The Watchmen with One Voice Alliance sets up cavalcade for gun violence awareness

SALISBURY, Md. – A cavalcade for gun violence awareness was set up by The Watchmen with One Voice Ministerial Alliance. Over 35 groups participated in the drive that spanned across Salisbury.

Tom Jewell, the owner of Short Funeral Home attended the event, he was excited that everything came together. “I can’t thank the first responders, EMTs, and police department enough for all they have to go through.  Just like Reverand Watson said, none of us want that phone call into the funeral home that someone lost their life due to gun violence.”

The hope for this drive is to help foster relationships between police and community members, something Salisbury Chief of Police, David Meinschein thinks is extremely important.

“We’ve already started an effort to try to do some more community policing effort, mainly foot patrols, bike patrols, and getting out to just try and build that relationship which we lost the last couple of years with staffing levels.”

The participants made three stops to pray for gun violence victims. The first was on Chippewa Avenue, next they traveled to Delaware Avenue and eventually ended at the Salisbury Police Department. Jewell believes this was much needed for the area. “It’s just showing people we care that the community cares about each other, and sometimes people that resort to that kind of violence need to know that they have a support system.”

While this was the first iteration, the plan moving forward is to make this cavalcade a tradition. Jewell said, the purpose is to deter people from resorting to gun violence in the future.

“God bless the families that had to go through the other end of this and we hope to make a difference, if we can make that much of a difference to save a life, it was worth our weekend.”