‘Preventable deaths’: Sacramento groups discuss gun violence with California AG Rob Bonta

It takes consistent government funding, a focus on quality of life, reaching people closest to the problem, unified work from neighborhood groups and a trained, culturally diverse staff of trauma-informed intervention workers to reduce gun violence.

That’s what a group of Sacramento-area community group leaders told California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Tuesday as they gathered for a discussion on the best practices in preventing gun violence.

“We’re talking about 10-year-olds, babies. These are preventable deaths,” said James Willock, a community intervention worker for Mutual Assistance Network.

Willock was referring to the death of Keith Jhay “KJ” Frierson, who was killed last month in Sacramento County’s unincorporated Foothill Farms neighborhood. The child was shot in the neck, a gun allegedly fired by another 10-year-old boy whose father now faces firearm- and child endangerment-related charges in Sacramento Superior Court.

It’s those types of tragic circumstances intervention workers like Willock respond to, providing support for grieving families. That’s why having staff trained in providing trauma-informed care and anger management is so important, Willock said. Sometimes, self-care is even essential for the intervention workers forced to confront such heartbreaking situations.

“You got to have heart for this work to show up for families,” Willock said during the hourlong panel discussion held at Fruitridge Community Collaborative center in Sacramento.

The Sacramento event was Bonta’s kickoff in a series of roundtable discussions with community groups throughout California to learn about the most effective approaches on gun violence to avert shootings.

The week marked the one-year anniversary of two California mass shootings within 48 hours of each other in Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay that combined to kill 18 people and dominated headlines. Bonta said those lives should continue to be remembered and honored while offering help to those emotionally scarred by gun violence.

“We also know that many other families and communities are torn apart every day, and the toll is no less devastating,” Bonta told the Sacramento nonprofit groups. “Lives lost no less valuable and meaningful, and the pain no less intense. And so we need to take on gun violence in all its forms everywhere. It is not just those that make the headlines.”

Jedida Gomes of the Sierra Health Foundation said successful community efforts to curb gun violence are prioritizing intervention, prevention and interruption work while focusing on the quality of life for families. She said getting to root causes of violence leads to long-lasting change.

“Violence doesn’t happen out of nowhere,” Gomes said while on the panel.

But she said that type of work cannot be done effectively with intermittent government funding that forces non-profit groups to start and stop their efforts with limited resources.

In September 2022, Bonta announced the launch of the state Department of Justice’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention to develop strategies and work with stakeholders throughout California to address the gun violence epidemic. It was the first of its kind in the country.

Ari Freilich, director of the state’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention, told the Sacramento community groups that the Department of Justice is expanding funding for nonprofits working to reduce gun violence.

“We know funding doesn’t solve every problem, but it is the necessary first step,” Freilich said during the discussion.

He also mentioned the city of Sacramento’s significant drop in homicides last year, an achievement that’s been credited to the work of community intervention groups. Sacramento dropped to 38 reported homicides in 2023 from 54 in 2022, 58 in 2021 and 43 in 2020, as the overall violent crime rate also headed in a much more positive direction.

“Not a lot of headlines are going to be written about the shootings you prevented because of your work,” Freilich told the community groups.

Jackie Rose, founder and CEO of the Rose Family Creative Empowerment Center, said effective intervention work focuses on the whole family, not just the child at risk of violence. She said severe poverty and mental health, some of the root causes of violence, affect entire families.

“You cannot work with young people unless you work with their parents,” Rose said. “You have to work with the whole family.”

Community groups to become effective must gather data to show their work, their strengths and weaknesses, while seeking government funding, said Julius Thibodeaux of Movement 4 Life. He said professionalizing nonprofit work focused on upward mobility so important to getting the funding needed to provide wrap-around services for the community.

Bonta said his office will gather all the input from the roundtable discussion and produce a report that leads to action on reducing gun violence.

“The measure of success for us should be how many lives we save, how much gun violence we reduce,” Bonta told the community groups. “That’s what we all want.”