Stop the Violence Walk held in Montgomery’s Highland Gardens community

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) - Residents in Montgomery’s Highland Gardens community could hear calls for change from their front door Saturday morning.

June is National Gun Violence Awareness Month, and the Office of Violence Prevention held a Stop the Violence Walk in the area after another deadly week in Alabama’s Capital City.

“We partner with the Office of Violence Prevention to do these walks, to go out and meet the community where they are,” Montgomery City Councilmember Marche Johnson expressed. “We have council meetings twice a month, but everybody’s not able to get there. Maybe they don’t have transportation or maybe they’re at work.”

The walk comes less than a week after the triple murder at a Hispanic owned grocery store that has put the Hispanic community on edge, believing they have become targets for criminals. City Councilmember Julie Beard wants them to know that city officials are listening.

“With Marche and I, I believe we can combine the efforts together, make sure the Hispanic population gets the message,” said Beard. “We have to make a difference, and if it’s a difference that we get out and hit the pavement on a Saturday morning to let people know that they can reach out to their City Councilman or woman in any incident, that’s what we need to do.”

They’re also working on translating news in the city into Spanish in an effort to make the community feel better represented.

“We are working on a translation service to ensure that not only is what we’re doing in the city in English and we have sign language, but we have the Spanish interpretation, the Korean interpretation as well,” Johnson explained.

A group taking matters into their own hands, and legs, to make a difference.

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