Come together and stop violence

I got a text Monday morning from a friend that simply read: "You need to move somewhere safer."

Of course, this is after yet another shooting in Sikeston over the weekend. It seems as if every Monday morning I am headlining a story about a shooting and it's a trend that I would rather avoid.

I used to be proud to live in Sikeston. Friends who lived other places would say it was a dangerous place to live and I would immediately refute their claims. I would tell them it isn't very dangerous, I would tell them I always felt safe and then tell them about the great people in the community who care about Sikeston.

Then last year came the report that circulated on Facebook about how Sikeston was the most dangerous city in Missouri based on violent crime statistics. DPS said the report was just a scam by an alarm company "to give them free advertising." I scoffed. Sure there are some drugs and a violent crime here and there but isn't that everywhere?

As the days pass, what seemed laughable less than a year ago is becoming more plausible by the day. While we may not be the most violent city in Missouri, we are now living in a community where violence is increasing dramatically. So much so there was a "Stop the Violence" march last month, with stops at five sites where lives were lost due to violence.

The violence hasn't stopped. The shooting on Saturday that left one dead and another with injuries while another Sikeston man is behind bars is the latest example that the violence in Sikeston is getting out of control.

For me, it is hard to understand the thought process of someone who will pull out a gun and shoot someone. Especially when nearly every one of those who do the shooting is put behind bars. But jail doesn't seem to deter people nowadays. It seems to be just a shoot and run until they catch you mentality.

Whether I understand the mentality or not, it is happening and there is plenty of blame to spread around. Sikeston has always had drugs and where there are drugs, there are guns. I don't know if all the shootings have to do with drugs, but if I was a betting man I wouldn't have any second thoughts about doubling down.

I've heard people blame the violence on guns and the lack of gun control. Everyone has the right to defend themselves but I'm not sure everyone needs to have a gun. And Sikeston is the perfect example. I wonder how many of the guns used were bought legally. Just a curious question.

I've heard people blame the police. I've heard the police counter with a high turnover of officers because of low salaries. There is merit to that. It's hard to learn who the players are when your police force has a high turnover. And I'll agree that we should pay our police officers more instead of watching them take higher paying jobs in safer communities. But just because we pay our police officers more doesn't mean we will get better policing.

In fact, the only way that I see we are going to get rid of this dark cloud hovering over Sikeston is through community involvement. We need more community involvement. We need more marches and communitywide events drawing attention to the violence and we need an open dialogue with pastors, community leaders and police to help officers get the drugs and guns off the street. We need to stop turning a blind eye, whether out of apathy or fear and stop making it a race issue, or an economic issue and instead make it a Sikeston issue.

This is a good community with many good people who want to see Sikeston thrive. If we don't come together now, in this time of violence our community is seeing, then we all are going to start hearing, "You should move somewhere safer." And a lot of us will.