Harrisburg – May 8, 2018 – State Sen. Art Haywood (D-Philadelphia/Montgomery) released the following statement regarding Gov. Tom Wolf’s gun violence prevention news conference today.

At the news conference, a new $1.5 million Gun Violence Reduction Initiative was unveiled.  The governor also announced that $48 million in grants were awarded by the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) to organizations serving crime victims.  Philadelphia CeaseFire was awarded a grant. 

Haywood strongly supports gun violence prevention efforts and offers his congratulations to grant award winners.   

Haywood said that he would “like to congratulate Marla Davis-Bellamy and the entire Philadelphia CeaseFire team for earning a grant that will help reduce senseless gun violence in our communities and give youth alternatives to picking up a gun when conflict is present.”

Wolf and the PA Legislative Black Caucus will work together to reduce gun violence. At the press conference, Gov. Wolf pledged his support for gun violence reduction and for legislation on gun reform so he can sign it into law.

“I will continue to provide funding to programs that have been proven to work to reduce gun violence, and provide services to families that have fallen victim to these horrific tragedies. I will also continue to push for common sense reform that will make our communities safer and keep weapons out of the hands of dangerous people.”

Philadelphia CeaseFire will receive $1.8 million dollars over a two-year period through the PCCD.  CeaseFire will work in partnership with Congreso to implement a bilingual crisis response team.

Marla Bellamy-Davis said, “Folks call on our staff because they don’t have bilingual staff, and you can’t do anything if you can’t communicate. We’re in the planning stages, but we want to do a better job of providing support services and look at this from a case management standpoint and see what services can be provided to victims and everybody will be around the table to discuss that.”

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