GIFFORD — Nearly 50 Gifford residents gathered Monday night at the Gifford Community to discuss what they can do to take back their community from those who are determined to bring drugs and illegal guns into the area.
“These aren’t their streets,” said NAACP representative Tony Brown before the meeting started. “They’re all of our streets and we’re giving them away. How much are we willing to tolerate?”
For more than an hour, residents and members of the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office talked – trying to find a way to move forward after several shootings in the Gifford community starting around Easter.
Sheriff Deryl Loar walked the group through a surveillance video from the Easter Sunday shooting that took place outside the Smith Grocery on 45th Street in which four people were shot and a young child injured from flying glass.
Investigators, Sheriff Loar said, found 49 spent gun cartridges from four different guns.
“It’s absolutely ridiculous,” he said.
He explained that the incident started as a fist fight between a couple guys that escalated when someone fired a gun into the air in an attempt to break up the fight. Instead of stopping the fight, those in the area with handguns pulled them and started firing.
“Thank God we’re not having four funerals, five funerals today,” Sheriff Loar said.
Rev. William Shelly, who lives 300 feet from the grocer, said he heard the shots and his children came running into the house asking what was going on.
“It’s really, really personal to me,” he said. “I’m not going to stand by and let this be taken lightly.”
He told those who gathered that the problems in the area are nothing new and questioned why the Sheriff’s Office hadn’t done more until now.
Sheriff Loar said patrols were stepping up enforcement on the county’s open container laws pertaining to public consumption of alcohol.
The sheriff also said that department needs to do more to discourage large gatherings outside of permitted events. He explained that the crowd of 400 or 500 people outside Smith Grocery had come from the car show that had been held earlier in the day at the Gifford Community Center.
“We’re going to have to shut down the block party atmosphere,” Sheriff Loar said.
After an update on how the investigation is progressing – which included an explanation of how one arrested suspect had been cleared of involvement – the community members looked to each other for direction on what to do next.
One resident asked about the possibility of a community gun buy-back event and a “scared straight” program – both of which Sheriff Loar said after the meeting would not work. The gun buy-back wouldn’t solve the issue of guns coming into the community and would only get rid of the guns responsible owners have.
And, a “scared straight” program – one that takes youth into the jails to see what life would be like behind bars – wouldn’t reach the kids at the crucial age of 14 or 15. By law, those who would access those parts of the jail have to be at least 18.
Althea McKenzie encouraged the audience to attend the Tuesday Board of County Commissioners meeting to ask the commission to reconsider the Gifford Neighborhood Plan – a plan that has long sat unimplemented and lays out ways to improve the community.
“We need a community strategic plan,” she said, adding that there need to be programs to reach the youth in Gifford.
“We need something for our young brothers and sisters to do,” said fellow resident Tarsha Jenkins.
Candace Kaigler told the crowd that talking about the problem isn’t enough.
“Can we, all of us here, get drastic?” she asked. “We gotta get drastic and aggressive” like those who are causing problems in the community.
Kaigler said she refuses to be re-routed because too many people have gathered in too small an area – instead, she will roll down her window and yell at the people blocking traffic to move.
Gifford Front Porch representative Freddie Woolfork told the group that it’s up to them to step in and help the various community groups trying to improve Gifford.
He said he was once someone who stood on the sidelines and griped that not enough was being done. He eventually moved from the sidelines to the playing field, he said, and has become an active community participant.
“You see what we’ve done in 15 days,” Woolfork said, imagine what could be done in 15 months.
