Anti-Violence Group Holds Rally to Protest Shootings
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Montgomery Police are still investigating a weekend shooting that left three people injured. It happened on East South Boulevard late Saturday night and now Montgomery residents are speaking out against violence within the city.
Torian Hamilton lost her son last December when he was shot and killed at the former Centennial Hill Bar and Grill. She turned her grief into determination and started Positive Parents Have Power, a group aimed at promoting better parenting. She says this past weekend’s shooting in the 2400 block of East South Boulevard didn’t have to happen.
“I think we need to start a curfew,” she says. “That’s what I think Montgomery needs. We need a hard down curfew, you need to know where your young adult is. I remember back in the day they used to ask ‘where are your children?'”
Janice Davis’ son Richard Davis was also killed this year. She tells us she believes nightclub owners have a responsibility to protect their patrons.
“If they start stepping out and doing something about the owners of these clubs, putting tougher fines on them, making them stand by what they need to do, then I think some some of these problems will decrease,” she explains.
But not everyone believes club owners are to blame. Shierelle Womack has been a manager at the Lux Bar and Grill for four years and says everyone is responsible for themselves.
“People must understand that these events don’t usually start at any establishment,” she says. “It starts within the community and they just bring it to business owners’ establishments. No one facility puts a gun in anyone’s hand or changes anyone’s mind to make them kill at all.”
But Hamilton says she will continue to rally wherever there is gun violence in Montgomery.
“Yeah the perspective business owners, they need to be concerned as well,” she says. “I’m not trying to barge at anyone but for my son to get killed at an establishment with alcohol that’s supposed to be a bar and grill, you need to be grilled as a business owner.”
Just to be clear, Montgomery Police have not said whether the shootings over the weekend have any relation to the Lux Bar and Grill. That’s just where this group chose to rally. Montgomery Police did tell us they ‘responded to the area of 2477 East South Blvd in reference to a subject shot.’
Positive Parents Have Power will hold a meeting Septemeber 21st. For more information, visit their facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/PositiveParentsHavePower
