Church leaders, community organizers and residents fed up with the gun and drug wars in Southeast and Prince George’s County hit the streets yesterday armed with nothing but colorful signs and a unified call for peace.
“We want to engage people and give the them a sense of hope … and get both communities to move together,” said Ronald “Mo” Moten, co-founder of Peaceoholics — the nonprofit, D.C.-based group whose Unity on the Border march and other community events encourage young people and residents to get actively involved in the anti-violence movement.
This was the third annual dual march, which also was part of the group’s larger Rebuild the Village Month.
In the District, more than 150 residents participated in the march that started at Benning Road in Southeast at 10 a.m. The march was supported by Metropolitan Police Department cruisers and motorcycles.
In Maryland, residents started at the Capitol Heights Metro station.
Peaceoholics officials said the purpose of having two marches — which met at the intersection of Benning and Southern Avenue — is to show people can “dismantle the invisible border.”
The voices of the city marchers swelled as they climbed the final hill, sweating in the 80-degree temperatures, to meet their counterparts.
Mr. Moten and the Rev. Tony Lee, Peaceoholics co-founders, stood amid the marchers and called for a prayer, then handed the microphone to several community leaders including Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and Capitol Heights Mayor Darrell A. Miller, both Democrats.
The District has recently experienced a crime wave, including an eruption of violence last weekend in which four people were killed, according to police. There were 50 homicides in the city as of yesterday, compared with 54 last year. However, there were 18 homicides in April alone, nine of them in the police department’s Fifth District.
This weekend marked the first wave of Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier’s signature All Hands on Deck crime-fighting initiative, designed to put more officers on the streets in anticipation of spikes in crime.
Prince George’s unofficially has had 37 homicides so far this year, including two that occurred within the last two weeks. Officer Arvel Lewis, a Prince George’s police department spokesman, yesterday could not provide official numbers. The unofficial tally for all of 2007 is 124.
Mr. Lee, also a senior pastor of Community of Hope AME in Temple Hills, said he’s excited about the leadership opportunities with the long-term commitments Peaceoholics has to offer.
“It’s not just around police patrolling or elected officials [for anti-violence measures], but church leaders and community leaders to step it up for regional strategy issues but also issues that affect the whole region,” he said.
However, of the roughly 900 churches in the District, representatives from only a few were seen at yesterday’s march.
Glen F. Ivey, state’s attorney general for Prince George’s, said the federal government also needs to “step up” to curb violence through grants and funding for intervention programs.
David Cauthen, a father who lost his 16-year-old daughter last year to gunfire in the city’s Ward 4, said he’d like to see a roundtable discussion with police and the community to share different ideas on cracking down on turf wars and drug trade.
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