One Lexington hosts gun violence symposium

This event comes just days after a man died from a gunshot wound in Lexington making it the city's 22nd homicide of the year.

Lexington, Ky (WTVQ):  One Lexington is hosting their first “Symposium on Youth & Young Adult Gun Violence” at UK’s Spindletop Hall, on Ironworks Pike. The event comes just days after a man died from a gunshot wound in Lexington making it the city’s 22nd homicide of the year.

The goal of the symposium is to help make Lexington a safer place, and to address gun violence. Mayor Linda Gorton says, “our numbers of shootings are down, and our numbers of homicides are down, and it’s not an end point, but, it’s a point where we can say OK, what’s next? What do we do next?”

Gorton said Lexington has seen a 40 percent decrease in homicides and a 40 percent decrease in shootings when compared to this time last year. “Our One Lexington team working with our non-profits and our public safety folks have made this a focus everyday of their lives,” she said.

Devine Carama, the Director of One Lexington, says the organization started back in 2017. Their mission is to reduce gun violence for people ages 13 to 29, The event includes national speaker’s professional development sessions on violence disruption, and presentations on compassion fatigue.

“Root causes to gun violence, economic disparities, food deserts,” Carama said. “When we look at mass incarceration. When we look at issues like that those are some of the root causes that leads to these young people being in the cycle of violence.”

As to the future, Gorton says. “I would love someday for us to be able to say we have zero homicides, and we have zero youth involved in homicides.”

Click here to learn more about One Lexington.