WASHINGTON — For the fourth year in a row community members in Southeast D.C. gathered to celebrate Karon Brown Day. An event dedicated to honor the life of the 11-year-boy who was killed four years ago.
Brown was an innocent bystander who was shot after walking into what police called a Southeast neighborhood conflict.
This year the event in his name was held at the Sycamore and Oak in Congress Heights.
"Karon Brown was one of our students of our program, and he was killed right across the street from his school. So this day is to honor him, but at the same time we've lost so many youth right after that," Keyonna Jones, Chair of the Board of The Creative School told WUSA9.
The Creative School is a community-based organization that provides youth with year-round programs that range from podcasting to art.
Jones says The Creative School allows kids to create the programs to address their needs. She says that too often when adults are discussing solutions to gun violence targeting youth, they are not asking those that are most impacted. "A lot of the things that we are dealing with in the city, no one is listening to our kids," she added.
Seventeen-year-old Kemonte Coleman agrees with Jones who is one of his mentors. Coleman is a youth leader at The Creative School. He says he has been involved in the program since he was in third grade and has felt the loss of his peers. "I wish my peers could have moved out of Southeast before it was too late. I don't feel in my own community anymore," Colemon told WUSA9.
Coleman says he thinks some of his peers lack guidance from adults. He says keeping young people like him busy and productive will steer them away from violence. It has worked for him as he continues podcasting and helping build a safer Southeast through The Creative School.
"A better Southeast, the kids can wake up, come outside with a whole bunch of other kids playing. Can't do that on the regular. It's bullets flying, bullets don't have no names on them."
Speakers echoed the message that young people need to be reminded that the gun violence that the District is grappling with cannot be normalized and that adults have an obligation to check in on how kids are feeling.