Gun Violence Archives - Rolling Out

The youngest daughter of radio show host Rickey Smiley was shot on Sunday, July 5, 2020, while en route to a burger joint in Houston, the comedian revealed to his nationally syndicated audience. The star of the “Rickey Smiley Morning Show” was addressing the violent Fourth of July weekend that saw more than 100 Black…

Strong community leaders and activists are a big part of Chicago’s culture. It’s also no secret that the city loves the game of basketball. At only 23 years old, Chicago native and former basketball player at Whitney Young High School, McKinley Nelson combined activism and basketball. He founded and runs Project Swish, a nonprofit organization…

Former President Barack Obama made his first public statements Monday afternoon in the aftermath of the massacres in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, this past weekend. He implored Americans to resist surrendering to the darkest impulses of the human spirit, which includes the acceptance of hatred and racial strife to solve conflict. While not…

Ten people were shot to death after a murderous gunman opened fire in Dayton, Ohio, early Sunday morning, just hours after 20 people were slaughtered by another homicidal shooter in El Paso, Texas, bringing the horrific death toll for the mass shootings to 30 people in less than 24 hours in America. According to the…

As the weather breaks in Chicago, the new mayor Lori Lightfoot has laid out a plan to address the violence plaguing the city. She vows to address the violence as a public health issue. This is necessary and admirable but unfortunately for many mothers it is too late. Mothers continue to mourn their children years after…

Corey Ballentine (Photo courtesy of Instagram.com/cbxiii__ )

Though gun violence in the United States of America mostly impacts the lives of poor people of color, recent events, including the murder of hip-hop artist Nipsey Hussle, shows that it can take the lives of anyone, regardless of wealth, fame, or impact on the community. With the recent shooting of football player Corey Ballentine,…

A senseless shooting has taken the life of rising Florida rapper and mom Nina Ross Da Boss, whose real name is Jimmiel Spillman-Ingram. The Tampa, Florida, rapper was also a mother of six children, ages 11, 9, 8, 5, 1 and 2-months-old. Spillman-Ingram was riding in a car with an unidentified Black male who was…

“This Bitter Earth” is a song recorded by the great Dinah Washington that speaks to life’s realities. Written by David Rivers and directed by Mikael Burke, the stage version currently playing at the About Face Theater at Theater Wit in Chicago stars actors Sheldon Brown and Daniel Desmarais. Brown and Desmarais play an interracial couple whose…

The stories of violence in Chicago, Illinois, have become commonplace in the national news. But the latest shooting has law enforcement fearful of a continued escalation. At a funeral for local rapper Vantrease R. Criss, who went by the name “Dooski Tha Man” and was part of the rap collective Fly Boy Gang (FBG), a fellow…

Recently the estate of the late music icon Prince released a new video version of the song “Mary Don’t You Weep” from the album Piano and a Microphone 1983. This powerful video addresses gun violence in the Black community.

Throughout his early 20s, Demetrius Nash was known as a notorious drug dealer in the Chicagoland area. That lifestyle caught up with him at age 26, however, and he was sentenced to eight years in prison for a drug trafficking, followed by another four years on probation. While behind bars, he read several books, including…

For the past 20 years, the United States has been plagued by gun violence with a growing number of mass shootings at schools, churches, concerts, movie theaters and malls. With each shooting, officials at the National Rifle Association (NRA) and its supporters have insisted that ill-intentioned individuals and easy access to firearms by felons and…

On July 7, 2018, Father Michael Pfleger and a few thousand of his supporters shut down a Chicago expressway known as the Dan Ryan in order to protest the gun violence and inadequate funding of schools and jobs for those in Black communities. Father Pfleger is a White, Roman Catholic priest who has worked in the…

A father in Frackville, Pa. hated his 20-year-old daughter’s boyfriend so much that he decided to shoot him. According to the Miami Herald, Donald Jenkins, 40, had an issue with his daughter dating a guy and took action. Jenkins’ daughter wanted to spend the weekend with her boyfriend and decided to book a room at…

A disturbing video has been making the rounds on social media called the #NoLackChallenge.The video shows an unidentified man pointing a gun at people and waiting to see if they respond by pointing their gun back at him. People pull handguns and assault rifles and laugh the whole thing off. The video is surprising also because…

Easy access to a gun has once again led to the tragic death of a young child in Mississippi. On August 4, 2017, Zaylan Sparkman, 6, was playing video games on a cell phone and sitting on a washing machine at his family’s home. According to the Sun Herald, his brother Albert Deonte Craft III, 16,…

We’ve had two exceptionally beautiful days in Chicago, but it didn’t deter the gun violence. Two young men were shot at the 31st Street Beach on the Southside of Chicago n Sunday, June 11. The shooter was reportedly a young woman. According to the Chicago Tribune, the two 16-year-old male victims were critically wounded. One boy was shot…

The trend of senseless violence against children in Detroit has struck again with the shooting of Malik Cosey, 9, this past weekend. The straight-A student was waiting in a parked car with two other children to go to the movies with his uncle and cousin. It was then, police and witnesses say, that a gunman…