Escambia County had 25 homicides already in 2022. Sheriff calls for community action.

This story has been updated to correct the name of the Escambia County School District's director of middle school education.

In the wake of multiple shootings in Escambia County that included a shooting death near a middle school-aged football game, 14 leaders and elected officials met Tuesday night in the Brownsville Community Center to discuss gun violence.

During the "Gun Violence Roundtable" called by Escambia Sheriff Chip Simmons after the Bellview ballpark shooting death Oct. 1, Simmons told those in attendance the purpose of the meeting was to begin an open forum on protecting the community.

"What I hope to get out of this is a conversation, a dialogue where we can identify where we are right now and also identify maybe some strategies we learn from other communities and then we’ll let you know what the situation is," Simmons said during the meeting.

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Simmons invited the following people to the gun roundtable:

• Jeff Bergosh, County Commissioner, District 1

• Lumon May, County Commissioner, District 3

• Robert Bender, County Commissioner, District 4

• Doug Broxson, Florida Senator, District 1

• Delarian Wiggins, Pensacola City Council, District 7

• Ginger Bowden Madden, State Attorney, District 1

• Eric Randall, Pensacola Police Department Chief

• Michael Roberts, Escambia County School District, director of middle school education

• Lonnie Wesley, Greater Little Rock Baptist Church pastor

• Mike Kohler, County Commissioner-elect, District 2

• Michelle Salzman, Florida House Representative, District 1

• Alex Andrade, Florida House Representative, District 2

• D.C. Reeves, Pensacola Mayor-elect

Escambia County violent crime stats

Simmons began Tuesday's first of three gun violence roundtables with baseline violent crime statistics in Escambia County to lay a foundation for the community and begin the open forum with how often gun violence occurs.

In 2022, Escambia County has seen 25 homicides, according to Simmons, with 68% ending in an arrest. Of the 25 homicides, 60% were high risk — meaning domestic violence or drugs were involved.

"Those are pretty high numbers," Simmons said. "So, if you're involved in these types of things, you're going to end up in jail or you're going to end up in the morgue."

All of the suspects in the homicides this year had a criminal record, and most of the homicides were Black men killing Black men in poor neighborhoods, Simmons said.

Two of the homicides were murder-suicide cases, one was a jail death and four were deemed as justifiable use of force.

Elected officials discuss potential causes

Simmons opened the floor to the other 13 individuals he invited to speak, asking for their viewpoints on the gun violence problem in Escambia County.

Many of the guests in attendance discussed societal problems and the roles played in family units as possible causes of the violence problem, noting that families need resources to protect their children.

"The underlying issue of what happens on the crime is poverty, Black unemployment," May said. "There's not middle class Black kids, there's not rich Black kids killing each other. It's poor Black kids in America killing other poor Black kids."

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Wiggins said one of the biggest problems he sees are fatherless households and desensitized youth.

"I do think fathers need to be in the home, because fathers carry a strong voice," he said. "When I was growing up, a lot of things a lot of problems that I experienced with my family were solved at the dinner table. Families don't eat dinner together anymore."

Wiggins also said that "virtual reality games" and cellphones contribute to the "watered down values" many kids experience in today's society, possibly contributing to increased gun violence.

What does local law enforcement think?

Randall said community engagement and arresting individuals who are breaking laws are key elements to the Pensacola Police Department's efforts to mitigate gun violence, but he said ultimately he does not know the perfect answer.

"I don't know what the full answer is, but I can guarantee you and promise you from our local law enforcement here in Pensacola, we're gonna give it everything we've got," he said. "We have to increase the value of life, because it has been devalued.

"When did it become acceptable to take someone's life?" he continued. "When did it become acceptable to discharge a firearm in the community? I don't know if you've noticed, but we're missing a lot of shots fired calls because people become so immune to it in the community that they just figure nothing can be done about it."

On the other side of the law, Madden said she is more than willing for leaders to create programs to put juveniles and other individuals in rather than prison, but she said once a person reaches her office it is often too late.

"Unfortunately, the position I'm in, by the time it gets to me the deed has been done," Madden said. "It doesn't matter how they got to that place, how they grew up, whether they had a father in the home, whether they grew up in a poverty area of town, it's been done and now it's up to me to deal with it."

What's next for Escambia gun violence?

Simmons said Tuesday's meeting was just the first of three scheduled gun violence meetings. He intended to let everyone speak their mind and answer a few of the community's questions before getting to the root of the problem.

He not only gave each leader in attendance a job, but told them not to have their office come back to the next meeting unless they were going to attend themselves.

"I would like to see this meeting, this group of people again probably in two months maybe in January," Simmons told the elected leaders. "Here's the action part: I don't want to see a surrogate. I want to see you. The people of Escambia County voted you into office, voted you into these positions, you need to sit at the table."

Simmons expects everyone who attended Tuesday to come back for a yet-to-be-scheduled meeting in January with solid ideas that will lead to visible action in Escambia County to begin the process of curbing gun violence.

"All the talking is great, but we need to remember it's not a parent thing," he said. "It boils down to a system that has systematically plagued our community. When it comes to people like Lumon, Michelle, Delarian, we need to show our kids they can be what they want to be, and remember when we reach the top, to send the elevator back down."

Benjamin Johnson can be reached at bjohnson@pnj.com or 850-435-8578

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Escambia County Florida had 25 homicides so far in 2022.