WASHINGTON — Children are fatally shot in their classrooms. Law enforcement officers were shot while doing their job. Victims of domestic violence. And people killed in America’s streets.
Photos of their faces hang on the wall as part of a new exhibit inside the federal agency in Washington responsible for enforcing the nation’s gun laws. It is intended as a stark reminder to law enforcement of the human toll of the gun violence they work to prevent.
Attorney General Merrick Garland told family members of the dead and survivors on Tuesday that America’s gun violence problem can sometimes feel so dire that it seems like nothing can be done about it. But, he added, “that couldn’t be further from the truth.”
“In the effort to protect our country from gun violence, the Department of Justice will never relent and never give up,” Garland said Tuesday during a dedication ceremony within the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. “We know what is at stake.”
Garland’s comments came after he met some of the relatives of those whose photos are included in the exhibit. They were in Washington for a summit at ATF where people affected by gun violence, law enforcement and others gathered to discuss ways to prevent the bloodshed. Other participants included survivors like Mia Tretta, who was shot at Saugus High School in California in 2019 and has become an ATF intern.
The more than 100 faces on the wall include Dylan Hockley, one of 20 first-graders killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting; Tiffany Enriquez, a police officer who was killed in Hawaii in 2020; and Ethel Lance, a victim of the 2015 Charleston church shooting in South Carolina. They will remain there until next year, when photos of a new group of gun violence victims will replace their faces.
Clementina Chery said seeing her son Louis’s photo on the wall brought back painful memories of “what the world lost” when the 15-year-old was caught in a crossfire and killed while walking in Boston in 1993. But she said in an interview after the ceremony she found herself encouraged by law enforcement’s willingness to listen and learn from the experiences of those directly affected.
President Joe Biden has made his administration’s efforts to curb gun violence a key part of his re-election campaign, seeking to show the Democrat is tough on crime. Although violent crime – which has increased following the coronavirus pandemic – has declined in the US, Donald Trump and other Republicans have sought to attack the president by portraying crime in Democratic-run cities as out of the ordinary. walked hand in hand.
ATF Director Steve Dettelbach told the crowd that while progress has been made in reducing gun violence, now is the time to “double and triple down on action to protect lives and safety.”
“We also honor the memories not just by remembering these types of individuals, these people, but by taking action,” Dettelbach said. “Action to prevent more faces from being added to this tragic wall.”