Gun violence a growing concern in Columbus

Cleopatra Vaughn knows all too well the devastating consequences of gun violence.

At age 17, she shot a friend in a fit of rage outside a game room on Fort Benning Road. Though the friend survived the incident, Vaughn was convicted of possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime and aggravated assault. She spent three years in prison for the shooting.

Now a 35-year-old mother of three children, Vaughn is trying to get guns off the streets of Columbus. As founder and president of a teen-empowerment organization called Judge Not Inc., she will hold a gun buyback event today in partnership with the Columbus branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other organizations.

The event will be held at 2102 Cusseta Road from 2 to 6 p.m. with no police involvement, organizers said, so people can feel comfortable handing over their weapons. The guns will then be turned over to law enforcement authorities, they said.

Vaughn said she decided to organize the buyback program after the July 3 death of Terry Cobb, who was gunned down two weeks after his younger brother, Kenneth Holloway Jr., was fatally shot. At the time of his death, Cobb was being sought by authorities in the July 4, 2015, homicide of Blake Berry, who also died of a gunshot wound.

“I feel like our teens are lost, being that we are lost,” said Vaughn, who knows Cobb’s family personally. “So, I myself wanted to reach out to teens and let them know, ‘This is a way for you to right your wrongs. If you know that you have a firearm that you’re not supposed to have, or you’re an adult that has a firearm that you know you’re not supposed to have, this is a way for you to get rid of those firearms.”

The growing gun concern

Vaughn is not the only one concerned about gun violence on the streets of Columbus. The city has already had 14 homicides this year, according to the Muscogee County Coroner’s Office, and most were gun-related. Some of the shootings have occurred in unexpected public spaces such as Peachtree Mall and Double Churches Park. One of the most disturbing cases was the July 1 shooting of 16-year-old Lekeshia Moses, who died of a gunshot wound to the face at Wilson Homes apartments. Seventeen-year-old Lernard Bonner has been charged with murder.

Assistant Columbus Police Chief Lem Miller said he’s been on the police force for 43 years, and during that time guns have definitely increased on the streets of Columbus. The types of weapons circulating are handguns of various calibers, Miller said. The guns include 9 mm and .40- and .45-caliber semi-automatic pistols. Occasionally there will be a rifle or other long-range weapons used for a crime, usually in the case of an attempted drive-by shooting, Miller said. And police have seen a significant increase in murders attributed to illegal drug activity and retaliation killings as it relates to drugs.

Yet, gun violence is not as prevalent in Columbus as it may seem, he stressed.

“A lot of the murders that we have this year, and every year that you look at, it’s related to domestic violence,” he said. “It’s normally an acquaintance that’s the perpetrator. Every now and then you’ll have a stranger-on-stranger situation, but that’s out of the norm. ... And I guess the weapon of choice of late would be the firearm.

“If you are a law-abiding citizen and you own a firearm, there is no problem,” he said. “The problem that you run into with your firearms — this is from the police perspective — is when they are used by people who shouldn’t have them to begin with because it’s illegal for them to possess, or they take a firearm and use it as an (instrument) of a crime, where they use it to harm someone.”

Miller said a woman notified the CPD about today’s gun buyback event, and asked that officers not be present. He expects the group to turn the guns into the police department at some point, he said. But guns that are “free and clear” — meaning that they’re not part of a criminal investigation or police can’t find their lawful owners — could end up back on the street due to a state law that prevents law enforcement agencies from destroying them.

“The guns are advertised that they’re for sale, and we sell them in batches,” he said, explaining the process. “Someone with a federal firearms license would come in, usually gun dealers, and they would bid on this batch or lot of guns. So, if in fact some guns are turned in, we’re going to turn right around and sell them out back on the street.

“Hopefully, if that gun has been turned in by someone with evil intentions, if we sell it back later on, it’s a law-abiding citizen that will buy the weapon,” he added.

Sheriff John Darr showed the Ledger-Enquirer more than 100 guns that his office has collected over the past few years. He said many of the guns used for criminal acts are stolen from homes, businesses and vehicles, and then sold to dealers on the street. And they end up in the hands of people who either intend to commit crime or don’t know how to handle a firearm.

“Man, it’s tragic and it’s just sad,” he said. “I mean you’re talking about a young lady over here getting killed, shot. I was dismayed. I was just totally shocked.”

