BRADDOCK, Pa. — There are 81 homicides from last June to this June in Allegheny County.
“If I didn’t lose my brother, I wouldn’t have been oblivious, but I never would have been fully submerged into this the way I am,” said Jullian Turner, a gun violence survivor and prevention activist.
Turner knows the pain after losing his 16-year-old brother in 2017.
“Seeing the ripple effects it causes, for myself and other families I just knew there was so much that was needed on all fronts to help with the pain that comes from gun violence,” Turner said.
He’s one of the men speaking out at Saturday’s Wear Orange event. It’s a day now marked nationwide to bring awareness to gun violence. After five years of the event in Pittsburgh, it’s back to where it all started at a plaza in Braddock with hundreds expected to attend.
“The message for Saturday is unity and we want everyone to be reminded we need to be together as a whole to solve these problems, these are major problems, these are major issues, we need the power and effort of everyone in the community,” Turner said.
The program this year is centered around male survivors as they are the ones losing their lives on the street the most.
“A lot of men who are involved in this work they put their head down and they get busy, they take care of what they need to take care of and worry about their feelings emotions and grief later and sometimes later doesn’t really come,” Turner said.
The events kick off Saturday at 2 p.m. right off Braddock Avenue with a line-up of speakers.
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