They’re calling it a much needed community conversation to prevent gun violence.

“As a hospital, we often see gun violence at the tail end. When it has occurred, when somebody shows up in our emergency room and there’s a victim or bystander, and we think it’s so important that we get involved early on in the process,” said Svetlana Lipyanskaya, CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health.

NYC Heath + Hospitals South Brooklyn Health kicked off its Black History Month programming with a panel of experts ranging from community advocates and leaders to violence interrupters. The forum came on the heels of the hospital system finding half their patients impacted by violence in 2022 were African American.

What You Need To Know

  • NYC Heath + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health kicked off its Black History Month programming with a panel of experts.

  • The forum came on the heels of the hospital system finding half their patients impacted by violence in 2022 were African American

  • The panel says this community effort should involve looking into solutions to not only prevent young people from using guns but, most importantly, becoming victims

  • Other solutions included stricter laws for gun trafficking and harsher consequences for those who use guns

“I have the terrible misfortune of having to meet with families, speak with families and see the results of gun violence and it goes so much further than the victim and the offender,” said Jeffrey Maddrey, the NYPD’s chief of department.

Maddrey said this violence deeply impacts communities. In 2022, police recorded 1,294 shooting incidents citywide — a 17.2% drop from 2021, when the department noted 1,562 incidents.

In January of this year, police say there’s been 73 shooting incidents citywide, down from 99 in January 2022. And though crime data shows decreases, the fact remains that the problem of gun violence persists.

"This has to shock our conscious to the point where we all say what can we do? Who can we grab? Who can we get a hold of to stop this gun violence. And more and more, more and more, the victims and the offenders are younger,” said Maddrey.

Anytime that we see a young person coming into the emergency room as a result of gang violence, we know we failed, so we need to succeed all together as a community,” added Lipyanskaya.

The panel says this community effort should involve looking into solutions to not only prevent young people from using guns but, most importantly, becoming victims.

“Accessibility to guns is more than it was when I was a young person in Brooklyn. We need to cut off the pipelines. We need to stop the highways, byways, harbors, wherever it is coming in… so that the young person doesn’t get a gun,” said A.T. Mitchell, the mayor's gun violence prevention czar.