A national epidemic

The community focus on guns comes at a time when the nation is still reeling from recent police shootings in Baton Rouge, La.; Falcon Heights, Minn.; and Dallas. The cases in Baton Rouge and Falcon Heights involved black men allegedly shot by white officers, and the one in Dallas involved five white officers allegedly shot by a black man in retaliation for police-related shootings of black men.

Since the Dallas shootings of police officers, some local law enforcement officials fear their officers may become the targets of gun violence.

“We’re concerned about safety every day that these men and women put the uniform on, or even in plain clothes for that matter, and go out to do their job,” Miller said. “I feel like their lives are in jeopardy. That feeling seems to be more prevalent now than when I came to work here in the early ’70s.

“Of course, we’ve had violence perpetrated against officers in the past,” he said. “But it seems like the assaults here lately have gone up on the police officers.”

At the same time, many in the black community are outraged by recent national developments.

On Friday, Davis Broadcasting Inc. halted regular programing on its six local radio stations to discuss the violence both nationally and locally. The “Stop the Music, Stop the Violence” call-in show included a panel discussion with black community leaders such as Tonza Thomas, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and one of the organizers of the gun buyback event.

On Saturday, Thomas was arrested by Columbus police while protesting on Veterans Parkway at 10th Street, along with community activist Marquese Averett and other demonstrators. Thomas and Averett, the only two arrested, were charged with one count each of unlawful assembly and obstruction of a roadway. They have since been released.

Complicating matters even further is the ongoing gun control debate that has heated up in recent months due to mass shootings in Orlando, Fla., San Bernardino, Calif., and other parts of the country. While President Barack Obama and other gun law advocates push for tighter restrictions to keep guns out of the hands of terrorists and criminals, many Americans see such efforts as infringements on their Second Amendment right to bear arms.

Vaughn said the recent national developments have made her efforts to get guns off the streets of Columbus more difficult.

“At this point, I’m getting not really backlash, but people playing devil’s advocate, saying, ‘With all that’s going on in the media these past couple of days, everybody needs to be armed,’” she said. “And I’m trying to explain to them that I’m not against firearms. I’m not against people that say they need firearms to protect their family. I don’t own or carry a firearm. I don’t feel the need to. I believe in trusting in a higher power. But to each his own.”

Guns for sale

Even as Vaughn and other grassroots leaders prepared for today’s gun buyback program in south Columbus, gun dealers were setting up 250 tables for a “Gun Shows of the South” event at the Columbus Convention & Trade Center.

Gun show organizer Rex Kehrli said he expected anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 people to attend on Saturday and today. He said people who purchase guns at the show will be required to show two forms of ID, fill out paperwork for purchase of a firearm, then undergo a background check through the FBI.

“We cater to hunters and collectors and target shooters,” he said. “We’ve been doing the show in Columbus now for about eight years. And if you’ve never attended a gun show, you should, because what you will see when you come in there is a lot of good family people and that type of thing.”

Kehrli said gun violence exists in many urban communities because of the drug trade, not necessarily the proliferation of guns. “It’s really unfortunate because there are a lot of good people in those communities that are surrounded by it and those are the people really affected,” he said.

In reference to the gun buyback scheduled for today, he said such efforts are not usually effective.

“What a lot of people do is they take advantage of it and they kind of bring their junk in and get the money for it,” he said. “A lot of the guns that they buy back won’t work and those types of things. So we’ve always supported enforcing the existing laws that are on the books and not having soft judges (in the courts) as the best thing.”

Sheila and Keith Payne are gun sellers from a rural county in central Georgia. They own a company called Twiggs Trading Post, and on Friday they were at the gun show setting up tables with their two children.

Sheila Payne said she’s opposed to gun violence, and that it seems people need guns to protect themselves these days.

“The majority of our business is hunting supplies for farmers in the rural community where we’re at,” she said. “One hog has between five and 25 piglets every four months, and that one hog can destroy an acre of property in half a year for them. We sell mainly to hunters, but we also sell handguns for self-defense.

“The people who are going to use a gun to kill somebody are not going to buy it from me,” she said. “They’re going to steal it from a car or truck or wherever, or it could even be a relative. In my opinion, I kind of feel like if they come to me to buy a gun, they’re wanting to defend their home, or use it for hunting.”

Her husband, Keith, said guns are not the problem.

