedure?
JP: When The Philadelphia Denizen first proposed this projection, we had no thought that 2022 was going to be the worst year for gun violence in a very long fourth dimension. We had no idea the pandemic was going to start.
And it was difficult. There were times when we were reporting this podcast—and I have to requite so much credit to our associate producer, Nadira Goffe, who just worked her ass off on this podcast—merely there were times when we said we don't know if nosotros can do it. We don't know if nosotros can pull this off. Because of the pandemic, but also considering of all of the issues surrounding gun violence. After the George Floyd reckoning a few months into information technology, I fifty-fifty thought I shouldn't be the person reporting this podcast. So, so many issues arose. But I remember information technology ended up existence a really beautiful vii episodes. It was a difficult yr for anybody, and I think that that comes across in all of these episodes.
JBP: And so, how practise you feel at present that the series is about to be shared with the world today?
JP: I do love it. I call up it turned out dandy. I hope we do the things we're meant to do.
Philly Under Burn down was fabricated possible through the 2022 Jeremy Nowak Fellowship, funded by Spring Point Partners. This interview has been edited and condensed.
Mothers of gun violence victims at a Metropolis Council hearing demanding change. 
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Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/philly-under-fire-interview/
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