When Keith Payne learned about the buyback event in the community, he thought it was a good idea. “I would be glad to buy back some guns,” he said. “I mean, that’s my business, selling guns.”

America’s gun culture

J. Aleem Hud of Project Rebound, a youth empowerment program in Columbus, said America’s gun culture has helped create the gun violence in Columbus and other urban communities.

“For us to really understand the question of the role of guns and violence and gangs, we have to be realistic and accept the history of this country and the history of gangs in this country,” he said. “America has a love affair with guns, and historically the powerful has used guns to maintain and expand their influence and control. So the connection is a psychological connection.

“There was a joke that was once said that ‘people get worried when the rabbit gets the gun,’” he said. “And the point of it is when you’ve got the gun and I don’t, you feel very powerful. But when I get the gun and we’re both equally powerful, then that changes the psychological dynamics.”

Hud said much of the gun violence is connected to a gang culture that has existed in the United States for generations, starting with the nation’s early immigrants from Europe and other places.

“All of them, because of poverty, they had to use the resources of what was left,” he said. “Most times in this country, what was left was illicit activities, whether it was gambling, drugs, prostitution — all those types of things were part of gangs. And some of the most prominent families in this country were part of either the Irish gangs, the Italian gangs, the Jewish gangs, the Asian gangs.

“But they took it, and then in generational growth, their children were able to move on to another level, and then they became prominent citizens,” he added. “That’s the story of America.”

Hud said there’s also the history of the Ku Klux Klan and night riders, called “vigilante gangs,” who terrorized blacks for many years. He said blacks have not historically had a love affair with guns, but after they fled the segregated South, a black gang culture developed in Northern urban centers because of poverty. And some who remained in the South organized out of self-defense.

“The gun was an equalizer, therefore powerless people saw how guns are used,” he said. “Today, one of the big issues in the political process is whether or not they’re trying to take our guns, because even people who have privilege are fighting under certain people’s banner to keep the guns. So, why wouldn’t powerless people get guns?”

Living with consequences

Vaughn said the gun-related crime she committed as a teen stemmed from anger related to her mother dying from AIDS. She and her friend were squabbling over a boyfriend, when the friend told her she would end up dying of the disease just like her mother.

“And that hurt me to the core,” Vaughn said. “I, at that time, just didn’t know how to handle that anger, handle that hurt, and I wanted her to hurt the way she made me hurt.”

Two days later, they were at the game room on Fort Benning Road, near the Baker Village public housing complex. Vaughn said she had her young son with her. Her friend made a threat, so she put her son in her car, then grabbed a gun from the glove compartment. She said the weapon had been placed there by her younger brother, who always told her it was there if she needed to defend herself.

Vaughn said she fired the weapon, shooting her friend in the lower part of her body. She regretted it immediately.

“I wasn’t really meaning to hit her, but I shot out of anger, out of emotion,” she said. “Once I saw her fall to the ground, and I realized what I had done, it was too late. So I dropped my son off to (his father) and I went to the jail and turned myself in.”

Now, Vaughn is trying to teach young people how to avoid such situations.

“If a teen gets into a fight just as I did, and they’re angry, they’re mad and dealing with emotions, they don’t think,” she said. “They just want to get a gun and shoot, and they don’t know that they will be so sorry later. ... I am so blessed that I didn’t kill her.”

Vaughn said many young people are hurting and don’t know what to do with those emotions, and that’s why more adults in the community need to step up and mentor them.

“They have trust issues because of what they have experienced,” she said. “They don’t believe in church. They don’t believe in God. They’ve been let down so much to where they just don’t believe in nothing or nobody. So they’ve devoted their attention to music and that’s what they look up to.”

That’s why Vaughn is holding the gun buyback program, and she hopes people will turn in guns that shouldn’t be in their possession.

“For those who feel the need to be armed, to each his own,” she said. “If you feel like you need to have a gun, then I need you to do it legally. ...I need you to get a permit for your gun, and I need your gun to be registered and licensed.

“When you buy that gun from the street, you don’t know what that gun has been involved in. So I need you not to buy the gun off the street from your homeboy, your cousin, your cousin’s cousin or your cousin’s homeboy,” she said. “I need that not to happen because so many of our people are going to the casket or jail. And I need that to stop.”

This story was originally published July 9, 2016 at 9:41 PM with the headline "Gun violence a growing concern in Columbus."